LED ZEPPELIN - LED ZEPPELIN 2

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LED ZEPPELIN

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Aloha! And it’s a balmy hail, but not farewell, to you, daring adventurer, from Drunken Vinyls, aka DrunkenVinyls or DeeVees for short, from us here at DVHQ. You: bold seeker of all that is lost, here you are, probably by accident, weeping salt tears and shaking a woeful countenance at all we have so wantonly wasted in the name of progress.

We share your pain and every so often are wont to play a vinyl record before throwing it away in the dustbin of history. Our aim is to catalogue every vinyl record from ‘A’ to ‘Z’ before we die for posterity – and that’s 26 records! It helps if you join us which is why we urge you to play along with us, set up your decks, get the disc and drink one can of ale or its alcoholic equivalent as each track strokes past like the sweeping hand of Billy the road sweeper; he who cleans the kerbs near where we live.

So put aside the trappings of this mediocre century for a little while – do not text, LOL or PYSL, repent you of your Blueberry and put aside setting up that Facebook tribute site for just a couple more hours.

L

LED ZEPPELIN

2

Setting Up Time

Setting up your decks is extremely irritating when, like us, you are old and your eyesight is so poor you cannot see which cable gets pushed into which socket, or, indeed which bit to twiddle with. The people in our lives frequently complain about this but we assure them the longer it takes, the better it is. We will, we assert, get down to the business presently. And what business it shall be too! So, as the dusk draws in and you fiddle and twiddle uncertainly to get maximum pleasure, we cast a look backwards to recent events in history that will help us contextualise the drunken vinylness even further.

Football has been in the news this week, something we clearly know very little about because one of us is stupid enough to follow Charlton Athletic. So to get with the programme we watched Chelsea against Liverpool and it was fun with a capital Fun!

Our favourite footballer was a small chap, Craig he may have been called, in a bright red shirt. Whenever we saw him, his little invidious eyes were screwed and scowling, watering with envy, his mouth turned down into a sneer more permanent than that carved into a stone Moses by Michelangelo; a dour man whose main contribution to the football game was running very fast, barging into an opponent, knocking him over and then jabbering furiously, craning his neck to peer upwards at with simmering resentment, from his perspective, the toweringly tall referee. Every so often, the crowd in red would cheer his altercations on by singing a monotonous dirge accompanied by poorly choreographed handclaps. It was great.

Clearly a talented debater, we wonder what our Craig would have said to cartoon villain of the week, Sepp Blatter?

Cultural Primer: In the late twentieth and early twenty first century, satirical popular artists from Holland invented Sepp Blatter, an ancient and strangely Dickensian caricature hailing from Switzerland. The character, as drawn by the cartoonists, claimed to like football. In fact, History has noted that he didn’t really know very much about the game at all which is why every time he voiced an opinion in popular cartoon strip ‘Roy of the Rangers’ it was usually very silly indeed. Up there with the likes of Dick Dastardly, Mutley and the Hooded Claw (aka Sylvester Sweetley) this loveable old duffer had to be pulped when he unwittingly annoyed and received death threats from some religious fundamentalists by claiming that ‘football was bigger than Christ’ in Daily Express strip no.325 ‘If Jesus Came to Earth, He’d be a Charlton Fan’.

Sepp Blatter – a caricature notorious for the sporting gaffes attributed to him. These have been affectionately dubbed ‘BlatterBalls’ by a vaguely amused public. Amongst the best of a good bunch are these:

• Women should wear tighter shorts and swap shirts at the end of each game so the crowd can see their plunging bras – this would improve television ratings for the women’s game.
• It’s good for footballers to have extra marital affairs if they come from Italy.
• Racism will be solved with a simple handshake between players at the end of a game.

The character came a cropper, however, when he uttered the following ill advised statement: I’m more popular than Jesus now; I don't know which will go first — penalties or Christianity. Jesus was all right on the wing, but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them on the ball that ruins it for me.

Several hundred fatwas were issued almost immediately and in the Deep South of the United States, Blatter’s best selling comedy LPs ‘A Hard Day’s Blatt’ and ‘Rubber Blatter’ were hurled onto huge pyres by furious fans and burnt long into the night; a reaction against Blattermania. Which, incidentally, is why none are available today.

A  historical footnote, zany prankster Sepp Blatter was quietly retired from the popular newspaper strip and indeed the football strip and is now an out of work cartoon character.

And speaking of work or lack of it, we were very perturbed and somewhat upset to witness another phenomenon of ‘Cash Strapped Britain’: yoof unemployment has gone over the million mark. Why? We cannot say. But we can help. If you are a yoof or no fixed employment you could do worse than to try our easy to fill out ‘Help Yourself to a Job’ sample yoof job application form. Simply circle the answer that most ‘applies’ to you and see whether you are ‘Fit For Work’!

Drunken Vinyls Presents:

The ‘Are YOU Employable? FIT FOR WORK’ Job application Form

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LED ZEPPELIN

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What’s The Story?

Today’s back-story is a long and complicated tale of twisted metal and flaming cloth. ‘You’ll go down like a lead balloon!’ Legend has it that these words were spoken to Robert Plant and Jimmy Page before the inaugural performance of Heavy Metal super group Led Zeppelin prior to their taking the stage to begin the most thrilling ride of the super seventies. It is said, by those who witnessed the portentous power of that night, that as they mounted the stage, the world did shiver and tremble, so mighty was the noise and screams of “Planty! Planty! Planty!”

But how did they get there? What strange and mystical forces were behind the colossus that became Led Zeppelin?

In order to untangle the warp and weft, it is necessary to go back to the nineteen seventies (probably). Imagine, if you will, a much younger Robert Plant, Bob for short, or indeed Bobby, named for Wolverhampton Wanderers football hero Stan ‘Bobby’ Cullis. There he is gazing skywards with his Great Aunty Blodwen from Welsh Wales, looking up at the mighty Zeppelin, straining like some huge black dog battling with gravity against its temporary moorings; berthed in the glamour port of Llanelli prior to its round Wales trip via Dunstable, Bedfordshire.

Young Bobby Plant pensively strokes his bearded chin. ‘Hmmm. Black Dog. Like a Black Dog.’

As Bobby makes to run up the angled steps leading towards the cabin with the confidence of only the very young, Great Aunty Blodwen takes hold of his shoulders firmly. ‘No, look you, boyo,” she cries, ‘That leads to the outdoor, look you. You cannot be going in through the outdoor, can you, boyo?”

‘Yeeess’, thinks young Bobby, ‘In Through the Outdoor.’ And the beard gets another firm stroking and the long flowing blonde locks are tossed in a manner just short of studied haughtiness.

Once aboard the Zeppelin, in flight and on course for Dunstable, Bedfordshire via Brecon, Oswestry and Ross on Wye, young Bobby Page  looks around the crowded bar and observation deck. Although too young to drink or smoke yet, his mind races with the possibilities. He listens as the in-flight attendant speaks of life jackets, flames and emergency exits before skipping lightly to more pleasant prospects: ‘Welcome to our tour of the important Welsh motorway junctions of Britain. We will be travelling at a height of ten feet above ground level and cruising at a speed of seven knots. Just beneath us: Junction 32 of the M1. Observe if you will that it is a partially unrolled cloverleaf or parclo for short.’

Over in the corner, he observes, with the keenness of a poet, two groups of strangely attired peoples, distinctly confrontational, involved in some drunken face off that young Plant barely understands. But his keen mind grasps just enough – the brightly coloured ones in their primary reds, yellows and blues square up to those dressed in duller, more functionally military costumes. And he strains to hear as the bearded, Asiatic almost alien one speaks with belligerence:

‘Frankly, I never liked Earthers.’ He opines in a soft impertinent drawl. ‘They remind me of Regulan blood worms. No. I just remembered. There is one Earthman who doesn't remind me of a Regulan blood worm. That's Kirk. A swaggering, overbearing, tin-plated dictator with delusions of godhood.’

Bobby is on the cusp of a manly snigger at the other’s rudeness but notices that the tension is building up almost imperceptibly and quickly stifles it. It looks as though the one in the brightest red tunic is about to fight. His fist is balled. He looks dazed and confused at the communication breakdown. And the two groups are right beside a giant lever marked with the legend in giant sans serif red capital letters. ‘Emergency Zeppelin Crashing Switch!! Do Not Push Under Any Circumstances! You Will Cause A CRASH!’

‘Of course, I see it all now, dazed and confused, communication breakdown. There isn’t a whole lot of love between these groups of people. No sir.’ And young Bobby Plant smiles with the vision.

‘Of course, I'd say that Captain Kirk deserves his ship. We like the Enterprise. We, really really do. That sagging old rust bucket is designed like a garbage scow. Half the quadrant knows it,’ grins the swaggering bearded Asiatic with the lumpy forehead, knowing that his words are hitting home and twisting the red shirted one like shards of glass.

And in response these words, he finally speaks, with reserved resentment and grim intent. ‘Laddie, don't you think you should rephrase that?’ He mutters, raising the clenched fist with threat and purpose.

‘You're right, I should. I didn't mean to say that the Enterprise should be hauling garbage. I meant to say that it should be hauled away as garbage,’ opines the lumpy one with a sneering chuckle at his comrades. And, with that, all hell breaks loose as the first punch is thrown. Young Bobby is seized with panic as a previously unseen light orchestra in the corner of the bar strikes up a comical slapstick ‘bar brawl in outer space’ number. Fists are thrown. Chairs are broken. Glasses are smashed on heads. As a flying body sprawls akimbo against it, the giant emergency lever is pressed to the ‘Crash the Zeppelin’ position!’

Great Aunty Blodwen seizes young Bobby by the hand as the Zeppelin spirals helplessly out of control, diving from its altitude of nine feet, heading straight for the newly opened M42, Birmingham section. ‘We’re going to crash, we’re going to crash!’ screams Bob, in terror, ‘And we’re heading for some comedy Germans from last week’s blog entry!  They appear to be hitting the motorway with hammers and recording the tone on what can only be described as portable tape cassette recorders!’

‘Yes, look you, boyo, if we cop an ear, we can perchance listen to their comical discourse, look you, boyo,’ screams Blodwen, pitching from side to side like some monstrous harpooned Welsh whale. A giant Moby Dick of a woman she points her brass ear trumpet downwards the unsuspecting electrosynthpop outfit.

Ralph: Look Florian I am hitting zee motorway with zee hammer just so.

Florian: Yes mein chum, a semitone higher than zee one on zee newly opened M1 autostrada from last week.

Ralph: But where is Hans?

Florian: Hans? On zee end of mein arms.

Ralph: You Dummkopff. I am laughing like zee drain. I wet myself. You possess zee gut sense of zee humour mein pal.

Florian: Yes. Zee fun fun fun on zee autobahn.

Ralph: (in Panic) Donner und blitzen! Achtung! Achtung! Und Zeppellin is now improbably heading directly for us. We will never complete zee experiment!

Florian: Nooooooo! It eez a wreck of twisted metal and flaming cloth! Vot is and vot should never be! Like und giant Moby Dick! Und trombonist is descending towards us like undgiant hearing trumpet! Aaaargh!

Ralph: On no, I am being covered in zee burning cloth! The twisted metal is, even now, ruining our experiment! Zee road is covered in a comedy brass band!

Suffice it to say it all ends happily – how? We do not know and now we return to the recent past imperfect. “Planty! Planty! Planty!” scream the crowd as he bounds onto the stage. Where did they get their inspiration? Who can say? It’s all a part of history now.

THE NOT QUITE TEN COMMANDMENTS OF DRUNKEN VINYLS

1. Thou shalt play both sides of the record in their entirety
2. Thou shalt drink one can of Fosters or its alcohol equivalent per song
3. Thou shalt record ramblings as they occur to thee for the duration of the running time
4. Thou shalt edit out the swearing the next day
5. Thou shalt not suffer a Blueberry user to live

All set up, are we? Well get into your hot air balloons because it’s finally time to rise above it all and let the music commence with:

L

LED ZEPPELIN

2

Sponsored by Carling Black Label, This week’s surprisingly good beer accompaniment.

Side One

Can 1.            "Whole Lotta Love" 

Searching for inspiration, as we have said, Page and Plant looked no further than popular television show Top of the Pops for their first tune, shamelessly stealing the chord progression and chugging rhythms in order to provide them with an instantly recognisable hook. Now we’re really lying. It was the other way around….the vinyl crackles and splutters like fat on the hob. The blues changes and licks chug along, mixed nice and low, to emphasise Plant’s voice, almost falsetto. As you will know, so famous is the song, the instruments drop out to be replaced with a Bonham solo, all high hat and bossa nova on the bongos whilst Plant screams love and groans in the background like some ironically loveless banshee. The lyrics are best described as humpingly dirty: ‘Every inch of my love, way down inside’ that’s filthy, that is, and not something we would ever endorse, here at the Towers. He’s very sure of himself, in any case, she might turn him down. Thank heavens that’s over, we are very jealous indeed and haven’t heard as many orgasms since we inadvertently listened to ‘Love to Love You Baby’ by Donna Summer. “I keep a coolly baby?” What’s that all about, then? Is love making some kind of drug? We DON’T think so, Bobby.

Can 2.            "What Is and What Should Never Be"             

After the last track reaches its climax and screams to a halt, this is pleasingly low key and provides an excellent contrast. It’s mainly a funky bass line with acoustic mixed very low down – until the chorus – wherein all hell is let loose. What’s particularly pleasing is the superb use of stereo on this track – it pans across from speaker to speaker – you will only get this on the original vinyl. We never did really find out what should never be, but we don’t care.

Can 3.            "The Lemon Song"          

This song references taking something that is like a lemon and then squeezing it until it’s empty and seedless. We are neither clever enough or possess the motivation to find out just what the object is. We doubt that it’s Jif. It’s probably something very dirty and filthy like our mamas told us not to touch. An ominous grinding axe in an ascending scale double tracked with the bass while Plant maintains a high horizontal vocal. He should have listened – to whom we cannot be sure – perhaps the eponymous lemon itself? Lemons can be worth listening to, we remember a Sandie Shaw record about a lemon tree: very pretty. But before our witless ramblings on (ha ha) finish, a complete change of tempo upwards and Page’s guitar replaces Plant in a virtuoso performance the like of which you rarely hear these days. You notice how each instrument is foregrounded, now it’s the turn of Jones on bass as he threatens to overwhelm the maestro himself. It’s so alive, this song. ‘It’s alive!’ You don’t fool us, that bass is using blues changes, they may be disguised but they’re down on this killing floor, we tells you.

Can 4.            "Thank You"          

An overblown and over produced ballad, but you’ve got to have one. Brilliant. Little ‘Beatles’ touches everywhere. The chord changes are like the sun coming out from behind the clouds. A love paean. Play it to your lover. We think you’ll like the results. Today your world, it smiles. A great false ending, too.

Side Two

Can 5.            "Heartbreaker"      

‘The way you call me another man’s name when I try to make love to you.’ And who hasn’t had that happen to them, eh gentlemen? Why we remember quite clearly back in 1972 we was trying to make love to some person or other, it’s a bit of a blur now, to be honest, but we’re fairly she screeched ‘Stanley! Stanley! There are two men trying to make love to me, sort it out will you?” Although that might have been us watching ‘Carry on at Your Convenience’ This record is full of menacing, ascending chord sequences and this one is GRINTASTIC, despite the terrifying subject matter – a woman who’s only purpose in life is to break hearts – but, and this is crucial, man – she’s been found out and she must repent her of her wicked ways. And we fellers, for we are included in this track, come one, come all, we fellers, we are warned. Ten years have gone by, and now she is back. Bloody women.

Can 6.            "Living Loving Maid (She's Just a Woman)"             

‘Alimony, alimony paying your bills’ We’ll tell you something, when we were young we looked up that word to try to understand the song. That’s education, that is – not like your hip hop crap of today, though. Drum and Bass? Shite. Dub Step? Don’t make us laugh. Music required effort between musician and listener. Lost. All is lost. This music is fantastic by the way. Great segue – which is appropriate because this is ‘Heartbreaker’ part two but, in a neat twist, from the lovely lady’s perspective. Ladies. Lovely ladies. A traditional up tempo rocker with call and response from the guitar. Buy this record, we command you!

Can 7.            "Ramble On"          

We are now a little pissed, though, and this seems to be something to do with the execrable ‘Lord of the Rings’. Did you see the third film? Shite. It ended. And then it ended again for another half an hour. If you ignore the narrative of the song, which seems to be some bloke wandering around looking for a made up girl in some made up country called Mordington, the musicianship is simply exquisite. Acoustic guitar rises and descends accompanied by bongos again and Plant’s vocals, for once, are restrained as appropriate.

Can 8.            "Moby Dick" 

Captain Ahab has a lot to answer for. We suspect that Moby Dick is a hymn to the father, we can’t be sure. The great white whale was even pursued by Captain Kirk in ‘The Wrath of Khan’, you know? We think that Moby Dick is a thinly disguised symbol for wanting your father’s respect. We never did. Every LP has a Moby Dick, you know, and this is it. If drums are your thing, you’ll dig the dick, if not, be patient, be calm. It’ll be over soon enough. CDs and downloads? This is the track you wouldn’t bother with – but it’s there, it exists and it’s part of the LP, so be cool. Dig the dick, man, dig the dick.

Can 9.            "Bring It On Home"           

We don’t think this is John Peel’s theme tune, he wouldn’t be so uncool as to have a Led Zeppelin track, but it sure as hell sounds like it, though. Fantastic track, this is way back in the blues of the deep south somewhere, even the mouth organ and the ‘watch out, watch out’ which we’ve heard somewhere  - a Clapton LP probably. Then, as is so often the case, electric replaces acoustic and the band explode into a three chord descending riff. God knows what it’s about, when it’s this good, you don’t care.

Another brilliant LP – we really have struck pay dirt recently.

What Have We Learnt Tonight?

As we mourn the passing of a week a brand new one is born and carried upon eagle’s wings, racing towards us with all the inevitability of a new gaffe from the mouth of FIFA president Sepp Blatter. Some would say that women do need to wear tighter shorts in order to engender more appreciation of the passing game and swap shirts at the end of a match, but not us, dear me no. We abhor the idea as we would abhor a rat in me kitchen what are you gonna do? Similarly we fear for the future of our yoof of today in that unless they learn more eye contact and less text contact, more ‘hello, how are you?’ and less, ‘Yo, diss is de way mon, ‘ow is you doing, bro?’ they may well find themselves having to spend even more time setting up Facebook tribute sites in order to while away the passing hours. Still, hell ain’t a bad place to me. We know. We read it on the back of an AC/DC LP cover. But then we can read.

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