MMJ and Led Zeppelin are soul mates

[thebigbang]

It's nice to see that Camereron Crowe's web site still has the lyric from Steam Engine posted next to the door on the home page. He's obviously a big fan, and as some may know, a big Zep fan as well. I was looking the site over for updates about the movie, and it appears the site may be coming back to life now that Elizabethtown is getting a wee bit closer to release.  If only the movie videos would work again.

Something I enjoyed reading at his web site is the interview of Page and Plant that Crowe did for Rolling Stone magazine when he was just a teen.

Soon after hearing My Morning Jacket for the first time, and through each of their releases, I have drawn the greatest connection between them and Led Zeppelin over any other band.  Always stating that the two don't sound alike, but they appear to have searched for and found a similar musical holy grail.  If you read the Crowe interview, both Page and Plant state over and over that they wanted to make music that "gets them off" and does the same for their fans, and this is the only musical proposition that mattered to them.

MMJ and Zep are the two bands whose music best kick me in the head, the heart and the groin. In a cruel to be kind way, of course!

Below I've pasted a few tasty bits from Crowe's interview, wherein you can see a lot of what I presume to be correlations between the two bands attitudes. But I strongly recommend that you go to his web site and read the whole thing: http://www.cameroncrowe.com/

********************************

PAGE:
The key to Zeppelin's longevity has been change. We put out our first LP, then a second one that was nothing like the first, then a third LP totally different from them, and on it went. I know why we got a lot of bad press on our albums. People couldn't understand, a lot of reviewers, why we put out an LP like Zeppelin II, then followed it up with III with "That's the Way" and acoustic numbers like that on it. They just couldn't understand it. The fact was that Robert and I had gone away to Bron-Y-Aur cottage in Wales and started writing songs. Christ, that was the material we had, so we used it. It was nothing like, "We got to do some heavy rock & roll because that's what our image demands..." Album-wise, it usually takes a year for people to catch up with what we're doing.

Why did you go to Bron-Y-Aur cottage for the third album?
PLANT: It was time to step back, take stock and not get lost in it all. Zeppelin was starting to get very big and we wanted the rest of our journey to take a pretty level course. Hence, the trip into the mountains and the beginning of the ethereal Page and Plant. I thought we'd be able to get a little peace and quiet and get your actual Californian, Marin County blues, which we managed to do in Wales rather than San Francisco. It was a great place. "The Golden Beast" is what the name means. The place is in a little valley and the sun always moves across it. There's even a track on the new album, a little acoustic thing, which Jimmy got together up there. It typifies the days when we used to chug around the countryside in jeeps.

It was a good idea to go there. We had written quite a bit of the second album on the road. It was a real road album, too. No matter what the critics said, the proof in the pudding was that it got a lot of people off. The reviewer for Rolling Stone, for instance, was just a frustrated musician. Maybe I'm just flying my own little ego ship, but sometimes people resent talent. I don't even remember what the criticism was, but as far as I'm concerned, it was a good, maybe even great, road album. The third album was the album of albums. If anybody had labeled us a heavy metal group, that destroyed them.

But there were acoustic numbers on the very first album.
PAGE: That's it! There you go! When the third LP came out and got its reviews, Crosby, Stills and Nash had just formed. That LP had just come out and because acoustic guitars had come to the forefront all of a sudden: LED ZEPPELIN GO ACOUSTIC! I thought, Christ, where are their heads and ears? There were three acoustic songs on the first album and two on the second.


Do you have any favorite American guitarists?
PAGE: Well, let's see, we've lost the best guitarist any of us ever had and that was Hendrix. The other guitarist I started to get into died also, Clarence White. He was absolutely brilliant. Gosh. On a totally different style - the control, the guy who played on the Maria Muldaur single, "Midnight at the Oasis." Amos Garrett. He's Les Paul oriented and Les Paul is the one, really. We wouldn't be anywhere if he hadn't invented the eclectic guitar. Another one is Elliot Randall, the guy who guested on the first Steely Dan album. He's great. Band-wise, Little Feat is my favorite American group.

The only term I won't accept is "genius." The term "genius" gets used far too loosely in rock & roll. When you hear the melodic structures of what classical musicians put together and you compare it to that of a rock & roll record, there's a hell of a long way rock & roll has to go. There's a certain standard in classical music that allows the application of the word "genius," but you're treading on thin ice if you start applying it to rock & rollers. The way I see it, rock & roll is folk music. Street music. It isn't taught in school. It has to be picked up. You don't find geniuses in street musicians, but that doesn't mean to say you can't be really good. You get as much out of rock & roll artistically as you put into it. There's nobody who can teach you. You're on your own and that's what I find so fascinating about it.




Jimmy, you once told me that you thought life was a gamble. What did you mean?

PAGE: So many people are frightened to take a chance in life and there's so many chances you have to take. You can't just find yourself doing something and not happy doing it. If you're working at the factory and you're cursing every day that you get up, at all costs get out of it. You'll just make yourself ill. That's why I say I'm very fortunate because I love what I'm doing. Seeing people's faces, really getting off on them, makes me incredibly happy. Genuinely.

What gambles have you taken?

PAGE: I'll give you a gamble. I was in a band, I won't give the name because it's not worth knowing about, but it was the sort of band where we were traveling around all the time in a bus. I did that for two years after I left school, to the point where I was starting to get really good bread. But I was getting ill. So I went back to art college. And that was a total change in direction. That's why I say it's possible to do. As dedicated as I was to playing the guitar, I knew doing it that way was doing me in forever. Every two months I had glandular fever. So for the next 18 months I was living on ten dollars a week and getting my strength up. But I was still playing.

PLANT: Let me tell you a little story behind the song "Ten Years Gone" on our new album. I was working my ass off before joining Zeppelin. A lady I really dearly loved said, "Right. It's me or your fans." Not that I had fans, but I said, "I can't stop, I've got to keep going." She's quite content these days, I imagine. She's got a washing machine that works by itself and a little sports car. We wouldn't have anything to say anymore. I could probably relate to her, but she couldn't relate to me. I'd be smiling too much. Ten years gone, I'm afraid. Anyway, there's a gamble for you.



Do you feel that the music business is sagging in any way?

PAGE: People always say that amidst their search for The Next Big Thing. The only real woomph was when the Stones and Beatles came over. But it's always said, "The business is dying! The business is dying!" I don't think so. There's too many good musicians around for the music business to be sagging. There's so many different styles and facets of the 360-degree musical sphere to listen to. From tribal to classical music, it's all there. If the bottom was to sag out of that, for God's sake, help us all.

If there was never another record made, there's enough music recorded and in the vaults everywhere for me to be happy forever. Then again, I can listen to all different sorts of music. I don't really care about The Next Big Thing. It's interesting when something new comes along, a band of dwarfs playing electronic harps or something, but I'm not searching. Look at Bad Company and the Average White Band. Those guys have all been around in one form or another for a very long time. How many of the new ones coming through have really got a lot of substance? In Britain, I'm afraid there's not much at all. We've got a deal with Suzi Quatro and Mud. It's absurd. Top Ten shouldn't be crap, but it is.

[all my life is obscene]

awesome post, bigbang....i really enjoyed those excerpts

i am also a HUGE fan of both led zep and the jacket, and can definitely see the similarities between their musical philosophies

[peanut butter puddin surprise]

Zeppelin:  awesome band that didn't play by the rules

the Jacket:  awesome band that doesn't play by the rules

hmmm.  I'm seeing it now....

[JacketGal]

Thanks for posting this! I think one of the things that ties a band like the Jacket to the Zep is their never-ending quest for making a musical landscape, something you can actually feel and sink into. I also like the quote about change, all to often people want bands to do the same record over and over! I can't wait to hear how the Jacket has evoloved on 'Z." And of course I can't wait to see Elizabeth Town.

[aMillionDreams]

a few years ago I heard Zeppelin on the radio and an mmj song came on right after it.  The DJ (Dan Reed from WFPK) said that Jim told him after a show one time that he had always dreamed of hearing one of his songs follow Led Zeppelin on the radio.  So Dan made that dream of Jim's come true. Although I doubt that Jim heard it because it was like 7:30 in the morning.  Nevertheless, I believe that soul maters or kindred spirits is a good way to describe these two bands.  They seem to be only separated by time and maybe a little distortion.  Even the way that their albums relate to their live shows is very similar.

[thebigbang]

I think the short version of what ties the two bands together is that both are capable and desirous of making gorgeous, delicate, pretty music AND passionate, pounding sonic assaults that shake your marrow and emotions.

Other artists have been clued into this great synergy, but Zep and MMJ actually pull it off.

[Chills]

I don't really care about The Next Big Thing. It's interesting when something new comes along, a band of dwarfs playing electronic harps or something, but I'm not searching.  

Man, I'd pay to see that! Dwarfs with harps....

Oh yes this is an excuse to throw in another quote from The Office.

Gareth on possible redundancies:
"I'm not worried for me, I'll be alright, but if there does have to be a cull, then so be it. I mean, that's just natural selection, in the wild some people wouldn't survive. Imagine a warehouse, where a little midget fellow is driving a forklift. He can't see over the top, he's got great big platform shoes on so he can reach the pedals, cos of his little legs. I mean, don't get me wrong, Anton's a lovely bloke, but should he be working here?"



By the way, I saw the Led Zep dvd a while ago, awesome stuff.

[ChiefOKONO]

good post.. i think that the jacket definitely has some of the zep spirit in them.. i can't wait to see the next turn in their journey!!

[utonynashm]

Perhaps then MMJ was destined to be one of my fav. bands...Since, I am among the biggest of Zeppelin fans!

[LaurieBlue]

That is SOOO eerie you posted this.  At the Asheville show I kept saying to everyone "this had to be what it was like when Led Zeppelin got started"...the frenzy, the contained wildness...of both the band and their fans.  I've never seen Led Zep live, but of course have seen plenty of videos and grew up with their music.  Anyway - great comparisons everyone and thanks for posting the article.

Laurie

[BEAST]

If MMJ and Led Zep are soul mates does that mean Two Tone Tommy is the only one who will have his dignity in 30 years?  
Does this also mean that Patrick is a doomed alcoholic?

[tomEisenbraun]

Well that depends on which role you of John Paul Jones you're looking at - keys or bass?

So it could actually be Bo who is the elder English gentryman who carries the weight of his drugged-up hedonistic friends through their struggling last albums...

And does this mean Carl has a thing for 16-year-olds?

(Or maybe we shouldn't try so hard?)

Musically, both kick ass. The cool thing is their epics. Don Dante is obviously the new epic on Z. Well, shit, all of their songs really have a bit of a journey wrapped up in them. Maybe MMJ is just destined to be a rock great, any way you look at it, and ten years from now we'll say "I told you so" and be glad that we caught on early enough to be distinguished listeners who can name off every member thats played on the albums.

[EC]

If MMJ and Led Zep are soul mates does that mean Two Tone Tommy is the only one who will have his dignity in 30 years?  
Does this also mean that Patrick is a doomed alcoholic?

Yes beast.  Sadly, yes.  :(

[sweatboard]

I say that Vocals and Lyric wise MMJ tops Zepplin (let the stones fly), Lead guitar..........not yet ;).  Production, Both stellar and both have a great understanding of and passion for the studio.  I'm just glad both of these bands formed.  They both "Get Me Off"

Great Post......  Good Reading.  Thank You,

Brian

[EC]

I forgot that I meant to say, I think for me the big difference between My Morning Jacket and Led Zepplin (aside from the fact that they're both different bands, and Jim keeps his shirt on) is that, there was something about Led Zepplin that was a bit more theatrical (and therefore creating less of a personal connection) than these guys.  It's not that I don't think they meant it, it's just, if I watch My Morning Jacket, any of them at any given moment, when they're playing, they're totally into it, and they're totally giving it all up.  Led Zepplin had a bit of a rock persona thing happening.  

Does that make sense to anybody?

[tomEisenbraun]

It does and I agree. But you just wait until the Jacket's playing Madison Square Garden and I'll bet it'll be less personal. Though it may be an accomplishment, let us pray that that day may never come. I don't wana keep ther band in my pocket, but I would love for them to get huge but keep their heads on and still play decent sized theatre venues.