some last bbc thoughts

[Brownreg@xxxxxxx]

Glad to see I'm not alone in not being overly thrilled with the '71 BBC
sessions. I did, however, go back and listen to '69 last night, and THAT'S
what's gonna sell the discs. Very, very good stuff there, and even the
varying Communication Breakdowns are interesting in their evolution.

I'm still most glad, though, because I think this will open the floodgates.
I'm the one who interviewed Jason Bonham last year and posted some of his
thoughts on DG, including his assertion that Bath '70 was being readied for
release. I no longer work where I used to work, so I can now post all of that
stuff here. i'll pull my notes and get it done in the next few days.

But he definitely said that Bath '70 was being worked on -- he offered that
date out of the blue, not I -- and that pro recordings exist. 

Others on this list have said they wish stuff like Listen To this Eddie would
be issued, with others saying "why would they issue audience tapes?''

I'd be very surprised if professional recordings of "Eddie'' don't exist.
There's got to at least be soundboard tapes, but you've also got to believe
given Zeppelin's penchant for recording lots of live gigs (according to
Jimmy), they would have these nights on tape. I mean, it's hard to drag the
mobile unit to Tulsa and New Orleans, but when you're Led Zeppelin touring
the US in '77, I can't believe you don't think to have the six-night stands
in NY and LA recorded professionally.

Even if only cassette or reel-to-reel two-track soundboards exist of many
shows, imagine how good they'd sound taken into the studio and cleaned up a
bit. The Dead have shown that you can make money and be artistically valid in
releasing these documents. The good stuff is gonna come out -- even if it
just ends up being leaks from the engineers going back thru the archives to
see what's there.