Zeppelin Mysteries Hosted by Steve A. Jones

[SteveAJones]

Hi Mr. Jones. Thanks for your quick and very interesting response. LZ's activities in the studio (Electric Ladyland?) were much more significant than my friends and I ever could have imagined.

Yes, Electric Ladyland for these sessions, and the Waldorf-Astoria was the hotel for their June '72 stay in NYC.

[GeorgeC]

Stump the band time again: Can anyone identify the castle pictured on the lower left gatefold of LZIII? It has the number 4 and "Private" superimposed against it. It's not the Tower House (JP didn't buy that 'til 1974), and it's not any other William Burges building that I can see (e.g. Cardiff Castle or Castell Coch). I don't even think it's Vlad the Impaler's (Dracula's) in Romania. Any gothic architecture buffs / Zep fans out there want to weigh in?

[Sagarnil Chakraborty]

Can anybody plz render me a proper explanation that why Robert Plant refused to permit "Dazed and Confused" to be included in the soundtrack of the film "Dazed and Confused"????????????

[ninelives]

Can anybody plz render me a proper explanation that why Robert Plant refused to permit "Dazed and Confused" to be included in the soundtrack of the film "Dazed and Confused"????????????

My understanding is those sorts of decisions are not Robert's alone but the remaining members who make a decision together.

[SteveAJones]

Can anybody plz render me a proper explanation that why Robert Plant refused to permit "Dazed and Confused" to be included in the soundtrack of the film "Dazed and Confused"????????????

Director Richard Linklater's original cut of the film had the final scene and end credits set to 'Rock And Roll'. Jimmy

had agreed to this - Linklater said "Page sent me back a letter saying he realized how important the song was to the artist's vision" - but Robert did not, apparently not wishing to be associated so directly with the past while touring as

a solo artist the year of the film's release (1993).

Ten years later, Linklater was directing 'School Of Rock'. He came up with the idea to shoot a video on the stage used at the end of the film with the film's star, Jack Black, begging the band for permission to use their song, with a crowd cheering and chanting behind him. The video was sent directly to Led Zeppelin's representatives, and permission was granted for 'Immigrant Song' to be included on the soundtrack. Black's plea can be seen on the DVD's extras.

[SteveAJones]

Stump the band time again: Can anyone identify the castle pictured on the lower left gatefold of LZIII? It has the number 4 and "Private" superimposed against it. It's not the Tower House (JP didn't buy that 'til 1974), and it's not any other William Burges building that I can see (e.g. Cardiff Castle or Castell Coch). I don't even think it's Vlad the Impaler's (Dracula's) in Romania. Any gothic architecture buffs / Zep fans out there want to weigh in?

I don't have a copy of the album cover with me, but Zacron was almost certainly the one to choose that image. If you (anyone) could post a close up scan of it I'll see what I can find.

Jimmy outbid David Bowie for Tower House in June 1973 whilst on break from touring.

[MadScreamingGallery]

Hi George, I am fairly certain that Jimmy Page purchased the Tower House in either 1971 or 1972. I remember that when I first saw him, he already owned the house or was in the process of purchasing it. The fact that he owned such a magnificent home was astounding to me at the time and the memory has stayed with me. I haven't looked at it in along time but my original pressing of LZIII is not a gatefold; it has a revolving wheel on the side. Is the image of the castle on the wheel?~MSG

Edited to add: I didn't see Steve's post when I responded; I might be confusing the Boleskine House with the Tower House.

Edited December 19, 2009 by MadScreamingGallery

[SteveAJones]

I remember vividly the night John and Jason duetted 'Moby Dick' at the drill hall in Machynlleth. It was a time when Jason was about 14 yrs old and they were regular visitors to the area for motorcross meetings up on Dylife, in which Jason used to race. They became very friendly with many people in the area and John agreed to do this gig for charity. After the gig, John sold Zep albums for a quid each and signed them. Hence I have about 7 Zep albums signed by John Bonham in my possession. What a great night. Jason does his dad proud. I sincerely hope they entertain us some more.--Trevor Williams, Kingston-u-Thames

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The boat (Sea Spray) that Led Zeppelin (Robert Plant) was filmed on in Aberdovey, holding a welsh dragon flag, belonged to my grandfather, Ellis Williams. --Jane Birch-Tomlinson

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As the first cousin of Jane Birch Tomlinson, the boat belonged to my grandfather also. But being a wee bit older than Jane I can also relate a bit more of the story of how my Grandfather's boat came to be in the film The Song Remains the Same.

My grandfather was approached by some young impoverished looking young hippies who wanted to hire his boat and his services for a couple of days to do some filming in the dyfi estuary. my taid duly obliged and set a rate. During the sequence where Planty is standing at the bow of the boat my grandfather was required to crouch down at the stern of the boat in order to manoeuver the boat using a rope tied around the tiller. A few days later my mother relayed the story to me that some rock group had hired taid's boat. I asked her how much they had paid him?

Apparently my Taid had not charged them too much at all, because he had thought that they didn't have much money as they were wearing such scruffy clothes and looked really poor. I at the time hadn't actually given a lot of thought to the fact my grandad's boat was in a Zep film until I watched The Song Remains the Same in a cinema in Cardiff some years later. You can imagine my shock and elation when it suddenly dawned on me after a few seconds that the boat

on the screen was in actual fact my Taid's.--Dai Williams, Aberystwyth

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I met Percy Plant, as we close friends called him, and his bouncer Frosty many times in the Angel Inn at Aberystwyth. He was always with my old mate George Rowlands, who looked after his home near Furnace, whilst Mr Plant was a tax exile in the US in the 70s. Robert (Percy) Plant, was always there for the anyone who approached him. Always so nice, and I will never forget his charm, and being so nice. I have so many memories of having a pint with Robert, and thinking, what a nice guy he his, for all his fame and money. --Mike Griffiths of Aberyswyth

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I also remember seeing Robert Plant in the Angel Inn in Aberystwyth. The area at the back played host to a lot of Welsh language sessions during the early 80's . The Angel was also associated with, shall we say, unusual tobacco. There was a rumour that Led Zep had offered to play a gig for the Welsh Language Society, but that the offer had been turned down. Robert Plant has also recently referred to a gig at the King's Hall (pulled down in 1989) as the worst venue they played. Not so tactful now, eh ? --Huw, Aberystwyth

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I went to see Led Zeppelin play the King`s Hall at the beginning of the 70`s. We were told Robert Plant wanted to play a gig for the locals rather than the students. Before the show we went for a drink in the Belle Vue Lounge Bar and discovered Plant, dressed for the gig, sitting at a table drinking tea (which had been served on an ostentatiously ornate tray) and chatting with some Mach biker lads. In the 60s the Stones and Cream had played the King`s Hall - the guy who owned it then used to book really big names for his weekend dance nights - but Zeppelin outdid them for auditory violence and nearly blew the old place`s roof off that night. --Pip Jones/Cambridge

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Trying to find the exact location of the hills Robert rides the horse during the rain song and the cave as well as the forest scene. Know about Raglan but i'm trying to piece the whole thing together, especially the hills.--Brett Ellis

[SteveAJones]

Edited to add: I didn't see Steve's post when I responded; I might be confusing the Boleskine House with the Tower House.

Hello again, Screamer. Jimmy entered negotiations to purchase Boleskine House circa December 1969. In 1971 he attended an auction of Crowley manuscripts at Sotheby's in London. While there he met Kennth Anger for the first time after outbidding him on a book. Jimmy kindly put him up in Boleskine House.

The Tower House auction was held in June '73. You may recall a couple of years ago I was looking into an alleged

connection between Auberon Waugh, Jimmy Page and Tower House concerning some furnishings Auberon refused to sell to Jimmy. Sadly, Auberon passed away long before I had an opportunity to discuss the specifics with him, but I recently discovered what that was about and will post it next.

Edited December 19, 2009 by SteveAJones

[SteveAJones]

Combe Florey House: All (literary) riff-raff welcome

Adam Edwards

The Telegraph

Published: 12:01AM BST 19 Apr 2008

At home: journalist Auberon Waugh continued the literary and Bohemian tradition of Combe Florey House

Combe Florey House, home to the Waugh family, is now to be sold. Adam Edwards revels in its colourful past

Combe Florey is, at least to those who are conversant with the A358, a small north Somerset village on the south-westerly edge of the Quantock Hills with a pub, a church built of the local rose-red stone and several listed buildings.

However, to those of a more literary bent, including some of Fleet Street's finest, Combe Florey is a hallowed house where the writer Evelyn Waugh and later his journalist son Auberon (known affectionately as ''Bron'') lived in the second half of the 20th century.

Not only was the West Country hamlet home to the greatest English novelist of his age (and also to the late 19th-century essayist and wit the Reverend Sydney Smith, and the 20th-century playwright Terence Rattigan), but the house was where many of Britain's influential hacks, as guests of Bron and his wife Teresa, drank deeply, talked loudly and formed opinions from the 1970s to the 1990s.

Next month, seven years after Bron's death, Combe Florey House goes on the market. Its sale will almost certainly sever the house's long-standing, literary connections, which have included Teresa and three of her four children, all of whom have written successful novels. But its blue-plaque standing - and it can surely only be time before it gets an English Heritage Frisbee - will certainly survive.

A handsome, 18th-century building behind St Peter and St Paul's church (where both Evelyn and Bron are buried), it has an elegant, raised ground floor and circular hall that divides the house. It is approached through an Elizabethan gatehouse and up a looping drive that gives it a grandeur that, according to Bron in his 1991 autobiography Will This Do?, ''belied the straitened circumstances in which the family had been placed by my father's extravagant expenditure over the years''.

After Evelyn's death, from a heart attack after Easter mass in 1966, his wife Laura (Bron's mother) was persuaded by an over-cautious lawyer that the family was in penury and so she sold much of the furniture and all the books to the University of Texas, an institution which was determined not to be cheated out of any of the author's memorabilia and took much else, including fitted carpets and full ashtrays.

The young Waugh family subsequently lived in the grand manor house (with Laura taking over a back wing) in Bohemian style. Bron wrote in Evelyn's now spartan study, using the floor and trestle tables as storage since all the bookshelves had gone to Austin, Texas. The downstairs loo, where Evelyn died, was decorated with the flotsam of Bron's journalistic career, while a large back room with high ceilings and French windows had been turned into a congenial, rambling kitchen with collapsed sofas, odd chairs and a plentiful table. It was the heart of the house where good wine flowed freely, food was Francophile (Teresa was and is an exceptional cook) and the conversation was in turn expansive and gossipy.

It was a house full of interest, although by the time I was invited there Laura had died and the back wing, beneath which was one of the finest wine cellars in England, was let out because Bron claimed he could not afford to heat it.

When he was broke, he would sell one of the unfashionable pieces of Gothic furniture by the Victorian cabinet-maker William Burgess by pitting the only two known collectors of these pieces in the UK - one of whom was the Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page - against each other. (SAJ note: following the Tower House purchase in 1973 in particular)

Sadly, the Waughs will now vacate the home that for three generations they have loved unconditionally. In fact, Bron claimed in his book that the only thing that ever spoilt Combe Florey was the heavy, plate-glass lattice windows put in by previous owners.

"My parents replaced four of these with the original thick-timbered sash windows, and we have since replaced another two," he wrote. "There they will remain unless the house is burned down or taken over by the local authority as a hostel for unmarried mothers, who will no doubt wish to restore the plate glass throughout. Until then, they will remain my monument."

But perhaps a more pertinent monument is Evelyn Waugh's famous sign engraved in stone at the front entrance. It reads "No Admittance on Business" and it has welcomed the literary riff-raff and kept the not-so-literate at bay for more than half a century, including some of those Somerset folk who might be tempted to stray from the A358.

• Combe Florey House goes on sale through Knight Frank (020 7629 8171) for £2.25 million from May 1.

Edited December 19, 2009 by SteveAJones

[GeorgeC]

Here's a pic of the LZIII gatefold I've just found. The building could be just a randomly chosen spooky castle (I've left a message with "Zacron" himself via his website asking about it), but it would be interesting to know if it has any further significance to any member of the band. Check it out in the bottom left:

[GeorgeC]

Wait, I'll try again...

[GeorgeC]

My link

[jabe]

Time for a day old, stale bread question.

With Plant recently in the Mississippi Delta and surrounding locales... and Elvis having been raised in close proximity, do you suppose Plant might have/or has previously soaked in some of the Elvis foundation and his foot stomping area as well?

There is much concentrated in this portion of the deep south.

I did a futile search and it has probably been addressed, but have Plant or other band members spent reflective time at Graceland?

Pre apologies if this has been covered before....

[fsmith9095]

Steve,

Has there ever been a single photo from any of the 5 BBC sessions the band played in 69 and 71?

Maybe it's me,but I don't recall ever seeing a photo from any of their performances,anything from offstage before or after the gigs,etc.

Thanks,

Frank

[SteveAJones]

I did a futile search and it has probably been addressed, but have Plant or other band members spent reflective time at Graceland?

So far as I know only Robert has gone to Graceland, having spent the day there with his band on Sept 16, 1983 before

playing the Mid-South Coliseum in Memphis that night.

[SteveAJones]

Steve, has there ever been a single photo from any of the 5 BBC sessions the band played in 69 and 71?

I can't think of any either, Frank.

[Sems Fir]

So far as I know only Robert has gone to Graceland, having spent the day there with his band on Sept 16, 1983 before playing the Mid-South Coliseum in Memphis that night.

Hi Steve,

I do have a request. Do you have any images of the inside of the '95 Page / Plant tour memorabilia truck? If so, can you please post them?

Best regards as always,

Robert

www.behindthetoys.com

[SteveAJones]

Hi Steve,

I do have a request. Do you have any images of the inside of the '95 Page / Plant tour memorabilia truck? If so, can you please post them?

Best regards as always,

Robert

www.behindthetoys.com

Look at that ridiculous photo-shopped picture...

I do have photos of the interior and exterior of the MGD truck, but alas I do not have them with me at this time. It will probably be a few months before I get to them but I will post them as soon as possible. Most of the items on display

were on loan from the Brian Knapp collection. The full color promotional poster of Page/Plant posing with an MGD guitar

that was mounted under plexiglass on the left side of the exhibit is in my archive.

[fsmith9095]

I can't think of any either, Frank.

Thanks Steve.

Isn't it odd that not a single photo from any of the five BBC sessions has ever seen the light of day?

That doesn't make any sense.

[SteveAJones]

Jimmy Page Manifesting William Burges at Knightshayes Court, Tiverton, Devon May 27, 2002

This clip uploaded courtesy of Blockbuster after seeing my post concerning Burges furnishings at Combe Florey House:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtqzAHYkc90

[Sems Fir]

Look at that ridiculous photo-shopped picture...

I do have photos of the interior and exterior of the MGD truck, but alas I do not have them with me at this time. It will probably be a few months before I get to them but I will post them as soon as possible. Most of the items on display

were on loan from the Brian Knapp collection. The full color promotional poster of Page/Plant posing with an MGD guitar

that was mounted under plexiglass on the left side of the exhibit is in my archive.

Hi Steve,

I forget where I got that image from. I found it one day and decided to save it. Whenever you have free time to dig out the images of the truck would be great. Thanks!

Robert

www.behindthetoys.com

[swandown]

Steve, there's a post-Zep interview with RP when he jokes about somehow getting an "occasional bass" credit on the back cover of LZI ("Jonesy could blame me when he fucked up" or something like that). I've never seen any issues of the album with this credit, and obviously Plant didn't, in fact, contribute bass parts. Any idea what he's talking about?

The "occasional bass" quote can be found in some early press releases, including this press release from the Boston Tea Party show in January 1969.

[SteveAJones]

The "occasional bass" quote can be found in some early press releases, including this press release from the Boston Tea Party show in January 1969.

Nice work, Scott. I think you'll agree if Robert ever did comment on this he meant press releases for the album and not the album cover itself.

Edited December 27, 2009 by SteveAJones

[dazedjeffy]

Hi Steve,

I forget where I got that image from. I found it one day and decided to save it. Whenever you have free time to dig out the images of the truck would be great. Thanks!

Robert

www.behindthetoys.com

That was my ridiculously HORRIBLE Photoshop job. 99% of the time I'm better than that. I was just trying to take the led-zeppelin.com watermark off.