Afterglow - The Video and the Preorder

Black Country Communion's third studio album, Afterglow, is now available for pre-order through the Black Country Communion website.

As well, the band released an "in the studio" video yesterday called AFTERGLOW Webisode 1:



Meanwhile, Glenn Hughes seems to be backing away from comments he made last month that this could be Black Country Communion's last album. In an interview, Hughes said that without a deeper level of commitment from guitarist Joe Bonamassa, who also has a successful solo career, perhaps it was time to move on.

Today on twitter, Hughes backed away from that statement:

Peeps~BCC is not splitting up~we have a new album comin'~hey I get a lil sensitive with the media...and controversy makes for good copy..GH

O2 DVD Announcement Coming

The countdown is on. With a '5' in the traditional Houses of the Holy font appearing on their Facebook page Saturday, Led Zeppelin announced something was up. Sunday was 'four', Led Zeppelin 4 style, and yesterday a 'III', ala the third album. So what of today? You guessed it, brown bomber style:



What can it all mean? Jeff Strawman has a good accounting of the possible theories, only one of which makes any sense whatsoever: the O2 DVD/Bluray will see commercial release.

There is no surprise here as it was talked about heavily last year, and then died suddenly on the vine. Rumours of it being issued this year  began a few months ago, and last week was seemingly confirmed by a Belgium radio station. That post was taken down after a day, suggesting not necessarily inaccuracy, but that the original post was premature. And so it seems it is.

Early this morning, the Sun newspaper in the UK reported that the O2 DVD/Bluray is being released on November 22nd.

As well, over the last 2 days, video has been appearing on the Facebook page and the band's official YouTube page. Here's today's:



As for the countdown, know that five years ago on day zero, September 13, the band announced the reunion show. Seriously, it's a CD/DVD/Bluray and nothing else.

Gentleman (and ladies), start your Christmas list.

November Release?

A radio station blog out of Belgium, Classic 21, is reporting this morning that Led Zeppelin will release a DVD and CD of their December 2007 performance at the O2 arena in London. Here is a translation of the main body of the post:

The famous Led Zeppelin concert in London at the O2 Arena in 2007 double DVD released in November.

According to Warner Music , a double DVD, accompanied by two CDs, the resume legendary concert which took place in 2007 at the 02 Arena, where 9 million people had tried to buy 18,000 tickets available.

No complete set had been given since 1979. Among the crowd, there were Paul McCartney, Noel and Liam Gallagher, David Gilmour, Arctic Monkeys, Kate Moss and Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters.

Note that Classic 21 is saying it will be a double DVD/Bluray and a CD release as well - presumably a vinyl issue will be in the mix as well.

A representative from Robert Plant's management office couldn't confirm the release and queries to Warner Brothers, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones representatives have so far been unanswered.

As of now, this is strictly a rumour.

Classic 21 is one of Belgium's largest radio stations, formerly part of the Belgium public radio network RTBF (Belgian Radio and Television of the French Community). It is the largest chain of radio traffic in French speaking Belgium and is listened to widely in the north of France.

I will update this story as more information emerges.

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Update: a change has been made removing writing credit for the Classic 21 post as it may have been inaccurate. The original post is, in fact, unsigned,

Update 2: From the comments:

The article seems to have been removed altogether from Classic 21’s site…unfortunate..

Episode #20

On the one year anniversary of Ramble On Radio, I celebrate Robert Plant's birthday with some kind words about Plant, plus I discuss Plant's upcoming schedule, live and recorded, a Jimmy age book and auction, a Led Zeppelin book and John Paul Jones opera.

Also discuss some newly released songs, upcoming music by Black Country Communion, what a fine smoke sounds like and why Robert Plant's management team should reply to my emails.

The podcast is available on Podbean, or subscribe via iTunes.

Battle of Evermore Cover

Shel is a band of 4 classically trained sisters, ranging in age from 18-23 who's debut album was released on August 7. The album features a wonderful version of Battle of Evermore.

Below is a live version of the song, and it is wonderfully done, I must say.

"Daunting is What I Do"

There is a short John Paul Jones interview in the October 2012 edition of Uncut, which hit the newstands today.

In the interview, Jones describes playing with Led Zeppelin, especially in the early days, and compares it to playing with the "Norwegian noisemakers," Supersilent.

There was great unplanned improv sequences in Led Zep songs...  Quite often I found myself onstage with absolutely no idea of what I was going to do, and that's the fun of it...

When asked to play with Supersilent for the first time in 2010, he asked what they did:

Well, we don't talk about it, we don't rehearse, we just play.

"I thought it sounded intriguing," Jones says.

When playing with Supersilent, Jones plays a 12 string bass through a programming system called Kyma. Of Supersilent, Jones says:

It can be extraordinarily delicate and beautiful, or it can sound like the end of the world.

Of Jones, Supersilent's Helge Sten says:

(he has a) really big palette of things - he's playing bass but what you hear sounds completely different.

Jones also talks about the opera he is working on, August Strindberg's play, The Ghost Sonata, due for completion in 2015. "It's more than slightly daunting," he says. "But daunting is what I do."

Jones will be performing with Supersilent in Birmingham on November 14, Glasgow on November 15, Manchester on November 16, Bristol November 17 and London on November 18.

Robert Plant Writing Again

Is Robert Plant set to release two albums in the upcoming year or so? That seems to be the logical conclusion as Plant tells The Telegraph's Paul Sexton that he has almost completed an album with The Sensational Space Shifters.

This comes on the heels of telling The Independent that he had completed a new Band of Joy record, "with psychedelic pedal steel and all sorts of stuff."

Besides recording two new albums, Plant appears to be writing songs again, as he told Sexton of the Space Shifters recording:

12 tracks (completed), 11 originals and no sentimental stuff.

If true, the album will be Plant's first album with new, original material since 2005's Strange Sensation album Mighty ReArranger. Last year, Plant told Rolling Stone that he was through writing new songs and hadn't written anything since "Tony Blair became a Roman Catholic (Dec 2007)".

I have contacted Plant's management to verify whether he actually has two new albums coming up, but they have so far not responded to my emails.