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TBL ARCHIVE 1975 US TOUR SNAPSHOT/JAPAN 1971 CINE FILM/LZ NEWS/ PHYSICAL GRAFFITI MONTH/TRANSMISSIONS 1969 REVIEW/DL DIARY BLOG UPDATE

7 February 2020 1,435 views 5 Comments

TBL Archive – it was 45 years ago…

TBL Led Zep 1975 Snapshot: Number Five

THURSDAY FEBRUARY 6th,1975

MONTREAL, CANADA

MONTREAL FORUM

Set: Rock And Roll/Sick Again/Over The Hills And Far Away/In My Time Of Dying/The Song Remains The Same/The Rain Song/Kashmir/No Quarter/Trampled Underfoot/Moby Dick/Dazed And Confused (inc. San Francisco)/Stairway To Heaven/Whole Lotta Love – Black Dog/Heartbreaker

Snapshot Listen:- How it sounds now :

montreal

I have this on the 1975 World Tour vinyl double album and the When The Levee breaks /World Tour ’75 CD set. I’ve always had a bit of affection for the World Tour bootleg – it was one of the fist I got of the 1975 US tour. It’s a fair to good audience recording but very lively.

This is an enjoyable performance though Robert’s voice is still struggling. Sick Again really rocks while Over The Hills appears in a unique arrangement as Page’s guitar lead cuts out and Plant fills in as JPJ carries the rhythm. After ”The Rain Song, Robert lectures the crowd on the Mellotron: “It’s a very peculiar instrument because every time we take it somewhere, it goes out of tune. It’s built and comprises of tapes inside the box, and to simulate violins is not an easy job when you’re travelling to North America. In fact, we’re gonna try to simulate some Eastern violins now.” Kashmir is growing more powerful with each performance and is rapidly turning into one of the highlights of the show. No Quarter clocks in at 19 minutes and pleasingly so.

Moby Dick is now stretching to 25 minutes and Plant refers to  Bonzo as “Karen Carpenter”, a reference to a recent poll in Playboy magazine which placed Karen Carpenter as ‘Best Drummer’, above Bonzo. At the time Bonzo’s first hand response was captured in an interview with Lisa Robinson: “Karen Carpenter couldn’t last ten fucking minutes with a Zeppelin number!”

Dazed And Confused (only it’s third outing on the tour) includes a very delicate version of San Francisco and is now recapturing some of its former glories. Page’s solo on Stairway To Heaven is also developing a previously unknown intricacy. Instead of Communication Breakdown they throw in a ragged but welcomed version of Heartbreaker as a second encore.

“Montreal – you are the best! Maybe the snow has melted all around the hall.” is Plant’s parting comment.

They were on the up, and there were some great performances imminently ahead.

To be continued…

DL  

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Japan 1971 Cine Film:

This from TBL contributor Horishi:

This amazing footage from the Budokan, Tokyo, Sept 23, 1971, was uploaded to YouTube on Nov 17, 2018, and has since been around largely unnoticed over a year until very recently someone reported its existence on the Royal Orleans forum According to the YouTube poster, he shot the performance with an 8mm movie camera from the second tier as well as taping it.

Consisting of short snippets of Boogie Chillin, Hello Mary Lou, Tobacco Road and the rarely played live Good Times Bad Times (!), this invaluable four-minute footage offers glimpses into what is regarded as the group’s peak period by many enthusiasts.

Have a look…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=RDE5UkxszdZyk&v=E5UkxszdZyk

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Led Zeppelin News Update:

In conjunction with the Led Zep news site, each week I will be re- producing highlights from their weekly email update news summary. This goes out every Sunday. Sign up details are below. Many thanks to James Cook.

Many thanks to James Cook.

Upcoming events:

February-March – Jimmy Page’s new book, “Jimmy Page: The Anthology,” will be released.
February 11 – Jimmy Page and Scarlett Sabet will be interviewed in London.
February 28 – Robert Plant’s vinyl singles box set “Digging Deep” will be released and he will be interviewed in London to celebrate its release.
March – The standard edition of Jimmy Page’s Sundragon amps will be released.
March 6 – Danny Barnes’ new album “Man On Fire,” which features John Paul Jones, will be released.
March 26-29 – John Paul Jones will perform a solo set as well as a second set as part of Sons Of Chipotle at the Big Ears music festival in Knoxville, Tennessee.
September 25-26 – The next John Bonham celebration event will be held in Redditch, UK.

Many thanks to James Cook.

The complete Led Zeppelin News email goes out every weekend. To receive it each week sign up here:http://tinyletter.com/LedZepNews

Led Zeppelin News Website: Check out the Led Zeppelin news website at

http://ledzepnews.com/

The complete Led Zeppelin News email goes out every weekend. To receive it each week sign up here:http://tinyletter.com/LedZepNews

Led Zeppelin News Website: Check out the Led Zeppelin news website at

http://ledzepnews.com/

……………………

Physical Graffiti Month on TBL web:

With the 45th Anniversary of the release of Physical Graffiti upon us , here’s the first of a series of Physical Graffiti related posts this month…

Facts and Info about Physical Graffiti by Led Zeppelin:

 The initial sessions for what would emerge as the sixth Led Zeppelin album, commenced in the autumn of 1973 using the mobile studio owned by Ronnie Lane  at Headley Grange the 18th century workhouse building they had previously used to record Led Zeppelin IV

Further sessions took place at Headley Grange in the early months of 1974.

Eight tracks were sourced for release from these sessions engineered by Ron Nevison, namely Custard Pie, In My Time Of Dying, Trampled Underfoot, Kashmir, In The Light, Ten Years Gone, The Wanton Song and Sick Again. It was decided to extend the album to a double set with the addition of seven unreleased recordings sourced from previous album sessions.  Lining up as follows:

Bron Yr Aur (Led Zeppelin III sessions) Down By The Seaside, Night Flight and Boogie With Stu (Led Zeppelin IV sessions) The Rover, Black Country Woman and Houses Of The Holy (Houses of The Holy sessions),

The whole package was mixed down by Jimmy Page with the late Keith Harwood engineering at Olympic Studios, and released as Physical Graffiti on February 24n 1975. It was a massive outpouring of Zeppelin music that proved to be the definitive summary of their studio work.

At the time Jimmy Page commented :’’We have more material than would fit in with a single album. So we figured it was time to put out a double set and include some tracks we have in the can. It seems like a good time to do that now.”

The sleeve design is one of their most elaborate. It features a photograph of a New York City tenement block, with interchanging window illustrations. The album designer, Peter Corriston, was looking for a building that was symmetrical with interesting details, that was not obstructed by other objects and would fit the square album cover. He said:

PG sleeve

‘’We walked around the city for a few weeks looking for the right building. I had come up [with] a concept for the band based on the tenement, people living there and moving in and out. The original album featured the building with the windows cut out on the cover and various sleeves that could be placed under the cover, filling the windows with the album title, track information or liner notes.’’[

The two five-story buildings photographed for the album cover are located at 96 and 98 St Marks Place in New York. In 1981 – the same location was used for the Rolling Stones video for Waiting On A Friend

To enable the image to fit properly with the square format of the album cover, the fourth floor (of five) had to be cropped out, making them appear as four-story buildings in the image. Mike Doud assisted on the inner sleeve typography.

The inter changing window illustrations featured photos of the band in drag taken at a party on their 1973 US tour along with random images such as the Lunar moon landings and the Queens Coronation.

Jimmy Page talking about the cover at the Physical Graffiti press playback Q and A at Olympic Studios February 3rd:

The Physical Graffiti artwork – the idea of it was to have something which was a sum of moving parts – in so much it was a follow on from the idea of third album with the wheel. You could find things in that with the various cut outs that moved. So being a double album we could have different visuals each side and then there’s an insert as well. The idea was to have this slightly more controlled aspect of the idea of the third album. It wasn’t my idea to use the building in St Marks Place but like I say, it was an idea to have something like the wheel.

Back thent he artwork as you have to remember and it’s not hard to forget, well everybody was paying so much attention to the art work. They were works of art these packages for 12inch albums right across the board I’m not just saying Led Zeppelin – but to really have artwork that would really complement everything. There was attention to detail in every respect.

Physical Graffiti was the band’s first release on their own Swan Song Records label, which was launched in May 1974 with a roster that comprised of Led Zeppelin, Bad Company, Maggie Bell and The Pretty Things. This was inaugurated with launch parties in New York and Los Angeles in the early summer on 1974. The UK launch duly followed at Chiselhurst Caves on Halloween night that year.

The name of the record company was derived from the title of an instrumental piece Jimmy recorded at the time of the Physical Graffiti sessions which was dubbed Swan Song.

Physical Graffiti was released on February 24th 1975. It entered every US chart at number three – a then record for a first week chart entry. It earned gold and platinum status within the first week of release, racking up  $10 million worth of business in the process.

It’s success spurred sales of all five previous Zep albums, prompting every album in their catalogue to re- enter the Billboard top 200 chart. No other rock act had ever been so well represented.

The release of Physical Graffiti coincided with a lengthy two legged US tour that spanned mid January to late March – this tour that saw them premiere Sick Again, In My Time of Dying Trampled Underfoot, The Wanton Song and Kashmir from the album.

In the UK, it entered the charts at number one just as they were announcing a string of sold out shows at London’s Earls Court Arena. These five sold out appearances to a combined audience of 85,000 took place in May 1975 and are considered to be amongst the finest the band undertook.

At the time the noted film maker Tony Palmer commented in The Observer ’’ With Led Zeppelin, statistics are irrelevant…expect to say they are truly astonishing. No pop group in history, no entertainer or opera singer has ever attracted such an audience’’.

Physical Graffiti sales figures to date approx. and counting:

UK 600,000 2x Platinum –  US 16,00,000 16x Platinum…and counting…

It’s a very personal and honest statement. It really allowed the listener to enter our world’’ 

Jimmy Page 2000

”We were just thinking about putting out an album that was going to knock everybody’s socks off – it’s a tour de force.”

Jimmy Page  2015

 Compiled by Dave Lewis – February 2015.

……………………………..

Led Zeppelin Transmissions 1969 release:

Here’s an excellent  review of the  recently released Transmissions 1969 CD set from posted on Amazon by long time TBL contributor and Zep at the BBC expert Phil Tattershall:

Over two hours of music from the greatest ever rock band in their prime for under a tenner. What’s not to like? Well, not much, but this set isn’t quite perfect. Let’s look at disc two first. The BBC Playhouse Theatre concert from June 1969 has been sourced from the bootleg CD ‘Rock Hour’ released on the Antrabata label in the early 1990s. Its provenance can be confirmed by the inclusion of the bootleg’s glitches between 1:15 and 1:22 of ‘Dazed and Confused’. Whoever mastered the new set has attempted to fix them, but they’re still apparent. Another thing that spoiled the otherwise excellent, if expensive, Antrabata release was a clumsy edit in ‘White Summer’ at 2:57, with about ten seconds of music missing. The Transmissions set is exactly the same.

All tracks on both discs have been mastered with quite a lot of compression, perhaps not so much as to deserve the label ‘brickwalled’, but the dynamic range has certainly been compromised. Also, despite the master tapes of all tracks being pure mono, they’re presented here in quasi-stereo. Normally, I’m against this sort of unnecessary tampering, but the result here is a quite pleasing fat, expansive sound.

Continuing on the more positive note, the notable omissions that blighted the so-called ‘Complete BBC Sessions’ official release are here intact. The embarrassingly inept interview conducted by Chris Grant, the snippet of the Isley Brothers’ ‘It’s Your Thing’ in the Playhouse ‘ Communication Breakdown’, the final drum roll of ‘Sunshine Woman’… they’re all here. And talking of ‘Sunshine Woman’, the new release also scores over the official version by being free of the ‘pop’ sound at 0:55 which betrayed its (probable) YouTube origins.

(Anyone with an interest in Led Zeppelin’s official live output should read Eddie Edwards’ excellent ‘The Garden Tapes’ web site, which covers the flaws and omissions of the BBC recordings in considerable detail.)

I feel really mean by docking a star from the five that the music so richly deserves, but the glitches in the Playhouse Theatre material mean that the release isn’t quite perfect. Astonishing value for money though.

As an aside, I’d be really interested to know why a release like this can be sold by Amazon, HMV etc., despite being an obvious bootleg. In Peter Grant’s day, baseball bats would surely have been brandished!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/product-re-views/B07ZWBRGJW/ref=acr_search_hist_4?ie=UTF8&filterByStar=four_star&reviewerType=all_reviews#reviews-filter-bar

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DL Diary Blog Update:

Update here…from my Facebook page Wednesday…

The good lady Janet and I are once again humbled by the many messages of support and kindness we have received in the past few days. Your kind words mean so much to us here and have helped so much.

After a very tough few days getting our head around recent medical developments, the sun shone today and brought with it a wave of much needed optimism.

Yes, we have a long uncertain journey ahead with the healing process of Janet’s broken leg (which has been pinned and screwed at the neck of her femur bone) but we have so much to be thankful for – and we have never been closer and looking after this beautiful lady I have loved for over 37 years is an absolute pleasure. Here we are earlier today about to venture out for a bit of much needed normality and it was an absolute tonic….

My self-esteem has been low for some time but I am determined to get back to doing the things I love, such as posting TBL/Zep/music related stuff here etc…which I will be doing.

So February is underway and this particular mantra is always an inspiration at this particular time…

’’January is a 31 day hangover but February brings lambs, daffodils and the air fills with a magical quickening that tells you spring is on the way. February is short so whatever you’re trying to stretch, whether it’s your salary, your calorie intake or your booze units, February’s unique compactness helps you spread it just that little bit thicker. A good enough reason to raise a glass”

We will drink a toast to that notion….

Thanks for listening
Thanks for all your support
Much love from Dave and Janet xx

Further update today…so, after a very difficult few days and a bad start to the week, it feels like there’s been a little light shining through. There’s still the usual round of hopes and fears underlining all we do here but we are very together on this mission of healing. I had a counselling session this week which went well.  I’ve also got a little more confident is seeing people and getting back to doing the things I love and that define who I am. A trip to the Vinyl Barn earlier was another step in getting back to normalising things here – I aim to pop in to the Bedford VIP record Fair tomorrow.

The good lady Janet continues to amaze me with her fortitude in what has been and continues to be an uncertain challenging time. Like I said, it’s a privilege looking after and caring for this wonderful lady I love so dearly. The strength to do that as I want to consistently is coming through – aided considerably by the ongoing help and kindness of some very special people both near and far…we both feel blessed in the love and support we continue to receive – so thanks again.

Finally…

Winterlude Playlist:

Some more winterlude record selections providing inspiration…

Nick Drake – Pink Moon

Paul Simon – Still Crazy After All These Years

Crosby Stills Nash and Young – Deja Vu

The Beatles – Let It Be

Robert Plant – Fate Of Nations

Led Zeppelin – Led Zeppelin III

Miles Davis – In A Silent Way

John Coltrane – A Love Supreme

Dave Lewis – February 7, 2020

Until next time, have a great weekend

Website updates written and compiled by Dave Lewis

Follow TBL/DL on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/tightbutloose.loose

The TBL/DL Facebook page has regular updates and photos – be sure to check it out

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5 Comments »

  • David B. Chastain said:

    Dear TBL/Dave L. (and LZ Friends all around the world!),
    Thank You so much Dave for so many fantastic issues of TBL for so many years! You, your friends and cohorts, have been (and continue to be!) a rock that I return to for my own reality check for all these years (since 1979 Carlo in Santa Rosa, CA!)! The Amazing Kornyfone Record Label (T.A.K.R.L.). To MOST on this good Earth, this means nothing; however, to “us,” it is so very special! Those crazy tapers and all their mocking comments are captured for all time (as are so many glorious LZ recordings), and one must simply laugh and be thankful (they shut-up during those great numbers!). Cheers to you Dave, and to all the members of our extended LZ family around the world! David C./USA

  • chris said:

    Dear Dave

    Thankyou as ever for all your words.

    I wanted to say that typically today I woke up tired and gloomy.
    I went for a quick run and still felt full of negativity but before I got home and started to be miserable in front of my family a voice came into head and of all the much maligned lyrics it was these words from a song of hope, “there are two paths you can go by”.
    I thought to my self, “Come on, turn it around, you can do it, you can escape the gloom” and it seemed to work, I chose light and positivity albeit with loads of problems to tackle along the way. Music continues to hold things together for me.

    Stay strong, thankyou again

  • Andrew Marcus said:

    Dave Keep on keeping on and think positively. I lost my wife of 30 years in October and it’s been and will continue to be an adjustment to say the least. You never move on just forward She always said to me that when life takes a crap on you turn it into fertilizer and grow a garden. I wish you both the best. PS The Montreal Forum show was the first boot I ever bought.

  • William Highland said:

    DAVE,
    Continue to push on. Your writings and your sharing of your struggles you and your wife are facing are an inspiration. I hope you both have a good weekend. If you have not seen Echo in the Canyon on Netflix, be sure and check it out. I purchased the vinyl soundtrack. In my Room, Never My Love, and Questions are terrific.

    Take good care,
    William Highland

  • Louis said:

    Dear Dave, great to read your latest post. You are most definitely not alone in struggling through what many of us have found to be a dark winter period. We live in a world of inequality, Boris, Brexit and Trump and it doesnt take much to knock some of us off our stride. Family and music are two of our greatest comforts and you’ve got that in spades. The Light is just around the corner, Spring brings renewal and optimism and sunshine will give you energy to keep going. Finding the positive in something every day helps me and, as you say, being thankful. Keep fighting, keep loving. Best wishes, Louis.

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