Was Jack Bruce joking about Led Zeppelin?

I love Jack Bruce, but I have to respectively disagree with his assessment of Led Zeppelin. There are millions of Led Zeppelin fans and they stayed relevant for decades where as Cream, who I also love, faded into memory. I think there may be a little jealousy for some of those other British rockers.

 

Bonham was the bully of the band and of course he was involved in the Oakland incident. He wasn't going to pass up a chance to punch someone he had an advantage over. I never understand people who admired the band and especially Bonham. I can see liking the music but that is it.

 

Didn't someone slap Peter's son for taking down a few posters?

 

I think it was Bonham that was involved in the magazine writers pseudo sex assault. I think she said something like "If you go into the cage you are going to smell the animals."

 

Jim Matzorkis, who worked for Bill Graham, had a tussle with Grant's son, who was trying to take a Zeppelin logo off one of the backstage caravans as a souvenir. Bear in mind there are many interpretations of what happened that day, but the generally agreed version is after Grant was told about this, he argued with him. Then the bloke ran off and hid in a trailer. And slightly later Graham (naively believing Grant when he said he only wanted to talk to him) led Grant and Bindon to the trailer where he was hiding out and they assaulted him.

The essential problem was having someone like Bindon doing tour security. The guy said Bindon was about to pull his eye out when he escaped the trailer. Even as a fan, imo it's an indelible stain on the band.

Iirc, Ellen Sander said it was roadies did this rather than anyone in the band.

 

It always seemed, to me anyway, that there was a very flexible membrane between zep members, management and roadies. So I think Bonzo kept watch while the guy was getting creamed in SF.

 

Why do you think they admire the band? Because of the music & the talent. Why else would they admire the band, or any band? The Stones are hardly loveable, except for maybe Charlie Watts

I think the majority of the musicians in anyone's collection aren't going to be people you can hold up to some high moral code with some very few exceptions.

 

That's a decision you make when your arrogance is amplified by the use of cocaine IMO. By all accounts, they are lucky he didn't do anything like kill someone.

It was a horrible incident and I think most just want to forget it.

 

When zep came out they were much further on the spectrum towards music that sounded fascistic, at least to reviewers and presumably a lot of listeners who were out of high school. It was bludgeoning. I'm sure that zep fans here who would have heard it in context would be surprised at their own response. It was against the backdrop of Freeform radio, love, weed, etc. It had a meaning to listeners that was specific. It was an insult to the vibes.

It's not that they aren't great or talented. But if you want to know where it came from that's where. They beat the crap out of the songs and kids liked it. Nowadays we beat the crap out of music basically as an assumption of what it's supposed to do anyway. They were ahead of their time on that.

 

He did kill someone but not while working for LZ, in his free time, if you like.

 

Yeah I did read that. I think it was a gangster and it was a year or two after the Oakland incident. IIRC, he was acquitted and claimed it was self defence.

Not sure why you asked "if I like" though Why would you think "I would like"?

 

Errrrr, is English not your first language?

 

LMAO - "in his free time"

I just saw him in "Poor Cow" - fine movie, even better director (Ken Loach)

 

A colourful character. The colour being blood red, more often than not.

 

WOW!!! I didn’t know about this Zeppelin bad assery.... I like them better than before.

 

At least Clapton isn't scared to play or make new music. Jeez.

 

perhaps Cream WOULD or Might have been as successful as Zeppelin.... IF they had managed to not hate each other and not break up.

That is something Zeppelin managed to do (not break up), that Cream could not, and, that is at least partly the reason why Zeppelin was so much more successful in the long run - they stayed together longer.

Jack Bruce might consider that. Maybe he has.

 

Jack and Jim went up a hill,
both started over bloated bands

 

C'mon. "Fascistic?" "Bludgeoning?"

Zeppelin was just a little bit heavier than Cream in the studio, and live Cream was loud as hell, and plenty heavy, with songs going on for 15-20 minutes years before LZ got there. If the hippies and hothouse flowers grooving out to The Dead and The Airplane in '69 were offended, that's their problem.

Not to mention Hendrix, who was a very heavy live performer, and no stranger to just making noise for it's own sake. Then The Who, who were extremely loud and destroyed their instruments every other gig. But yeah, Zeppelin was just so much more brash and fascistic than everything that came before.

There's no bigger hippie or flower child than Robert Plant himself, even now, after all these years, so "it was an insult to the vibes" is a ridiculous statement to make.

You conveniently ignore Zeppelin's lighter side, which was always there from the first album. But I guess even "Going to California" was bludgeoning your delicate ears on some level.

 

You know what kept them together? The fact that 3/4 of the group couldn’t make it as a solo act. And they knew it. Witness JPJ and Page’s solo career’s since 1980. Same with the Stones.

 

* careers

 

Typed without glasses on. Careers! Now I have them on.

 

Clapton’s “new” stuff is still light-years behind Page’s old stuff

 

I'm just the reporter here. Zep sounded fascistic to 1969 ears, compared with your examples, to the world. Have you read the reviews and the feature pieces? Don't you hear the hurt insulted feelings? There is no zep LP that doesn't try to bludgeon you into submission at some point with a repeated riff ad nauseum.

Volume isn't my point. They most def, to my ears, had an attitude that went way beyond hendrix and cream for aggression, bombast, repetition, and exploitation. It filtered through the music into the business they did. They made songs that were the musical equivalent of hitting an anvil. Sabbath did that too I guess and it became a thing, but not for hendrix and cream. They were top shelf, and would have seen themselves as above zep, artistically. (For me I like zep much more than cream).

The attitudinal difference between zep and cream was what made zep stand out to the kids then. If you name a zep LP I'll tell you when they were beating on that anvil. They took aggression to a new level and it has been stylish since then off and on. That's why they got shade and pushback from other musicians.