MAGE MUSIC: 2015

Thursday, December 31, 2015

On This Day 31 December

New Year's eve - one step closer to new Jimmy Page music!

1968 31 December On This Day Jimmy Page on the road on New Year's Eve

2015 Classic Rock "Best of the Year" cover

2009 March Jimmy Page (Ross Halfin photo)

♪

♫ BBC 2 Johnnie Walker interviews Jimmy Page 12/30/15 (MP3)

♪ Mage Music 1 playlist at YouTube
♪ Mage Music 2 playlist at YouTube

Wednesday, December 30, 2015

On This Day 30 December

Dazed thinking of the music to come in 2016

1968 30 December On This Day Led Zeppelin at Gonzaga University, Spokane WA
AUDIO: a minute and a half of Dazed and Confused (MP3)

1968 Led Zeppelin - Spokane, WA at Gonzaga University

1968

The House of Gonzaga was the ruling family of Mantua, in Northern Italy, from 1328 to 1708. The most famous son was Aloysius Gonzaga, who was canonized in 1726. In 1729 Pope Benedict declared Aloysius to be the patron saint of young students.

Gonzaga University is a private Jesuit university located in Spokane, Washington, founded in 1887.

As noted in today's post: The audience recording of Dazed and Confused from Gonzaga (9 minutes and 42 seconds long) was training for a number that would run much, much longer in later years. According to Jimmy Page, the song had "all the movements of a classical symphony". Note that Led Zeppelin performed Dazed and Confused more than 200 times over the years, with the longest being nearly 45 minutes at The Forum in LA, 27 March 1975.

Also in 1968

Not on this day but interesting: In 1964 Jimmy Page, along with Big Jim Sullivan, had worked with PJ Proby on Proby's first studio album, I Am P. J. Proby. Four years later all four members of Led Zeppelin recorded together for the very first time, but not on a Led Zeppelin album but on PJ Proby's final album, Three Week Hero. The recording sessions took place starting August 1968 and the album was released in April 1969. Read more...

According to Proby in a 2012 interview by Corbin of Finding Zoso:

"...we recorded that album, I think it was in two days. We even undershot, we recorded it with about thirty-five minutes left over, and so Roland yelled down, “Why don’t you all busket*? We shouldn’t waste the studio time.” I told the boys, “Y’all start picking and I’ll write as you pick.” So the three last numbers on the album, It's So Hard to Be a Nigger/Jim's Blues/George Wallace is Rollin' in This Mornin’, I just made up as the boys played."

Jimmy Page - Acoustic guitar, electric guitar

John Paul Jones - Bass guitar, keyboards, arrangements

John Bonham - Drums, conga

Robert Plant - Harmonica

* Re: "busket": Roland must have said "busk it", meaning improvise.

2008 Jimmy Page (Ross Halfin photo)

♪

♪ White Summer (Led Zeppelin, Spokane 1968) YouTube
♪ Full set (Led Zeppelin, Spokane 1968) YouTube
♪ Jim's Blues (PJ Proby with Jimmy Page guitar recorded 1968 released 1969) YouTube
Note: PJ's first name was Jim
♪ Mery Hopkins medley (PJ Proby with "The New Yardbirds" released 1994) YouTube
Note: Proby calls out each member of the band, who then plays a little solo

♪ Mage Music 1 playlist at YouTube
♪ Mage Music 2 playlist at YouTube

Tuesday, December 29, 2015

On This Day 29 December

Getting ready for a new year

2005 29 December Jimmy Page vacationing in Goa

1968 Led Zeppelin - Portland, OR at Portland Civic Auditorium

2007 Jimmy Page (Ross Halfin photo)

♪

♪ Mage Music 1 playlist at YouTube
♪ Mage Music 2 playlist at YouTube

Monday, December 28, 2015

RIP Lemmy Kilmister

December 24, 1945 - December 28, 2015

2011 Lemmy & Jimmy (Ross Halfin photo)

BBC obituary

On This Day 28 December

Goan to Goa

2005 28 December On This Day Jimmy Page vacationing in Goa

1966 The Yardbirds - Peoria,IL at Expo Gardens Youth Building
1968 Led Zeppelin - Vancouver, Canada at Pacific Coliseum

1968

On this, Led Zeppelin's first American tour, Jimmy Page's name - as a former Yardbird - helped to attract an audience for the band. They also played as support for Vanilla Fudge and Iron Butterfly. It must have been a comedown for Jimmy Page, since the Yardbirds were headliners and were paid in four figures whereas for one show on this tour Led Zeppelin was only paid $350. Led Zeppelin's name didn't even appear in some of the show ads.

"In Seattle, Portland and those places where we weren't ever billed, we just walked out and said, 'Well actually, we're Led Zeppelin'."

Not that it was like that for very long.

2005

Jimmy Page and Ross Halfin had spent Christmas in Cambodia. Ross left for home on 27 December (hauling along the five foot tall Buddhas that each of them had purchased in Bangor Wat) while Jimmy Page went on to Goa, a state on the west coast of India.

2005 Goa (Jimmy Page photo)

2005 Jimmy Page passport stamp

2005 Goa (Jimmy Page photo)

Bollywood, a.k.a. Hindi cinema, is the biggest movie industry in the world, averaging more than twice as many movies produced as Hollywood in the USA. The name comes from combining Bombay (Mumbai) and Hollywood, and describes the industry rather than a place. Bollywood films earn around $100 million a year in the US, and are often in the UK top ten.

2005 Goa (Jimmy Page photo)

2005 Jimmy Page visa to enter India

2012 Jimmy Page on cover of Sound on Sound magazine (Ross Halfin photo)

♪

♪ Mage Music 1 playlist at YouTube
♪ Mage Music 2 playlist at YouTube

Sunday, December 27, 2015

On This Day 27 December

Whiz kid

1969 27 December On This Day Jimmy Page in Melody Maker

1966 -The Yardbirds - Ann Arbor, MI at The Fifth Dimension
1968 Led Zeppelin - Seattle, WA at Seattle Arena

1969 Melody Maker "Blind Date" interview

♪

♪ Mage Music 1 playlist at YouTube
♪ Mage Music 2 playlist at YouTube

Saturday, December 26, 2015

On This Day 26 December

Have a groovy day.

1968 26 December On This Day Led Zeppelin at Denver

1968 review of Denver gig

1966
Led Zeppelin's first US show, and Blow Up is playing in town, too.

♪

♪ Mage Music 1 playlist at YouTube
♪ Mage Music 2 playlist at YouTube

Friday, December 25, 2015

On This Day 25 December

Wishing you a very Zoso Christmas

AUDIO: Yule Zeppelin I 2011 (YouTube)

Thursday, December 24, 2015

On This Day 24 December

Wishing you a joyful holiday season

with all good things:

Health and Prosperity

Happiness and Peace

and

the music of Jimmy Page

2015 Jimmy Page, London (Ross Halfin photo)

1966

1966 24 December On This Day Jimmy Page and Yardbirds travel to NYC

Wednesday, December 23, 2015

On This Day 23 December 2015 - Boleskine House Fire

Although Jimmy Page sold the property years ago, the destruction of Boleskine House is still an ending to a chapter in history.

2015 23 December Boleskine House burns (BBC Photo)

2015 23 December Boleskine House burns (Press and Journal Photo)

2015 23 December Boleskine House burns (BBC Photo)

Boleskine House is - or perhaps now we should say was - south of Inverness, Scotland, overlooking Loch Ness. The main house was constructed in the 1760s by Colonel Archibald Fraser as a hunting lodge. Today's fire is apparently not the first on that property. A kirk (church) on the property supposedly burned with a full congregation inside, killing all.

Aleister Crowley purchased the house just prior to the turn of the century (that would be 1899, not 1999), where he could conduct his rituals of black magic in seclusion. Crowley left Boleskine House in 1913 and Jimmy Page purchased it in 1970. By that time it had deteriorated to the point where it was uninhabitable. Jimmy Page had it restored but he never spent more than a few weeks in residence. He sold the house in 1992.