Date: Tue, 15 Nov 1994 08:51:00 -0500
From: Lisa 
To: zeppelin-l@cornell.edu
Subject: "Village Voice" P&P Reviews
Message-ID: <01HJI3L8VOL2I1AB8Y@SMITH>

Hi folks!  The "Village Voice" had a Zepfest of sorts.  They
printed several reviews of "No Quarter"--many of which include
personal reflections on the band--under the rubric "To
the Misty Mountains."  They all make for really fun reading.
(No photos, but daffy caricatures.)  I'll feed you some as I
have time (and as my already strained wrist tendons allow).
Enjoy!

*****************
Village Voice, November 15, 1994

ANN POWERS:

   A style revived still bears its original surface, but at its
center are different meanings, cultivated in the atmosphere of now, 
constantly responding to the familiar form they occupy.  The skin 
remains the same.  But for the revival to transcend nostalgia, it 
must hold some kind of new creature inside.
   Jimmy Page and Robert Plant didn't become the world's foremost
monster rockers on dumb luck--these two have a knack for making
music big enough for any number of ans to live inside at once.
The songs they built as Led Zeppelin had specific, often esoteric,
connotations.  But most of all, what the very strangeness of the 
lyrics, the open harmonies of Page's guitar, and the thundering 
rhythms concocted by bassist John Paul Jones and drummer John
Bonham provided was room--for whatever fantasy or urge the music 
stimulated, whether it belonged to the epic egos producing it, or the
striving kids who embraced them.  This is why people hated them:
they took up so much space.  And it's why people loved them: that 
space could swallow you up, take you in.
   So in this season of yet another Frankenstein movie, it's a big
corpse Page and Plant have wired up for the recharge.  To their 
credit (and the beast's), they've managed to find a new way for it to
breathe.  In its heyday, Led Zeppelin invented its own far-flung 
lands; on their new collaboration, "No Quarter," Page and Plant
venture into real ones and find the fit between their old imaginings
and those of the same "exotic" cultures they once treated like
astral planes.  Reworkings of Zep favorites like "Four Sticks,"
which gains depth from a collaboratin with an Egyptian percussion
and string ensemble, or "Battle of Evermore," with ghazali singer 
Najima Akhtar replacing Sandy Denny's smoky-forest vocal with a
high, trancey wail, reinterpret Zep's fantasyland as a blend of 
Eastern and Western folk styles, with rock's custom of self-creation 
by appropriation nourishing the mix.  Unlike the prudish colonialism
of Peter Gabriel or David Byrne's giddy surrender, Page and Plant
act like the seasoned travellers they are, unsurprised by the common
ground they discover as they go.  Plant's singing, particularly, has
gained depth from his journey: the yowl still rears its ugly head,
but he'll just as likely try something like a North African chant
pattern--a different expression of manliness and spiritual
wayfaring.
   These are the best moments on "No Quarter," although some of the
new material proves that the spark that first carried these two
off on their time travels still fires the machine.  True, Page and 
Plant can't wrestle with the gods anymore--no amount of new ethnic
clothing can replicate Bonham's balls and Jones's four-cylinder 
heart.  And one must admit that the feeling here is, for better
and worse, more mature; more respectful of forces beyond the self,
a little weary, a lot more reasonable.  But give it up to
Page and Plant for copping to the way their aptitudes have changed,
and still going beyond the cash-in.  And remember, revivals feed the 
listener's blood too.  Here, Zep fans and foes consider the course
the mighty ship still cuts through their consciousness.

[end of article]

BOB MACK:
"Undreaded"

   I loved LZ in high school.  Not because I played Dungeons and
Dragons or took woodshop courses, but because I was a normal,
happy dude who had friends, played sports, dated girls, liked to 
party and loved to listen to bitchen (not bitchin') tunes with
the headphones on.  I was so into Zep, in fact, that I traveled
to England in the summer of '79 expressly to see them perform
at the Knebworth Festival, which of course was fucking awesome.
I'd gotten to the concert site 24 hours early, camped out in the 
front row and waited in the rain through Chas and Dave, Commander
Cody, Todd Rundgren's Utopia and some other dicks before Zeppelin
came on at way past midnight.  They started off with "The Song
Remains the Same," which made me scream like a girl for the Beatles.
By far the highlight was when they played "Kashmir," "Trampled
Under Food" and "Achilles Last Stand" back to back.  I've yet
to see anything even approaching that kind of power, except maybe
the Jane's Addiction one-off at the Garden.
   Certainly the flaccid "Unledded" video didn't come close.  First
of all, the decision to supplant John Paul Jones with the NBC
orchestra and a bunch of hired ethnic guns is almost as unforgivable
as lettin' that gumba get behind the drum kit and butcher the late
Bonzo's battery.  But second of all, the only thing that remains
the same (i.e., good) are the songs themselves, which try to retain
their dignity despite all the treacly retreatments.  The once
stately "Kashmir" is inflated here with absolutely, positively
no oomph, like Plant's aged pecker after yet another shag.  Seriously,
Schooly D's version was better.  By the time you get to "Nobody's
Fault But Mine" (the unintentional Dread Zep version) and what
appears to be a few precious new pieces recorded in Marrakesh
(where Plant sits on his ass in short pants and bare feet), I was
literally watching through my fingers as if it were a scary
movie.  OK, so maybe I should have taken acid, and watched it
with my old girlfriend (the first plan), instead of watching it
with my friend Mike, who hated LZ in high school because he knew
they'd grow up to do something cringeworthy like this.  But
in the end I think I've done the manly thing.  For 15 years now,
ever since those magic moments at Knebworth, I've lived my life in
the past lane, pining for either Zep to reform or a new generation
to do the same kind of thing in their own new way.  But now that
both of these events have come to pass, I can definitely say to the
youth of today: be careful what you wish for, it just might come
true.

[end of article]