Them Crooked Vultures may make U.K. debut as early as tonight

The new supergroup involving John Paul Jones has been on a European tour, with last week's concert itinerary consisting of one club appearance and two festivals.

Them Crooked Vultures now appears set to repeat the pattern in Jones's home country.

The band has been rumored to be playing a surprise set at Brixton Academy tonight and turning up at both the Reading and Leeds festivals this weekend.

(Update: Tonight's rumored gig has now been confirmed as per updated Google Earth imagery on the band's official Web site.)

Tonight's gig has been rumored as an opening slot for the Arctic Monkeys, which is scheduled to perform a sold-out show at the London venue. Online music media such as Spinner, Gigwise and RollingStone.com -- plus the British journalists behind NME.com, the Times Online and MTV UK -- have reported the rumors of tonight's appearance by Them Crooked Vultures.

Last week, the band shifted its approach as to fan-shot footage of its concerts. Just days after the removal of multiple YouTube videos was attributed to the band's Josh Homme, the band began using its own online applications to publicize some amateur footage of complete Them Crooked Vultures songs played in concert.

This started just after the band's Aug. 19 upload of 33 seconds of video footage of the band hanging out in the studio, with the audio backdrop of portions of their song "Nobody Loves Me and Neither Do I."

Several videos of Them Crooked Vultures can be viewed here.

Dutch line up in anticipation of Them Crooked Vultures

There's been a long line at the box office at Melkweg in Amsterdam this afternoon as tickets went on sale for tomorrow's show by Them Crooked Vultures.

The band distributed a snapshot of the scene on Twitter today, which is shown at right.

Some on the band's official forum have been filing reports from outside the venue, saying hundreds had shown up to obtain their allotted one ticket apiece.

There's also an interview with some of the people in line, shown here.

The show in Amsterdam takes place at 9 p.m. tomorrow. It will be the second gig from Them Crooked Vultures, the new supergroup with John Paul Jones, Dave Grohl and Josh Homme, and the band hasn't confirmed any further shows.

However, it's likely the band will be playing festival dates very soon. Watch this space for further developments as reported by Lemon Squeezings.

In the meantime, a color version of the Chicago gig photo at ThemCrookedVultures.com is included among The Week's Best Live Shots at RollingStone.com.

(Update, Aug. 19: The Amsterdam show hasn't sold out yet. Remaining tickets will go on sale at the Melkweg box office beginning at 3:30 p.m.)

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.

Them Crooked Vultures destination: Amsterdam

Tickets to an Aug. 19 performance by Them Crooked Vultures in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, are going on sale one day in advance.

Found online at the Web site for the Melkweg concert venue is a poster sporting the coded band name "8436 2766533 88588737" (the numbers you would press on the phone to spell out the band's name) and the band's scourge doctor logo.

(Update: The band's official confirmation of this concert came minutes after the initial posting of this concert on LedZeppelinNews.com. The official Twitter page of Them Crooked Vultures linked to a page containing the poster.)

Tickets are to be sold exclusively at the Melkweg box office beginning at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 18. To prevent scalping, there is a limit of one ticket per customer, and a photo ID is necessary for the purchase. The ticket and wristband issued at the point of sale must be brought back to the venue the following day for entry to the concert. Tickets are nontransferable.

The concert is scheduled to take place on Wednesday at 9 p.m. Doors to the show open at 7 p.m. Cameras and recording devices are prohibited.

For fans who did not attend the debut performance in Chicago, there is little to go on as to what the new music sounds like. The band is acting as its own gatekeeper, releasing elusive tidbits one at a time through online networking sites.

Not only that, but the poster for the Amsterdam show explicitly prohibits recording devices and cameras inside the venue. Likewise, security inside the Metro in Chicago on Aug. 10 kept many fans from taking pictures or video during the debut performance, and the few quality videos taken at that show have been removed from YouTube, apparently following a request from singer Josh Homme.

Jimmy Page's instrumental composition follows familiar path

Jimmy Page's guitar instrumental "Embryo No. 2," as heard during the movie "It Might Get Loud," has already had a 10-year life. It debuted publicly onstage at a concert appearance in October 1999, when its title was later confirmed to be "Domino."

It is assumed that five months earlier, Page included "Domino" among instrumental studio tracks he recorded with drummer Michael Lee as the basis for what they hoped would be a new album with Robert Plant. The singer had just bagged a set of tour dates and set about to avoid touring on memories with Led Zeppelin, but Page was still doing whatever he could to re-energize Plant so they could work together again on some new collaborations. He was unsuccessful in recruiting Plant back into the fold, and life went on for them both.

The next time Page and Plant reunited for any great length of time was eight years later, with John Paul Jones and Jason Bonham, in a group billed as Led Zeppelin for a tribute concert to Ahmet Ertegun. Following this one show, Page, Jones and Bonham spent parts of 2008 rehearsing for a touring and recording group they hoped would also involve Plant. That group never came to fruition. It is believed that "Domino" was introduced during the rehearsals, as Page reveals he "played [it] with other musicians relatively recently, in the last year or so."

Toward the end of last year, the original drummer on "Domino," Michael Lee, died unexpectedly.

Now that the instrumental, retitled as "Embryo No. 2," makes an appearance in the movie "It Might Get Loud," he says he expects to revisit the piece during his next musical project, the details of which will probably be unfolding in another year or two.

On the Led Zeppelin discussion group For Badgeholders Only, one user joked today that "Embryo No. 2" will make the 12-minute Led Zeppelin composition, "Carouselambra," released on Led Zeppelin's final studio album 30 years ago today, look like "a mere ditty compared to this, huh?"

There actually is a model from Page's past for the path "Domino"/"Embryo No. 2" has taken over the past 10 years. This involves several coincidences, and it foretells that the piece, when completed in time, will be well worth the wait.

Page first conceived an instrumental "Swan Song" in about 1973 or perhaps even earlier. He rehearsed it with John Paul Jones and John Bonham at the time, but the track was abandoned during the Led Zeppelin years. Meanwhile, Page continued previewing segments of it live during their concerts, fitting it in during his solo guitar showcase of "White Summer" and "Black Mountain Side."

About three years after the track's original drummer had died, "Swan Song" underwent a new name change, to "Bird on the Wing," and made it onstage yet again, this time with Paul Rodgers during their touring for the ARMS concerts. Now it had words too, born out of the loose Page-Rodgers collaboration. It finally emerged in finished form on the Firm's first album as the beautiful "Midnight Moonlight." Only through collaborating with other musicians did this final product come about.

By now, Page must realize he can no longer wait for Plant to be involved. He may never come around again. Whoever Page's next Paul Rodgers is will hopefully bring a voice to "Domino"/"Embryo No. 2" -- and perhaps under a new, definitive title.

Jimmy Page recasts his life story in 'It Might Get Loud'; echoes of Les Paul observed in another flick also showing in New York this week

Reminders of the late Les Paul permeate anything having to do with modern music. The 94-year-old guitarist and multi-track recording pioneer is remembered in two new music documentaries that premiered in New York City, coincidentally the day after his death.

In "It Might Get Loud," associate producer Jimmy Page employs a unique opportunity to relate some of the key stories of his musical career. His two co-stars are as mesmerized with Page as they are forthcoming with stories of their own formative moments.

Meanwhile, "Rock Prophecies" focuses on recent developments in the life of longtime rock photographer Robert M. Knight. For more than four decades, he has lived to capture still images of little known bands and artists who would later become the world's most seminal figures in rock music. In the '60s, his subjects were Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin. Knight, in the film, says he collects rock stars. His shots of ZZ Top, Jeff Beck, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Slash, Panic at the Disco and many more are highlighted in the film.

In both movies, electric guitar features prominently. It is the central muse of "It Might Get Loud," which director Davis Guggenheim has described as "a love letter to the electric guitar." The instrument figures no less in "Rock Prophecies," where Knight's discovery of blues guitarist Tyler Dow Bryant at age 16 gives way to a turning point in the unfolding plot as Knight champions and courts the youngster to some of his formidable connections in the music world.

Knight, in his narrative asides and on-screen encounters, peppers "Rock Prophecies" with anecdotes about the musicians he's photographed. In one scene, he passes on to the young band Panic at the Disco some insight he attributes to Robert Plant: that the more successful you become, the lower the quality of the people you meet.

In "It Might Get Loud," numerous witticisms and observations come straight from the artists themselves in personal revelations by Jack White, The Edge and Page. When Edge asks Page what songs from his '60s studio session work in London he would recognize Page's uncredited playing on, the elder guitarist names one, Shirley Bassey's "Goldfinger" and immediately relates a story about the recording session. Edge follows up and asks if Page played with the Kinks, and the elder guitarist ends up saying yes but the reports of his pervasive contributions to them have largely been exaggerated.

While White discusses how unpopular it was to play any musical instrument in his native town and Edge recalls the impact the punk music movement and violence in his Irish homeland had on his music in U2, Page talks moviegoers through every phase of his career prior to and including Led Zeppelin. As a visual backdrop is a showcase of many still photos of Page as a youth.

The film may not have many new revelations for the ardent Zeppelin fans who have ingested the liner notes of every box set to the point of memorizing dates and facts, but this film may possibly represent the most accessible way for fans of rock music in general to learn, directly from Page, about his direct line of progress from his early road work to art school to his session days to the Yardbirds and, finally, Led Zeppelin. While playing an instrumental version of the recognizable "Ramble On" for the cameras, a cleverly placed voiceover from Page demonstrates the concept of "light and shade" in Led Zeppelin's music.

If "It Might Get Loud" is a love letter to the electric guitar, it is also a tribute to Les Paul. "Rock Prophecies" is a tribute to Stevie Ray Vaughan and a love letter to Knight's mother, who is living with Alzheimer's disease under his care. Touching moments in "Rock Prophecies" make the film suitable for all audiences with a heart.

"It Might Get Loud" is playing daily in New York at the AMC Empire 25 and the Landmark Sunshine Cinema through at least Aug. 20. It is also showing in Los Angeles. Further theatrical release dates in U.S. locations have been scheduled through October.

"Rock Prophecies" is playing daily at the IFC Theater near New York University through Aug. 20. It will also show Aug. 27 in Aspen, Colo., and Sept. 5-6 in Seattle, Wash. Click here for more details.