Yes, I have a whole lotta love for Led Zeppelin.  As my last blog, I am going to gush about my love for them.

Led Zeppelin came into my life officially my senior year of high school.  All of my life I had heard their songs, but I never knew that those songs were theirs.  My dad has been a fan since their prime time.  I was always curious about their sound and why they were so popular and why Led Zeppelin isn’t the name of a man.

I started my journey into classic rock looking at Pink Floyd, my dad’s fave.  However, their artsiness didn’t suit my immature, impatient teenage girl tastes.  Thus, I stereotyped all classic rock as “strange” and too instrumental for me.  But my curiousity couldn’t keep me from uploading my dad’s Zeppelin albums to my iTunes.  Then I fell in love.

What I love most about Led Zeppelin is their raw spirit.  I can feeeeeel their passion and their words inside of me when I listen to them.  I also love the pure sound of Zeppelin.  Unlike other bands that rely on synthesizers and random instruments like saxophones to enhance the sound of a song, Led Zeppelin is a perfect blend of three instruments  “Stairway to Heaven” includes a woodwind instrument in the background, but the emphasis is on the beautiful acoustic guitar.

“Stairway” brings up another point I like about Led.  Zeppelin’s songs can be very deep and yet others can be super shallow and downright dirty.  Their diversity is commendable.  However, they never change sounds entirely.  “Dy’er Mak’r” was a bit of a Reggae deviation from their traditional rock’n’roll style, but Plant’s voice maintained the Led Zeppelin feeling throughout the song.

Overall, one of my favorite things about Led Zeppelin is their earthy and peace, love, and happiness vibe.  Yes, they dress like divas and have been known to act like divas, but their roots and their interests are so cool.  Plant’s obsession with Celtic times touches me the most.  The natural beauty of that time period is breathtaking.  I feel like he captures this in his attitude toward life.  Page’s superskills and obsession with black magic really strikes my interests. I am so afraid of the paranormal, which is why I am sort of captivated by it.  I understand Page’s fascination.  John Paul Jones has to be the best of them all because he is so underexposed, compared to Plant and Page, but that’s the way he likes it.  I read that oftentime, he would leave after-gig parties and just go for a walk alone.  His chillness with being in the background makes me really respect him.  Bonzo, on the other hand,… I don’t know how to feel about him.  He is considered the number one drummer by the Rolling Stone.  However, he got himself in circumstances that led to his becoming a raging alcoholic.  I can’t blame him.

On the whole,  I LOVE LED ZEPPELIN.  More than anything in the world, I would want to time travel to their heyday and see them in concert and meet them backstage.

Thank you for reading my blogs.  I imagine reading blogs about a band you’re not interested in or familiar with is not the highlight of your day.  But I hope I have either sparked an interest in Led Zeppelin in you or have made you see the music industry in different lights.

Like socks with sneakers, some things are always appropriate and never obsolete.  Similarly some of Led Zeppelin’s  songs have yet to meet their maker.

Sitting in the stands at the last Penn State football game, I was happy to count 3 Led Zeppelin songs played.  In fact, Penn State’s football team’s promotional video features Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song” in the background.  “Kashmir” is Led Zeppelin’s song that often plays between downs.  The “Immigrant Song” and “Kashmir” were written almost over thirty years ago. However, the progression, the sound, the ambiance the songs create are virtually everlasting.

A commercial for music on cell phones featured the song “Kashmir.” The sound speaks to everyone.  Scientifically, the beats per minute correspond to a higher heart rate.  Historically, “Kashmir,” “Rock n Roll,” and “Immigrant Song” were played during Vietnam to rev soldiers up, as a sort of battle cry.

Robert Plant was obsessed with ancient Celtic times and Nordic Wars.  “Immigrant Song” was not just a battle cry in the metaphorical historical sense, but also in a literal sense.  One of the lyrics reads, “We come from the land of the ice and snow, from the midnight sun where the hot springs blow.” These lyrics themselves convey a sense of extreme strength and endurance.  The cry of Robert Plant, “Ahhhhhahahhhh ahhhhhh,” is somewhat frightening and intimidating to listeners, which is exactly what the Penn State football players want to make their opponents feel.  The promotional video is pretty bold and terrifying itself, but “Immigrant Song” provides the enforcement the images demand to cultivate the terrifying prowess of the football team.  The song sets the tone for the video.  If I were the opponent, I would not want to mess with the Nittany Lions.

“Kashmir” is a great song for in between downs.  The lyrics are not even played, just the guitar riff.  I watched a video from the film “It Might Get Loud,” and guitarist Jimmy Page said that the genesis of one of the most famous guitar riffs in music history was rooted in another song, “Swan Song,” by Led Zeppelin.  The small riff became the anthem of sports and the song is featured on iTunes’s football playlists.  The riff increases in tune every few strokes of the guitar, which increases the feeling of suspense.  This suspense corresponds perfectly with the feeling viewers experience between intense plays during a close game.  However, the intensity suits many occasions.  Right before an exam, I like to listen to this song.  It makes me feel powerful and ready to dominate.

Few songs in history have made listeners feel strong and powerful.  The fact that “Immigrant Song” and “Kashmir” have achieved this sound accounts for the success of these songs.  Led Zeppelin has achieved its goal of being a household name forever through tunes such as these.

The rock and roll lifestyle stereotypically encompasses sex, drugs, and rock and roll.  Jimmy Page had plenty of each of the three in his life.  The first of the three, Page particularly had encountered.  Page, Led Zeppelin’s guitarist, had his way with women. He was the only one of the two unmarried men in Led Zeppelin, and this was pretty obvious.

Page habitually saw groupies at night.  While in Japan, his manager showed him to a brothel.  Amidst his one-night stands, Page occasionally found a “keeper” – relatively speaking.  These girls were called “road wives.” Page’s first roadwife was named Pamela.  He decorated her in gold and turqoise jewelry throughout his tour.

However, his feelings for her faded after he met a girl named Lori Maddox.  Page’s relationship with Maddox was kept on the down-low because Maddox was only 14 years old, while Page was well into his twenties.  Eventually, he broke it off with her and moved on to another super model.  Later on, Page caused a bandmember of the Who’s wife to cheat on her husband with him.

The latter instance, I cannot tell whether or not Page did that for his ego or to satiate his desires.  Usually lead vocalists get all of the attention in bands.  However, Page always made sure to make his presence known on stage with his moves and solos. Sleeping with lots of women might have been Plant’s way of making himself feel more desirable.  Whatever the case, his sleeping around does not make me desire Page anymore.

What lured young Maddox to Page was how romantic he was.  I wonder why she didn’t question his sincerity considering his reputation.

Page is a strange character.  I wonder which girl really had “all of my [his] love.”

The band Led Zeppelin has been considered “sellouts” by many because of their songs’ prevalent use in commercials and sporting events.  “The Immigrant Song” is played throughout Penn State’s opening film clip montage of the athletes of this year at the games.  “Kashmir” is often played between plays during the game.  Surprisingly, Led Zeppelin’s sound in the media was not so strong not too long ago.

Ever since the beginning of their existence, Led Zeppelin avoided the press like the plague.  In no way did they promote their music through music magazines or the news.  Several music critic organizations attempted to interview the band, but Led Zeppelin refused them.  They didn’t want to deal with the media.  However, this plagued them for a good portion of their career.

Led Zeppelin’s bad relationship with the press stemmed from their early rough start.  Critics were harsh on the band that sounded too Californian for the UK.  Led Zeppelin didn’t want to involve themselves with their critics.  As Led Zeppelin’s music became popular, the press still maintained a strong campaign against the British rockers.  Despite this force against them, Led Zeppelin remained at the top of the charts in the early 1970s.

Led Zeppelin had refused to license their music commercials, movies, and TV shows.  However, in recent years, their MO has changed.  One goal of the band was to become immortal to have their name as household as Elvis.  Led Zeppelin disbanded roughly thirty years ago.  Although classic rock stations continue to play their music, the frequency is decreasing over the years.  Dismayed by this, the band surrendered to the press and licensed their song “Rock and Roll” to Cadillac in 2002 to appeal to a younger audience.  Whether or not their plan was effective in increasing record sales, Led Zeppelin did gain exposure through the press.

So are Led Zeppelin sellouts?  They sacrificed their early years’ morals for the sake of exposure.  Is that wrong?  Personally, I enjoy Led Zeppelin so I don’t mind hearing their music in commercials and at the football games.  However, the band did handover their principles.

I read a biography on Led Zeppelin over the summer (for those of you who couldn’t tell by my crazy-detailed posts on their lives).  One point the book made was how the band members’ personalities meshed so well.  None of them competed for attention.  It seemed as if each member knew his place.

The book highlighted that when tours were over, each band member went his separate way until they started working on the next album.  There was no mention of comraderiship or brotherliness felt between the bandmates.  I think the success of the band’s meshing dealt with the fact that the relationships between the members were kept at a pretty professional level.

However, this professionalism, I think, contributed to the death of one of the members, Bonzo, the drummer.  Almost every night, Bonzo would get completely drunk.  While drunk, he would say outrageous things to people, start fights with strangers, and destroy hotel rooms or anything he could get his hands on.  Bonzo developed an addiction to alcohol.  It is arguable that each band member had a little bit of substance dependence of some sort.  However, Bonzo’s was bad.  Really bad.  So bad that on a way to a gig, which the band was running behind to, Bonzo made his party stop at a bar and he got completely hammered.  Oftentime, he would play drunk onstage.  His bandmates were well aware of his alcohol problems, yet no one did anything about it.  No one felt the need to help him.  No one saw his struggle.  Had the bandmember had stronger personal relationships, I think Bonzo’s drinking would not have gotten so out of hand.

Though Bonzo lacked “true” friends in the band, he had a personal assistant with him a lot.  The day Bonzo died, he had consumed enormous amounts of alcohol throughout the day (forty shots of vodka in total).  That night,the personal assistant laid a passed-out Bonzo on his bed on his side to sleep.  The next time Bonzo was checked on – which was by bass guitarist John Paul Jones in the aftertoon – Bonzo was dead.  Though Bonzo was lying on his side, he managed to inhale his own vomit.

In a sense, I am blaming the members of Led Zeppelin for not taking care of Bonzo before he had gotten to this point.  Though the professionalism felt between the members contributed to their success, it also contributed to their downfall.  Bonzo’s death catalyzed the dissolution of the band.  Poor Bonzo.

How many more times is Led Zeppelin going to change its name?

Yes, Led Zeppelin wasn’t always called Led Zeppelin.  The band originally toured as The New Yardbirds. Well, not the whole band.  Jimmy Page started the group, gathering talented musicians he knew.  His new group started out as the New Yardbirds.  However, they felt a need for a name change because their music was going to be very different from the original band the Yardbirds, that Jimmy was originally in.

Legen has it that Led Zeppelin’s name came about over a joke by Keith Moon.  Keith Moon, drummer of The Who, heard about Jimmy Page’s new band.  He said that the new band will go over like a lead balloon.  In other words, the new band will be a sinker, and not be successful.  The Who’s keyboardist John Entwistle claimed the band would go over more like a lead zeppelin.  Apparently, Page and the group heard about their and kind of liked the name of lead zeppelin.  However, the band omitted the “a” from lead to prevent mispronounciation.

The truth of this story is up in the air.  Coming from the band, Page later went on to comment, when asked about the name, that in the end they could have called themselves the Vegetables or Tomatoes.  To the musicians, the name was just a minor detail to their persona.

Before I really understood music, I used to think that Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd were people – as in, there was a man whose first name is Led and last name is Zeppelin.  I later found out that that’s a band name – but a strange one to say the least.  The only music groups that I had known at that time were The Backstreet Boys and The Spice Girls.  So the band name Led Zeppelin really threw me off.

I hope now that the reason Led Zeppelin is called Led Zeppelin has been clarified.  However, that would be awesome if someone’s name really was Led Zeppelin!

Wikipedia defines a groupie as a “person who seeks emotional and sexual initmacy with a musician or other celebrity or public figure.”  In a word, Led Zeppelin had a multitude of groupies and they were used in the characteristic way.

Led Zeppelin was known for treating their groupies horribly; however Jimmy Page epitomized the exploitation of groupies.  For instance, one time the band brought home a group of fat girls and ordered them doughnuts to eat until they were full and then messed with them.  In the early years of Led Zeppelin, the band employed an extremely racy act on a groupie.  I’d describe it, but I think the scenario is a little graphic.  All I have to say is that it involves a redheaded groupie and a red snapper.  However, the story varies depending on the source.

One groupie Led Zeppelin had inspired a song that the band composed called “Living Loving Maid (She’s just a Woman).” Aparently there was an aged groupie who obsessed over Led Zeppelin and was determined to be with them.  However old she was, she tried to be young with her clothes and car.  Though her superficial items masked that she was young, her old age was obvious.  She bother the band to the point where they made a song describing her patheticness.

Though groupies were rarely taken seriously, one groupie was treated specially by Led Zeppelin’s lead guitarist Jimmy Page.  Her name was Pamela and she travelled with the band throughout their tour.  Page and the rest of the members would douse her in topaz and gold, which were the in-style jewelry of the time.  However, Page would soon move on to a new girl, a fourteen year-old model, whom he manipulated to fall in love with him, though he had a child with a super model while having this fling with the young girl Lori Maddox.  Page was the ultimate douchebag of the band, when it came to women.  He never married and broke the hearts of many women.

Overall, though, Led Zeppelin exploited groupies to their own amusement, despite the fact that they had wives.  Groupies were not valued highly, unless one was extremely beautiful like Pamela.  Led Zeppelin led their rock and roll lifestryle treating their groupies in the stereotypical way.

“Here’s to my sweet, Satan.

The one whose little path would make me sad,

whose power is Satan.

He’ll give those with him 666,

there was a little toolshed

where made us suffer, sad Satan.”

Believe it or not, this is what an excerpt on “Stairway to Heaven” by Led Zeppelin sounds like played backward.  Hear it for yourself at this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJ3nDCJBpmo&feature=related

Intentional or coincidental?  The band testifies that the message was totally a coincidence.  However, there is strong evidence that supports otherwise.

Jimmy Page, guitarist of the band, had fetish with Aleister Crowley and black magic.  Aleister Crowley was a famous British satanist.  Page collected artifacts of Crowley, in fact, Page even purchased a house of Crowley’s and one of his abbeys in Sicily.  Page believed that studying magic was searching for truth, and that evil is an unignorable part of life.  Jimmy even attended seances.

The influence of Crowley in Page’s music can be seen in some lyric lines.  In the song “Dazed and Confused,” one line states, “Lots of people talk, and few of them know, the soul of a woman was created below.” In an interview Page was asked about his regard of women.  Page responded, “Crowley didn’t have a very high opinion of women, and I don’t think he was wrong.”  Page’s interactions with women showed that he viewed them more as sex objects than human beings.  He had a child with a supermodel, while rampaging with groupies on tour.  In short, Crowley did influence Page’s life considerably in his actions and his music.

So, was this satanic message created on purpose?  Personally, I think no.  The band said so themselves.  The album engineer, Eddie Kramer, explained to the press that Led Zeppelin would never waste studio time on something “”so dumb.”   Also, Robert Plant wrote the lyrics.  Not Page.  Plant was not as into black magic and the occult as Page was.  In short, there is even stronger evidence that the satanic message was purely a coincidence.

The frightening, hidden irony of “Stairway to Heaven” gives me the chills.  Attaching evilness to such a pure and transcendental song feels blasphemous.  Maybe I don’t think the satanic message was deliberate because I simply don’t want to believe so.