Countdown to the Celebration Day…13 days to go.

To mark the impending momentous worldwide screening of the Led Zeppelin Ahmet Ertegun 02 reunion concert on October 17th, we are counting down to the day with a daily Celebration Day Newsletter post. This will feature relevant news and updates plus the TBL Countdown Collection – a daily celebration of Zep moments, memories and artefacts.

FABER & FABER/ROCKS BACK PAGES  LED ZEPPELIN NIGHT TO LAUNCH THE TRAMPLED UNDER FOOT BOOK: SOCIAL LONDON OCTOBER 1ST:

On Monday night I attended the Faber & Faber /RBP Led Zeppelin night. This was staged by Rocks Back Pages at the Social in London to mark the launch of Barney Hoskyn’s Trampled Under Foot book.

Once again Barney rounded up some key figures from the journalistic Zep world and road crew to talk about the band and the book. The line up was  Keith Altham  who wrote for the NME in the 1960s and was  PR to The Who and many others and was also the last to interview Jimi Hendrixin 1970, Charles Shaar Murray the legendary ex NME scribe and author and Phil Carlo who worked extensively with Bad Company and on with  Zep 1980 as tour manager and also continued to work with Jimmy throughout the 1980s.

Ex Zep roadie Joe Jammer kicked off the evening performing  a version of White Summer. During the debate, Keith Altham told a very humorous story of saying to Peter Grant that Zep was too loud when he saw early in their carer. ‘’Every time I saw him after that he reminded me saying ‘’ Are they still fuckin too loud for you Keith!’’. Charles had good memories of the madness of being with Zep in the US in 1973 and Phil Carlo had a very insightful view of the last days of the band. All in all it was excellent evening. It was also good to hook up with long time TBL contributor Rikky Rooksby and another legend of the rock pen Pete Makowski. We chatted about his legendary review of Earls Court  in Sounds which stated ‘‘This gig is ingrained on my brain’’

Barney, Keith Altham, Charles Shaar Murray

Barney, Keith, Charles and Phil Carlo

Joe Jammer

Joe and Phil

At the Faber & Faber launch it was a particular thrill for me to meet Charles Shaar Murray one of my all time writing heroes. Alongside his fellow NME scribe Nick Kent ,his prolific work on the NME in the early 1970s was a massive inspiration to me as a young teenage rock fan eager to write myself and I can reel off whole quotes from his Zep pieces back then. I can recall vividly reading in awe his reviews of Earls Court and Presence in my bedroom in Dents Road. Both of those challenging reviews got him name checked by Robert Plant on stage at both the final Earls Court gig and at Knebworth.  It was an absolute joy to discuss all this with him on Monday and his recall was spot on.

Charles Shaar Murray  and DL

YOU TUBE VIDEO CLIP OF THE DAY:

Now this is something of a curio. In early 1978 Midland based punk band Dansette Damage recorded a track about the famous music weekly NME. It was recorded at the Old Smithy Studios in Kempsey, Worcestershire with Robert Plant and Zep sound man Benji  Lefevre offering production and engineering assistance. Robert was billed as the Wolverhampton Wanderer and adds backing vocals at the close of the song. NME  was issued as a single coupled with The Only Sound and  is now much sought after collectors item.

THE TBL COUNTDOWN COLLECTION: NUMBER 14 WITH 13 DAYS TO GO:

Number 14 in the countdown to Celebration Day:

Today’s choice in keeping with the NME theme, is The Last Temptation of Elvis –a double album put together by the NME and issued in 1990. This has a variety of artists exclusively covering Elvis songs. Robert Plant comes up with a rather splendid cover of Let’s Have A  Party recorded in an ad hoc line up that featured the late  great Mick Green on guitar –the original guitarist in Johnny  Kidd & the Pirates.

Until tomorrow…

Dave Lewis/Gary Foy

October 4th , 2012

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