![]() I was going to quibble that a bunch of early 20s dudes sounding like a less-proficient Boomer-era band would seem to demonstrate the opposite point if anything. As paranoid as he was about producing the record, he looked back and forth and forth and back and then asked, “Did I record this?” We all nodded yes and winked at Jim who told him, “Yes Andy, you recorded that-you don’t remember?” Andy's tension drained away and he proclaimed, “I am very good, aren’t I?” It felt good so we played it again a little louder, and then again even louder. That song was “Prove It.” When we felt we had a good take we came in and listened at low-volume so as not to wake up Andy. We didn’t want to wake him so we asked Jim if we could tiptoe around him and record a song because we were eager to get started. He had a burned out cigarette between the first two fingers of his right hand. He had ordered a case of wine for himself and us-but he drank most of it while I drank some too. One day we came in and Andy was asleep in his chair snoring with a bottle of wine dangling from his left hand and several empty bottles on the floor. I was conflating that story with this one: Almost like a hard rock stroke of luck ala The Smiths. ![]() Just that strange alchemy, that mix of all those disparate influences plus the particular players involved. It's amazing how well those albums have aged, and how unique and singular they remain. In fact, hearing a lot of Zeppelin randomly on the radio for the last few days, I don't think Led Zeppelin really sounded like anybody at all. They might have ripped off a whole bunch of stuff, but they didn't sound like that stuff, not really, because of the players involved. Which - not to veer into well trod territory - has always been one of my longtime defenses of accusations of plagiarism against Led Zeppelin. The only problem is they are not John Bonham. ![]() As is often noted, lots of drummers try to mic their set like John Bonham, or play their set like John Bonham, or use the same equipment as John Bonham, or record in the same rooms as John Bonham. Tying to sound like Led Zeppelin, the biggest barrier is that those are some pretty singular musicians with pretty singular talents. Afaict, Kingdom Come/Whitesnake/Bonham/Wolfmother/GVF aspire/d to the popularity of Zep and so essentially write/wrote pop songs tailored to the rock radio of their (less 'freeform' or 'progressive') day, based on a surface-level imitation of instantly recognizable elements of Zep's sound? A combination of electric blues/English folk/funk/Middle Eastern/noise improv influences is as likely as not to result in the resulting band being classified as something like "jazz" or "folk" or "avant" today. I think that basically the thing is that if/when you do get musicians who are both i) as eclectic and voracious in their interests as Zep and ii) at a comparable level of musical skill, they will probably also want to do something fairly original and not just recreate the sound of one of the most-played bands in rock history. I've been thinking about this on and off since I was 12 or so. In musical terms they have more in common with the Meters or Pentangle or Eddie Cochrane or whoever than any of these caterwauling+riffage! bands. These Led Zeppelin comparisons always make me wonder if the listener has ever really heard the band. ![]() BASH." He stressed that he and Bonham were James Brown fanatics, and that that element was completely missed/missing from the new bands' approach. He said that these bands' rhythm sections were all (in his words) "BOOM. John Paul Jones was asked on MTV around 1989 or so about Kingdom Come and other bands who claimed a Zep influence. I prefer that to the pretty-boy-wailing department. But at least they’re doing it in the spirit of it. If they nick a few chord shapes, that’s okay. ![]() It’s not just a parody of a pastiche of a parody. Plant: The Mission are getting it right to me. The aesthetics of the thing have nothing to do with it.įrike: So are they just imitating Zeppelin or are they getting it right, the whole package with the risks as well as the noise and the strut? I know that the success ratio is fantastic. Plant: They’re all different, aren’t they? I can’t tell you honestly whether Bon Jovi is better than anybody else. GVF biggest failing is that there's nothing sinister about them.įrike: What’s your opinion of the current reincarnations of Led Zeppelin – bands like the Cult, Whitesnake, Bon Jovi and the Mission U.K.? Soundgarden's Louder than Love was marketed that way, stuff like Wolfmother as mentioned elsewhere. The Cult's Electric seemed to kick off this 3 or 4 year cycle of some relatively rookie band getting a big push as the next Zeppelin. ![]()
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