Dave, Death, Tingles, and Albini

[tiverson@xxxxxxx (Thor Iverson)]

Bye Bill.  I'd say I'll miss you, but since I never rose higher than #9 on
the death list, I guess you never cared.  *sniff*

By the way, your poetry still sucks.

Frederick:

>Just for grins who do you think are studio wizards.  My list would be
>
>Jimmy Page
>Glynn Johns
>Steve Lillywhite
>Phil Spector
>Jimi Hendrix

I'm a big fan of Hugh Padgham's work, even though I'm not crazy about some
of the acts he produces.  Eric Rosse has an amazing ability to create
silence around the music, and understands more about "presence" than anyone
since Jimmy Page.

Regarding Steve Albini -- I loved his work with PJ Harvey, and think he
created a real work of genius with _In Utero_.  Some of his other work --
the Breeders come to mind -- I'm not so fond of.  But he does understand
the effective use and power of noise, and I think that's why P/P are
working with him.

Tingle moments:

1) During the "For Your Life" solo, when Jimmy repeats (three times) a
half-step bend with the bar, then picks his way back up.  I think it's just
_so_ powerful and emotional.

2) The way the last bent note of the solo in "I'm Gonna Crawl" fades into
the background.

3) The aforementioned held (and artificially enhanced) "been" in "Kashmir,"
and the similar moment in "Achilles."

4) The entrance to Jimmy's solo in "Nobody's Fault But Mine," as the band
plays the descending riff under Jimmy's sustained notes.  Just crushing.

5) "Cryin' won't help you, prayin' won't do you no good."

6) The double glissandos from Denny and Plant on the word "eye" at the end
of "Battle of Evermore," as they slide different directions.

7) Bonzo's snare roll coming out of the middle section of "Fool in the Rain."

8) The first time they hit the pure F major chord under Jimmy's solo in
"Stairway" (all the others have been Fmaj7, but this one combined with
Jimmy soloing down to an F just releases an incredible amount of harmonic
tension.

9) Just about any point during "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You."

10) Near the end of "Gallows Pole," when Jones starts playing the quick
scales under the three-chord progression.

There's more, but that'll do for now.

Jeff D.:

>First of all, the idea of Jimmy teaming up with
>David simply as a means of "getting back" at Robert for the latter's not
>agreeing to reunite in a reformed Led Zep for a tour in 1990-91 makes me
>sick.  I mean why would two musicians get together simply as a form of
>revenge to get back at someone who wants to move AHEAD with his career and
>not rest on his past glories?

You're slightly misinterpreting the reasons -- David probably wasn't at all
aware of this (though by the end, I'm sure he was), and Jimmy's purpose was
to get Robert _back_ with him, not just to piss him off.  Jimmy, better
than anyone, knows the weak points in Robert's ego.

>Why would he
>throw this all away by teaming up with Coverdale for an album in which he
>would simply be going through the motions in trying to rekindle the magic of
>Led Zeppelin?

As long as you understand that this is merely your opinion -- I (for one)
don't think C/P sounded much like Zeppelin.  There were similarities in
some songs (after all, Jimmy's style is inescapable), but you can't
seriously think that "Whisper a Prayer for the Dying" or "Take Me For A
Little While" or even the awful "Feeling Hot" could ever be Zeppelin songs.

>Recording an album for artistic reasons in the hopes of
>forwarding one career is one thing, but recording it in order to "get back"
>at a former bandmate for not going along with a possible highly lucrative
>multi-million dollar album deal and subsequent tour is quite another.

It's not the money.  It's never been about the money (though I'm sure it
doesn't hurt).  Jimmy _wants_ to work with Robert again -- he always has.
Robert is his best musical partner.  Just like Lennon and McCartney
complemented each other, and produced much less-interesting stuff when on
their own, Robert and Jimmy basically _need_ each other to discover their
full musical potential.  Sure, they're capable of some interesting stuff on
their own.  But does "Calling to You" _really_ compare to "Kashmir?"  Both
great songs, but in 20 years people are still going to be seeking out
"Kashmir."  Doubt that's true for "Calling to You."

>        Jeff states that "if not for Coverdale, you wouldn't have your
>precious Page/Plant reunion".  Well, I strongly disagree with this.  It was
>widely reported in the press in 1994 that the reason that Jimmy teamed up
>with Robert was that MTV had offered Robert a deal to produce a possible MTV
>Unplugged album and video.

By this time, Robert was running short of guitarists.  Most of the rest he
had driven crazy, trying to force them to sound like Jimmy.

And basically, the timing of the MTV deal was incredibly fortunate.
Robert's ego was bruised by C/P (and by the relative lack of success of
what he felt was his best musical effort to date), and the MTV thing gave
him the _perfect_ way to "have his cake and eat it too" -- he could work
with Jimmy on a one-off project, which might (or might not) lead to other
things, yet he also had all the power in the relationship.  As before, _he_
would choose whether or not to continue.

>Robert, rather than take all the credit for
>performing the Zeppelin songs acoustically, thought it only fair for Jimmy
>to be there to perform those songs with him as they had written most, if not
>all the songs TOGETHER, with Page originally credited for writing the music.

If that was actually a consideration in Robert's mind, Jones would have
been there as well.  Since he wasn't, I think we can discard the "official"
press release version here, yes?

> You say that "the pairing was the
>ace up Jimmy's sleeve"....well who's bluff was he trying to call?  Surely,
>not Robert's. :)

Yes, Robert's.  By walking out on two reunions, Robert had basically made a
statement that he had moved forward to great success without Jimmy (a
complete lie given the number of Zeppelin songs in his set in his last
three tours), and that to continue on Jimmy _needed_ Robert.  I don't think
_anyone_ believes that Jimmy's career had succeeded as well (by critical or
popular standards) as Robert's.  But when Jimmy joined up with Coverdale,
everything changed.  _Jimmy_ had all the buzz, _Jimmy_ had all the press,
_Jimmy_ (and David) were on Rockline, and _Jimmy_ was planning an arena
tour -- while Robert was opening for the Crowes, Lenny Kravitz, and
planning a theater tour in the US.  Suddenly, his ego was punctured.  By
the time the C/P American tour crumbled, Robert had to have already made
the MTV deal.  From then on, the pieces fell gradually into place.

>>Well, I'd rather an artist venture out and fall on their face
>>than never to have tried at all.
>
>Fair enough, but why did it take him FIVE YEARS to do so?

Jimmy works slowly.  He always has.  If you count up the amount of time
between the taping of what became _No Quarter_ and the release of the
upcoming album -- if it ever comes out -- I think you'll want to reconsider
this question.

>>Oh, so now Robert gets to look all magnanimous? ;) He didn't think
>>twice about playing Zep songs on Center Stage, did he? You'd better
>>believe he'd need Jimmy (and should have had Jonesy as well) to do
>>an entire unplugged Led Zeppelin! Please! :)
>
>No he didn't and neither did Jimmy on his "Outrider" and C/P tours, did he?!

Jimmy never went around saying that Zeppelin songs were "sacred" (and later
saying that they were "the past, and history").  He always left the option
open to play them -- from the ARMS tour onward.  Robert simply went back on
his statements.  Not that that's an uncommon thing for Robert...

>>Isn't it just as ludicrous to make/force/wish
>>all your guitarists to sound and *be* Jimmy Page???
>
>True, Jimmy has influenced countless numbers of guitarists, but where oh
>WHERE did I mention any other guitarists in my post?  Let's stay focused
>here. ;)

You're missing Theolyn's point.  Both Robbie Blunt and Doug Boyle left
because Robert was driving them nuts, pushing them until they cracked.
I've never heard Blunt speak on the subject, but I have heard Boyle explain
what happened -- Robert kept yelling "give me a riff!  Give me a riff!"
Basically, asking Doug to do what Jimmy would have done.  About midway
through _Nirvana_, Robert clearly needed to work with Jimmy -- he just
couldn't admit it yet.

>Well, my ears must be deceiving me then because I took that quote word for
>word from a phone interview Robert gave on Montreal radio on Nov. 22, 1993.
>He was clearly trying to not act bothered at all about the question.

You know, Jeff, this wasn't the only interview Robert gave in all of 1993.
He certainly _did_ say lots of nasty and hurt things about C/P.

Theolyn, Jeff:

>>Plant takes every opportunity (and even makes some up) to
>>rag Jimmy endlessly about his old partner.  What do you think is
>>driving all that?
>
>Maybe jealousy or maybe his interpreting the C/P union as being a bad move
>based on the results of a substandard album.

The wounds in an ego that still hasn't recovered from the beating it took.
I don't think there's _any_ evidence that Robert disapproved of the album
as a work, he just couldn't deal with the choice of singers.

>Yes he WAS jealous, but jealous to the point of wanting to steal the
>spotlight away from David by snatching Jimmy away from him?

He didn't "snatch Jimmy away from" David.  That wasn't his motivation at
all.  He simply couldn't deal with Jimmy working with David.

>I think Jimmy had the best of intentions, but the finished product just
>didn't cut it for me.  As far as the guitar army concept goes....so there
>were a lot of layered guitars, so what?  Quantity doesn't always equal
>quality.  I remember buying the CD the day it came out in the stores and
>bringing it home with beaming anticipation, only to listen it and say to
>myself at the end "Is that IT???!"..."Is that all he could come up with
>after five bloody years?"  There were a couple of good tunes, but I just
>wish the whole CD would have impressed me the way those one or two songs
>did.  Disapponting to say the least.

I think, Jeff, that you're allowing your opinion of _C/P_ to cloud your
judgement of the personal motivations of Jimmy and Robert.  I'll fess up --
I loathe _Fate of Nations_, and I'm in the minority there -- but I fully
recognize that Robert considers it his finest solo work, and I also
recognize what its semi-failure did to Robert's ego.  I'm not going to say
"_FoN_ sucked, so Robert couldn't have been upset that it failed," which is
the same genre of statement I believe you're making about _C/P_.

>Theo, you missed my point entirely.  I was talking about the C/P songs
>consciously and blatantly crafted to sound like Zeppelin.

Like?  The only candidate I can come up with is "Absolution Blues," and
Zeppelin wouldn't have done that song anytime after 1969.  Despite being
written during the Zeppelin days, "Shake My Tree" (as it ended up) would
_not_ have been a good Zeppelin song.

>The tour to support FoN turned out some of the finest
>performances in Robert's career.

Robert's performances, maybe.  Getting Johnstone away from the keyboards
was also a good idea.  But other than Michael Lee, I thought the band was
pretty ill-suited to the material.

>So what if it took two guitarists to replace Jimmy, the results were still
>stunning.

Stunningly dissonant and sloppy, yes.  In that way, they were very much
like Jimmy.  Is that what you meant?

See, Jeff, you're doing it again -- assuming everyone shares your opinion
of the material and the performances, and using those opinions to determine
what Jimmy and Robert must have been feeling.  The only feelings that
matter in this case are Jimmy's and Robert's -- how _they_ viewed their
projects and each other's projects is what colored their interactions
through this time.

At the Boston shows where Jimmy sat on the sidelines and watched (the point
where they met to discuss their upcoming project -- Jimmy was on his way to
Japan for the C/P dates), Robert played twice as many Zeppelin songs as
_FoN_ songs.  I think that's significant.  And as Francis Dissonance
mangled song after song, I think it's _also_ significant that Jimmy never
appeared on stage.  Robert's not stupid, and he knows how Jimmy (assuming
he wasn't drunk or otherwise chemically enhanced) would have made his
guitarists look.

>The Coverdale/Page shows IMO paled by comparison.  Maybe David was too
>pre-occupied with teaching the Japanese swear words between songs, and not
>concentrating enough on his vocals. :) :) :)

David's vocals were indeed awful.  But the band was quite good.  You can't
possibly fault Guy Pratt's incredible bass work, can you?

Theolyn:

>Well, for one, Robert could have just turned down Mtv's offer like he'd
>done a dozen times previous with a casual wave of his hand. He did not.
>Why was this time different? Can you hear "Jimmy was on tour with David
>Coverdale" being whispered in your ear ? :)

Excellent point.

>Hey, I'm doing a Thor.

I suggest you floss, then.

Chris W.:

>I've always held this interpretation. At a simple level: when a man or
>woman keeps choosing mates that look or act like their first, it's
>rarely as simple as liking blondes or moustaches. In most cases there's
>some deeper motivation. Similarly, Page's recruiting of Coverdale to
>front his band was not an accident--he had to know that Plant would be
>outraged.

Yup.  Jimmy spent his entire solo career searching for a drummer that would
give him that slightly dragging, powerful beat.  He never found one --
until Michael Lee.  Look at the energy Jimmy had when backed by Lee!  Jimmy
seemed to deliberately avoid Plant clones, however, and suffered because of
it.  David's voice, while not the Plant copy most people seem to think it
is, does cover much of the same ground -- and was Jimmy's best musical foil
(though he "metalized" his sound to better match David's more abrasive
sound).

Robert, on the other hand, spent a lot of time looking for a writing
partner as exciting as Page.  I'm not sure he ever found one -- Blunt's
style (of which I'm quite fond) fell apart once Robert hit the dance/new
wave craze, and Johnstone was somewhat of a one-trick pony whose strengths
were more in atmospherics than the riff-based rock Robert was gravitating
towards.  Boyle came up with some exciting stuff, but again it was more
harmonically complex than the bluesier stuff Robert needed.

And Robert's abuse of Boyle because he wasn't Page was just uncalled for.
I really regret not hearing more from Boyle these days, because I think he
has real talent and potential.

>As with the Jimmy/Coverdale story, context is everything. Plant has made
>these statements to counter the popular perception of Stairway as the
>definitive LZ song. Unlike the anthemic Stairway, Plant has maintained
>that a song like Kashmir is more representative of Zeppelin's work
>because it falls outside heavy metal conventions.

Yup.  If "Kashmir" had been overplayed to the extent "Stairway" was, Plant
would have picked something else.

Definitive Zeppelin song:  "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You."  The only thing it
doesn't incorporate is the Eastern element.

- ----
Thor Iverson - tiverson@xxxxxxx
Internet Content Coordinator & Wine Critic - The Boston Phoenix
http://www.bostonphoenix.com/
http://www.providencephoenix.com/
http://www.worcesterphoenix.com/