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.

Jimmy Page's charity, ABC Trust, announces Big City Sleep in London

Note: The following is adapted from promotional materials highlighting an upcoming event in London for the ABC Trust, a U.K. charity for which Jimmy Page is a patron.

Time: From 6 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 30, to sunrise on Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2009
Location: Spitalfields Market, Crispin Place, Brushfield Street, East London
Fundraising target: Minimum £150 per person

Spend a night under the stars with ABC Trust this Christmas and help thousands of street children and young people in Brazil.

The ABC Trust invites you to take part in a 12 hour sponsored mass sleepout challenge by swapping your comfortable beds and homes for the basic provisions of a cardboard box on the floor of London’s well-loved Spitalfields Market, in the heart of the city. Once you have found your pitch inside the market for the night, ABC Trust will offer you some bedtime entertainment in the form of a capoeira demonstration and some live Brazilian acoustic music, as well as some hot food to help ease you into a good night’s sleep.

Every day, an estimated 7 million children are forced to face the violence, hunger and isolation of life on the streets of Brazil, with little hope for the future. ABC Trust helps transform the lives of the most vulnerable children. The ABC Big City Sleep is aimed at raising awareness of the plight of homeless children and raising funds to help provide them a better future.

For the everyday Brit, the issues that Brazilian street children are facing is a distant concept, this event is an opportunity to bring it closer to home, by experiencing something totally out of our comfort zones. The difference is that we only have to experience it for one night before going back to our everyday comforts. We hope that through the Big City Sleep, we will give you a personal experience which will emphasise the importance of the work the ABC Trust does. All funds raised through the Big City Sleep, will go towards sustaining the vital work of our partner projects in Brazil who provide support, care and education to some of the country’s most vulnerable children and young people.

For further details, view this document.

Robert Plant performs second gig with Buddy Miller in San Francisco; circumstances may hint toward Plant's next project

Robert Plant was spotted by a photographer at a mall in Malibu, Calif., for this photo printed by British tabloid The Sun on Sept. 29. Yet four hundred miles from Malibu, Plant made his third and fourth onstage performances all year long in a single weekend. Both times, he played with Nashville session musician Buddy Miller over the weekend in San Francisco, including at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival yesterday.

The San Francisco Chronicle on Sept. 27 highlighted a complete lineup of performers who were scheduled to appear over three days at the free concert at Speedway Meadow in Golden Gate Park. Almost prophetically, Robert Plant's name did appear in the middle of it all, though not as a scheduled performer.

Update: Footage from the show

He was mentioned only as someone with whom Miller, the expert sideman, has recently played. Other names touted in this capacity were John Fogerty, Alison Krauss and Emmylou Harris. Interestingly, though, the authors called Miller "a magnet for guests on his set."

During Miller's 11:45 a.m. set on the Towers of Gold stage, Plant was one of two special guests who appeared. He was brought in "to unleash his leather lung wail on the Hank Snow standard 'I'm Movin' On,'" according to Aidan Vaziri in the San Francisco Chronicle. There's also a remark attributed to Plant in the article: "This is like going to school for me."

As for Miller's other onstage guest during his festival set, Vaziri reports that Emmylou Harris, who later concluded the night with her own set, joined Miller in singing his "Wide River to Cross." Although Miller's tour dates don't reflect it on his own Web site, he'll be accompanying Harris on tour all this month, opening for her.

Plant had also performed in San Francisco on Friday night at a charity show where Miller performed as part of the backing band for Boz Scaggs. Twitter user Stax provided some information about this earlier appearance: "Plant sang several songs with Buddy's band and later sat in with Boz Scaggs and the Blue Velvet Band (with James Cotton). Plant was visibly excited to be sharing the stage with Cotton, singing Jimmy Reed's 'Baby what you want me to do.' To answer your question, yes, one of the songs Plant played with Buddy was 'What You Gonna Do, Leroy.'"

Last year, while Plant and Krauss began their world tour in support of their album Raising Sand, Miller was the capable guitarist at stage right for every show. He did not perform on their album, but Plant did appear on the disc released this March by Buddy and Julie Miller, Written in Chalk.

A year ago, Plant issued a statement saying he would not tour for two years and would not partake in any recording sessions with Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones or Jason Bonham. At the time, Led Zeppelin reunion rumors were widely reported in the press, even with one account claiming Plant had agreed to participate in a Zep reunion tour.

Progress on a follow-up album has been the subject of some confusion in recent months. In an interview published in the Sunday Express this August, Krauss was so unsure of how to describe their album because it evidently hadn't yet been recorded and the personnel hadn't yet been nailed down for sure. The Sunday Express's Charlotte Heathcote reported that Plant and Krauss hadn't "even decided whether they should ask influential producer T-Bone Burnett, who gave Raising Sand its stripped-back sound, back on board."

The only date currently on Krauss's official tour schedule is Oct. 12, when she and her band, Union Station, are to perform during the Rounder Records 40th Anniversary Celebration at the Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville. There is no official word on whether Plant will be in Nashville to attend Rounder's celebration.

(Coincidentally, John Paul Jones is scheduled to appear in Nashville exactly one week earlier; he and Them Crooked Vultures are booked for a show at the War Memorial, the band's first show outside of Austin for this tour. From Nashville, the band heads directly to Columbus, Ohio, for a show the following night.)

Over the summer, Krauss and Union Station were recording a new album. A Rounder spokesperson confirmed to LedZeppelinNews.com in June that Krauss was planning to tour with Union Station in 2010.

Them Crooked Vultures to release CD by end of year, Josh Homme says in forthcoming interview

Kudos to the folks over at Antiquiet for being the first to get some important details out of any member of Them Crooked Vultures regarding their upcoming album.

Singer and guitarist Josh Homme said he's not quite sure when to expect a CD release by his new supergroup with Dave Grohl and John Paul Jones. As a matter of fact, none of the band members knows! Says Homme:

"We’ve been doing a lot of stuff real kind of secretive, and we actually made a pact to not know when it’s coming out, the band guys. I’m betting… Well it’s going to be before the end of the year… We kind of have a little running bet on what the date is. And I intend to win that bet, because I’m going to cheat."

Josh, I invite you to cheat by visiting TheCrookedVultures.info for that information as soon as I learn it, hopefully, before you do.

Also of note is Antiquiet got Homme to break the band's silence on whether or not it is signed to a record label. Here's the discourse:

Antiquiet: Any idea as far as an agreement on a label, or how that’s all going to work out distribution wise?

Josh Homme: Yeah… It’s going to come out on Interscope in the states, and Sony/BMG internationally.

Antiquiet: How do you feel about that? You’ve been pretty outspoken in the past about not feeling so hot about Interscope anymore…

Josh Homme: Well, you know… If it was up to me, I’d just get a real big hot air balloon, and put ‘em all in the basket of that, and just (miming) pull the cord and let it drop over places, you know?

But, you know, it’s not up to me always.

Again, kudos to Antiquiet. You can read the full interview with Homme there.

Robert Plant to join Buddy Miller onstage in San Francisco tonight; John Paul Jones and Jason Bonham also gigging in U.S. this evening

Boz Scaggs is hosting the second of two charity gigs in San Francisco tonight, and word was released only hours in advance that Robert Plant would be making an appearance.

Plant will be sitting in on a song with Buddy Miller, a Nashville native and recent recipient of multiple Americana awards. Miller was part of the touring band that accompanied Plant and Alison Krauss worldwide last year.

Plant really seems to have caught the Buddy Miller bug. Last July, they recorded a track together backstage at one of their gigs. It appeared this March on Buddy's latest album with his wife, Julie Miller. But before that, on Sept. 18, 2008, Plant and Buddy Miller played their song together in front of an audience during their first onstage appearance without Krauss.

The only other times Plant has graced a stage this year were on April 25 at a Womad concert in Abu Dhabi and on Sept. 11 at a charity concert in London, both times with Justin Adams, formerly Plant's guitarist in the Strange Sensation, and Adams's latest touring companion, Gambian musician Juldeh Camara.

Buddy Miller has been doing a lot of things too. The poor guy, who had a heart attack last year, is said to be pulling long hours working every week and suffering from the affliction of not knowing how to say no to people.

But judging from the vacant touring schedule currently shown at www.buddyandjulie.com, he hasn't had anything scheduled since July. This may mean Miller's date book is wide open if Plant suggests they do something a little more permanent together than just tonight's one song at the charity gig.

The other possibility is that Miller simply hasn't gotten his scheduled gigs up on that site and he really is booked. For instance, in addition to assisting Boz Scaggs this week, he's booked to appear at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival tomorrow. There, just as tonight and last night, Miller's part of Boz Scaggs & the Blue Velvet Band, which also features blues harmonica player James Cotton among others. They play at the Rooster Stage at 2:30 p.m. tomorrow, and the festival is a free three-day concert at Speedway Meadow in Golden Gate Park. Who knows if Plant may show up there too!

Plant's impromptu appearance in San Francisco tonight could not have come on a more interesting night, which is also seeing Jason Bonham at the Mirage in Las Vegas with Slash and Friends, plus John Paul Jones playing twice in one day at the Austin City Limits Festival in Texas: first with Sara Watkins (as confirmed by LedZeppelinNews.com in advance of the set) and second with Them Crooked Vultures. I have been following all three of these events on Twitter tonight.

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.