Etta and the Dead

12/31/82

Oakland Coliseum

In honor of Miss Etta’s passing, I present you with one of the neatest little surprises I’ve found.

On New Year’s Eve 1982, the Grateful Dead (a pop music combo) played a gig in the land of Bill Graham. Apparently, from the comments I read in myriad (more than you would think) music forums I scoured, these hooligans liberally provided all and sundry with LSD backstage.

So, you get to see a bunch of tripping hippy telepaths, a legendary blues/soul/pop singer, and a righteously tight horn combo play some really nice set. This is the third set of the night for the Dead. Goddamn, you got your money’s worth with that band (until you didn’t. Like Zeppelin).

The audio is excellent stereo, and will fill your headphones delightfully. The video starts just as Etta takes the stage (or thereabouts) but if you want to watch the whole 2 hour plus show, just restart it. You’re empowered. It’s the Coolest Thing Ever.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5K2wGuCSbQ

Etta, You Were Amazing

1938-2012

A True Legend

My wife introduced me to the music of Etta James, back in 2000. She always played Etta’s Live from San Francisco CD, in her car when we were out. Over the years I’ve heard a good deal of her catalog, mainly her later career, from 1980 onward… and it’s all amazing.

Etta had been suffering from myriad diseases over the last few years, including dementia (a heartbreak) and leukemia. She lost the struggle today, and is gone. We are the poorer for it.

This song is one Etta wrote back in 1968, and sang constantly thereafter. I’d Rather Be A Blind Girl is soulful, powerful, strong, weak, and everything Etta was. This version if from one of her many appearances at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1989. FYI – John Paul Jones played bass for her at the festival in 1974.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0yLCR-oLb0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dU_UG10ok1g

It’s been awhile, but I have sung the praises of James Brown before. There was no one like him, and his music was so intricate and fast… like Motorhead meets Miles Davis. There’s nothing like funk. It’s deep, and from the hips, but it’s not raw, like the blues, or stupid, like metal. The band is so tight that they look bored, but their churning out funk so badass that I, a 43 year old white Led Zeppelin fan, who grew up in New Hampshire (where the only minorities were greeks and french canadians)… even I tap a genteel loafered foot.. offbeat of course. It’s the coolest thing ever.

BTW… the woman that dances in the video, does many of the same (upper body) moves as my teenage daughter and her stupid friends, but they’re listening to dubstep.

A better partnership than Page/Plant at this point

And you try to tell me with consternation
That you have found me a brand new lock
Then you try to warn me that there’s only one combination
One new sling – the same old rock

I told you I would post this as soon as I found a video, and I have. Ok, This video was around on Sunday morning, but a brother’s got to make his paper, so I had to put this off. Irregahdless, this song, and performance, is truly sublime. I owe my brethren at FBO for this, as they’re always the first with this kind of stuff.

Jimmy played on the original, back in 1969/70, and it was just like this, but not as passionate.  They key to enjoying this is to not expect a JIMMY PAGE performance. This is Roy’s night, in Roy’s town, to Roy’s crowd. Roy Harper is a true artist, bard, visionary… in a very English way.  He’s magnificent, pure, and (as a result) at times a bit hokey to those not in the same zeitgeist.

This song is an indictment of organized religion and dogma. The rock referred to is not rock and roll, it’s the hurled rock of the defiant against the system. Davy/Goliath.  It’s beautiful. Jimmy plays beautifully and really cuts loose at the end (this song is long. folks. Either pay perfect attention, or zone out and come back at the end when the guitar gets good), and it makes me wonder why the fuck Jimmy doesn’t do more work with Roy. After all, he’s made 5 albums with Roy Harper, and they’re all classics.  There’s been talk about tendonitis or arthritis impinging upon Jimmy’s ability to really bend strings that well anymore… so play acoustic, motherfucker.

This is beautiful. Enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2bdLAVHbQU

Jimmy Page joins Roy Harper for The Same Old Rock

The Fifth Of November

Remember

Roy Harper threw a 70th birthday concert on 11/5 (or 5/11 to our brothers across the pond), and Jimmy Page came out for the encore. I have pictures, and I have a testimonial, but I’ve not found any video. I will post it when I do.

Hopalong Zimmerman

He Held Your Hand

And He Sang You A Song

Ima kill the discourteous motherfucker.

This is one of the great SUN Records classics, completely hit out of the park by Balladeer Bob Dylan, the rockabilly troubador. I’m serious. Click the picture of Bob to hear the original. I’ll wait. … not bad, right? A bit tinny, and too fast maybe, but a really good song.

Now listen to Bob Dylan’s cover. It’s a zillion times better, and it’s (relatively) recent (2003 I believe).  It’s got swagger, groove, and some of that swampy creeping darkness. Like that point just outside the reach of the streetlight,  where there could be trouble. Dylan growls and wheezes the undercurrent of menace that the song has. Heartbreak and betrayal make guys kill people. They make people crazy. Who you been lovin since I been gone? Answer me.

He was long and tall, had plenty of cash. He had a red Cadillac and a black mustache.

[I just deleted some of the darkest, funniest, most alienating stuff I've written in years. Those who know me know how dark and mean and evil I can get... it was like that but funnier. Horribly, unforgivably awful. I'd rather run through Birmingham on MLK day in a white hood, yelling the n word with middle fingers upraised, than publish what I wrote. Lou Reed and William Burroughs would get up and leave. So.. um... listen to the damn song. It's good]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmTWrBmjRsE

click for another visual cue

Mit Iodine

What would Cliff Think?

Lou Reed and Metallica. I agree mit der fuhrer, but from the opposite position. I have very little love for Metallica, and any regard I held for them ended… shit 15 years ago? Whenever they decided they needed hits. Lou Reed will gain a certain amount of new fans, and surely won’t lose any, but… Mo Tucker > Lars Ulrich … and she’s a 70 year old woman.

This video is hilarious. Watch it all the way through. Every second is golden. Funniest Shit Ever.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9LcJwX9dnE

Take The Money, Honey

Take My Whole Life Too

There was a time when I really loved U2. It was when I was going through my divorce, in the early 90′s, and Achtung Baby came out. Bono had only just started preening around like the preening, rock star god (of which there were two polarities, the Fly, and MacPhisto) rather than being the earnest, white flag waving cunt he had been in the 80′s.  It wasn’t long before Bono realized that the makeup didn’t wash off anymore, and the caricature became the character. It’s ok. It’s what happens to singers. The Edge, however, shows why he was allowed to stand next to Jimmy Page in It Might Get Loud.

Love Is Blindness is the closing track on Achtung Baby, and this performance is from u2′s long ZooTV tour. It’s a wonderfully melancholy song, recorded in Berlin with Brian Eno, just like Bowie’s best work. After this show, u2 started to fade into the limbo of the mature band. They’re great to see live, but you don’t buy their new material. Entropy. It happens. I believe it’s one of the Noble Truths.

I am posting this video because it’s a proshot clip, from the ZooTV tour, in Australia. It’s excellent. Truly outstanding. If, however, you are like me, and seek out perfection… well then, my friend, you must hear this version. It is achingly perfect, but the video sucks. I heard this show broadcast WBCN in August 1993. It was the U2′s hometown of Dublin, and the last show of the tour, and a very palpable end of an era.

So, if you want to know what yours truly drank to in 1993/4/5, then give a listen. It’s really, really good.  It’s the coolest thing ever.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33ZKmi586PA

This is hailed as Led Zep's Best Concert Ever

The Legendary Bath Festival

6/28/70 Led Zeppelin’s “Best” Performance

Anyone who ever went through any sort of Led Zeppelin phase, is familiar with the pictures of Jimmy Page wearing an overcoat and a “yokel” hat onstage.  The Bath Festival has been held in quite reverence ever since they got offstage, back in 1970.  The sun went down behind them, as they took the stage, and tens of thousands of stoners went,”whoa……..”.

Although the show was professionally filmed, and taped, it hasn’t seen the light of day. If memory serves, Jimmy Page looked into purchasing this footage, for the Led Zeppelin DVD release, but the price was too high. There are only a couple of bootlegs of this show, and they all sound like shit. The one used in the video (which as synced by ssellers, who is amazing) below is a newly found source. It’s much less distorted than other sources, and one can now hear the show (although the quality is still pretty rough).

Anyway, I’m rambling. At this show, Led Zeppelin debuted songs from the as yet unreleased Led Zeppelin 3 album. It’s cool. A good rule of thumb is that if Jimmy Page is wearing a sweater vest, or a fishing hat onstage, then it’s going to be a great show. It wasn’t until he started being “cool” that his chops suffered (prolly from all them drugs what he took). Enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xh4FfeXqvTQ

The man gets around

It’s Not Led Zeppelin

Moldejazz 2011

You will probably not like this. It’s pure, free, improvisation. Most people call it noise. Supersilent is a Norwegian avant garde improv group, that’s been around almost 15 years.

This clip is from the Moldejazz Festival 2011 (just a few days ago), and features Jonesy jumping in and kicking ass with the mighty nords. John Paul Jones keeps busy like a mofo, and always doing cool stuff, like Seasick Steve, or the collaboration with Sonic Youth, or the Anna Nicole opera, or his own supergroup, Them Crooked Vultures.

Jimmy Page recently launched a website. John Paul Jones FTW.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GkS6dVZqEw