John Paul Jones proclaims Them Crooked Vultures now 'the best band in the world'; he hopes for second album, says Led Zeppelin won't be calling him back

John Paul Jones, in an interview published today by Australia's Nova 91.9 FM, says that for the second time in his life as a musician, he finds himself in "the best band in the world." Them Crooked Vultures has now taken Led Zeppelin's position as the world's best band, Jones says.

The full context of his statement comes in an in-depth interview that touches on the vows of silence under which the band labored all year to create the album now streaming online and soon to be released commercially, the reasoning behind the secrecy, his satisfaction with both of his bands, and the fact that he no longer expects to work with Led Zeppelin.

Unlike at least one other recent interview with Jones, there was no mention during this one of the group with Jimmy Page and Jason Bonham that did not come to fruition last year after being heralded by the press as a second coming of Led Zeppelin with a singer other than Robert Plant on vocals. Today's interview focuses solely on the events since this February, when Jones began working with current bandmates Josh Homme and Dave Grohl, and comparing the impetus behind their music with that of Led Zeppelin's from 1969 to 1979, when that band was releasing albums and, according to Jones, was the world's greatest.

"I always try to be in the best band in the world, I promise myself," says Jones. "I'm obviously very proud of the Zeppelin legacy, and I'm hoping I'm keeping the spirit alive with this band."

In some real ways that deal with the music, he does seem to be. "There are so many parallels with the old Zeppelin days," says Jones. "We're making music that we want to make. You're not thinking, 'What's going to sell? What is everybody else going to like?' We're making music for ourselves, and Zeppelin was exactly the same. We never thought, 'What's the new record going to be like?' We just got the songs together. It's all an organic process. None of it's manufactured."

It seems to be the exception and not the norm in the current climate of today's music scene. Jones agrees: "To my ears there's not much around that actually excites me, and this music that we're making excites me. So I assumed it might excite other people too. That's the only way you can think of it."

Furthermore, this is the first time Jones has felt this way about a band of his since Led Zeppelin's breakup in 1980, so why would he want the feeling to stop with the release of this album? Why would he want to make this disc his sole statement with Them Crooked Vultures?

He says he'll be ready to head back into the studio with Homme and Grohl, and he'd rather fight off the Foo Fighters and Queens of the Stone Age than not work with those two again right away. Jones testifies, "I hope there's maybe going to be another album. I don't have a band that's going to call me back – the other two do. But they're going to have to fight me for them because we're having a bit too much fun at the moment."

And there it was: Jones slips in that he won't be anticipating any future work with Led Zeppelin. The window of opportunity for that to happen has firmly shut, Jones affirms. There really is, as LedZeppelinNews.com anticipated not long ago, no reason to believe. Who's going to be at Glastonbury with Robert Plant? Not John Paul Jones and, therefore, not Led Zeppelin.

Jordana Borensztajn's interview with Jones carries so much more, though, than one member's de facto denial of a Led Zeppelin reunion. As for the reasons Them Crooked Vultures kept its existence the secret it was for months and months, Jones says, "We kept it quiet so there wasn't all the speculation and the pressure. There was enough pressure between ourselves to do a really good record, and we did try to impress each other. ... We just wanted to get on and concentrate on the music."

The best part of touring this new material prior to its release, says Jones, was that nobody in the audience was familiar with it and, therefore, was uniquely capable of giving honest reactions to hearing the music in a live setting for the first time. "To have an audience just stand there and listen, and take it all in – it's just amazing," says Jones. "They're reacting really, really well and it's new for them because normally they would have heard the record first and know the lyrics. It's a new experience which they look like they're enjoying and they sound like they're enjoying, certainly." Talk about taking a risk! And yes, Led Zeppelin was always known for taking those.

Jones on the band's sound:

"When people ask what it sounds like, it sounds like me playing bass and Dave playing drums and Josh singing and playing guitar. It's very obvious. It's just us -- it's straight ahead, it's very honest and it really rocks. It's multi-layered and sounds fantastic. We love it. We play it and we're like, 'Wow, this is really good.' ...

"Josh is great. You know those old competitions in magazines where they show you a familiar object from an unfamiliar angle and you have to guess what it is? That's how Josh seems to look at life. He just looks at it from a really unfamiliar angle and it's just so refreshing. ...

"And Dave is just a killer drummer – a bass player's dream. And he's a great musician. He listens, he's very enthusiastic, very excitable, he drinks a lot of coffee and there's a lot of laughter and a lot of joking all the time. It's a very nice position to be in, I have to say. ...

"We all listen to each other. With the experience [we have], nobody has to explain anything to anybody else. If something's not working, everybody knows it's not working. And also, when you're with experienced musicians, you can fail. You can try something out knowing that it might now work."

There's one other comparison Jones makes to Led Zeppelin, and that has to do with the fan reaction. The fact that the music is not "manufactured" but is made just to please the musicians themselves greatly affects whether or not fans too will like it. As Jones says, "This music that we're making excites me, so I assumed it might excite other people too."

He and his bandmates suspected their individual names had some drawing power but weren't sure exactly what effect that alone would have on public interest, on creating enough demand to fill clubs and excite festival audiences when the audiences knew not what to expect.

"We knew we would create some sort of splash and it would be noticed but you never really know the circumstances," Jones says. "It's the same as Zeppelin. People would say, 'Did you realize when you were writing "Stairway to Heaven" what a huge song it was going to be?' Well, not really."

He describes Them Crooked Vultures concerts like this:

"Our shows are extremely loud, and slightly terrifying. We love doing them. Nobody shouts out Zeppelin numbers or Queens numbers or Foo numbers at our shows -- nobody does it. And that's refreshing. They're here for us. In fact, none of us have played any covers in rehearsals or jamming and we're very, very happy with that."

This writer must fess up to shouting for Jones's post-Zeppelin instrumental "Spaghetti Junction" as a request between songs at the 9:30 club in Washington, D.C. To my ears, Grohl may have teased "Moby Dick" between songs that night, but Jones didn't sate my palate for "Spaghetti Junction." Instead, he sated it with the band's new album plus other new material perhaps destined for that second Them Crooked Vultures album Jones has now publicly expressed interest in recording.

After all, he says there's no band from his past that will be calling him back. And you can take that to the bank.

Reason to believe in a Led Zeppelin reunion has faded

The rumor of a Led Zeppelin reunion supposedly in the works, sparked by something Robert Plant said to a reporter on Monday, is worth considering -- if only to keep people from wishing, hoping, believing, and being disappointed.

Briefly, for a few months one year ago, there was a reason to believe in a Led Zeppelin reunion. That reason has long since faded.

Last year, Plant was the only one with a steady gig. When Jimmy Page was asked on Jan. 29, 2008, what the chances would be of a Led Zeppelin tour later in the year, he blamed the fact that Plant was unavailable. All we know of what Page said during that day's Tokyo press conference is this: "Robert Plant also had a parallel project running and he's really busy with that project, certainly until September, so I can't give you any news."

Page himself was a bit busy at the time. He was in Tokyo making the rounds to help promote the release of Led Zeppelin's latest best-of repackaging, Mothership. Just days before, he had met for the first time with The Edge and Jack White, as filmed for the movie "It Might Get Loud."

He plays a piece in that movie, originally called "Domino" and now recast as "Embryo No. 2," a leftover from his 1999 rehearsals with drummer Michael Lee for an album they hoped to release with Robert Plant on vocals.

So, when Page spoke with David Cavanagh for Uncut magazine on March 10, 2008, the topic of his unreleased music was on the tip of Page's tongue. "I had some new material written for another album," he said. "I had about a dozen numbers, and some of them were really good, but Robert heard them and he wanted to go in another direction. He wanted to do another solo album. Fair enough."

As Page says, another album never happened back then. Walking into Clarksdale in 1998 was their last together, and Plant went on to release the solo albums Dreamland and Mighty ReArranger, followed by Raising Sand with Alison Krauss.

It's obvious from Page's comments early last year that he was still hoping for Plant to come around, nine years after they parted ways at the beginning of 1999. But he finally had reason to believe again in a productive working relationship with Plant.

They'd just played a single show together, as Led Zeppelin, and spent months and months planning it and rehearsing it beforehand. Page discussed with Uncut the commitment that was involved in making that concert the worldwide success it was, and the same commitment it would take to carry Led Zeppelin forward:

"Everybody had such a great commitment to it. Now, if you're talking about a tour -- other dates, maybe recording together -- there's only one thing that's going to be the common denominator with that. And that's commitment. That's how we did the O2."

What a difference a year makes! When the calendar flipped to 2008, and the world was abuzz with cries for Led Zeppelin to reunite, Plant could not commit to the project.

Page also spoke during his interview on March 10, 2008, about any number of projects he had cooking. He wasn't forthcoming on the specifics, but "It Might Get Loud" was one; he'd be named an associate producer of the film. As the year proceeded, it became evident that Page had been in rehearsals with John Paul Jones and Jason Bonham.

But Page said in September of last year there needed to be four members. Evidently, there weren't.

As of this writing, a year and a month later, little has been disclosed about the nature of those rehearsals Page had with Jones and Bonham. All we know are that there were multiple candidates for singers who wanted to front their band, that the members never would have called their band Led Zeppelin if Robert Plant was not involved, that they were playing "loud music," and that rehearsals "fell by the wayside" after they "couldn't really agree on singers."

And if the anonymous tipster to England's The Sun tabloid is to be believed, there's this statement, which was printed in September of last year:

"Jimmy, Jason and John are determined a tour will go ahead next year. They've been rehearsing frequently in London and the band is really gelling. There's an American guy who has been standing in for Robert regularly and doing a great job. Obviously they want the original frontman to join them on the road but he still won't commit. They will be finalising plans for shows over the next couple of months and will tell Robert that if he doesn't want to be involved they will go ahead without him."

The Sun reported that Plant was receiving "an ultimatum by his bandmates - join us on tour or we'll replace you." Them's fighting words!

By the time Page's manager, Peter Mensch, publicly said singer auditions failed, it was old news to him. Mensch told MusicRadar on Jan. 7, 2009:

"They tried out a few singers, but no one worked out. That was it. The whole thing is completely over now. There are absolutely no plans for them to continue. Zero. Frankly, I wish everybody would stop talking about it."

Also by that time, other opportunities had opened themselves up to John Paul Jones, and he beckoned their calls. Jones spent part of this February producing the debut solo album by former Nickel Creek singer Sara Watkins. Once it was out, he joined her on a late-night TV slot and, eventually, a festival appearance. When the recently departed Merce Cunningham marked his 90th birthday with a ballet series in his honor, Jones teamed up with Takehisa Kosugi and the members of Sonic Youth to make some experimental music on the fly.

These commitments kept Jones busy in the opening months of this year, but all the while, he was keeping a huge secret from everybody: During his time away from the public eye, he was hiding away, intensely preparing a complete album of all new material with Josh Homme and Dave Grohl. Now, they have a single out this week, their resulting album is due in less than a month, and they'll be on tour straight on through January, hitting England, mainland Europe, Australia and New Zealand. Other dates are also expected.

Now, there is the rumor of a Led Zeppelin reunion taking place in June 2010 at the Glastonbury Festival in England -- all because Plant said he'd been talking to Michael Eavis about booking him in some shape or form but not being any more specific than that. Somehow, this makes many folks jump to the conclusion: He's finally getting Led Zeppelin back together! Celebrate!

I said it the other day, and I'll say it again: There just isn't any chance Plant would be volunteering eight months' advance notice of a Led Zeppelin gig. In my opinion, this isn't a Led Zeppelin gig. It just can't be. It has to be something else. Someday, what it is will be revealed. For right now, it's nothing more than Plant's cheap attempt to draw some attention to himself at a time when the only gigs he's playing are the ones he decides with no notice. (Last night in England, he played an impromptu set at a charity benefit, shortly following an unforeseen weekend of activity with Buddy Miller in California.)

Earlier this month, Jones commented on the longevity of his current group, Them Crooked Vultures. He told KUT 90.5 in Austin, Texas:

"Yeah, I think it's going to go for a while. Honestly, you know, their respective bands will call them back eventually, but I think we're going to get a good run of it before anything like that happens."

Notice he said "their bands" and not "our bands." Jones didn't even allow for the possibility that Led Zeppelin would be calling him back. No splinter group either. There you have it: It wasn't on the back of his mind.

Wish for a Led Zeppelin reunion tour eventually? Hope for this Led Zeppelin gig next summer? Puh-leeeease.

If you have read this far and still believe in an imminent Led Zeppelin reunion, then please tell me what you know and I don't, or give me a hit of whatever that stuff is you're smoking.

John Paul Jones: Project with Jimmy Page, Jason Bonham 'fell by the wayside' last year

Two days after Robert Plant's remarks carried by the BBC fueled rumors that Led Zeppelin would reunite at the Glastonbury Festival in eight months, the BBC carries an interview with John Paul Jones on the Led Zeppelin splinter group that nearly formed last year.

That splinter group, which would have consisted of Jones plus Jimmy Page and Jason Bonham and the singer of their choice, never advanced beyond the planning stages.

Jones first announced the group one year ago this week, during the Mansons Guitar Show in Exeter on Oct. 26, 2008 and quickly followed up by a radio interview with BBC Radio Devon. At that time, Jones described an incomplete band with Page and Bonham making "loud music" with him.

Anonymous tips to the press said their trio had been rehearsing and auditioning singers -- namely Steven Tyler of Aerosmith and Myles Kennedy of Alter Bridge, the only person who has admitted his participation. Other singers were weighing in with their comments; David Coverdale of Whitesnake volunteered himself and Joe Elliott of Def Leppard.

A year ago, Jones confirmed that singers had been brought in, although he didn't volunteer any names.

Now that a year has passed, Jones is back in England, promoting the November release of the debut album from Them Crooked Vultures, the band he has been rehearsing with since early this year. In an interview with the BBC, he discussed this project and mentioned that it came about shortly after the group with Page and Bonham "fell by the wayside," in his words.

Jones told BBC 6 Music, "Jimmy and I rehearsed a bit with Jason Bonham, and we couldn't really agree on singers and that fell by the wayside. Then this came along and, to be honest, I'm really happy."

From another interview Jones gave this month, we now know how the band came about. Jones told KUT 90.5 in Austin, Texas:

"He came up to [the] GQ Awards in London last year to present us with, um, Men of the Year, I believe it was, with Zeppelin. And we got to talking, and he says, 'Well, you know, if you're ever not doing anything, I want to get a little band together with Josh singing, and give you a call.' You know, so, I found out I was doing nothing after a while."

Singer auditions weren't necessary when Jones called up Dave Grohl to take up his offer to form a band. Grohl had already begun rehearsing on drums for a project with Josh Homme, singer and guitarist for Queens of the Stone Age. Homme's band was on a hiatus at the time, as was Grohl's Foo Fighters. So, the timing was right for those two.

As for Grohl and Jones, they had worked together a few times in the past like at a Foo Fighters show, at the Grammys and on a Foo Fighters album. But Grohl thought having a regular project with Jones was just a pipe dream. Back in 2005, he blurted to Mojo magazine that he dreamed of forming a band with himself on drums, Homme on guitar and Jones on bass.

But Jones fell into place, much to Grohl's surprise. In a separate interview this month with KUT 90.5, Grohl said:

"I bumped into him in London, and I said, 'Hey, I got this project I think might be kind of fun. Me and my buddy Josh are gonna do something outside of our bands.' And he kind of went, 'Oh, yeah, right.' And then I didn't hear from him for a while, and then a month later, he called and said, 'Hey, when do you think you're gonna do it?' So I called Josh, [and I'm] like, 'F***, man, I think he actually wants to do it! This is amazing!'"

To Jones, Grohl was exactly the kind of drummer he wanted. He now tells the BBC:

"I immediately recognized that this was a drummer that was -- A -- really good, and -- B -- groovy and -- C -- listened, all those nice things that bass players like in drummers."

Oh no, not again; music media really do want to predict a Led Zeppelin reunion eight months out

It was almost inevitable someone was going to read into Robert Plant's decidedly ambiguous and playful remarks on Monday and interpret them as a concrete indication that he was arranging a Led Zeppelin reunion concert.

And that chump was whoever at Contactmusic.com Ltd. dreamed up the laughably naïve headline, "LED ZEPPELIN - LED ZEPPELIN SET FOR GLASTONBURY 2010?"

Come on, give me a break!

The opening paragraph contains more like that:

"LED ZEPPELIN fans' dreams of seeing the rock supergroup back onstage together have been given a boost by confirmation frontman ROBERT PLANT is considering a slot at next year's (10) Glastonbury festival in England."

From there, however, the article transitions into a much more realistic assessment of the state of affairs. The second paragraph juxtaposes Led Zeppelin reunion rumors of a year ago with a statement that "the singer has since rejected all offers to hit the road with his old pals."

The third paragraph proves to be a little off the mark. It states:

"Last year (08), the rocker continually dismissed reports he'd be rejoining the band for a full reunion, prompting Page and Jones to consider touring without him. But those plans failed to materialise."

The statement here about what Plant did or didn't say "continually" throughout the whole of 2008 is a little misleading.

Plant may have been clear in some interviews about how much he disliked the idea of a lengthy Led Zeppelin reunion tour, but those comments did not necessarily reflect his opinions of a show here and there. It wasn't until nearly 10 months into the calendar year, as his touring commitments with Alison Krauss were winding down, that Plant produced his ultimate statement that he would not be going on tour with Led Zeppelin and not recording with them either.

That was his final word on the subject, he told us -- at least for the next two years.

So, by Plant's own words, sure, he could be making other plans for the end of 2010 that do involve Led Zeppelin. Could it somehow be that's exactly what he wants to lead the world to believe?

Or is that simply the action of a man who knows what effect his words will have? Did he want Contactmusic and others to jump at the opportunity to force his name back in the headlines at a time when all the Led Zeppelin-related news is coming from the supposedly "quiet one" and his "loud music"?

Surely, Plant's Glastonbury story got more mileage than did the context of Q magazine's Outstanding Contribution to Music award, which placed the microphones in front of his face in the first place. Maybe it was part of Plant's design to be a thunderthief to John Paul Jones on the day Them Crooked Vultures was releasing "New Fang" to radio stations and announcing further U.S. tour dates in light of a heavily anticipated album.

Plant's award didn't hold a candle to his summer trip to Buckingham Palace, where he received the rank of Commander of the British Empire at a Buckingham Palace. Everybody in England ran stories about that!

At least outside the royal residence, Plant had the dignity to mock reporters who dared ask him about the possibility of a Led Zeppelin reunion. "Sometimes I go a bit deaf in either ear, especially when people are talking nonsense," he was quoted as saying when the microphones were shoved in his face that time.

Right there, he said "nonsense."

Plant, facetiously as ever, did joke Monday about the idea of booking himself a solo spot on the Glastonbury stage. He said: "Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm good at card tricks."

OK, so apparently, Plant has forgotten it is common practice for a solo artist to assemble a band for outings. What's that thing Plant's always insisting he is, over and above the singer in Led Zeppelin? Oh yeah, that's right, a solo artist. That's what.

Until he switches it up again.

Let's speculate just for a moment that Plant was meeting with Glastonbury's Michael Eavis about booking a Led Zeppelin appearance at the festival, which is set to conclude on June 27, 2010.

Go on and stick with me, baby.

If this were the case and Led Zeppelin was appearing, we would have been tipped off to the appearance eight months and a day before the festival's headlining act took to the stage.

That's just about how long Plant waited last year after the Led Zeppelin reunion at the O2 arena to announce he wasn't going to take part in any activity with that band again.

That's exactly what he's doing again!

If this really were the beginnings of a Led Zeppelin reunion, every indication is there would be no indication.

The people involved are the same people who kept their rehearsals and gig planning in mid 2007 a secret until it could be officially announced later in the year. They also kept word of last year's secret rehearsals that didn't involve Plant hidden from the mainstream media for the better part of a year. And the supergroup starring Jones, Dave Grohl and Josh Homme was also the world's best kept secret for about as many months until it all started to unfold delicately, piece by considered piece.

There's no way word of a Led Zeppelin reunion would have leaked so callously this early on. Plant, in an attempt to cast the media spotlight on himself, merely played the ambiguity card to let people believe what they want to believe.

Plant is a magician for sure. Maybe he's not the kind that specializes in card tricks, but he really has a magical effect on some in the media and some of his fans.

But the only trick up his sleeve is the one that gets us to pay attention to artists like Buddy Miller.

Michael Moretti is a Led Zeppelin fan who contributes to the Internet discussion group For Badgeholders Only with a regularity that barely surpasses Jimmy Page's album output of the past 10 years.

When Moretti wrote this weekend, he referenced some of the songs Plant has covered and diverse artists he's named in interviews as influential and enjoyable to him. Moretti writes:

"... BECAUSE of Robert Plant, I pause to take notice of something like 'Darkness Darkness' by the Youngbloods, or 'Morning Dew,' or Transglobal Underground, or Moby Grape, or ... and the list goes on and on. This is something that the 'Led Zeppelin ripped off old blues artists and never gave them credit' crowd doesn't get.

"The legalities of royalties and songwriting credits aside, [it] seems to me that the members of Led Zeppelin have never tried to hide their influences, but in fact went out of their way to call attention to and pay homage to their influences, which has given me a greater appreciation for a whole universe of music that I otherwise might never have taken the time to listen to with open ears and an open mind.

"And while I have to say I don't regularly pop in Robert Johnson when I'm out cruising the freeway and aren't likely to anytime soon, I have a great appreciation for Robert Johnson and the art form his musical statements represent."

That, hands down, was the FBO post of the month.

Award-winning Plant eyes 2010 festival appearance -- with whom? Led Zeppelin reunion rumors to abound

Robert Plant, in picking up Q Magazine's Outstanding Contribution to Music award at a ceremony held today in London, joins the likes of past award recipients David Gilmour, Smokey Robinson and Paul Weller.

Onstage, when accepting the award, Plant thanked his fellow members of Led Zeppelin, among other artists including Elvis Presley and Alison Krauss. Plant said that without them, he would not be receiving this award today.

But the big news of the day regarding Plant is not his win at the Q Awards. It's what the singer told reporters when asked to comment on a rumor that he has been in talks with the organizer of one of England's largest outdoor summer music festivals.

And also how he said it, including what details he left out.

Plant confirmed to BBC 6 Music, "I've just been talking to Michael [Eavis]. There's place for me there [in the 2010 lineup], but I have no idea who with."

Tickets to the Glastonbury Festival, to be held June 23-27, are already sold out. Next year's event marks the 40th anniversary of the original Glastonbury festival.

Glastonbury has been a popular destination for Led Zeppelin reunion rumors in the past few years. In light of the band's one show together in December 2007, one rumor held that Led Zeppelin would appear at Glastonbury in June 2008. Plant ended up playing that year with Krauss in support of their album, Raising Sand.

Plant also appeared at the Glastonbury festival in 2002 with his band, the Strange Sensation, in support of his album Dreamland.

Surely, the new comments from Plant on Glastonbury will fuel a new spat of Led Zeppelin reunion rumors in some corners of the world.

The BBC reports:

The rock icon said he is open to the idea of playing next year: "There is a chance, yeah, but I don't know with who."

When it was suggested to him that he could do it by himself, he joked: "Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm good at card tricks."

Let the speculation begin!

Signed Led Zeppelin concert program fetches $2,800 in charity auction

As a result of a charity auction that ended tonight, $4,325 was raised in the sales of items related to Led Zeppelin. The proceeds are to benefit the Mount Sinai Hospital, Joseph and Wolf Lebovic Health Complex, located in Toronto.

The top item, by far, was a hardcover concert program signed by Jimmy Page, Robert Plant and John Paul Jones. The program, which was for Zeppelin's reunion concert on Dec. 10, 2007, was sold for $2,800.

Following are the 11 other Led Zeppelin-related items in the auction and their final prices:

• $335 for an issue of the fanzine Electric Magic autographed on the cover by Jimmy Page
• $230 for an issue of the fanzine Electric Magic autographed on the cover by Jason Bonham
• $205 for a signed photograph of John Paul Jones taken at the Knebworth Festival in 1979
• $200 for a CD insert from the Robert Plant/Alison Krauss album Raising Sand signed by Plant
• $175 for "Bonham by Bonham," a biography of John Bonham written by his brother, Mick Bonham
• $100 for an 8 mm reel containing three minutes of footage from a Led Zeppelin concert in 1972
• $70 for the book "Led Zeppelin: The Montreux Concerts" signed by authors Sam Rapallo and Gilles Chateau
• $70 for a photograph of Robert Plant taken in 1977
• $50 for a live concert photograph of Led Zeppelin taken in 1975
• $50 for a photograph of Jimmy Page taken in 1973
• $40 for a promotional booklet promoting the 1997 release of the Led Zeppelin album BBC Sessions

Zeppelin members seek to improve medical treatments, research

Thirty-six hours remain in an online auction including items pertaining to Led Zeppelin. Bidding on the 12 Zeppelin-themed items ends at 10 p.m. Eastern on Thursday.

The auction, which was announced by the group's official Web site on Sept. 9, already stands to raise at least $3,555 ($3,747.68 CDN) for the Zeppelin-themed items alone.

Accounting for more than half of that figure is the most prized item, an official hardcover program from the band's 2007 reunion concert that is signed on the cover by Jimmy Page, Robert Plant and John Paul Jones. Bidding on this item passed the $2,000 mark yesterday.

Surprisingly, only one bid has been placed for a three-inch projector reel containing three minutes of 8 mm footage shot at Led Zeppelin's concert at the Swing Auditorium in San Bernardino, Calif., on June 22, 1972. The high bid is currently a paltry $75.

Some stills from this silent color reel are shown here, and below the silent footage has been synchronized to an audio recording of the same performance.

Among the other auction items also available are live still photographs of the band, autographed fanzines and a book.

Proceeds are to benefit the Mount Sinai Hospital, Joseph and Wolf Lebovic Health Complex, located in Toronto: "Mount Sinai Hospital is an internationally recognized, 472-bed acute care academic health sciences centre affiliated with the University of Toronto. It is known for excellence in the provision of compassionate patient care, innovative education, and leading-edge research."

Check out the auction here.

In other Zeppelin-related healthcare news, Robert Plant was mentioned by Sky News in an article yesterday as one of several celebrities advocating for the availability of a cancer treatment called photodynamic therapy. The procedure uses a laser light to starve cancer cells of oxygen, thereby killing them as the body replaces the cells by generating non-cancerous cells.

Roger Daltrey is another musician whose name is touted in the article as supporting a charity simply called Killing Cancer, which champions photodynamic therapy, or PDT. The article quotes Plant as saying:

"It really is an injustice that this form of treatment is not available to everyone in the UK. I have friends currently receiving PDT, but only because we pushed to get it."

Currently, the use of PDT internationally is limited in scope to only certain kinds of cancers, namely esophageal cancer, non-small cell lung cancer, and pre-cancerous esophageal lesions. Research in PDT is currently aimed at expanding its use to treat cancers beyond these and eventually use the therapy to treat throat cancer, brain tumors, breast cancer, and other conditions including Staph infections.

Study into the trend of rock reunions includes Led Zeppelin's 2008 no-go

Led Zeppelin's will-they-won't-they saga of 2008 has become the stuff of legend. The news of yesteryear has become the history of today.

Financial Times reporter Ludovic Hunter-Tinley reports from a rehearsal of the pop group Spandau Ballet, the focus of the article's introduction is on the band's collective decision to mend its wounds in favor of a long-awaited reunion tour. A few paragraphs after this focus is established, Hunter-Tinley shifts the thrust of the article to concentrate instead on other groups that have been under pressure to reunite.

Enter Led Zeppelin, along with fellow classic rockers Pink Floyd, the Police and Genesis, as well as Blur, Spinal Tap, and pop acts like the Spice Girls and Take That.

The writer says the Led Zeppelin show in December 2007 was a success:

"... [T]he sense of history was extraordinary. From the moment they opened with “Good Times Bad Times”, it was clear that the sexagenarian hard-rockers still had the old magic. On the train afterwards, fans compared the distances they had travelled to be there: one had flown in from New Zealand."

The writer then details what can happen "when a reunion fails to spark." One member of Spandau Ballet, singer Tony Hadley, offers how "embarrassing" it is to see "49-year-old guys trying to look 25."

When the writer approaches the subject of "questions of authenticity," Led Zeppelin comes up again. The band that headlined the Ahmet Ertegun tribute concert on Dec. 10, 2007, was Led Zeppelin but with Jason Bonham on drums instead of John Bonham, Hunter-Tiney asserts, making exception for "purists" who "insist" that the band was not Led Zeppelin.

The writer turns it into an issue of expendability: It's OK to replace John Bonham, but it wasn't OK for Robert Plant to be replaced when he didn't want to participate in a tour at his age. There's even a quote from Plant on the subject: "The whole idea of being on a cavalcade of merciless repetition is not what it's all about."

As for Jimmy Page, last year he said it best: "If you're going to have a reunion, you need four members." It was the perfect thing to say at the time. It was September, and Plant had not yet issued a statement leaving himself out of the running. Page's spare words on the subject resounded in the following months as it was suggested he, Jones and Bonham would carry on with another singer. Maybe Page never meant Plant had to be involved; maybe he was intentionally being ambiguous because he thought somebody else could be the singer if Plant wouldn't step up to the plate! It sure got me thinking.

Ultimately, it was revealed that they didn't want to call their band Led Zeppelin, and Plant once even made the point of saying Led Zeppelin would not exist without him. (Perhaps he knew they wouldn't because he'd filed a craftily worded preventive injunction or a demand of excessive royalties should they replace him and use his songs! Theories, people! Theories!)

Regardless of anyone's best intentions, a large segment of the press insisted on using the Led Zeppelin name when referring to a potential grouping of Page, Jones and Bonham, even with another singer. The public at large saw it the same way, and the outcry against a Led Zeppelin reunion without Plant even prompted other notable people -- Jeff Beck and his manager, promoter Harvey Goldsmith, to name a few -- to speak out against dishonoring the Led Zeppelin name with another singer.

It was much the same for the members of Yes last year, when they first attempted to go on the road with a singer other than Jon Anderson to play concerts under a name other than Yes. The only name promoters wanted to use was Yes, and so it became another Yes tour.

One has to think that Page, who was spotted at one of the early concerts with Journey's latest Steve Perry clone, paid careful attention as last year's situation with Yes unfolded. Perhaps it's one factor that led him to decide against going out with three-fourths of the band that played as Led Zeppelin and use another singer.

Nobody has disclosed publicly exactly who made the decision last year to halt singer auditions and call off whatever project had potentially been in the works even after Plant had withdrawn from Led Zeppelin reunion considerations. It seems likely that Page made himself aware of what else was going on in the musical landscape enough to know even a new band with Jones and Bonham could affect Led Zeppelin's historical image.

Hunter-Tinley notes, "A full Led Zeppelin tour would ... have done stratospheric business."

One obvious end result of this is the way John Paul Jones has quickly bounced back, emerging in the supergroup Them Crooked Vultures. He's at another point in his career when he's earning all sorts of praise, not the least of which comes from drummer Dave Grohl. Jones was spotted at the Austin City Limits festival this afternoon playing mandolin on three of Sara Watkins's songs, when he'll later take the stage with Them Crooked Vultures. Grohl is going to make certain that Jones holds a reputation of being a versatile musician who can rip on mandolin "and just blow your head off."

Another end result is the way Jason Bonham has also bounced back. He quit his steady gig last year, touring with Foreigner, just in case he might be called into the prospective project with Jones and Page that never materialized. However, 2009 has already seen him sitting in with a number of acts and making other appearances. He's billed to show up at a Slash and Friends gig in Las Vegas tonight (Update: This did not come to fruition as he had apparently dropped out of the lineup at some point), and then there are some other gigs coming up, including one just announced today.

It's Oct. 11 at the Roxy Theatre in Hollywood, Calif., "Rockstar Karaoke" featuring singer Dee Snider of Twisted Sister, Sugar Ray's Mark McGrath, Kelly Hansen of Foreigner, Lemmy from Motörhead, Trevor Rabin of Yes, and others. Proceeds are to benefit the Painted Turtle, a camp for seriously ill children. Tickets are on sale here.

Page has been making the movie "It Might Get Loud," and he's been busy promoting it and saying he has something else planned that he has to start on in 2010. Apparently, it's not an autobiography; this much he revealed last month while he attended a book launch by -- who else! -- Gary Kemp of Spandau Ballet. But a new musical project, Jimmy? I hope so. I really, really hope so.

Plant, when he's not talking about a new album with Alison Krauss, has been collecting awards and occasionally singing Led Zeppelin songs onstage without Page, Jones and Bonham. We'll see what else the future may hold for him!

But meanwhile, specific details of the recent past remain no clearer.

In Hulett and Prochnicky's photo book, Led Zeppelin history compacted into vignettes

In a series of three black-and-white shots taken by James Fortune in 1973 straight-on in front of center stage, we see Robert Plant in full performance mode onstage at the Los Angeles Forum. With his legs positioned in pyramid formation, his face bobs from side to side, his hair bouncing a beat behind. The microphone in his left hand points outward, not to himself or to anything in particular. His opposite hand bears a tight grip of the microphone cord, allowing him to give the cord a good stretch. Behind him, a barely visible Jones plays his bass while standing next to the symbol-adorned drum set of a shadowy Bonham keeping time. The body that shifts the most in this series of shots is that of Jimmy Page, who starts off by bending impossibly backward from the knees up, his guitar extended courtesy of an outstretched strap from his shoulders. Page's face changes in each photo to demonstrate three separate looks of anguish as he cuts his chops high on the fretboard.

Any one of these three images could suffice as the quintessential image of Led Zeppelin at its peak. In fact, precisely this thought has crossed a lot of minds, inspiring quite a few imitators. "Many heavy metal groups, such as Heart, Van Halen, Guns n' Roses, and Metallica, to name but a few, borrowed from Zeppelin. But, as seen in these images taken at the Los Angeles Forum, no one could rock harder than the original," acknowledges a photo caption accompanying these photos as printed in "Good Times Bad Times: A Visual Biography of the Ultimate Band," a new book by Jerry Prochnicky and Ralph Hulett published by Abrams Press.

These are only three of the 200 photographs on 216 pages in this hardcover coffee table book, and "Good Times Bad Times" presents so much more than the usual photos of Led Zeppelin onstage. In fact, some of the book's highlights take place far from the road. Rare glimpses of Jimmy Page inside his fancifully decorated yet modestly lit Pangbourne boathouse depict the guitarist lounging at home, always looking away from the camera, even in close-ups. Elsewhere, John Paul Jones, in bell bottom trousers and sandals, embodies the posture of a serenading Dave Matthews as he plays a mandolin outside his Hertfordshire estate with two of his daughters and his wife dancing and clapping along. In others, Robert Plant enjoys the company of a horse and a goat at his farm in Kidderminster, England. In some backstage shots scattered throughout the book, the text notes that Bonham looks particularly bored to be away from his home and family, whether it's conveyed by his body language or the words on his shirt -- one such shirt has an image of the dog Snoopy on the front and, on the opposite side, the words "I wish I could bite somebody ... I need a release from my inner tensions!"

The California-based writing team of Prochnicky and Hulett, who previously turned out the paperback "Whole Lotta Led: Our Flight with Led Zeppelin," provide a general overview of the band's history in the first few pages of the book. This text definitely takes on the theme of the "Good Times Bad Times" title, as any written history of the band's 12 years should, but the authors dedicate an inordinate amount of column inches to the ups and downs of the 1977 tour, whereas the 1973 tour that the authors posit was the "peak" warrants a single paragraph. The real point of the book is to showcase the band pictorially, and that is achieved. The group is often serious, often silly, and the text provided alongside the photos reflects that always in an appropriate manner. Their appropriateness is no better exemplified than on page 179, which shows all four band members squeezed into a choreographed shot via a rather goofy pose during a Manticore Studios rehearsal in January 1977, above a separate image of a nervous Page at the Swan Song office in London, biting his thumbnail and retaining a near-worthless cigarette butt in his two fingers as he dares explain to members of the press on Oct. 28, 1977, that Led Zeppelin was not going to split up and not responsible for "bad karma."

From the band's tragic end in 1980, the story completes itself with a tidy four-photo recap of events that have followed. Jason and Zoe Bonham join Led Zeppelin's surviving members in a photo taken at Led Zeppelin's induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995. A slimmer and distinguished version of manager Peter Grant stares at Martyn Goodacre's camera in a rare shot taken in the early '90s, prior to his death in 1995. The book closes with two shots of Led Zeppelin in action again, with Jason Bonham on drums, at the O2 arena on Dec. 10, 2007. Of the future, the authors say, "There may be a few more reunions or perhaps a limited tour, but the remaining members wisely decided that it was best to leave the legacy intact by not launching any huge world tours." And with that, one supposes, the story seems fittingly ended.

There are so many striking images in this book, some of which were never published before or have rarely been seen. Instead of concentrating on the usual suspects of Led Zeppelin photography, the book draws from a number of sources who either had access to the group in its formative days or just happened to catch up along the way. Some of the photographers earned their own rightful mention inside the book, such as the bespectacled and mustachioed Chuck Boyd, who catches John Paul Jones rehearsing on an electric bass while seated on a folding chair in a daylighted lounge on Sept. 4, 1970, hours ahead of the now-legendary "Blueberry Hill" concert. Back in December 1968, this photographer is said to have "lobbied intensely" for the L.A.-based company Sunn Amplifiers to start an endorsement deal with a band based solely on the strength of a test pressing of that group's first album. The company's promotions person said Boyd was "certain they would sell more amps than any [other] artist on [Sunn's] roster" but declined.

With each flip of the page, a new surprise lies ahead. In all probability, the reader looks just like a kid on Christmas -- or the bright-eyed Robert Plant smiling on page 111. In a black-and-white photo credited to Koh Hasebe / Shinko Music Archives, we see Plant's left hand cradling the first few frets of the six-string portion of Jimmy Page's double-neck guitar. Out of sorts with the equipment, he sits on a crate and supports the guitar's heavy body on his right leg. Behind Plant's back, only a few onlookers all facing the stage wander this empty indoor arena in Japan, where Led Zeppelin is sure to pack in thousands of screaming fans a few hours later, while the band is on its first tour of the country, in September 1971. What speaks volumes in this photo is that Led Zeppelin had even the power to bring that joy even to themselves.

Following are three images from the book used with the permission of the publisher, Abrams Books, along with the photo captions and credits as they appear in "Good Times Bad Times: A Visual Biography of the Ultimate Band."

Led Zeppelin explored Japan's culture with great enthusiasm. All the members bought cameras and had a field day with them. Here, Page and Plant are totally engrossed in the task at hand. "Led Zeppelin: Good Times, Bad Times"; Abrams, 2009; photo credit Koh Hasebe / Shinko Music Archives

May 12, 1969. When he heard Led Zeppelin play for the first time in California, photographer Robert Knight was blown away and quickly helped them secure a gig in Hawaii. When the band got off the plane in Honolulu, Knight took pictures of them clutching reel-to-reel boxes that no doubt contained the works-in-progress that would become Led Zeppelin II. Knight recalled, "I met the band at the airport, with a VW and camera bag. I got some terrific shots of them at the house they rented at Diamond Head -- learning to surf, strolling the beach, and other very mad behavior." "Led Zeppelin: Good Times, Bad Times"; Abrams, 2009; photo credit Robert M. Knight

Photographer Ron Raffaelli worked with Led Zeppelin mostly in 1969, accompanying the band on several European and U.S. tours and documenting sessions for Led Zeppelin II at Quantum Recording Studios in Los Angeles. Primarily, though, he's known for his striking images of Zeppelin taken at his Hollywood studio. Here, he was able to bring out the spontaneous individuality of the band members while also illustrating the group's unity. "Led Zeppelin: Good Times, Bad Times"; Abrams, 2009; photo credit Ron Raffaelli / www.mobiusgallery.net

Knebworth, Bath festivals remembered in new box set

The promoter of the Knebworth Festival, Freddy Bannister, is offering a new limited-edition box set to honor the 30th anniversary of Knebworth and also the 40th anniversary of the first Bath Festival. This commemorative set includes:

• ticket, program and flyer reprints from the Bath festivals in 1969 and 1970 and the Knebworth Festival in 1979
• a set of 20 glossy 6x8" photographs taken at the Bath and Knebworth festivals
• three T-shirts (select three from among three Knebworth designs and two designs displaying the poster art from the Bath festivals)
• two poster reprints (select two from among the 1969 and 1970 Bath festivals as well as the 1979 Knebworth Festival)
• a copy of Freddy Bannister's 2003 book, "There Must Be a Better Way: The Story of the Bath and Knebworth Rock Festivals 1969-1979"
  
• a DVD containing 100 photographs of Led Zeppelin at Knebworth, plus an interview of Robert Plant and John Paul Jones conducted by J.J. Jackson
• a 60-minute DVD called "The Spirit of Knebworth" that overviews the seven Knebworth festivals held between 1974 and 1979
• a signature of the promoter, Freddy Bannister
  

The boxed set is limited to 200 and is reasonably priced at £64.95 plus shipping costs. Visit www.rockmusicmem.com for ordering information.

Zep members benefit charity front

News today from Led Zeppelin headquarters as all three surviving members have donated an assortment of band memorabilia to a charity auction benefiting Toronto's Mount Sinai Hospital.

Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones and Robert Plant have joined other people close to the band in donating an array of books, photographs, and even two autographed Electric Magic fanzines, to be auctioned off for the hospital's benefit.

Of the items related to Led Zeppelin, the highest valued one is a concert program from the Ahmet Ertegun tribute concert, held in December 2007 at the O2 arena. (The event, of course, became more famous for its headlining act, the reunited Led Zeppelin with Jason Bonham on drums in place of his father.) Now bearing autographs by Page, Plant and Jones, this hardcover concert program, shown at right, carries an estimated value determined to be approximately $500.

The auction also includes:

• live still photographs of the band in concert in 1973, 1975 and 1977;
• an 8 mm film reel of footage shot from the front row of a Led Zeppelin concert in 1972;
• a photo of John Paul Jones playing the bass at the Knebworth festival in 1979, autographed by the man himself; and
• a rare promotional 12-page promotional book published by Atlantic Records in 1997, which highlighted the upcoming release of the Led Zeppelin album BBC Sessions.

In addition:

• Jason Bonham has autographed an issue of the fanzine Electric Magic from 1991 with his image on the cover; that's being auctioned.
• Page has done the same to another 1991 edition of Electric Magic bearing his image on the cover.
• Sam Rapallo, the author of those Electric Magic fanzines, has also signed a copy of his book, "Led Zeppelin: The Montreux Concerts," along with coauthor Gilles Chateau; that's being auctioned.
• There's also a rare photo collection by Mick Bonham, brother of the late Led Zeppelin drummer, titled "Bonham by Bonham," which was released posthumously in a limited and numbered set.
• Finally, there is a Robert Plant/Alison Krauss Raising Sand CD that is autographed on the cover by Plant.
  

Bidding for the Led Zeppelin-related items closes on Oct. 8 at 10 p.m. Eastern.

The announcement of these auction items comes 48 hours before Plant, who recently turned 61, is to take the stage at the O2 arena for the first time since the Led Zeppelin reunion. He's billed to appear at the star-studded Rockwell fundraiser.

The Rockwell lineup -- which also includes Tom Jones, Lulu, David Gray, Razorlight and Joss Stone, among others -- promises "unique collaborations." However, from an announcement of the full line-up, it does not appear Plant will be pairing up with any other acts on the bill. That doesn't mean he won't surprise us!

Proceeds from this concert on Friday are to benefit Nordoff-Robbins, a U.K. charity that uses music therapy techniques as a means to improve the quality of life for people living with various illnesses and conditions.

Beatlemania hits U.S. on feast of the nines

Beatles fans will be shelling out upwards of $250 to obtain the new box sets that present the first remasters of that group's catalog since the 1980s. Just as the Led Zeppelin catalog was remastered for re-release in the early 1990s, and selected tracks remastered yet again for the Mothership collection in 2007, the sound of all the Beatles albums has been updated for modern listeners.

The Washington Post yesterday included two opposing articles, one in support of the Beatles tracks in mono and the other in support of them in stereo.

Also because 09.09.09 is here, a Beatles edition of the video game "Rock Band" has also arrived, ushering a new use of licensing of the band's catalog. Contributing some thoughts on this, not surprisingly, is music-industry commenter Bob Lefsetz. He says the Beatles are behind the curve in reaching out to this format, one he says "is on death watch." Lefsetz doubts this move to the "Rock Band" enterprise will create fans out of today's youth: "If you want to teach the younger generation how great the boys from Liverpool were you'll reach more of them via advertising than you will via this half-baked game."

Jimmy Page, too, was recently critical of the "Rock Band"/"Guitar Hero" format, expressing his displeasure at the thought of dads trying to be John Bonham when they're not. Page said this to the press this June while promoting his film "It Might Get Loud" along with co-star Jack White in Los Angeles. White, too, expressed his ambivalence about that style of video game, offering that he noticed "a loss of romance" when those controllers get between the music and the listener.

In one October 2008 edition of the influential Lefsetz Letter, the author railed against the band for licensing a line of footwear. It was little over a month later that I similarly criticized the Led Zeppelin activity of 2007 -- not the reunion concert but the further distillation of Zep's material via Mothership, the moves to iTunes and YouTube, the launch of the official Web site, and even the new version of The Song Remains the Same -- as the popularization of Led Zeppelin to the everyman, the gasping last breaths of any mystery once associated with Led Zeppelin.

You know, the kind of mystery we're now seeing with the arrival of Them Crooked Vultures!

But the Lefsetz Letter also featured the lengthy and reasoned reaction by Jeff Jampol, the acting manager today of the Doors, explaining his actions. It wasn't an attack, and it wasn't a defense. It was just an explanation, a history of decisions. And the more I reflect on Jampol's words in response to Lefsetz, the more I budge from that hard-lined position and realize why the footwear line and other judgment-call decisions by the Doors management were appropriate at the time -- and, by extension, why these moves undertaken every once in a while by the Beatles and Led Zeppelin are appropriate for them at those points in time.

That all being said, Lefsetz may be right about "Rock Band" as a dying art form, and Page has the right to believe it was never that great in the first place. Lefsetz often says the CD format is dead. He's even argued physical media are dead, and selling digital files is on its way out too, soon to be replaced by the format he's now championing: streaming on-demand media. Of the Beatles, Lefsetz says:

"We know that the Beatles blazed trails. Opened doors that were not even seen. Created music that you could not only sing along with, but inspired you to take up musical instruments to play. The Beatles Rock Band will inspire no one to become a musician, will turn few on to the music, because it's at least two years too late. The Beatles led, we followed. Now Apple Corps. is so tentative that it can't help but follow. Imagine the remasters on Blu-Ray. Sure, few would be able to play them, but they'd inspire the public to get Blu-Ray players just to hear them. Could have been done. Would have blown our minds. We'd have gone to friends' houses just like we did in '64, to be exposed to this magic music. But that wouldn't be expedient business. Expect the Beatles to sell MP3s when streaming is the norm. It's a bit sad. But the music, even listened to at 128kbps on cheap white earbuds, is still revelatory. It will never fade away. Unlike Guitar Hero and Rock Band, the White Album, all of the Beatles records, are not a fad. They still get our adrenaline pumping and put a smile on our face. No matter when and where we hear them. You can build edifices atop the music, but the tunes still shine, will continue to shine. Thank God."

Maybe it's just because I'm a bigger fan of Led Zeppelin than I am the Beatles, but I think whatever new medium hasn't yet arrived could be new territory for Led Zeppelin. The embalming liquid of the future that will preserve Led Zeppelin's music for eternity -- or at least until the next medium makes it obsolete. The new format that will be employed whenever Them Crooked Vultures have new music they want heard -- and, preferably, sold for profit. Because it's a business.

Zep's first two albums top Rolling Stone readers' favorite '69 albums list

Rolling Stone may have panned Led Zeppelin's debut album 40 years ago, but readers of the magazine have now voted it their favorite album of 1969.

And Led Zeppelin II, reviewed that same year without a straight face, was voted the year's No. 2 album.

Both LPs best the '69 releases by the Beatles, the Stones and the Who.

The list includes a total of 15 records from the year that yielded the Woodstock festival, and artists from that show are well represented: Woodstock performers Neil Young, the Band, and Sly & the Family Stone all have discs on the list, as do the Velvet Underground, the Stooges, Blind Faith, the Kinks and Captain Beefheart.

To read the complete list, click here.

The cover art for the current issue of Rolling Stone, shown at right, was designed by Shepard Fairey, who in 2007 lent his creative hand and pop-art stylings to the artwork of Led Zeppelin's best-of set, Mothership.

At Woodstock, Led Zeppelin was never booked to play, says festival organizer Michael Lang

Forty years ago, the Woodstock Festival of Arts and Music took place on Max Yazgur's farm in Bethel, N.Y. As we know, Led Zeppelin did not play at Woodstock. But it is seldom understood why this was the case.

It is often printed that Led Zeppelin was at one time booked to play Woodstock but later opted out. This is not the case, says Woodstock organizer Michael Lang. Led Zeppelin was never booked to perform at the festival.

In a conversation with Lemon Squeezings last week, Lang remembered talking with Led Zeppelin's manager, Peter Grant, in 1969 about booking the band for Woodstock but was unable to obtain a commitment. "Their manager [Peter Grant] said he didn't want them to be just another band on the bill," Lang recalled.

It's an odd explanation, given that Led Zeppelin played similar festivals near Seattle and Austin two weeks before and after Woodstock, alongside many of the same acts that were at Woodstock. But when it came time for the three days of peace and music, Led Zeppelin took its serving of "Whole Lotta Love" elsewhere.

Woodstock was the second gig for a supergroup called Crosby, Stills & Nash. It was the breakthrough gig for a San Francisco band called Santana. Jimi Hendrix made an iconic appearance, turning the Star-Spangled Banner into an expression of how an abandoned generation felt about the war and the establishment. The Who played its genre-bending rock opera "Tommy."

Led Zeppelin, meanwhile, chose to play four gigs over the weekend Woodstock was taking place.

• The first was a headlining gig over Jethro Tull and Sweet Smoke on Friday, Aug. 15, at the Hemisfair Arena in San Antonio, Texas.
• The other three, however, were a short driving distance from Woodstock.
• Two on Saturday, Aug. 16, took place at the Convention Hall in Asbury Park, N.J., with Led Zeppelin headlining over Woodstock act Joe Cocker.
• The weekend closed with a Sunday night performance at the Oakdale Musical Theatre in Wallingford, Conn. Led Zeppelin was the only band on the bill that day.

By the time of Woodstock's second anniversary, a Premier Talent agent told Billboard magazine why Led Zeppelin didn't perform at Woodstock: "There's a misconception in the business that from a monetary point of view festivals are successful. At the time of Woodstock, Led Zeppelin played five dates around the area at triple the money. The festival audience usually travels from 200-300 miles to make the festival scene, which usually means a "barring clause" goes up against working the area. Zeppelin would not have been able to play those five dates if they had done Woodstock. The same is true today. I advise my acts against festivals."

Peter Grant addressed the subject in one of the final interviews he gave before his death. What he told Dave Lewis in 1993 indicated Grant's own personal preference for having Led Zeppelin be the only band on a concert bill, rather than one in a multitude. This explanation obviously gels with the one Michael Lang now cites. Lang's remarks to Lemon Squeezings on Aug. 10 followed a panel discussion and screening of "Woodstock: Now & Then," a new documentary directed by two-time Academy Award winner Barbara Kopple.

Lang served as executive producer of the film and is also featured prominently in it, as is fellow Woodstock organizer Artie Kornfeld, who also took part in the panel discussion after the screening. Also joining the discussion was singer Grace Potter, who was a generation younger than the others present. She said her dad skipped out on attending Woodstock because he preferred to see Led Zeppelin at one of the weekend concerts.

The documentary airs, in edited form, on the History Channel tomorrow night, Aug. 17, at 8 p.m. Eastern / 7 p.m. Central.

Thirty-six years since robbery of Led Zeppelin's cash, only explanation is work of fiction

The $203,000 in cash stolen from Led Zeppelin at the Drake Hotel in New York has never been recovered, nor have any arrests been made in conjunction with the heist.

But finally, 36 years later, Patrick Sullivan has claimed responsibility.

Too bad he's a fictional character made up by Jason Buhrmester, for his book, "Black Dogs: The Possibly True Story of Classic Rock's Greatest Robbery."

And before you go blaming Buhrmester, keep in mind he wasn't born until a month after the robbery -- or so he says in this interview LedZeppelinNews.com conducted with him last week for the syndicated radio show "Get the Led Out."



To commemorate today's anniversary of the robbery, Buhrmester will be reading from his book at 7:30 p.m., at the Los Angeles bookstore Stories, located at 1716 Sunset Blvd.

Nile Rodgers reflects on Tony Thompson guest spot at Live Aid

Today's the 24th anniversary of Live Aid, and Nile Rodgers has just shared with me a short reflection on the lineup his late former bandmate in Chic, Tony Thompson, started that day.

As we know, Thompson sat in with Jimmy Page, Robert Plant and John Paul Jones. As we also know, they had little time for rehearsals before the show, and Page in fact amped up his guitar for the prime time set without even having it tuned first. Not to mention, the four were joined on a second drum set by Phil Collins and also by Paul Martinez, who was Plant's bass player at the time.

Take out those extra superfluous people, and you have yourself a fourpiece lineup that may have very well been the next coming of Led Zeppelin the following year. Rolling Stone broke the story in 1986 that Page, Plant and Jones were rehearsing with Thompson. The former Led Zeppelin members, with their past experiences, viewed it as a bad omen and too much like events of the dark past when Thompson was injured in a car crash during their rehearsal stage, and the lineup retired before anything came off the ground.

Just the fact that they attempted anything like this in 1986 shows there must have been some magic present among the four of them. Guitarist Nile Rodgers was already close to the Zeppelin boys, having been a part of the production team behind The Honeydrippers EP with Plant and that also included Page. Now with ample time to reflect over the nearly two-and-a-half decades that have elapsed since Live Aid, Rodgers spoke to me today, offering the following words about the brief chance Led Zeppelin had to fly again with his close friend and colleague, Tony Thompson, on drums.

Rodgers says:

To see Tony Thompson playing at Live Aid with one of my favorite groups of all time, Led Zeppelin, was a dream come true. I know he had to struggle through the gig because of the near fatal accident he had suffered, but like the troopers all CHIC alumni are, he hit the skins as hard as his body could deliver. It brought tears to my eyes. I love and miss him. How great is music? Who'd believe some unknown black guys from NYC could wind up being life long friends with arguably the greatest Rock band ever (in my humble opinion).

I'm a permanent member of the Honeydrippers with Robert Plant, and we speak on a semi regular basis. I respect Jimmy, John Paul Jones (the unsung hero of the band), and Little Jason Bonham stepped up to deliver the goods at the Ahmet Ertegun tribute in London after his death. Tony Thompson was one of the greatest drummers ever, and that night was history.