LZ-’75: The Lost Chronicles of Led Zeppelin’s 1975 American Tour: Review II

[caption id="attachment_433" align="alignright" width="232" caption="LZ-’75: The Lost Chronicles of Led Zeppelin’s 1975 American Tour"][/caption]

I’m a portion of the way through LZ-’75: The Lost Chronicles of Led Zeppelin’s 1975 American Tour, Stephen Davis’ new autobiographical read on Led Zeppelin’s 1975 tour of America and, more broadly speaking, Led Zeppelin’s 1975, and something is bothering me. In 1969 Davis saw Led Zeppelin at Boston’s famed Tea Party, and was impressed by the young, early rockers.

Between then and 1975 he worked as an editor at Rolling Stone (not the whole time), America’s premiere music magazine. So what does Davis do before heading out with Led Zeppelin? Familiarize himself with the Led Zeppelin catalogue. Familiarize himself, because working for the #1 music magazine means not being familiar with the top selling band, the top concert draw of the last five years?

Taking my assignment seriously, I had to familiarize myself with Led Zeppelin’s music… I had never even listened to 1973’s Houses of the Holy…

My brother Chris 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 a bout a communion forged by their intense love shows.

Yes kids, in 1975 you could be one year out of a Rolling Stone editorship and never listened to a Led Zeppelin album that had been #1 on Billboard, Cashbox and the UK album charts. You never need to wonder again why Led Zeppelin so mistrusted the “rock” press.

That Led Zeppelin mistrusted, even hated, the press is an important part of the story of LZ-’75. Stephen Davis was invited to travel with Led Zeppelin, courtesy of Led Zeppelin, in a proactive attempt to get better press for the band. Stephen Davis, in short, didn’t do his job for five years, and was rewarded with the gig of a lifetime. His superior attitude that the stoned kids who liked Led Zeppelin were, “in the clutches of ardent… fandom,” runs throughout the narrative.

Yet for that, LZ-’75 is an enjoyable read. Once Davis has familiarized himself, and given Led Zeppelin’s history up until 1975, the book settles into a nice memoir of the band and it’s extended family.

Because he knew he would be covering Led Zeppelin during part of their 1975 tour, Davis kept newspaper reports of the early days of the tour. Whether it’s the fans in Boston in near riot during the lead up to the tickets going on sale, or the early shows and the various problems they encountered, Davis covers the history of the 1975 tour. But it is when Davis joins up with Led Zeppelin in New York that LZ-’75: The Lost Chronicles of Led Zeppelin’s 1975 American Tour comes to life. The book shifts from historical record to personal, first person behind the scenes account of the tour.

It is, however, the Los Angeles portion of the tour that makes LZ-'75 worth the money. Whether it is chance encounters with Jimmy Page's ex-girlfriend Lori Maddox, ("Lori is a legend along Sunset Strip,") or Ron Wood's wife Chrissie, "who ran off with Jimmy before the tour started," (Wood is reported to have asked Jimmy at an after concert party in New York, "how's our bird?"): The Hyatt House, known as the Riot House; the groupies; the kindergarten teacher who wants to be a groupie, for one night at least; Iggy Pop selling heroin; John Bonham jamming, at full volume, to Alphonse Mouzon's 1975 album Mind Transplant at 3AM; or Robert Plant on Davis' hotel balcony, yelling "I am a Golden God!"

Add in an interview with Robert Plant (during which the aforementioned balcony scene occurs), and a meeting in Jimmy Page's hotel room where the exhausted(?) Page lies around in darkness, the room barely lit with "a dozen white candles." Davis has a meeting with the kindergarten teacher, The Prairie Princess, and two roadies at the bar.

Outside the Continental Hyatt House, Davis travels with the band on The Starship - including a harrowing trip through a storm, hangs out backstage, examines John Bonham's drum-kit with Bonham's faithful roadie Mick Hinton, to the concerts themselves.

LZ-’75: The Lost Chronicles of Led Zeppelin’s 1975 American Tour is overall, an easy, comfortable read. Many of the stories herein will be familiar to a Led Zeppelin fan, but weaved together they tell an interesting tale of a top flight band at the apex of their career. Their Achilles Heel, drugs, was just beginning to show itself and the band would change irrevocably in the aftermath of 1975.

Dotted throughout with fabulous black and white pictures by Peter Simon, many of  them never before seen, LZ-'75 makes a perfect winter's afternoon read in the big comfortable chair.

*****************
I previously reviewed LZ-'75 from an e-book version here.

Book Review LZ-’75: The Lost Chronicles of Led Zeppelin's 1975 American Tour - Stephen Davis

The last time Stephen Davis tackled the subject of Led Zeppelin, the result was Hammer of the Gods, a tabloid fodder biography of the 70’s superstars that was a bestseller due to it’s sensational content, but that is often reviled by Led Zeppelin faithful, for the same reason.

His newest Led Zeppelin tome, LZ-'75: The Lost Chronicles of Led Zeppelin's 1975 American Tour, due for release in Canada on Tuesday Nov 2nd, should inspire neither the same sales nor passions. While LZ-’75 is marketed as a book about Led Zeppelin, it’s really a book about Stephen Davis, with Led Zeppelin playing a significant supporting role.

Stephen Davis was a prominent rock journalist in 1975, a former editor of Rolling Stone, who was invited by Swan Song Vice-President Danny Goldberg to tour with Led Zeppelin. While it sounds at first blush that Davis travelled from the get go, it’s not so. He joined the 1975 Led Zeppelin tour in New York, then travelled with it to Los Angeles. The rest of America somehow managed to see Led Zeppelin without Stephen Davis.

The truth is Davis joins the tour at chapter 12, a third of the way through the book. Before that it’s Davis personal history with Led Zeppelin, i.e. as a young fan in 1969 he loved them, as an Editor at Rolling Stone he ignored them. By 1975, Davis was having to reacquaint himself with the band. He therefore, spends the early chapters giving the reader the bands history, and if there’s any revelations in the book, they emerge here. A couple of pieces that were news to me: Robert Plant had secret vocal chord surgery sometime after the 1973 tour, leaving him unable to speak for a couple of weeks, and his voice an octave lower than it had been; Physical Graffiti was delayed in the early months of 1975 in part because they were waiting for some Indian musicians to add backing tracks to Kashmir - they never did. I can’t help wondering, what would Kashmir sound like with Indian instruments layered on?

Any mention of drug use comes up in the early sections as well, and nothing outrageous.

Jimmy Page:

Jimmy Page was spent from long nights spent mixing the tapes for Zeppelin’s new album, which he had finished only the previous November… Jimmy was also said to be using heroin, which left him weak, anemic and spectrally thin.

John Bonham:

And then there was John Henry Bonham, also known as Bonzo or (behind his back) the Beast. Led Zeppelin’s brilliant drummer… was miserable about leaving his wife and two children and his cozy farm in the wintry English midlands for three months of touring in America. He was drinking a lot and had put on a ton of weight. He… looked fat; drank more than usual; may also have been dabbling in heroin

And although John Paul Jones isn’t reported to be on drugs, he isn’t spared a shot:

John Paul Jones had reportedly gone to Peter Grant… and told him he wanted to leave the band… Jones arrived at the next Zeppelin session and said nothing about leaving, but to the others he seemed sullen and more withdrawn than usual.

Outside of these examples, the negatives are kept to a minimum.

The early part of the tour is reported second hand, as Davis is not on the tour, but following it through the press. Once he joins the tour in New York, the book becomes a first hand account. You are privy to what Davis saw, whom he talked to and how he travelled (hint: sometimes, in a Led Zeppelin entourage limo and on the Starship).

You get a conversation in Jimmy Page’s hotel room and an interview with Robert Plant during the infamous “I am a Golden God!” photo session. He meets Mick Hinton, John Bonham’s drum tech, who gives him a tour of the drum set pre-concert. He meets groupies, cocktail waitresses with stories, roadies in bars, and Lori Maddox:

“That’s Lori Maddox,” he (Danny Goldberg) said. “She was Jimmy’s girlfriend when she was fourteen, which was only about three years ago… Since then Jimmy’s moved on, but she’s like a mascot, and they all like her, so she’s always around when the band is in town.

The books most damning part comes from a day Davis spent hanging around the Swan Song offices while Led Zeppelin were performing in the south. The receptionist was wading through a pile of fan mail, opening it to check for contraband, mostly the odd joint thrown in. The letters were then thrown out. Davis grabbed a stack of the letters, and he reprints one here. The fact that the letters are treated so shabbily, reflects badly on how Zeppelin treated their fan base. The letter reprinted is so earnest, if innocent, “I’m also ‘into’ black magic and playing guitar, so we have a lot in common,” that it deserves better than the garbage. Thousands of fans, in good faith, sent letters to the band they loved, and every single one of them was pillaged for goods and disposed unread.

Overall LZ-’75 is quick, easy and pleasant read. Nothing outrageous is reported, but neither does Stephen Davis pull any punches. If you are big time Led Zeppelin fan, you will likely find it an entertaining way to kill a winters afternoon. If you are Stephen Davis’ mother, you will be interested to know what Stephen was getting up to. However, if you are a marginal Led Zeppelin fan and wonder “who the fuck is Stephen Davis?” this book is probably not for you.

...(Led) Zeppelin (is) alone in the virtual arena as still reigning champions of rock.

Some say that, like many great champions, Led Zeppelin retired undefeated.

I don't think Robert Plant feels that way

LZ-'75: The Lost Chronicles of Led Zeppelin's 1975 American Tour.
Davis, Stephen 1947 -

*****************
A note about the edition: This book was released world wide on October 28th, 2010. Jaw droppingly, it is unavailable in Canada until tomorrow, Nov 2. As I live in Canada, yet the 21st century - unlike the book publishers - I downloaded a Dolby Digital Editions copy from an American book seller. Some hoops had to be jumped through to get the book, more to get it to function on my Kobo e-reader.

E-editions really don't do pictures well yet, so I can't comment on the quality of the pictures in the book (all by Peter Simon), except to say they are of terrible quality in the e-edition. That is, however, a limit of the technology at it's current stage of development.

You would think book publishers would have learnt from the music industry. Now that their works are being digitized, they are becoming easier to attain through illegal means. Making it harder for your customers to buy the product than to just take it is idiotic. Releasing the product in most, but not all countries, is begging potential customers to take what they might have bought.