Last Monday the grey drizzly streets of London in autumn seemed a long way from a summers day in Berkshire back in 1972. However the events of the latter came into clear focus when I spent an evening listening to Eddie, to paraphrase that famous bootleg title. The Eddie in question being Eddie Kramer the renowned veteran studio engineer who worked on a variety of Zep albums.

Eddie was in town to relay some of his personal stories at Metropolis Studios a part of his ‘’Kramer Archives & Waves Signature Series’’ tour which has taken in Berlin, Copenhagen London and New York. (see www.kramerarchives.com)

He proved to be an excellent raconteur, and in a near 90 minute presentation relayed his thoughts on working with the likes of The Kinks, Stones, Beatles Hendrix and Led Zeppelin. Working with a series of his original photos and appropriate music fills, he captivated the audience with first hand tales from the studio. When he reached the Jimi Hendrix segment and the intro of Are You Experienced came shunting out of the speakers it was shivers down the spine time. Similarly when he blasted out the ‘’Way down inside’’ part of Whole Lotta Love you could have been inside A and R Studios with Jimmy back in ‘69. And of course against a backdrop of memorable images taken on that sunny day at Stargroves in Berkshire in May 1972, we heard how Eddie’s cry of ‘’We can’t get this airplane on’’ at the beginning of Black Country Woman was met with a curt ‘’Nah leave it yeah…’’ from R. Plant.

Earlier I’d chewed the Zep fat with Eddie as we ran through an overview of Led Zep 2 and more. Extracts of this interview will be previewed in the coming weeks on the TBL site and then presented in full in the next TBL magazine due out December.

Elsewhere the Nick Drake feature needs a wrap this week, TBL 25 needs to kick start and there are various things to sort. Sam was back at the weekend though not feeling 100%. The boy Adam cheered us up with a 3-2 win on Sunday– he converted a penalty, and yes my heart was beating fast as he stepped up to take it. I feel like I may have been the only one round these parts who didn’t catch Mott The Hoople at their London reunion shows last week. The Knebworth 2 Tom and Phil went and Jerry Bloom and Alan Stutz – Jerry also saw the warm up gig in Wales the previous weekend. I really should have made an effort to get to one of the London shows but just got bogged down in other stuff which seems to be the way recently.

Keep the Zep 2 feedback coming (email davelewis.tbl1@ntlworld.com). I received a very nice piece from French fan Mireille Garcia who was at the Knebworth Lytton Arms book launch. As Mireille noted the live version of What Is And What Should Never Be from the Royal Albert Hall on the DVD is one of the best. Then there’s the Blueberry Hill version, Budokan ‘71, Long Beach ‘72 etc,etc. As Alex Ferguson might put it ‘’Led Zeppelin 2 bloody hell…’’