On the road with Led Zeppelin in the 7. With all due respect to the movie Almost Famous, I never went on a Led Zeppelin tour where the band spontaneously burst into an Elton John song on a tour bus. Nor do I recall hootenannies with acoustic guitars in the Continental Hyatt House on the Sunset Strip. I remember the band’s needle- thin guitarist, Jimmy Page, sitting in the dark on a sofa in a corner suite at the Plaza hotel in New York City with a cadaverous David Bowie by his side, watching the same 1. Kenneth Anger’s film Lucifer Rising over and over again—with lines of cocaine on the table. I recall a flight to Detroit aboard the band’s private jet when Jimmy got into a fight with a Fleet Street reporter, and the tour manager, the menacing Richard Cole, pulled out a gun. And, of course, I remember the rumors: Jimmy traveled with a suitcase full of whips. One time he was naked, covered with whipped cream, put on a room- service table, and wheeled into a room to be served up to a bunch of teenage girls. The band attacked a female reporter from Life magazine, ripping her clothes, until, in tears, she was rescued by the band’s manager. And, in 1. 96. 9 at Seattle’s Edgewater Inn, in a notorious episode that has achieved mythic proportion, the band violated a teenage girl with a live shark. And it wasn’t some big ritualistic thing; it was in and out and a laugh and the girl wasn’t sobbing—she was a willing participant. It was so fast, and over and done with, and no one from the band was there. I don’t think anyone who was there remembers the same thing.”)With more than 2. Led Zeppelin is the biggest- selling rock group in history. Tour promoters have offered untold millions for a Zeppelin reunion. A whole new generation has discovered the band with a TV ad for Cadillac that features their song “Rock and Roll.” This past spring, Zeppelin entered both the CD and DVD charts at No. Freddie Mercury was born on the Tanzanian island of Zanzibar. His parents, Bomi and Jer Bulsara, sent him off to a private school in India, from 19. Archives and past articles from the Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Daily News, and Philly.com. Stephan Berwick Lou Reed - the Warrior Prince of Taijiquan. On NPRs Fresh Air program today, Lou was commemorated by his previous long-time publicist, Bill Bentley. Find the latest sports news and articles on the NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, NCAA college football, NCAA college basketball and more at ABC News. With all due respect to the movie Almost Famous, I never went on a Led Zeppelin tour where the band spontaneously burst into an Elton John song on a tour bus. Angel by Thierry Mugler is a Oriental Vanilla fragrance for women. Angel was launched in 1992. Angel was created by Olivier Cresp and Yves de Chirin. At the time of Led Zeppelin’s ascent, at the end of the 1. A Rolling Stone critique of the band’s first album stated, “Robert Plant sings notes that only dogs can hear.” Zeppelin was labeled derivative, a hype, and every vile name anyone could possibly think of, and their U. S. There was nothing new about girls waiting in hotel lobbies, jumping into limousines, hanging out at clubs until the musicians passed out, then accompanying them back to their beds. What was new was the level of decadence (high or low, depending on your point of view) that accompanied Led Zeppelin, especially in the U. S. At the beginning of the 1. There were no cell phones, no Game Boys, no DVDs, no Walkmans, no Internet, no reality TV. And, just when big music and big money came together, Led Zeppelin gave new meaning to “sex and drugs and rock ’n’ roll.” Everything was offered to them. They turned nothing down. But if a legend was about debauchery only, people would still be extolling the virtues of the 1. Poison, or David Lee Roth. According to producer Rick Rubin, “Jimmy Page revolutionized everything. There was no real blues rock in that bombastic way before Zeppelin. Plus, with the insane drumming of John Bonham, it was radical, playing at a very, very high level—improvisational on a big- rock scale. It was brand new.”In 1. Beatles, no longer on tour, seemed tame. The Rolling Stones, while fashionably louche, played songs. Led Zeppelin was neither a hippie jam band nor an improvisational jazz outfit, but they took the blues, added Eastern influences, switched into acoustic folk in the middle of a number (they even did a cover version of Joan Baez’s “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You”), and you never knew what they would do next. Twenty- six- year- old Jimmy Page, a sophisticated London studio musician, had toured the U. S. Bassist- keyboardist John Paul Jones, 2. London session musician. Combine that with two novices from the provinces—the randy 2. Robert Plant, besotted with flower power, blues, and rockabilly, and drummer John “Bonzo” Bonham, 2. Motown and James Brown—and you had a group that took rock music to a progressive new level: loud, fast, complex, heavy, virile. And the band’s manager, Peter Grant, changed the rules of the music business. A baroque, bearded, 3. Count Massimo), Peter was an intimidating presence. When he worked with Jimmy and the Yardbirds, concert promoters “split” the take 5. Peter signed Zeppelin to Atlantic Records for the then unheard- of sum of $2. Jimmy paid out of his own pocket). Peter refused to let the band release singles, so that fans had to buy the albums. After the band got big, he wouldn’t let them make television appearances, so if people wanted to see Led Zeppelin they had to pay to go to the concerts. And, in a move that forever changed the rock- concert business, he forced promoters to give the band 9. Instead of employing the usual local promoters, Peter hired Jerry Weintraub’s Concerts West to oversee the band’s tours. Defensively, they did no interviews. Peter and Jimmy (at the start this was clearly Jimmy’s band and Peter worked for Jimmy) encouraged a mystique. But eventually they wanted to be famous. Robert Plant, in particular, was irritated that Zeppelin was breaking attendance records but the Rolling Stones were getting all the press. So they hired a press agent. Danny Goldberg, hired to do publicity for the band, asked me to go see them on the southern leg of the U. S. I had heard all the stories and wanted no part of this band. But my editors at the British music weekly Disc—and later at the New Musical Express, Hit Parader, Creem, and the New York Post—all insisted that I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to talk to what was quickly becoming the world’s biggest rock band. So, from 1. 97. 3 to 1. I traveled on and off with Zeppelin in the U. S. I endured the disdain of my so- called colleagues, all of whom considered Led Zeppelin d. Backstage, I saw a phalanx of security guards. Peter Grant was screaming at some T- shirt bootleggers and at a policeman who had been rough with a female fan. Richard Cole, after politely shaking my hand, placed me on the side of the stage near the amplifiers. To my astonishment, I loved the three- and- a- half- hour show. The next day, at the Fontainebleau hotel in Miami, I was told that the band asked if I was “hiding” in my room. I took the challenge and went downstairs to the pool. John Bonham and John Paul Jones were nowhere in sight. Robert Plant, wearing a tiny red bikini, was charming. I asked about the band’s bad reputation. When there are no holds barred, there are no holds barred.”May 1. Royal Orleans Hotel, New Orleans: The band and their entourage were assembled at the rooftop pool. Jimmy Page was fully dressed, looked very pale, and talked about the bad press the band received in England. They wallow in rubbish. And while I may be a masochist in other regions, I’m not that much of a masochist that I’m going to pay money to tear myself to bits—reading.” Robert Plant, dressed in the same red bikini he wore in Miami, talked about the band’s image. We’ve been to California and that Continental Hyatt House and there are guys who book in there with whips and goodness knows what just because they hear we’re coming. I like to think that people know we’re pretty raunchy and that we really do a lot of the things that people say we do. But what we’re getting across . Some nights I look out and want to fuck the whole front row.”Peter Grant instructed Danny Goldberg to make up a press release that stated, “The 4. Atlanta Led Zeppelin show was the biggest thing in Atlanta since Gone with the Wind,” and to attribute the quote to the mayor of Atlanta. In both Atlanta and Tampa, the band got front- page billing with the Watergate hearings. In New Orleans, Ahmet Ertegun rented Cosimos Studios, a big, funky, warehouse recording studio, for a party for Zeppelin after their show, and invited the Meters, Ernie K- Doe, and Professor Longhair to perform. A large portable air conditioner was set up to cool the room. Ernie K- Doe was wearing white linen trousers and a pink sport coat and white tie. Art Neville sat at the organ, ready to perform with the Meters. Blind blues great Snooks Eaglin had his guitar, and Professor Longhair was at the piano. The members of Led Zeppelin, who grew up in England hearing these guys on pirate radio, were thrilled. Led Zeppelin were aware that when the Rolling Stones walked into a room they created an ambience. So when Zeppelin went to a club, Richard Cole called ahead to say the band was on its way and to make sure that bottles of Dom P. When Zeppelin was in town, especially in New York City and more especially in Los Angeles, the groupie grapevine went into overdrive. In Hollywood, at the Rainbow on the Sunset Strip—just down the street from the Hyatt House where the band stayed—bodyguards manned the booths reserved for “the boys.” (They were always “the boys,” and, in fact, musicians now well into their 5. Teenage girls lined up in front of them. He sent her flowers.”) Lori was Jimmy’s steady girl whenever he was in L. A. She says he called her every day even when he was in England, where he lived in a reportedly contentious relationship with longtime girlfriend Charlotte Martin, the mother of his daughter Scarlet. Lori says she never saw a whip in his room, Jimmy was always delightful to her, he would never let her touch a drug, and he was so furious when he once saw her smoke a cigarette that he made her smoke an entire pack of Salems so she’d never do it again. During the 1. 97. Robert got the flu and a show was canceled, there was talk of sending the band’s empty jet to fetch Lori to bring her to be with Jimmy in the Midwest. Instead, the band went to Los Angeles—their favorite playground—for a few days off. Robert’s tour amours were girls he managed to convince that he was, at any given moment, about to leave his wife, Maureen, the mother of his two young children. Once, when he went back home to his farm on the Welsh border after a tour, Maureen came running out of the house furiously waving a copy of the English music weekly Melody Maker.
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