December 1980

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

Why Led Zeppelin? Why this Special Edition? Good questions both. This Special Edition fully investigates the Led Zeppelin phenomenon, and make no mistake: Led Zeppelin is a phenomenon, one very worthy of investigation. Detailed here for you is the history of the band, from its initial inception as the “New Yardbirds” of 1968, through its first American tour, to its present status as the premier touring band of the world.

THE YARDBIRDS: Before There Was A Zeppelin

Dave DiMartino

Probably no other band shaped rock ’n’ roll as-we-know-it in the way the Yardbirds did. The band’s contemporaries—and remember, in 1963, when the Yardbirds formed, “contemporaries” meant the likes of the Beatles, Stones, Who and Kinks—for the most part, they’ve all received the credit due them.

The Page Memoirs

Nick Kent

Jimmy Page is as wary of discussing his formidable past as he is talking to the press in the first place. The latter state of affairs has been alleviated somewhat but exists as a reminder of the consciously anti-Zeppelin bias that prevailed in several noteworthy periodicals for so long, and Page’s own awareness that facts and statements can so easily be twisted and perverted into something else again when splashed across the printed page.

LED ZEPPELIN: LIVE IN 1969

Pam Brent

Dominating a 15 year period, surrounding 1930, the big and exciting thing in transportation was the dirigible, or zeppelin, a self-propelled, steerable balloon made rigid through internal aluminum framework. Owing to the combustibility of the gases used to suspend these huge structures, they were considered unsafe, and were prohibited after 1937 with the crash of the Hindenburg.

JIMMY PAGE: GUITARS I HAVE KNOWN

Nick Kent

(As a guitarist, Jimmy Page has all the bases covered. Clapton has that soaring fluid thing down pat, Beck is the absolute Crowned Prince of Flash and Hendrix...well, his feet never touched the ground when he was on But Page... Page is solid.

UNSPEAKABLE PRACTICES, UNNATURAL ACTS: THE LED ZEPPELIN CIRCUS IS BACK

Lisa Robinson

“I think I realized what Led Zeppelin really was about around the end of our very first American tour. We started off not even on the bill in Denver, and by the time we got to New York City we were second to Iron Butterfly and they didn’t want to go on!

PLANTATIONS: SHOULD RALPH NADER JOIN LED ZEPPELIN?

Chris Charlesworth

The ever-elusive Led Zeppelin surfaced in New York in January at the Park Lane Hotel on Central Park South. Jimmy Page was accounted for, his mission being to finish mixing the soundtrack of the long-awaited Led Zeppelin movie. The rest of the boys were just in town for “social reasons,” according to Swan Song.

LED ZEPPELIN DANCES ON AIR And It Ain't The Quaalude Shuffle

Lisa Robinson

“The thing about sharks is that the best shark bit never got out,” Zeppelin manager Peter Grant said, “There must have been about 28 or 30 odd sharks that were caught by the band once, and they stacked them up in the wardrobe closet. So-when the maids came in, as they obviously did to check the rooms after we left, they opened the door and an avalanche of sharks came tumbling out . . ."

SHY ROCK STAR ALMOST UNBURDENS HIMSELF

Nick Kent

I’ve known Led Zeppelin professionally for probably 4 years now, starting back in the winter of 1972 when I was sent out on the road with them only to find myself ending up in a fairly ludicrous but nonetheless highly tense argument with Jimmy Page in the dressing-room on the very first night.

SODOM & GOMORRAH IN A SUITCASE

Jaan Uhelszki

FLASH: April 19, 1977, Cincinnati, Ohio: Led Zeppelin, a British rock group, again brought violence in its wake when about 1,000 fans tried to gate crash a Zeppelin show in Cincinnati last night. Police arrested 100 youths during the mini-riot, which was punctuated by thrown bottles and fights.

LED ZEPPELIN REDUX;

Chris Salewicz

Of all the old superfart bands it is certainly Led Zeppelin who have been and still are the most reviled by the New Wave. Whatever jerk off socialite absurdities Jagger may have got himself into, The Rolling Stones have at least always had one of the prime punk archetypes in Keith Richards.

THE LED ZEPPELIN REVIEWS

What follows are reprints of every Led Zeppelin album review CREEM has run. Because Led Zeppelin, the band's debut LP, was issued in January 1969, and the first CREEM came in March of that year, no review of that disc is included. Instead, the closest we’ve come was in CREEM Vol. 1, No. 1—Pam Brent's piece on Zep’s debut at Detroit's Grande Ballroom, which is reprinted in this Special Edition on page 7.

LED ZEPPELIN: A PSYCHOBIOGRAPH

Susan Whitall

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.

led zeppelin 1980 update

The astounding commercial success of In Through The Out Door should have been sufficient, many people thought, to guarantee an American Led Zeppelin tour during 1980—yet unfortunately, -this was not to be. Instead came “Zeppelin Over Europe ’80,” a small European tour that, significantly, was the band’s first in three years.