LITMIR.BIZ

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Then Jeff Beck’s 1968 Truth, which featured Jimmy, John Bonham, and John Paul Jones on several tracks. Then Danny Goldberg sent me the entire Zeppelin catalogue on vinyl. I knew—indeed had worn out—Led Zeppelin. I couldn’t believe what a great rock & roll record Led Zeppelin II was—“with a purple umber-ella and a fifty cent hat.” Led Zeppelin III from 1970 was an obvious homage to the important California musicians of the day—David Crosby, Stephen Stills, Neil Young, and especially Joni Mitchell. The untitled 1971 fourth album, the sleeve depicting the old man burdened by the bundle of sticks, had “Stairway to Heaven,” which I’d heard too much on the radio but could easily understand why it had become such a teenage anthem. (In America, when a kid died in a car crash, his friends would call the local radio station and ask them to play “Stairway” to coincide with the funeral.) I had never even listened to 1973’s Houses of the Holy, but I loved the lurid, burnt-orange jacket, the naked children climbing the Giant’s Causeway, and the frankly pagan vibe of the music, not to mention such hard-rock masterpieces as “The Ocean” and “Over the Hills and Far Away.”

      My brother Chris Davis is eight years younger than I. In 1975 he was still in the clutches of ardent Zeppelin fandom. He told me I had to hear the Led Zeppelin bootleg records because the mystical connection between the band and “the kids” was about a communion forged by their intense live shows, which could get very electrical and Dionysian. Chris made sure I got the right bootlegs: Live on Blueberry Hill (L.A. Forum 1970); In the Light (1969 BBC radio broadcasts); Unburied Dead Zeppo’s Grave (Japan 1971); Going to California with Led Zeppelin (L.A. Forum 1972); and Bonzo’s Birthday Party (L.A. Forum 1973).

      Chris was right. Despite uneven sound quality, the bootlegged concert recordings told more of the story. I could hear the kids yelling stuff at the band, and cheering at the start and end of favorite songs. I could hear Robert Plant talking to the audiences between songs, saying very funny things, and adlibbing lyrics to the older warhorses. It was now easier for me to appreciate the unusual, semimystical bond between this band and its very large fan base.

      Now I began to wonder about the forthcoming, rabidly anticipated new Led Zeppelin album, Physical Graffiti. Where was it? It was already mid-January 1975, and the band was about to go on the most lucrative tour of its career. Usually, a rock band would release an album and a 45-rpm single for radio airplay, and then rely on the ensuing tour to draw publicity for the album to pump up sales figures. But Led Zeppelin had a contrarian attitude toward the record industry. Jimmy Page refused to release singles because he didn’t like editing and remixing his recordings to sound good on a tinny American car radio. I was fascinated that Led Zeppelin didn’t seem to mind going on the road with no new product to sell—on its own new label, no less.

      There were good reasons for the album delay. Jimmy had postponed signing off on the final mixes the previous November because they were waiting for some Indian musicians to add some backing tracks to the anthemic new song, “Kashmir.” (The musicians never showed up.) The jacket for the double album (two LPs) was a complex, die-cut affair with sliding panels and open windows that took a long time to get right. And with fifteen new songs, Jimmy Page’s famous perfectionism guaranteed that Physical Graffiti could never have arrived on schedule.

      The band shrugged, and went on tour anyway.

      On Saturday night, January 11, Led Zeppelin played an unannounced show at the Ahoy, a rock club in the port city of Rotterdam, Holland. This was the first time an audience had heard some of the band’s new songs, and if the delivery was sometimes a little ragged, the reception veered between respectful and rapturous. Robert was so nervous after his eighteen-month layoff that he forgot the words to “Stairway to Heaven.” Fortunately, the audience knew the lyric and sang it for him.

      The consensus in the dressing room was that they had tried to play too many songs the first night.

      But it was a shambles the next night in Brussels, Belgium, at the Vorst Nationaal arena. The band was using these shows as open rehearsals, playing without the new light show, again experimenting on the concert versions of “Trampled Under Foot,” “Kashmir,” and other new songs. They tried out an arrangement of “When the Levee Breaks,” which they’d never tried to play in concert before.

      But nobody felt well. John Bonham was shaky, very hung-over from the night before, and failed to play “Moby Dick,” his cannonade of a drum solo. Jimmy Page looked sick, so “Dazed and Confused” was also left out of the set. After less than two hours, Led Zeppelin walked off the stage to sustained applause and demands for an encore, which they didn’t play. Jimmy Page murmured to Peter Grant that this band was going to have to pull itself together if they didn’t want to get bottled off the stage in America, in just two short weeks.

       CHAPTER 8 The True Pride of Led Zeppelin

      I went to New York in mid-January to set up my coverage of Led Zeppelin. Danny Goldberg wanted me to join the band’s entourage for a few days, attend a few concerts, and observe how crazy their fans were for this band. The Swan Song offices were on the top floor of the Newsweek Building, a brick-clad skyscraper at 444 Madison Avenue in midtown Manhattan. Behind a locked door was a reception area, with a girl answering the phone. The décor was framed platinum albums and piles of cardboard boxes. Danny’s big corner office was bare except for his desk, a ten-line phone console, some file cabinets, a sofa, and a large blue statue of Hindu’s Lord Krishna playing his flute.

      Everyone in the Zeppelin organization had a nickname: Pagey, Percy, Bonzo, Jonesy, Granty. Danny’s nickname was Govinda, supplied early on by Robert Plant. “Govinda Goldberg.” (This was actually better than Danny’s first Plant-bestowed nickname: Goldilocks.)

      Danny was taking phone calls, so I gazed out his top-floor window. Looking south, in the wan winter light, I could see all the way to New Jersey. A veteran of the exclusive “back room” at fabled hangout Max’s Kansas City on Park Avenue South, Danny was telling a (quite famous) old friend from the Warhol circle that he couldn’t have a job with Jimmy Page on the American tour because he was exactly the sort of person that Jimmy hired bodyguards to protect himself from.

      Led Zeppelin would shortly arrive in America, and Danny was working twelve-hour days. All the tour media went through him, much of it channeled through the publicity department of Atlantic Records, distributor of Swan Song product. Danny was also one of the links between the band and its booking agents, promoters, and tour operators. Danny was a wonderful young guy with very long hair, a spiritual outlook, and brain-crunching responsibilities. He didn’t drink, or smoke pot. He just got the job done. A real New York media pro, he maintained a tight schedule of parties, events, and concerts to attend, after hours. Danny was famous for never staying more than five minutes, but he always showed up.

      I’d invited him for lunch, and he was glad to get out of the office for an hour. This was a world before cell phones. On the way to the elevator, we passed a dark office lit only by a yellow lamp. A middle-aged man was talking intently on the telephone. “That’s Steve Weiss,” Danny whispered. “Our lawyer. Everyone is scared of him.”

      We ate at an Indian vegetarian restaurant and used the time to block out my dates. Danny suggested I cover Zeppelin’s concerts in the New York area at the end of February, and then fly with him to California to cover the Southern California shows, in early March. Danny explained the L.A. concerts were usually the best of the tour, because the musicians were showing off for their girlfriends.

      “I thought they were all married,” I blurted.

      Danny looked at me like I was an idiot.

      Could I get an advance copy of the new Led Zeppelin album?

      Oy. Danny rolled his eyes. “I have to answer this fuckin’ question two hundred times a day. I wish that … I … could get a copy. The release date keeps getting pushed back.” Physical Graffiti was now scheduled for the third week in February, a month into the tour. The record company guys were upset, nervous, scared for their bonuses. Danny

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