A lot of little things so I'm planning to rapid fire - but of course I have been know tho go off on a tangent or two. Like this one time...
Revisiting the Best Of Mountain. There are many debates about the original "Heavy Metal" band. No one wants to claim ownership of the bastard of course, whole tragedies have been written about it. For "Metal" I claim Black Sabbath [the song] and Black Sabbath [the album]. Sabbath's Birmingham influenced bleakness introduced something not quire ever heard - at least not since the church banned that 'Devil's Triad.' Sabbath got heavier as they went, mostly because they were afforded 'real studios' and 'real engineers and producers.' But that first Sabbath album pounds like a hammer on an anvil.
Having said that, for "Heavy" one could certainly throw Mountain into the mix. Heavily influenced by Cream, Leslie West turned it up to 11 and let it blast and Corky Laing drove it hard on the skins. West's distinctive from the throat vocals [see their 'hit' Mississippi Queen] just adds to the wall of heavy. Yes, they have Felix Pappalardi on bass who sometimes lends his Jack Bruce White Room vocal style [see cover of Bruce's Theme For An Imaginary Western] and slows things down to a more reflective mode but when they are cranking they are truly a mountain of sound.
Of course, add Deep Purple to the "Heavy' side as well. Running his organ through a Marshall stack was the stroke the elevated Purple into one of the loudest bands on the planet. [From Wikipedia:: circa 1972 - "Deep Purple held the record and were recognized by The Guinness Book of World Records as the "globe's loudest band" when in a concert at the London Rainbow Theatre their sound reached 117 dB.Three of their audience members were rendered unconscious." IN A THEATER?!? My ears never recovered from seeing X [original line up] at Trees, I can't imagine two hours of full jet engine level Purple at the old Arcadia! [Well, I can and it makes my ears bleed just imagining it.]
Also got the "official / approved by the band" live Zep set How the West Was Won. I'm not going to bemoan the 25 minute Dazed and Confused or 19 minute fucking drum solo Moby Dick. Well, not anymore. I just can't... I just can't anymore. Anything beyond the 9-10 minutes of Yes' Starship Trooper [Yes Tracey Berry, I can appreciate the best of Yes but that's about it and John Perez is still under orders to lock me down and call the men with the nice white coats if I ever go into his store asking for a Yes album.] or Springsteen's Jungleland had better be something really, really hot.
But the reason I bring it up at all is because it makes one realize how 'thin ' the BBC Recordings are. There is no bottom at all to them. It's like if J-Lo lost 20 pounds, 10 from each ass cheek. To be fair, those BBC recording probably A. weren't meant to last and B. were done as cheaply as the BBC could get away with. It's one thing to record an earl 'clean' band like the Beatles or the Stones in the early 60s this simply [see the Stones On Air for example] but by the time you get to Zeppelin...
Don't get me wrong, I have a deep, deep affinity for the BBC Sessions. My friend David Herring put 45 minutes of the 1971 show on one of the Zeppelin tapes he made for me and I had been searching for it until The Complete BBC Sessions arrived. And hearing the band in a small environment where the acoustic numbers That's the Way and Going To California feel really intimate [i.e. not lost in a 20,000 seat arena] and one can hear John Paul Jones and John Bonham and Jimmy Page without them being in your face / wall of sound heavy is refreshing. [And it has a fairly tame 'only' 11 minute Dazed and Confused!]
To be fair, one has no idea how much Jimmy Page could do with the BBC Sessions. As with the Stooges Raw Power [I often asked why it wasn't ever cleaned up in a remix until Brother N8 explained "that's what's on the tape - the tape is so saturated, there is no fixing it."] what's on the tape is on the tape. Meaning there wasn't a master to rimix, boost the bass, fatten it up, etc. With HtWWW, Page has raw original tapes to take and mix to his pleasure and pretty much tweak any way he wants to and it shows. This is one of the most powerful bands ever at their peak and this probably reflects the way it really was.
The Stones are crossing the pond again, closest they are coming [so far?] is Houston. Besides not particularly wanting to go to Houston, I just can not justify $300 for 'good' seats or $ 200 for 'in the same stadium as the Stones' seats. I just can't. I know, I know, it costs a lot to rent the building, security, insurance, etc. so the Stones are probably making 'only' a million per show. And yes, I have seen Keith's hands and he probably is suffering a horrible arthritis and "this could be the last time" and Charlie is 77 [78 in June]. And even though N8 made the great argument for: they're playing great, you're part of an experience, one of those moments in history that never is again.
The problem besides the dough is going to be the set list. I know probably 75% of it going in: Start Me Up, Jumping Jack Flash, Miss You, Sympathy For the Devil, Satisfaction, Honky Tonk Women, You Can't Always Get What You Want, likely Gimme Shelter and Midnight Rambler, although Can't You Hear Me Knocking could sneak in. The Stones have released 24 live albums, 21 since 1991 [not counting the On the Air BBC Sessions and only counting Stripped once]. Even though 9 are From the Vault period pieces, that has 12 of those albums of live shows from 1990/91 on. [3 FtV - Tokyo Dome 1990, San Jose 1999 and Voodoo Lounge Uncut [1994] fall in the time range.] That means I can pick up any of the 10 that I do not already own [I have Stick Fingers Live 2015 and the original Stripped already] and hear those songs and with my failing memory probably recall the records more than the show.
Speaking of the Stones, my theory on an album of new material is..maybe. I know, they're playing well, they're tight and of course they are in the studio. But I suspect that the hang up is going to be Mick. Granted he doesn't have to write the lyrics [for example, Ruby Tuesday is all Keith] he more than likely is and at this stage of the game, Mick has not a lot to say. One can hardly go around at 75 singing about being one of someone's cocks. It sounded trite and forced back in 2005 when you were ONLY 62.
