Press plays 'whisper down the lane' with Jason Bonham interview

It is so funny to track stories like Jason Bonham's interview and see how his statements are taken further and further out of context as each new media outlet gets a hold of it.

• True: Jason said nothing about Robert Plant. Wrong interpretation: Jason said Robert wasn't involved in the rehearsals. Further wrong interpretation: Jason said Robert turned down offers to reunite Led Zeppelin.
• True: Jason said Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones and he were jamming on new material for an unknown project. Wrong interpretation: Jason said the three were writing for a new Led Zeppelin album. Further wrong interpretation: Jason said the three were rehearsing for a Led Zeppelin world tour. Even further wrong interpretation: Jimmy Plant says he's rehearsing a new version of "Smoke on the Water" for a Deep Purple tour of China with Leona Lewis.

But seriously, folks, here's what the popular press said in the last few days ever since Jason Bonham broke the news of his jam sessions with Page and Jones:

• NME was altogether too eager to pounce on Bonham's words and insert some reference to an album -- I guess to push interest. NME's Aug. 26 story about Led Zeppelin bears the subheadline "A new album could be on the way." It quotes heavily from Bonham's radio interview but interjects its own words in brackets to support the imaginary storyline of a forthcoming Led Zeppelin album. Look at all the words in brackets in the following excerpt from the NME story:

"When I get there [in the studio] I never ask any questions. If I get a phone call to go and play, I enjoy every moment of it. Whatever it ends up as, to ever get a chance to jam with two people like that, it is a phenomenal thing for me. It's my life. It's what I've dreamed about doing.
"[The] possibility of doing something [like an album] is on the cards. I really felt it was on the cards from the moment we walked offstage at the O2 [Arena].
"Lots of politics [would need to] get ironed out [before an album could be made]."

• NME was not alone in making such assertions. BBC News reported on Aug. 26:
  

Drummer Bonham told a radio station in Detroit that the songs could be destined for a new Led Zeppelin album.
...
But lead singer Robert Plant has not been involved in any of the sessions, he added.

Really, Jason Bonham never mentioned Robert Plant's name, just as he never mentioned an album.

If you hear either mentioned by him when you listen to the actual radio interview, it's time to get your head examined.

Jimmy Page in film listed for first public screening on Sept. 5

The documentary "It Might Get Loud" -- which stars Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page alongside newer-generation guitarists The Edge and Jack White -- is now listed to premiere on Friday, Sept. 5, as part of the Toronto International Film Festival.

Directed by Davis Guggenheim, the movie is scheduled to have three public screenings at the festival. All four of the big names connected with the film -- its director and three guitar-toting co-stars -- are expected to attend, according to a press release.

Details newly gleaned from the festival's official Web page on the film reveal that the cameras roll as "Page visits the stone halls of Headley Grange where 'Stairway to Heaven' was composed." In separate segments, Edge and White also take viewers to locations connected to the musical creativity of their respective pasts, namely Dublin and Nashville.

A previously unseen shot, believed to be a still from the movie reel, shows the three performers jamming together. The movie has been said to capture footage of the first-ever meeting of this trio of guitarists.

Page said in an interview earlier this year that new music of his would appear in the documentary. Word is that the film contains original material from the U2 guitarist and the White Stripes/Raconteurs axeman as well, highlighting the creative processes and technical prowess of all three individually.

Showing times and locations during the festival may be obtained here.

Jimmy Page 'not famous enough to be recognized' in China?

Some Chinese newspapers have voiced their complaints over the closing Olympic festivities in Beijing, and Jimmy Page's name is caught up in it all.

Not that his name actually means anything to millions of people, apparently.

One of several quips printed by the state-owned media in the People's Republic of China is one that blasts the selection of Page to perform Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love" at the Aug. 24 closing.

The Titan Sports Daily, China's top sports newspaper, said both singer Leona Lewis and Page "are absolutely not famous enough to be known or recognised by millions of the Chinese audiences."

I guess it is possible that in a remnant of Communism, even Led Zeppelin goes unheard of among many of the 1.3 billion citizens, of whom 111 million are users of a heavily censored Internet due to a restrictive government.

Come on, China. Do you want to know who's really not famous? Try Cameron Crowe. There's "almost famous" for you! (Is this thing on? Please, people, cultural refrences! Keep up with me here.)

In another Chinese piece, columnist Hi Yang for the Daily First newspaper criticized the combination of Lewis and Page, writing that they "were so incompatible, considering the singer is from our time while Jimmy Page is from the 70s."

Admittedly, Page did look a bit weary from having been cryogenically frozen for 28 years and then carted off immediately from London to Beijing. (I'll be here all week, folks. Try the moo shoo veal.)

See the Chinese comments for yourself, as reprinted by the British media.

Jason Bonham, leaving Foreigner, confirms U.K. rehearsals with Page, Jones of Led Zeppelin

The son of late Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham has confirmed he has been called to England upon occasion to rehearse new material with Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones.

Jason Bonham, who filled his father's shoes onstage at Led Zeppelin's one-off reunion concert in London last December, says rehearsals have taken place with them in England "a couple of times" since that show. Bonham describes these most recent sessions with Jones and Page as "magical."

Notably absent from the newly-disclosed rehearsals by these Led Zeppelin members was singer Robert Plant, who has spent much of this year touring North America and Europe, including several shows in the United Kingdom, in support of last year's collaborative album with Alison Krauss.

Bonham has likewise been on tour this year, with the group Foreigner. He has spent several years drumming for the group, which he said was one of his favorites growing up in England. In a telephone interview broadcast live in Detroit last week, Bonham said his time with that band is shortly coming to an end.

The shift coincides with a flurry of activity from the otherwise relatively dormant Led Zeppelin camp. Page, who has not played onstage regularly since touring with the Black Crowes in 2000, bounced back from a minor injury to one of his fingers last year to make three very high-profile onstage appearances over the past nine months. Led Zeppelin has managed to keep its name in the news consistently over the past year, when a new career-spanning compilation called Mothership was released, as was a significant upgrade to the band's vintage concert film from 1976.

Over the weekend, Page appeared with guitar in hand at the Olympics' closing ceremonies in Beijing to perform Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love" with singer Leona Lewis.

The guitarist's only other onstage moment so far this year came in June, when both he and Jones turned up at a Foo Fighters concert at London's Wembley Stadium to sit in on live renditions of "Ramble On" and "Rock and Roll" with Dave Grohl and Taylor Hawkins, who traded off drums and vocals with one another.

Both of Page's live appearances in 2008 have been preceded by posts on the Led Zeppelin discussion group For Badgeholders Only by a New York-based fan calling himself Nech, who posts subtle hints to fellow Zeppelin fans of possible activity to come. When asked if he has an inside source, he insists he is fed information by a source he playfully describes with such terms as "my dentist's lesbian receptionist's boyfriend." Nech was able to tip off the group to the exact timing of the press conference announcing last year's reunion concert.

Bonham's spoken words about rehearsing in England with Page and Jones, which came in a radio interview on Friday, constitute the first public comment from any of the three musicians involved. This may also mark the first official confirmation of a statement Nech made online on Friday, April 11: "Jimmy, Jason and JPJ have been in a rehearsal studio in London last week...making new music."

Bonham's comments came early on Friday, Aug. 22, in the same radio interview during which he broke the news of his impending departure from Foreigner at the end of this month.

The younger Bonham now says ever since he left the stage of the O2 Arena in London having played for two hours with Led Zeppelin's Plant, Page and Jones, he began believing it was possible for the group to do something further. He has kept his obligations to Foreigner throughout 2008, touring in support of the band's latest compilation, No End in Sight: The Very Best of Foreigner.

The reason he is leaving Foreigner now, Bonham told radio hosts J.J. and Lynne on Detroit's WCSX 94.7 FM, is because he has been away from home for long and misses spending time his family. Bonham said that in case something happens with Led Zeppelin, he would have had time off from constant touring before that happens, whatever it is.

"I've been over a couple of times," Bonham said of his Zep-related rehearsals in England this year. "I've been working with Jimmy and John Paul and trying to do just do some new material and some writing. I don't know what it will be, but it will be something. ...

"I have to say this is something that I've always wanted to do. But asked to say as to what this project will be? At the moment, all I know is I've had the greatest pleasure to go and jam with the two guys and try to work out and try material, and so it's been fantastic from that aspect. When I get there, I never ask any questions. I just -- if I get a phone call to go and play, I enjoy every moment of it. Whatever it ends up as, to ever get a chance to jam with two people like that, it is a phenomenal thing for me. All my life, that's what I've dreamed of doing."

Bonham is full of hope with regard to a possible future making new music with Page and Jones, and he knows he is aware Led Zeppelin has many fans with similar hopes.

Foreigner has four remaining tour dates in the United States this month, and the band is scheduled for a short break before resuming the tour midway through September, assumedly with a new drummer. Their tour dates can be found here.

An MP3 of WCSX's interview with Bonham is available here.

Foo Fighters release concert DVD with Page-Jones appearance

The Foo Fighters' Live at Wembley Stadium DVD, which was recorded over two nights and includes Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones sitting in on an encore to play two Led Zeppelin tunes, has been released in Ireland and the United Kingdom.

The U.K. release was today, and the release in Ireland was on Friday, Aug. 22.

Other international releases of the DVD scheduled at the moment are for Australia on Aug. 30, New Zealand on Sept. 1, and Germany, Austria and Switzerland all on Sept. 5.

There has been no word on releasing the set in the United States.

As always, consumers should be cognizant of the region for which a DVD has been encoded when making a purchase.

The Foo Fighters resume their tour of the United States and Canada this Friday. For more information on their tour dates, visit here.

'Whole Lotta Love' brought before world stage

The version of "Whole Lotta Love" performed by Jimmy Page with singer Leona Lewis at the closing ceremony of the Olympics, now having taken place in Beijing and aired on television in some parts of the world, was part of a spectacle that will presumably have drawn several hundred million viewers -- undoubtedly one of the biggest gigs a musician can possibly ever obtain.

Atop a red double-decker tour bus as found all throughout London, Page appeared with his long silver hair tied back in a pony tail, but only after a one-minute intro during which Lewis was elevated. Playing on a Les Paul, Page took command of the 39-year-old signature riff. An unseen rhythm section, seemingly prerecorded, laid down a faithful rendition of the song. Each chorus had some orchestral sounds that recreated the sound of Page's divebomber effect from the 1969 studio recording. The second verse gave way to a fiery guitar solo that was vintage Page.

After the song concluded, the performers strutted around to a continuing orchestral arrangement that was reminiscent of Faith No More's "Epic." As expected, David Beckham kicked a soccer ball into the crowd. It ended up as the souvenir of a Japanese woman in a parade.

What I want to know is who played drums!

Good luck finding clips on the Internet. It does appear that videos of the broadcasts are being removed from YouTube due to copyright claims.

Tribute band to replicate Led Zeppelin's first show on 40th anniversary

The first onstage outing of Led Zeppelin is to be recreated on its 40th anniversary with a live run-through of the group's material at the same school gymnasium in Copenhagen, Denmark, that took on a major role in that first day of live music back in 1968.

The Sept. 7 performance by the Danish tribute band called Led Zeppelin Jam is to take place over two days of timely remembrances about the earliest shows.

Led Zeppelin's onstage debut, albeit while the group still bore the name of the Yardbirds, took place Sept. 7, 1968. That day consisted of two performances: the first at the Egegaard Primary School for the Gladsaxe Teen Club and later at the Norresgardshall for the Brondby Pop Club.

Although the Gladsaxe Teen Club disbanded 39 years ago, some of its members today sit on the committee sponsoring next month's repeat performance. One of the people present at that first show, house photographer Jørgen Angel, is scheduled to be on hand at the event for an exhibition of the unique photographs he captured of Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones and John Bonham during the very first time they shared a stage.

Celebrations are to continue through the following day, when Angel's photo collection moves to the Gladsaxe Hovedbibliotek. The Danish photographer is slated to speak (in his native tongue) about many of the rock celebrities and bands he has encountered and photographed throughout his lifetime. These include Eric Clapton, AC/DC, Jethro Tull, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Robert Palmer, Stephen Stills, Carlos Santana, Robin Trower and the Who.

See here for more information about these 40th anniversary events. Those who are unable to attend the events may find Led Zeppelin fanzine Proximity's 2000 interview with Angel of great interest.