The bass used on Led Zeppelin 1

[nofi]

you know its never that easy around here.

[clankenstein]

http://www.led-zeppelin.org/studio-and-live-gear/872

[Alanko]

really. i posted a couple things for fun. but now i don't give a crap about what bass was used on one song 48 years ago.

Damn. I'm posting my thoughts for fun as well! I've not been tasked to sleuth this out or anything, just wondering if a forum full of Gibson bass-heads happened to think the same way as I do about a recorded bass tone. I'm neither the biggest LZ or JPJ fan; especially when he is doing his clumsy Jamerson impressions. I do, however, consider the bass tone on the intro to Dazed as a departure from his normal tone.

I'm not really wanting to emulate that tone, but if I had to then my 32'' semi-hollow bass strung with chromes would probably do the job.

[uwe]

Have I mentioned yet that I deem Zep Deppelin completely overrated? Sloppy guitarist, singer unable to write a decent lyric to save his life, heavy-handed drummer and mostly inaudible bassist. Their best musician was Phil Collins.



Now if I had posted this on talkbass ... 

[66Atlas]

[Dave W]

Have I mentioned yet that I deem Zep Deppelin completely overrated? Sloppy guitarist, singer unable to write a decent lyric to save his life, heavy-handed drummer and mostly inaudible bassist. Their best musician was Phil Collins.



Now if I had posted this on talkbass ... 

I'm shocked!  You've never said anything like this before. 

And in related news, you'll probably be shocked to learn that I mildly dislike Gene Simmons.

[nofi]

that eb2 pic looks like it was taken after he was contaminated by dave grohl. thus it does not count.

[uwe]

[Psycho Bass Guy]

that eb2 pic looks like it was taken after he was contaminated by dave grohl. thus it does not count.

Leave Dave Grohl alone! I completely understand why people who have a problem with him do so, but having seen him give 150% live and do it exceptionally well when he was already a megastar, I have nothing but respect for him. As for JPJ, his jazzy meanderings in and out of Zep leave me cold and bored.

[amptech]

Leave Dave Grohl alone! I completely understand why people who have a problem with him do so, but having seen him give 150%

100% of him is more than enough

[Pekka]

Have I mentioned yet that I deem Zep Deppelin completely overrated? Sloppy guitarist, singer unable to write a decent lyric to save his life, heavy-handed drummer and mostly inaudible bassist. Their best musician was Phil Collins.



Now if I had posted this on talkbass ... 

I can hear JPJ very well on most Zep rcordings. Sometimes he is even loud ("Out On The Tiles"). Why it is that usually Deep Purple fans need to put Zeppelin down? The bands were as different as Purple or Heep were.

[Alanko]

Have I mentioned yet that I deem Zep Deppelin completely overrated?

I see them as broadly comparable with Metallica (stay with me here...). A necessary band, for marrying multiple musical camps together, and who achieved their best work at the start of their career. A band that then didn't have the good grace to vanish in smoke, instead endlessly diluting their sound and image whilst never quite delivering the same quality product.

Led Zeppelin took the emerging trends of pared down boogie rock, abstract fuzzy psychedelia and bloated 'heavy' rock like Vanilla Fudge and Iron Butterfly, and condensed all of these into an accessible product that didn't detract or necessarily cheapen any of these core genres. They were the band that fans of these genres were waiting for, really, where Jeff Beck and co had failed to do so. The early-to-mid 1969 Led Zeppelin stirred up a fervent, angry Beatlemania in the US as the music was faster and more aggressive than Vanilla Fudge et al, but still as heavy.

Very cleverly (or by sheer accident) the band were able to create a mysterious, occult image. They were both ubiquitous and curiously absent, hiding behind odd symbology, opaque lyrics and spooky studio production whilst still delivering stabs of explicit hard rock. Perhaps this is down to the pairing of two posh introverts and two working-class loudmouths? If you wanted bellicose hotel smashing then you worshipped Bonzo, and if you wanted impenetrable mysticism then you studied Page; all of this in a band that was far more 'Pop' than Genesis, Gentle Giant et al.

I think Led Zeppelin should have dropped the first four albums, an astonishing live album and then vanished forever. When the albums start to take years to deliver, have weird pastiche tracks and generally sound like shit then the writing is on the wall. When the band take a year off between tours (okay, there was some personal turmoil involved I know) and dedicate a half-hour solo spot to Page dicking around with a Theremin and a violin bow then the writing is on the wall.

What bothers me, firstly, is the cynicism that must have taken root in the band. You have mobsters running security and surround yourselves in a climate of fear. You then give astonishingly bad performances, safe in the knowledge that fans will turn up anyway and your fat, crooky manager can still have each venue over a barrel and ask for anything financially and probably still get it. Page's playing took a nose dive in 1975 (it was already pretty unsteady before then), and he got to the stage that it sounds like his two hands are playing different parts. His right hand feverishly struggles to get up to speed during solos, blindly reeling off 16th notes whilst his left hand fires out a miasma mis-judged country bends and the exact same dinosaur licks he committed to tape for that meandering, unimpressive solo in Hearbreaker on LZ II years previously. That stuttering, ricochet sound of one note in three actually hitting the mark, further highlighted by that stringy, undercooked guitar tone he seems to have become smitten with, all delivered by a sweating skeleton of a man surrounded by an impenetrable dope fug. That is basically giving your audience two fingers, in my opinion.

Black Sabbath made the mistake of having the younger, thirstier Van Halen support them on latter '70s tours; Led Zeppelin didn't take the same risk.

What bothers me secondly is the vast number of Led Zeppelin fans willingly to become paedophile apologists to defend Page's behaviour during that period. Morals and tastes were so different in the '70s (apparently) that multiple sources indicate, and openly boast, that Lori Maddox was all but abducted by the band and then secreted off to Page's hotel room when he was in the area. Her parents were fine with farming off their barely-teenage daughter to a smack-ravaged guitarist with an unhealthy sexual appetite, which says more about them than anything else! What shitty parents, frankly.

I'm 26, and I have absolutely nothing in common with 14 year old girls, have zero interest in them, their tastes or ideas. I dare say the public wouldn't be so endlessly forgiving if I coerced one of them into weird cod-Satanic sex rituals. Guys in their mid-to-late 20s shouldn't be involved sexually with girls that have to ask the teacher before they are allowed to go to the bathroom. That is utterly messed up.

Evidently if you pen some radio-friendly rock music then you have a free pass to groom underage girls, and your fans will back you up all the way.  That seems unbelievably shady. In general I see Led Zeppelin as a band that put in a couple of years' solid work, then basket off the proceeds for years after in an excessive and indefensibly shitty manner.

Just my $0.02.

[patman]

Plus one both on Zep and Gene Simmons...

I bought Kiss's greatest hits about 10 years ago.  Don't think I made it through once.

[Pekka]

I love Zeppelin. My fav albums are "Houses Of The Holy" and "Physical Graffiti". Fantastic band whose only fault is that they were popular. Their personal lives don't interest me and I don't pretend they were saints.

Plus their guitarist didn't inspire an appaling genre that is power metal. 

[Alanko]

Power metal? Achilles Last Stand sowed the seeds for all that tedious triplet-galloping and the band endlessly robbed lyrics and imagery from Tolkien. They share some of the burden.