LED ZEPPELIN: A PSYCHOBIOGRAPH

I could begin this psychobiograph by letting you in on the incredibly orgasmic Yardbirdsfeaturing-Jimmy Page-gig I caught at the Grande in Detroit in the late 60's, but the truth is, my brother only got me in on fake I.D. once, and I think it was for Cream. That's right, strike me dead—I'm not quite sure. I was so stunned to get past the door that the experience is stored in my brain as a cacophony of lights, music, "hip cats," and hoping my mother wouldn't find out. I did own Little Games and Live Yardbirds With Jimmy Page, until they melted in the back window of my brother's Volkswagen.

I was introduced to the "new" band Led Zeppelin at the age of 17, by a college roommate who wrote long, soggy journals, went to an analyst, and fancied herself tragically in love. I wasn't very sympathetic until she went out, for no apparent reason, and bought all three (at that time) Zep albums at once. They were the only LPs she owned, and may well still be. I do know I spent classtime wasting the state's money by lying in bed smoking Kools, tragically in love with myself, and reading her journals. And playing Led Zeppelin at full volume.

Robert Plant would moan "Babe I'm gonna leave you" and I'd feel it right in the breadbasket. Then that post-psychedelic "whaaa" would lift me off the bed—only to be slammed back into the pillows by a casual flick of John Bonham's meaty wrist. Then there's Jimmy's tarty guitar on "You Shook Me"—a few bars and my lower torso would become 17-year-old rice pudding. Which brings me to my pet Heavy Metal theory—girl fans only go (went?) for the bands who sell sex along with their consciousness-destroying power chords. And nobody can peddle below-the-belt heavingand moaning as prettily as the Zep boys. (Black Sabbath? Ozzy Osbourne? Ha!)

But hey —this psychobiograph does not want to propogate the myth thatLZ have done nothing but heavy music in their ten-year thud reign any further—the first, third and fourth LZ LPs having featured huge chunks of distinctly unheavy music. Indeed, although at times Robert Plant seems more enamored of his Adonais posing and Shelleyan hippie lyrics than an intelligent being should be . . . still, when the bombs have fallen and the smoke clears, Zeppelin's hallmark has always been a faint breath of what—poetry?— wafting just slightly over your ears, beyond the pain threshold. Ten years later, listening to "Dazed and Confused", it's hard not to smell the romantic and spiritual confusion of 1969, postpost Summer of Love London.

What else endears Led Zeppelin to an unreconstructed fan, doomed to coexist with other, outraged species?

That slight fillip to every Zeppelin songhoney dripping lust songs are tossed off with Mr. Plant's considerable (sorry) tongue well planted in cheek; the lying, cheating, love-gone-wrong songs are tinged with a deeper sadness than the subject would seem to warrant, and the all-out nuclear holocausts are as delicately conceived and executed as a Chopin etude.

So, with a new Zeppelin LP promised in "early spring", we tortured fans, scorned by our Billy Joel-listening friends, are forced to reminisce during this long, cold winter, of Zeppelin history. That's why.

1968-1969

Led Zeppelin I was released on an unsuspecting public on January 17, 1969. Recorded in a breathtaking 30 studio hours in London's Olympic studios in October 1968, it ranks as one of the classic "entry" albums, along with The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, Edgar Winter's White Trash, The Cars, Elvis Costello's first album—any first record you ever heard that emerged a full-bodied artistic vision, showing a tantalizing array of heart and chops, and promising much more to come. Looking over the facts of the band's formation, what is amazing is that a group so well-suited should have fallen together so casually. Upon the final dissolution of the Yardbirds in 1968, (the late Keith Relf and Jim McCarty drifting into Renaissance), Jimmy Page hoped to interest Terry Reid in the lead vocalist slot of his embryonic band, but Terry had a freshly-signed solo contract in hand, so it was not to be. But he alerted Jimmy to the lung capacity of the 19-year-old Birmingham blues singer Robert Plant, which Jimmy checked out for himself. Plant was snapped up and brought back to London; his bandmate from the Band of Joy, John Bonham, soon to follow.

John Paul Jones, a bassist wellknown to Page from his London session days, had been with him from the start, so by August '68 the band was touring Scandinavia as the New Yardbirds (to fulfill prior contractual commitments) .

October 15th saw the band's first gig in the U.K. Led Zeppelin, a tag the late Keith Moon had waggishly suggested, seemed to stick.

Following the shotgun recording of "I" (hard to believe it was the same month in '68 that Rob Tyner was exhorting the Grande Ballroom crowd to kick out the—well you know that story), Zeppelin did their first tour of the States. Notthe first U.S. tour for Jimmy Page, of course; the Yardbirds having several American tours under their belts, and successful ones at that. Was Page repaying the Yardbirds fandom with prompt and thorough touring?

It paid off in an increasingly delirious audience reception, as the '69 tour continued and "I" climbed steadily in the charts.

After more touring here and in Britain, July '69 found the band already at work on Led Zeppelin II. . . which was released October 19th, and shipped gold. (In the 60's, need we remind you, gold records were a rare thing indeed, hard to fathom in these platinum-bloated times.)

"Whole Lotta Love" is perhaps the most memorable "first date" a good portion of the American public had with Zeppelin, being weaned so insidiously on radio. The band's first single here* "WWL" was an instant smash, dominating the charts into 1970 and establishing an "every inch of my love" image that would dog their steps (not entirely to their distaste) from then on.

1970

Touring Europe in the wake of Led Zeppelin Jfs splash, Zeppelin were forced to concoct a new name, "Nobs," for a date in Copenhagen when the Count von Zeppelin kicked up a fuss about their shared monicker.

Late spring '70 found the band retiring to rural Snowdonia in Wales, to i record their third album in a cottage immortalized as Bron-Y-Aur ("Golden Breast").

Led Zeppelin III was to emerge from this idyllic sabbatical probably the most misunderstood, if not reviled, LZ album to date. Our boys forsaking the sledgehammer for the mandolin of the Celtic bard? Again, too simple.

The sledgehammer was always implied, if not hovering in the background, if not putting entire continents out of commission in murder-inducing whip crackers like the "Immigrant Song" or "Gallows Pole."

But but but... for the most part, on III, it hovered; the boys invoked their ancient druidic muse, soothed her with pastoral melodies and songs of lost races and found love. Page's fleetfingered acoustic picking is a wonder.

The beauty of III is that the band was able to take traditional English instruments and arcane myths, and make them speak to the kid wearing Sears overalls in Toledo. (Arcane trivia for now fans: the rotating disc design of III was inspired by a crop rotation calendar.)

1971

Album number four, the infamous Zoso (you pick your name; I've got mine), was recorded in January '71 in Headley Grange, Hampshire, but the need for several remixes pushed the release date back to November 1971.

Meanwhile Zeppelin do a series of small gigs in England to "get back" to their roots.

The year is mostly notable for the band not touring America . . .

And so, Zoso. The album was pretty well received at first, only to be found lacking later by revisionist critics. I must confess to finding heavy-handedness in Led Zeppelin quite endearing . . . after all, what's the point of going "sensitive" in the face of an atom bomb?

My only regret is that two little Canadian sisters should have found a copy of Zoso under their snowy Vancouver Christmas tree . . . who could have known what musical disaster was in the cards?

"Stairway to Heaven" is best left to the anal retentive DJs who made it into an instant FM cliche—perhaps later generations will come to hear it afresh. There is still the bulldozer bomp of "Misty Mountain Top" and the codeine rush of "Four Sticks" to numb one against the pain.

And "Going to California"—what other heavy metal band worth its ale would sing a tender ballad to a blonde Canadian folkie? ("Found a queen without a king/they say she plays guitar and cries and sings . . .") The sound of the Beaste tamed and crooning for its Joni . . . "with love in her eyes and flowers in her hair ..." is enough to set LZ fans baking rhubarb pies and mellowing out until—good lord, Bonzo gets loose again, beating the shit out of that ojd warhorse "When the Levee Breaks". Just when you thought it was safe to leave your headphones on . . . The aural space implied by the drums is a Zeppelin landmark.

Robert Plant's voice blends so eerily into the late Sandy Denny's on "The Battle of Evermore" that the fact it was a separate, female voice didn't occur to this listener until I started reading liner notes (only as a rock critic).

All in all, an album that satisfied immensely at the time (if it suffered overpraise), and mostly stands up with time. I suspect the cryptic, untypable title helped make critics peevish.

1972

A year of the workhorse kind of touring that became synonymous with Zeppelin, starting with all four band members being refused entry into Singapore because of their flowing tresses. Undaunted, the hairy ones visited India, then commenced a vast Australian tour.

May marked the beginning of rehearsals for "V". An American tour opened in June, in Denver, and it went (surprisingly) without hitch musically, emotionally or financially. Unfortunately, the Stones tour of '72 was scorching the countryside at the same time, resulting in light press coverage for Zeppelin. 1972 was probably the first climax of Zeppelin/press hostilities. The press was presented with a monstrously successful band, made enormous almost entirely without their help (tireless touring and pandemic fan support did the trick). Fuck this, say the critics ...

1973

Album number five in the can, 1973 opened with by how characteristic cover art delays (burn all English art schools down now). It wasn't until mid-March, when the band was in the midst of a tour of France, Germany and Sweden, that Houses of the Holy was released. This time the critics were ready with enough adjectives for "thudhappy" and "crude" to sink the album ten times over, but it was a willful piece of vinyl, and insisted on rocketing to the top of both U.S. and British charts.

And why not? "The Song Remains The Same" sounds tired because of the live desecration released from the film of the same name. "Over The Hills And Far Away" will stand as a classic if only as the standard young guitarists trot out. to impress other guitarists.

But "Dancing Days" .;. Robert Plant as a dishy blond Martha Reeves... and then there's "Dy'er Maker", reviled by a nameless critic as "obnoxiously heavyhanded". Just the word "obnoxious" plunges me into its grungy thud pit of rhythm once more. The British critics howled ... (I love it.)

The spring/summer two-part American tour brought the band before more Yankees than ever before. "It's quite an experience really," Jimmy Page told Lisa Robinson in September '73 CREEM. "I mean, to think that we've only been here twice in the last few years."

October: the "fantasy" segments of The Song Remains The Same are filmed chez Zeppelin. November: Jimmy Page begins his ill-fated association with Kenneth Anger, committing to produce a soundtrack for the film Lucifer Rising. December: Rehearsals for Physical Graffiti.

1974

Tracks are laid for Physical Graffiti at Headley Grange, in January. Robert Plant explained to Roy Carr in November '74 CREEM: "We decided that as we have so much good stuff stockpiled from the past... we might as well use the best of that lot with the outstanding tracks that have emerged from the more recent sessions."

The double album was a long time a'comin', though; 1974came and went with no new Zeppelin product.

The group's own record label, Swan Sofig, was launched in May in New York, at a lunch featuring the proud new record execs showing off their signings, Maggie Bell and Bad Company.

1975

The Physical Graffiti tour started not with a bang, but a whimper; Jimmy Page caught a finger in a train door, breaking it and forcing him to play with only three fingers on that hand. The first Chicago show was agreed to be a disaster all around, but things got better on the second leg of the tour, despite a Plantian case of flu.

On February 25th Physical Graffiti was finally released, Zep's Swan Song (ahem) debut.

After two years of Zeppelin silence this massive, scary hunk of paper &!w wax was suddenly there, defying the faint-hearted to approach. Being out of school and unemployed, I listened to it more thoroughly and intently than most Zep LPs, with the bizarre result that when I think "Zeppelin", the scraps of one of these Headley Grange riffs come to mind first.

There is certainly not time or space to begin to analyze PG here; suffice it to say it's not the cynical grabbag of outtakes or the preening collection of meisterworks it's supposed to be. There are so many moods on the record that, while it's indigestible as a whole, it lends itself well to repeated listenings. "Trampled Underfoot" did sustain me in a heroin-like trance for days at a time; a godsend for the poverty-stricken.

On August 4th, Plant and his wife Maureen were seriously injured in a car crash in Greece; Plant came out of it with multiple fractures of the elbow and ankle, proclaiming "I'm lucky to be alive." A drunken Greek sailor in the next bed at the hospital sang a few bars of "The Ocean" in homage.

A short period of recuperation in L.A. was enlivened by rehearsals for the new album, and although Plant was still in a wheelchair, Presence was recorded in a scorching 18 days at Munich's Musicland Studios. A potential Plant relapse was barely avoided in the studio when he tried to take a step and slipped, only to be caught by the fragile but agile Page.

1976

January 1, 1976: Robert Plant takes his first independent step, quipping: "One small step for man, one giant leap for six nights at Madison Square Garden."

Presence, released in April '76 complete with mysterioso black object to strike wonder in the masses, struck everybody else as a refreshingly unpretentious one-night-stand album whipped out of the studio with none of the usual Zep weighty deliberateness, but I was horrified. For a Zeppelin junkie pumping4he last drops out of Physical Graffiti, Presence was a brutal dose of methadone.

Robert Plfmt compared the album to Led Zeppelin II for the short time taken recording and the feeling of immediacy apparent in the grooves. As a fan of the group I took heart from its very existence, but it was bread and water after months of famishment. Later I modified this initial panic (maybe expectations got in the way). Recently, for example, I tried to put on some unobtrusive aggression music to scare off an amorous, neighbor—thus Presence. Fine until I discover the strains of "Tea For One" broadcasting "fuck me" to every he-rat in town. Amazing—I'd never heard it before. My tomcat was in acute distress.

Also, Robert Plant's voice apparently does not depend upon him standing on his sturdy legs . . . that wonderfully perverse phrasing didn't suffer any, nor did the sheer Viking strength of his formidable diaphragm. Which leaves one with the hope that the next LP, with Plant healthy and Jimmy able to concentrate on other things beside keeping anxious watch on his lead singer, will have us all on our knees again. Jimmy told Nick Kent Presence was his favorite album. So what do know?

September: Kenneth Anger claims he was stiffed on the Lucifer Rising soundtrack by Jimmy Page, and gives up the ghost. Page tells Nick Kent that this is untrue: "I gave him everything in time, OK? . . . this bitchiness is just an extension of Anger's Hollywood Babylon." October 20: The Song Remains The Same premiers in New York, with the live soundtrack album following soon after. The less said the better; although as for the album, this is one case where devotees are well advised to check out their local bootleg sources. That is, until Jimmy Page unleashes the monster chronological live Zeppelin LP he's been promising for years.

1977

Finally, Plant's legs and the band's chops are put to the test; an American tour, starting in early spring. I observed them break their own attendance record (76,000 souls heard them kick off with "Rock 'n' Roll") in Pontiac, Michigan. If nothing else, the gig was a triumph over nature; in a stadium with unspeakable acoustics and zero visibility, they came across. (Thank the video beam, jug cocktails and incredible goodwill.)

But the tour was marred by violence in July, in Oakland, California, when Peter Grant, Bonzo, and road manager Richard Cole were involved in a tussle with some of Bill Graham's staff. Graham, who commented, "I could« never in good conscience book Led Zeppelin again," pressed charges. In February '78 the Zeppelin entourage received suspended sentences and various terms of probation. (This would have no effect on future touring.)

But the tragedy that was to cut short the tour, and cause intense speculation as to the band's future, happened on July 26, when Robert Plant's five-yearold son Karac died suddenly of a viral infection. Plant retired to his home in England to be with his family, and the tour was disbanded.

Thus started the long period of Zeppelin hibernation, first broken with Jimmy Page's series of "No Zeppelin Split" interviews in September. He told Angie Errigo: "There's no question of the thing splitting up. I know Robert wants to work again." He went on to talk about the ill-fated '77 American tour with great enthusiasm: "It was a great relief and release to be able to get back onstage and work ... If I made a mistake, it didn't seem to matter, they seemed to understand."

1978

Incredibly, when the band got together in Clearwell Castle for rehearsals in May, it was the first time they'd played together in almost a year. Still, things looked more hopeful for future recording and live dates. Word from Swan Song was: "They're rehearsing . . ." then . . . "They re taking their time, sorting things out ..." Then finally, "they've booked studio time in September." A proposed (more like hopeful) release date of Christmas was soon amended to "early '79".

July and August found Plant turning up to jam with various bands; in Ibiza, Spain, he took the stage with Dr. Feelgood. Then his hometown audience of Birmingham was stunned when he joined Swan Song artist Dave Edmunds onstage with Nick Lowe and Rockpile. Part of the holdup on the new studio album seemed to be Jimmy wanting to get every detail of his home studio right before any recording was done theire.

Which brings Zep history up to the •present: rumors persist among gossip mavens, to wit: "Jimmy and Robert aren't speaking—so what else is new?", that hopes for a new album are therefore slim. All of this is vehemently denied by Swan Song, who say further that Zeppelin will tour once the LP is out (presumably, then, in the spring). ?????

I have come to the conclusion that Led Zeppelin is irrelevant.

—Anonymous drug dealer

Perhaps. While I've proven myself to be not exactly your most objective Zeppelin critic, and despite being cold cocked by Presence (sorry—there's no feminine equivalent) I do have intense hopes re a new Zeppelin album. It seems that Plant's worst lyrical excesses could only be tempered by his personal tragedy (not that it's a recommended cure). The sight of the Nordic god hobbling on an all-too mortal gimpy leg after his car accident gave his image a much-needed shot of vulnerability (and thus interest); mentally he has to have gained in depth. The question is, with past tragedy and present expectations weighing them down so ponderously, will Zeppelin be able to get their considerable tonnage off the ground?

Lyrics copyright Superhype Music. Tnanks: Swan Song, Sounds, NME.