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Shuffle of the week #23

This is an ode to the shuffle. How better to get a good insight in your digitized album collection than by a classic shuffle? Finally discover the albums you never got into, finally throw the ones away you will never get into and worship those classics that never grow old again. The Shuffle of this week:

1. Devendra Banhart – Electric Hart (Niño Rojo, 2004) [singlepic id=225 w=80 h=50 float=left]

Born in Texas, Devendra Banhart was raised in Venezuela after moving back to the US (Los Angeles) at the age of 14. Nine years later this fourth album was released, full of short, strange but most of the times colorful folk songs. This one (being one of my favorites) is the last and by far the longest track on the album.

2. Cat Stevens – Time (Mona Bone Jakon, 1970) [singlepic id=223 w=80 h=50 float=left]

We ‘re flying back 34 years in time (Time rise, time fall…), but the acoustic guitar, the singer-songwriter and the beards are still there.  Only difference: this one is the shortest track on the album, which probably is one of the best ever made.

3. Gong – Flying Teapot (Flying Teapot, 1973) [singlepic id=183 w=80 h=50 float=left]

Let’s use the flying teapot to move three years forwards. After leaving the planet during a mystical intro, we start drinking tea up high on this centerpiece of the first part of the Radio Gnome trilogy. Listening these albums gives the band some esteem again, which they completely lost from me after an embarrassing live performance, that proved that some music (or better: band)  is stuck to a particular era.

4. American Music Club – Laughingstock (California, 1988) [singlepic id=222 w=80 h=50 float=left]

Waited a long time for this one to be picked up by the shuffle, as this album was laying there pretty much untouched for a long time. However, not everything that comes from California can be a winner. Didn’t exactly meet my expectations.

5. Radiohead – The Bends (The Bends, 1995) [singlepic id=227 w=80 h=50 float=left]

A band that doesn’t need an extra word. Second song from their second album, an album that in fact was already pretty good, but one that would be overshadowed by later works. A nice classic guitar rock song, this one.

6. Pink Floyd – Comfortably Numb (The Wall, 1979) [singlepic id=69 w=80 h=50 float=left]

Absolute classic. Written by Waters (obviously) and Gilmour, but clearly dominated by the latter’s tremendous guitar solo. One of the most heard songs during the end of the year and also covered by Van Morrison a couple of times during more recent live performances.

7. Led Zeppelin – The Rover (Physical Graffiti, 1975) [singlepic id=226 w=80 h=50 float=left]

The guitars smoothly blend over into the intro of this song, although tuned heavier and chased by the driving drums of mister Bonham. One of Zep’s best songs on a terrific album, ultimate rock band. I missed this album.

8. Country Joe & The Fish – Colors for Susan (I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-To-Die, 1967) [singlepic id=224 w=80 h=50 float=left]

Closing track of Country Joe’s second album with his Fish. As a very sober song and standing on one of those many psychedelic rock albums that were released in the fall of ’67, it sounds like a farewell song to the Summer of Love.

9. The Clash – Brand New Cadillac (London Calling, 1979) [singlepic id=228 w=80 h=50 float=left]

While the lyrics still remind of the band’s punk background, the music can not even be called post-punk anymore, thanks to its enormous variety. In this way the album can only be classified as ‘historic’, in every sense of this word.

10. Genesis – Firth of fifth (Selling England by the Pound, 1973) [singlepic id=73 w=80 h=50 float=left]

Closing with the sixth song from the seventies this week, from the album that is one of the favorite records of all time for Robert Pollard as well as Pollards greatest fan. The path is clear.

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“Call me the Hunter, that’s how I got my fame”: Led Zeppelin (Led Zeppelin)

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Year: 1969

Genre: Blues Rock, Hard Rock

Preceded by: –

Followed by: Led Zeppelin II (1969)

Related to: The Jimi Hendrix Experience – Are You Experienced, Blue Cheer – Vincebus Eruptum

 

 

It’s January 1969 and The Beatles are digging their way through the Get Back-sessions. During a little break they are talking about a new album that Jimmy Page has produced.   ‘Wasn’t he the one who was in the Yardbirds?’, asks George Harrison. The Yardbirds was the favorite band of Jimi Hendrix when he brought together blues rock, psychedelic rock and hard rock on his 1967 debut with the Experience. Two years later, Page has his own band, releasing their own album. ‘With a kid called John Bonham on drums. He is unbelievable.’, according to the rattling Fab Four.

Later that year, this new band called Led Zeppelin would release their classic hard rock album Led Zeppelin II, which would knock The Beatles’ Abbey Road  from #1. But what about their bluesy debut album? And what about this band in general?

The Yardbirds were falling apart in 1968 with Jeff Beck forming his own band (The Jeff Beck Group) and bass player Chris Dreja becoming a photographer. However, they still had some contractual obligations for a tour in Scandinavia. So remaining member Jimmy Page decided to bring in singer Robert Plant and drummer John Bonham, two members from Band of Joy, and complete the tour as The New Yardbirds. Some guy called John Paul Jones contacted the band himself to become the new bass player. They performed in Denmark for the first time together and completed the tour successfully.

Shortly after the tour, the band began to record their first album, consisting of songs they had played during  their live gigs. It was recorded in a very short time period, with Page covering all the costs. But Dreja forced the new band to change its name, as they were only allowed to use ‘The New Yardbirds’ for their final tour. This is how Led Zeppelin was born, choosing an image of the famous burning Hindenburg (the former pride of nazi Germany), a ‘lead zeppelin’, for the album cover. The album would contain a heavy blues rock sound (including some covers of traditional American blues songs), combined with some extreme guitar-driven and riff-based hard rock sound, just like Hendrix did two years earlier.

Sure thing is that the traditional blues is better represented on this album, most notably with the Willie Dixon covers ‘You Shook Me’ and ‘I Can’t Quit You Baby’. The first one has a typical slowly lingering blues beat, with a very cool instrumental part in the middle of the song where a screaming Plant is continually echoing Page’s guitar sounds. The song caused a dispute with Page’s former buddy Jeff Beck, as he had recorded the same song some months before. The other Dixon song is also a typical blues rock song, with a jazzy drum and bass combo, filled up by a plonking Page. A little less bluesy is the ballad ‘Your Time Is Gonna Come’ (about an unfaithful girl), which is instead characterized by a beautiful organ intro by Jones and a sing-along chorus.

The hard rock songs on the album are easily to distinguish by their higher pace. One of them is the fantastic opener ‘Good Times Bad Times’. I still consider this one of the best opening songs ever: the intro with the guitar and cymbals combo, the bass loop in the bridge, the guitar solo, the rocking kick-drum: from the very start of this debut you can hear what kind of geniuses those instrumentalists actually are. This is even taken one level higher on my favorite Zep track and one of my all-time rock favorites overall: ‘Dazed and Confused’. There’s the thrilling bass intro, the absolute superb drumming from Bonzo, the haunting middle part where Plant’s voice serves as a fourth instrument, and then… a huge instrumental explosion with Bonzo’s drumming seeming to chase Page’s solo like a mad dog, an absolute rock masterpiece. Especially those kind of songs show that Led Zeppelin probably was the best group of rock instrumentalists ever having played together. A last song of this kind is ‘Communication Breakdown’, a very uptempo song with again a fast drum and bass section, it even reminds you of a punk song.

The three other songs can not really be placed in one or another category. Sure, closing song ‘How Many More Times’ kinda sounds like a blues song, but it’s best known for the fantastic bolero rhythm, which pushes the song along in a very bombastic way, another favorite. ‘Black Mountain Side’ to the contrary is a kind of strange song on a Zep record. It’s an instrumental, with Page on a steel-string guitar and a guest appearance on tabla to give the song its eastern character. Those sounds will return in several songs on later albums. The same goes for ‘Babe I’m Gonna Leave You’, which is as mystic as some famous songs on for example Zep’s fourth album. It’s basically a duet between Plant’s voice and Page’s acoustic guitar, but the strange balance between calmness and anger makes this song a real gem.

After Led Zeppelin and Led Zeppelin II, Led Zeppelin would continue to make high quality and very successful albums, incorporating folk en Celtic music influences, becoming the absolute number one rock act of the seventies. The band disbanded in 1980 following the death of Bonham and was described by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as being ‘as influential in the seventies as The Beatles were in the prior decade’. So if you still haven’t heard a song of those guys, start with one of those first two albums because they will kick you in the face like an angry gnu.

Top Tracks:
1. Dazed and Confused
2. Babe I’m Gonna Leave You
3. How Many More Times