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dcba

Yeah it's so Spinal Tap-ish. I mean STH is like Am G F and there must be a D chord added for good measure. Hardly revolutionary. What Page did invent is the blaring vulgar guitar solo that covers the entire fretboard. Yuck...

LOL that sounds like a Spinal Tap quote itself.

Plenty of great tunes composed with far less chords than STH. It obviously ain't about the number of chords or the number of notes but how you put 'em together, how you play them , and what tone and feel gets transmitted to the listener. BB King can play one or two notes which knock folks out because of his placement, phrasing and feel.

Revolutionary isn't a requirement for great music. It's all been played before. Stairway was always about the build and although I agree that Page is a bit stuck in the past, I am lmfao at your comment and imagining the songs you compose with revolutionary chords and subtle, tasteful guitar solos played in one position on the fretboard. peace

You got me wrong : I laugh at the pompousness and the "OTT - hey look at me" aspects of the song. To me it's radio-friendly musical porn.
In arts, whatever you do, rule #1 is you have to be subtle. STH is the musical equivalent of a Michael Bay movie...

"It obviously ain't about the number of chords or the number of notes but how you put 'em together, how you play them"
I agree. A guy like Neil Young has written masterpieces with simple G C D chord progressions.

"imagining the songs you compose with revolutionary chords"
I do'nt compose anything but I really like to solo on hexatonic scales on my beloved Telecaster...

Whole tone scales are not everyone's cup of tea but try them : they sound interesting!



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2014-11-09 20:03 by dcba.

Who wrote the rule about subtlety? Some of the most perfect art is completely basic in format and then just colored with lights or shades. There's a lot of subtlety in Son House, but what grabs you by the jugular is the primal quality of those old songs. They're art that influenced generations, in the most simple, fundamental ways.

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dcba
You got me wrong : I laugh at the pompousness and the "OTT - hey look at me" aspects of the song. To me it's radio-friendly musical porn.
In arts, whatever you do, rule #1 is you have to be subtle. STH is the musical equivalent of a Michael Bay movie...

"It obviously ain't about the number of chords or the number of notes but how you put 'em together, how you play them"
I agree. A guy like Neil Young has written masterpieces with simple G C D chord progressions.

"imagining the songs you compose with revolutionary chords"
I do'nt compose anything but I really like to solo on hexatonic scales on my beloved Telecaster...

Whole tone scales are not everyone's cup of tea but try them : they sound interesting!

OK dcba, my mistake for misunderstanding your post. Nice to see you further explain yourself in such a nice way. You are obviously a fine fellow and since you play a Tele, a man of some taste.

And yes I do like the whole tone scale, mostly for it's ambiguity about the tonic. A good tool in the Jazz toolbox. Although I must admit the only hexatonic scales I use for Rock and Roll are based around the minor pentatonic with a few blue notes thrown in, hardly revolutionary but it feels good.


peace

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BluzDude

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SonicDreamer

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Aquamarine
I totally enjoyed Page's talk in NYC last night--it was live-streamed, so anybody interested probably heard it, but I think the venue may be posting the video shortly, in which case I'll post a link here. Nothing dramatically new (unless you've got more confidence in the "super secret project" he claims to be working on, leading to live 2015 appearances, than I do), but it was just so enjoyable to hear him talk about his career, geeky stuff like how he recorded the guitars for Achilles Last Stand, what songs he was playing in various iconic pictures (including one where he was playing the only-just-released instrumental La La), what he was aiming for musically with his various projects, etc., etc. If you're a Zep fan, you just get the warm fuzzies hearing him immediately launch into how he heard Bonzo for the first time and there was never anybody else he wanted as a drummer. At one point somebody shouted "Jimmy, you're a god!", and he covered his face and said "I'm quite shy, really."

Anyway, it was an event I was very glad I had a chance to attend.

I just watched this interview with Jeff Koons online.

92Y Jimmy Page with Jeff Koons Interview

Errr, was Jimmy coked up during it? He is touching his nose like crazy, appears to be animated and fidgety compared to his London interview at Cadogan Hall, which I attended.

Cheers,
SonicD

That's nothing new. I guess he still enjoys his Coke, even at his age! (Maybe he should switch to Pepsi...I can't believe I said that)

Thats a bit demeaning to Page to attribute that to cocaine. looks more like he is a bit taken by emotion talking about one of his big songs. That said - I do think that Page should retire this whole LZ re-re-reissueiing. Enough already. Who knew it wojuld be Plant to scale all the new heights?

I loved that video; the one thing that really blew me away was the thing about the tempo also increasing. Now that I had not noticed. And yes - that is a cardinal rule in studios: the obsession about not wavering on tempo.
That is not so much about continuity, but more about keeping the bed straight for more more overdubs.

Ok, so the new releases are short on truly astounding unreleased stuff. But good god does the vinyl sound amazing. I just cranked out Houses of the Holy and had to go back and listen to II again, and just stunning. Great pressings, good quality vinyl and great sonic reproduction.

Turned down $850 million for 35 gig US Tour from Richard Branson... Well, Robert Plant did, the others were up for it! Lot of moolah....Abba-ish!!

Apparently Plant has turned down an $800 million offer for a Zepp reunion. He could have done it for charity and come out smelling of roses.

This from the London Evening Standard:

Published: 09 November 2014

Robert Plant has turned down a £500million offer from Virgin tycoon Richard Branson to reform Led Zeppelin.


The 66-year-old rocker is reported to have ripped up a contract for 35 concert dates in front of stunned promoters after his fellow bandmates had agreed the deal.

Plant decided to back out of the tour because it "wasn’t the right thing to do", according to reports in the Daily Mirror.

Branson, 64, is a huge Led Zeppelin fan and was preparing to rebrand one of his jets 'The Starship' for the band's tour.

The band's founding members, along with drummer Jason Bonham, were gearing up to return to London's O2 arena as part of their live performances, where they staged their last gig in December 2007.


[www.standard.co.uk]

I find the working mixes of various stages of the songs to be a great thing to be able to listen to. Imagine if all the Stones unfinished tracks got this kind of treatment - everyone would love it.

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Silver Dagger
Apparently Plant has turned down an $800 million offer for a Zepp reunion. He could have done it for charity and come out smelling of roses.

This from the London Evening Standard:

Published: 09 November 2014

Robert Plant has turned down a £500million offer from Virgin tycoon Richard Branson to reform Led Zeppelin.


The 66-year-old rocker is reported to have ripped up a contract for 35 concert dates in front of stunned promoters after his fellow bandmates had agreed the deal.

Plant decided to back out of the tour because it "wasn’t the right thing to do", according to reports in the Daily Mirror.

Branson, 64, is a huge Led Zeppelin fan and was preparing to rebrand one of his jets 'The Starship' for the band's tour.

The band's founding members, along with drummer Jason Bonham, were gearing up to return to London's O2 arena as part of their live performances, where they staged their last gig in December 2007.


[www.standard.co.uk]

It's 'rubbish' that Robert Plant turned down £500m Led Zeppelin reformation offer, says publicist
Report about former Zeppelin singer rejecting offer from Richard Branson is not true, says his PR representative

> Rubbish

Robert Plant’s publicist has described as “rubbish” a Daily Mirror report that he rejected a £500m Led Zeppelin reunion. The paper claims Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones had both signed on for the tour deal, bankrolled by Richard Branson, which would have featured John Bonham’s son Jason on drums.

Branson had proposed 35 concerts spanning just three cities, according to the Mirror. The band would fly from London to Berlin to New Jersey in a specially outfitted jet: Branson wanted to recreate The Starship, from Led Zep’s heyday, selling tickets for the plane’s back rows at £100,000 per seat.

“Branson tried to pull out all of the stops,” claimed the Mirror’s source, who claimed it was enough to convince Page, Jones, and Bonham to reprise their 2007 Celebration Day show, and that the band was even considering a further 45-night tour across five more venues. “But even [Branson’s] money was not enough to get Plant to sign up,” the source said. “[He] asked for 48 hours to think about it,” then ripped up the contract in front of a group of promoters. “His mind is made up and that’s that.”

_____________________________________________________________
Rip this joint, gonna save your soul, round and round and round we go......

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Hairball

Branson wanted to recreate The Starship, from Led Zep’s heyday, selling tickets for the plane’s back rows at £100,000 per seat.

What a w@nker! I'm glad Plant didn't say "yes"...

that's what Bransons does nowadays: selling ludicrously expensive plane tickets.
it might have been his plan B for when his spaceflight business should go down
(for whatever reason)

Branson would have lost a lot of $$$$ on that deal

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alhavu1
Branson would have lost a lot of $$$$ on that deal

That would be the next thing Branson heavily invested in to crash and burn!!

Keith Moon would agree.

More stuff from a great French interview of Anita P. from the Rocks off site:

M.C.: You've been acquainted with other great rock figures…

A. P.: Yes, for sure. Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page with whom I sometimes got totally blocked. It's never been mentioned, because it's not so good for the rock legend image, but those musicians didn't like each other. They were very jealous of one another. For example, the Stones hated Led Zeppelin, especially their singer, Robert Plant. They all disliked him!

peace

HOW DO BIG ZEPPELIN FANS FEEL ABOUT THE REISSUES?

I feel that they don't really bring enough to the table to be awesome. Yes some cool edits and mixes but most those tunes were great to begin with so without new unreleased songs it just isn't enough to get real excited about; especially since the boxed set records, mothership, celebration day, et al which were already "remastered".

peace

I think they're a rip off. Hardly any previously unheard stuff. Alternate takes and instrumental takes don't really interest me. Seems like they are scraping the bottom of the barrel. The two previously unheard songs are great, but not really anything much. I don't really care about a full album of alternate takes because rarely are they superior to the songs we've already known for 40 years. But thats just me.

Other than the packaging which is nice, and the remastering which does sound good but still isn't some gigantic improvement over what we already had, these are completely forgettable to me. Page really hyped them up and they have been a disappointment thus far. The most enticing thing and nice touch is the live stuff with the first album, which unfortunately I didn't think was too great of a show (too rambling and jammy for me), but I at least give them credit with trying for that one. Otherwise, it just makes me question why Page is continually wasting his time remastering and repackaging the Zeppelin stuff for the bazillionth time instead of actually making new music.

Hi Rollingfreak. The reason Page remasters and repacks is because he knows they'll sell! Not sure how much interest there would be in a Jimmy Page solo album. I've purchased all the remasters so far. Don't think they're any better than the previous remasters that I bought back in the early 2000's I think. Going forward, will probably only get Physical Graffiti. Never did care for Presence and I'm fine with my current In Through The Out Door

They are not a rip-off ... if ... you find them at the library (like I did for a few of them), and before you return them you.....well you know.

I think the live album with the first album is great. It's the only one I got.

They cold have done so muchy more - some live footage plus 5.1 mixes for starters. An d as all true Zepp fans know there is a lot of great unreleased material out there - demos, alt versions and live stuff.

I felt they are quite a ripp-off...It appears to me they 'created' outtakes by simply muting various parts or tracks. 'Let's mute the piano, and call it Take 17'.

Mathijs

i like the first one because of the live bonus disc from 1969. on a go forward basis my wish would be for mr page to release more live shows as bonus material and even a live dvd !

The good choice sould have been a cd Live for each one and no these boring outtakes!

I totally agree with mickjerome. We were all led to believe there would be loads of great surprises, which to me means unheard songs and live material. While I find instrumental versions and such interesting, after the initial listen it is not all that worthwhile. I am hoping the next set of albums comes with some mid to late 70's live sets... Or, perhaps there will be a live compilation of some sort to wrap it all up. There must be a marketing strategy behind the decision to only include the less than exciting bonus material. I can only hope there is something special yet to come.

I like them. The remastering may not sound different than the 1994 reissues but it seems the sequencing has been edited better ie track 3 doesn't end in the beginning of track 4...

Page didn't ruin the remastering by brickwalling them.

As for the bonus discs I think they're great. Different mixes, working mixes... what's not to like?

The live "bonus" disc from 1969 is hardly anything new or revelatory.

Heck its been in circulation for years as a bootleg. Various boot companies have released that same soundboard show many times over.

These Reissue releases sale but............in my opinion they could do so much better with substance (music) rather than neat packaging.

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GasLightStreet
I like them. The remastering may not sound different than the 1994 reissues but it seems the sequencing has been edited better ie track 3 doesn't end in the beginning of track 4...

Page didn't ruin the remastering by brickwalling them.

As for the bonus discs I think they're great. Different mixes, working mixes... what's not to like?

None of the new albums included any new gorilla artwork.