MAGE MUSIC: Unledded

Showing posts with label Unledded. Show all posts

Sunday, October 11, 2015

On This Day 11 October

Kashmir. Let me take you there.

11 October 1994 Unledded premiers
published On This Day 2020

1994 11 October Unledded Project premiers at Beacon Theater, NY
♪ Kashmir (Page & Plant) Soundcloud

1988 Jimmy Page Outrider Tour - Oakland, CA at Oakland-Alamada County Coliseum Arena
1994 Page & Plant Unledded Project premier - NYC at Beacon Theater and Londong at Planet Hollywood

1995:

The London Studios (a.k.a. The South Bank Studios, The London Television Centre and Kent House) is a TV studio complex in Central London, and are the main studios for ITV, the UK's main commercial TV network, and London Weekend Television (LWT). The complex currently has six studios, but has housed up to nine in the past. One of those studios was where Jimmy Page and Robert Plant recorded Kashmir for the Unledded Project.

Kashmir:
"It originated from playing around on the tuning," Jimmy Page said in It Might Get Loud.

Jimmy Page says he had a sitar before George Harrison did, though he acknowledged when he said it that Harrison was the better sitar player. Jimmy Page obtained a tanpura (stringed drone instrument) in India in 1967. Back in the UK he recorded White Summer on his Simon home recorder, playing and overlaying the other instruments. Jimmy Page then used a sitar on the Muareeny Wishful album (with folksinger John Williams and guitarist Big Jim Sullivan) released in 1968. He was no stranger to alternate tunings when he turned his genius loose on Led Zeppelin.

DADGAD tuning is credited to Davey Graham, a songwriter/musician, who was inspired by the oud music of Morocco. The open strings of DADGAD tuning evoke the drone of traditional Scottish and Irish pipe music, northern African music and the Indian sitar, depending on the song. With Led Zeppelin, Jimmy Page used DADGAD tuning in Kashmir, Black Mountain Side, White Summer and the unreleased Swan Song (later released as Midnight Moonlight, with The Firm).

Thanks to Dave Lewis' TBL for this photo of Jimmy Page

♪

♪ Page & Plant (Beacon Theater, NY 11 October 1994) YouTube

♪ Kashmir (Page, Plant, Jones, Jason Bonham,O2 2007) YouTube

♪ Kashmir (Jimmy Page, It Might Get Loud 2009) YouTube

Wednesday, September 30, 2015

On This Day 30 September

I've got some questions for you, Mr. Page...

On This Day published 2019

1971 30 September On This Day Jimmy Page vacations in Bangkok

1966 The Yardbirds - Glasgow, Scotland at Odean Theatre
1971 Jimmy Page in Bangkok
1995 Page & Plant Unledded North American Tour - Denver, CO at Fiddlers Green
1998 Page & Plant North American Fall Tour - Houston, TX at Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion
2012 Jimmy Page attends The Muse’s show at The Roundhouse

Jimmy Page at the keyboard
When/ Where?

2015: It's been very cool that Jimmy Page has set up some listening sessions where he's taken questions from the audience, and there are many excellent interviews out there. But the man is still a mystery and there are so many unanswered questions. I figure I could do as good a job as anyone so far at interviewing Jimmy Page.

For one thing, what about the photo above? Piano or keyboards? Jimmy Page can play many instruments and no doubt he can do a decent job tickling the ivories, but what was the story with that photo? Was it a recording session? Was he composing? Demonstrating an idea? Just fooling around?

1993 Guitare & Claviers Magazine

Perhaps it is just coincidence that Jimmy Page appeared on the cover of Guitare et Claviers, a French magazine no longer in publication, a magazine not just about guitars but claviers. A clavier is a keyboard instrument, especially one with strings, such as the harpsichord. I haven't read the interview in that issue, but maybe Jimmy Page's piano playing is brought up.

I came across a YouTube video in which Jimmy Page allegedly is playing the piano (at 0:40). It was funny to me that when I read the comments I found two posts by me questioning whether it really was Jimmy Page. I wrote:

"What I want to know is why anyone thinks this actually is Jimmy Page playing piano. The guitar in the beginning didn't particularly sound like him. The guitar after the piano doesn't particularly sound like him. I'm not saying it isn't Jimmy Page, but really - it could be anyone playing, couldn't it? Who believes anything anyone posts on the internet anymore without some verification."

And that brings me to my point. Inquiring minds want to know the answers to these questions and so many more. No matter how much diligence used when researching Jimmy Page, the fact is that nobody knows Jimmy like Jimmy Page knows Jimmy. So I'd like to go right to the source.

I know I could do a great job of interviewing Jimmy Page. I've got tons of questions nobody's ever asked before. And besides, lots of the interviews out there are just plain crap. So just give me a call or email me, Mr. Page. We'll set up an appointment to do an interview at your convenience.

1995 January Guitar Classics Collector's Yearbook

1972: Some guitars never got played at all

Greco Guitars wanted the endorsement of a widely known guitar player and during a press conference on September 30, 1972 in Tokyo, Japan for Led Zeppelin's forthcoming Japanese tour, Jimmy Page was presented with a Greco EG-360S Guitar. Pictures that have surfaced from this press conference show that Jimmy Page and drummer John Bonham were not happy with this presentation. Bonham, in fact, was so displeased with Greco Guitars that he demanded the company's tagline – “Led Zeppelin is my brother” – be blackened out of their advertisement in the official tour programs.

~ excerpt from Five Things You Might Not Know About Jimmy Page's Guitars

Jimmy Page in his studio 1973

2012

2016

♪

♫ Jimmy Page home movie (Bangkok 1971) YouTube
♪ Whole Lotta Love (Page & Plant, Denver 1995) YouTube
♫ Page and Plant Interview (TFI Friday 3 April 1998) YouTube
♪ Piano bit (Jimmy Page allegedly playing piano at 00:40)) YouTube

[blog post updated 2019 but music links not confirmed as still valid]

Sunday, August 16, 2015

On This Day 16 August

Take no prisoners

2015 16 August On This Day Madonna/Led Zeppelin mashup
Justify a Whole Lotta Love (Madonna/Max Audio) Vimeo

I'm not a Madonna fan, and I'm not a fan of mashups, especially when I could be listening to the real deal. So okay, happy birthday and let's move right along.

1969 16 August On This Day Led Zeppelin - Asbury Park, NJ

1966 The Yardbirds - Denver, CO at Hal-Baby's
1967 The Yardbirds - Pittsburgh, PA at Hunt Armory, Teen Fair
1969 Led Zeppelin - Asbury Park, NJ at Asbury Park Convention Hall
1994 Page & Plant - Dolgoch Falls, Wales to record for No Quarter: Unledded

1969 Led Zeppelin - Asbury Park, NJ (Paul Chiarello photo)

1994:
The live album, No Quarter: Jimmy Page and Robert Plant Unledded, was recorded outdoors at three locations: Jemaa el-Fnaa in Marrakesh, Morocco; a slate quarry near Corris in Wales; and at Dolgoch Falls, Wales. Additional recording took place on a sound stage in London with the Egyptian Ensemble and the London Metropolitan Orchestra.

On this day in 1994 the Dolgoch Falls recordings were made. The Dongoch Falls are a series of three waterfalls near Tywyn in the southwestern corner of the Snowdonia National Park in North Wales. Bron-yr-Aur cottage is on the edge of the park.

The Unledded project was for MTV's Unplugged series. Started in 1989 as an acoustic music venue, Page and Plant used a lot of electricity and amplification -- hence the name change. Unledded is supposed to indicate that this music, which combines blues and Middle East sound, is not a Led Zeppelin reunion, and although there are Led Zeppelin songs on the album they're meant to be a new treatment of music that, in my opinion, doesn't improve on them at all.

Of course, any opportunity to listen to Jimmy Page play the guitar is a good thing, no matter what. Even if Madonna's involved.