BartCop's most recent rants - geoff-on-zeppelin.htm

Subject: Let's fight about Zeppelin

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It was something in the background when I was in High School.

Among other things, some kid who was sort of bullying me played "4" in the electrical/shop class every day.
Yawn.

I think "Stairway" is overrated, but kind of like some of the blues or trad bits:
"Gallows Pole," for example; "In my time of dying." And I've always been something of a sucker for "Kashmir."
And that tribute to Joni Mitchell - Going to California - is a surprising little gem.

That said, I did buy "Celebration Day" after buying the "Mother Ship" greatest hits package and
not playing it all the way through (really kind of slow, heavy beat... like dinosaurs, almost).

And was pleasantly surprised with Page in "This might get Loud": he wasn't
the brain-dead heavy metal moron I'd somehow been expecting.

I like the live versions better, somehow, and watching Jason beat his way through the drums...
made me think again about some of it, and what I like and why.

The time changes are kind of difficult to follow; more like jazz in that way.
And some tracks have really weird "tunes" that I can only compare either to jazz or The Who's
"Young Man's Blues": a strange mix of notes strung together and then repeated, regularly.

Bonham... I never really noticed.

I doubt those five words have ever been strung together before now.
How do you not notice the hammer of the gods?

Keith Moon: interesting watching him on film, always on the edge of losing control: sort of a danger to him.
Otherwise Charlie Watts is the only one I pay much attention to, and only because he follows Keith...

I think you're the first Charlie Watts fan I've ever met.
And why isn't Watts following the bass player like he's supposed to do?

But I started out with the Beatles in Junior High, moved to Pink Floyd in High, then heavily into
the Stones and old Delta Blues when I was in university (as raw and far away from Pink Floyd
technophilia as possible).

So yeah: I'm not a fan, and never will be, but getting to appreciate some things in a different way
as I age and mellow... now trying to interest my kid in the Tolkien-inspired stuff, to get him away
from his movie soundtracks ("Two Steps from Hell").
Geoff

It's always fun to read the opinions of others, but I'm way too old and too busy
to try to convince somebody that Led Zeppelin was a great band.

To paraphrase something I heard last year, saying Zeppelin was a great band
is like saying Elizabeth Taylor in her prime had a nice face.

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