Jimmy Page in Vogue Italia:

This report via Vogue Italia website:

Music and fashion have always merged seamlessly with no shortage of pop-starry collaborations. Pop’s greatest chameleons from David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust–era glam to the Sex Pistols’ edgy no-frills anti-fashion continue to rule the catwalks and styling generations. British music legend Jimmy Page follows Iggy Pop, Slash, Paul Weller and Jane’s Addiction Perry Farrell as the latest rock god to front American menswear designer John Varvatos’ spring campaign.

White-haired and elegant, the Led Zeppelin guitarist is pictured posing moodily alongside the 28-year-old surging Texan blues star Gary Clark Jr in a series of gorgeously stark black-and-white ads called The Master & The Young Guitar Slinger. “Jimmy Page has been a music and fashion hero of mine since 1970,” enthuses Varvatos, a self-professed music junkie who recently opened a lifestyle boutique on the site of the former New York punk-rock Mecca CBGB’s and built up his $80-million clothing and accessories empire by playing into the greatest of all male obsessions: the rock ‘n’ roll fantasy. “The first time I heard Led Zeppelin, I think I was 14 or 15, it changed my life. He has been a major influence and I’m honored to call Jimmy a friend. Gary Clark Jr. is the real deal – amazing guitar player and songwriter. And having them together in our campaign is a dream come true.”

Shot by photographer and documentary filmmaker, Danny Clinch at south London’s shabbily grand Rivoli Ballroom – itself the setting for many music greats down the years, including Paul McCartney, Tina Turner and Kings of Leon – the portraits are accompanied by a short black-and-white film, which is already clocking up impressive Youtube hits. The video shows Clark Jr, recently described as ‘the next Hendrix’ by the New York Times, singing and strumming on the guitar in the empty ballroom interspersed with shots of Page, looking mysterious and wistful in black, cruising the London streets in the back of a black cab.

Few consider Page a style icon regular, but whenever designers dabble in 1970s retro, they inevitably name-check Zeppelin, the band who with their fancy clasp of crushed-velvet flares, sheer Regency shirts and silk scarves helped define the decade’s flamboyant peacock style.

New York indie rapper and international scenester Theophilus London – known for mixing hip-hop with high-fashion and raking up countless big-name collaborations of his own – thinks the new campaign with Page positively rocks. “Varvatos’ brand of grungy urban tailoring has a real attitude and youthful vibe. The slim-cut suits, vintage T-shirts, scuffed biker jackets, mohair sweaters and 1970s-era Mick Jagger flowing shirts have a timeless cool that never goes out of fashion. And Jimmy Page, the star of the all-time greatest rock band, demonstrates the easy elegance of this aesthetic.”

“Jimmy Page virtually created the classic trashy rock-star look,” says Pogues star Shane MacGowan who knew Page in his Led Zeppelin heyday. “At the time, he had brilliant fashion sense, the band looked like Cream who always had the best clothes. Jimmy usually wore black leather trousers and black tops slashed to the waist. Then they started getting into cloaks with runes on them – that looked pretty stupid. Obviously I preferred the black leather.”

As Pamela Des Barres, the super-groupie who slept and partied with everyone from Mick Jagger to Jim Morrison, amusingly recalls in her sex-drugs-and-rock’n’roll tell-all I’m With the Band: Confessions of a Groupie, Jimmy Page “was always in the mirror, shirtless and in skin-tight leather, primping his splendid image, and putting perfect waves in his long black hair with a little crimping machine. He used Pantene products, and whenever I smelled them, for years afterwards, I remember being buried in his hair.”

“I used to go and see him in 1971 when Zeppelin were the biggest band in the world,” remembers MacGowan, back in the day, when music fans came to gigs and they moshed, smoked, got smashed on the head with beer bottles. “They used to do an incredibly long and very loud set. Jimmy had this thing, where he would stop in the middle of Dazed and Confused and for half an hour he would bugger around on the guitar with a cello bow, really loud. It was very clever, that was the thing people talked about, it made an amazing noise. He’s a great guitar player; rock had finally become a classical art form. Victoria and I met him recently at a restaurant in Chelsea after our hotel set on fire. We were evacuated and had to go have breakfast. Jimmy spotted me, came over and said hello and we had a long chat about all kinds of stuff, drugs, black magic. I reminded him that I used to steal his food in a lesbian club called Louise’s that we both went to in Soho in the 70s. I thought he looked great and he hasn’t gotten fat or anything.”

MacGowan, a legendary hell-raiser in his own right, says Page embodied all the excess of the 1970s. “They used to chop up hotel rooms with samurai swords and get mud sharks to have sex with groupies in LA; Frank Zappa did a whole album about that,” he says of Led Zeppelin’s dissolute lifestyle, which set the virtually unattainable standards of mindless depravity for the bands that followed them. “Jimmy bought Aleister Crowley’s castle, the one where he raised the devil, for millions and that is when the bad luck started for him. Various kids died and then John Bonham died. The thing was Jimmy got into black magic in America and Crowley was the grand wizard. Crowley always needed money because he was a junkie, but he didn’t tell Jimmy that he had raised up the devil in this castle and then ran away because he was scared shitless and left the devil there halfway between heaven and hell. Crowley got pangs of conscience and said: ‘I don’t think I can sell you the castle, because the devil’s in there, in a really bad mood’ and then Jimmy Page doubled his offer. He was so into the occult he had the mark of the Beast on his trousers.” It just goes to show that the devil doesn’t just have all the best tunes – he has all the best clothes too.

See link at:

http://www.vogue.it/en/uomo-vogue/stars/2013/02/jimmy-page

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John Paul Jones on new Seasick Steve album:

Seasick Steve is set to release his fifth studio full-length, entitled ‘Hubcap Music’, on April 29th 2013 via Fiction Records, and is set to host a number of collaborators including Jack White, Luther Dickinson and John Paul Jones. The album track listing is as follows:

01.) Down On The Farm
02.) Self Sufficient Man
03.) Keep On Keepin’ On
04.) Over You
05.) The Way I Do
06.) Purple Shadows
07.) Freedom Road
08.) Home
09.) Hope
10.) Heavy Weight
11.) Coast Is Clear

See link below for pre ordering details:

http://store.universal-music.co.uk/restofworld/albums/seasick-steve-hubcap-music-cd-album-2013/invt/0602537338511/

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Justin Timberlake talks Zep…. Is the world ready for his take on Achilles Last Stand…

Seems like the trouser snaked one has ambitions of lengthier compositions in the style of Zep and Floyd…

This report via Fuse

If you’re wondering why Justin Timberlake made his The 20/20 Experience track “Mirrors” over eight minutes long, it’s because Led Zeppelin and Queen did it. Duh.

JT spoke to Capital FM (via NME) about his upcoming album and musical influences, and said he ditched convention when putting together the new tracks. “When we were making the record I said, ‘If Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin can do 10-minute songs and Queen can do 10-minute songs then why can’t we?’ We’ll figure out the radio edits later.”

Timberlake also shared how one of his idols, Bob Dylan, influenced The 20/20 Experience. “Music is for dreamers. You should be able to create another world that you can live in. I’m not gonna speak for Bob Dylan… but from my perspective, as a fan, it seems to me that he started creating music that made him feel like another person and that’s what it should do. [The studio] really is one place that you can still go to that you can be completely free. You can lock yourself in a room and make a whole other world.”

The 20/20 Experience drops March 15.

See link at:

http://www.fuse.tv/2013/02/justin-timberlake-led-zeppelin-capital-fm-interview

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DL Diary Update:

Busy here collating material for the second edition of the Led Zeppelin at Knebworth Then As It Was book – this is the priority project ahead with the 02 book project to follow after that.

Pretty excited about the potential for the Knebworth second edition which will include a fully revamped design and additional material.

I’ll keep you updated of the progress. TBL 35 planning is also underway and later this month will see the 40th anniversary of the original release Houses Of The Holy and we will be marking that milestone as well.

There are plenty of TBL products to brighten your spring schedules –

TBL 34 – a few more accolades here from satisfied readers: 

I buy loads of music mags but TBL is the one I look forward to the most – Tony Burroughs

Received my issue yesterday and it is amazing – Dave another knock out-  Kathy Urich

Each page oozes with purity, passion, respect and love – Paul MacFarlane

If your reading this and have yet to invest –treat yourself and expect to be feeling more of a Led Zeppelin fan than ever before after indulging in this latest TBL outpouring…

Here’s the order  link :

http://www.tightbutloose.co.uk/?page_id=18109

May I also point out that the Led Zeppelin Feather In The Wind Over Europe 1980 book is on special offer –another acclaimed TBL product line…

This is my first time of ordering and I was not disappointed! An awesome book! Jamie Akers

Here’s the order link:

http://www.tightbutloose.co.uk/?page_id=9965

Elsewhere, got to say I’m well excited about the new David Bowie album The Next Day due out on March 11th. The second single The Stars (Are Out Tonight) is excellent – absorbing and unsettling in time honoured Bowie fashion and the accompanying video is suitably barmy bonkers as you would expect.

The whole experience of the Thin White Duke’s return is bringing out the fan in me (and I’m sure countless others). I think I am going to have to pre order the vinyl for the whole genuine experience. It’s been great wading through the web reports and the music mags –he was back on the cover of the NME this week and I just had to invest.  Quality coverage to in  Q (great piece by the legendary Charles Shaar Murray) and Uncut.

Staying with the music press, the sleeve design of the free CD The (Classic Rock) Machine Turns You On –  included in the new issue of Classic Rock magazine, is a nod in the direction of the iconic CBS LP samplers issued in the late 1960’s. Being a very keen collector of LP samplers…I know these things! Here’s the old and new…note the rather racy sleeve of Rock Machine I Love You – ooerr !

On the player, Physical Graffiti of course 38 years on, plus, well plenty of the aforementioned Bowie with the Aladdin Sane and Young Americans albums capturing the mood. On TV I shall clock into BBC4s Dusty Springfield night tonight (Dusty may just be my favourite female single of all time).  I’m currently wading through Rod Stewart’s autobiography and this is proving to be much more than the average celebrity rock star tale – Rod unfolds his very colourful life with genuine wit and honesty. Well recommended.

Enjoying Spurs rather purple patch at the moment with Gareth Bale simply outstanding. The test comes this Sunday with the visit of Arsenal and that one is never easy.

Tomorrow night I am pitching up with assorted TBL mags and books at the nearby Haynes Village Concert Hall (or Haynes International Arena as we like to call it!) with various TBL crew members (hello Michaela, Phil and Cliff) to see the excellent Hats Off To Led Zeppelin. If you can make it along be sure to say hello. Here’s the link with all the details:

http://www.lemonrock.com/gig.php?id=266948

Now as you know, I’ve done some pretty crazy things  in pursuit of Planet Zeppelin over the years  … zipping off to see Robert Plant at the Hammersmith Odeon three hours after the birth of Samantha in 1990 is definitely up there in the “What on earth was I thinking of?” category … as was the decision to fly over to Istanbul to see the last two nights of the Page & Plant Eastern European tour.

Incredibly, it was 15 years ago on March 5th 1998 that Mr and Mrs Foy and I landed in Istanbul to take in the two Page & Plant gigs at the Bostanci Center.

A crazy notion not least for the threat of Turkey being amidst the projected air strikes that looked to be kicking off in the Gulf war conflict earlier that year. This prompted one wag to predict a title of The Human Shield for the inevitable bootleg.

Luckily those issues had all calmed down by the time we landed.

Was it all worth it?

Well of course – despite some trials and tribulations along the way, the gigs were great and it set up a truly mad month of March that saw us take in the Shepherds Bush gig, and the filming Top Of The Pops and TFI Friday all in the space of three days. More on all this in a TBL archive special next week. Here’s some footage from that memorable period of silly Turkish hats (that was you GF!), rimmed T-shirts, leather trousers, When I Was a Child and Most High…

Until next time…

Keep listening, keep reading…

Dave Lewis/Gary Foy

March 1st, 2013.

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