The "Dynamic Rock" of Led Zeppelin

Thanks to an interview I just read of John Paul Jones, I think another piece has fallen into place for me as to why I love Led Zeppelin so very much. Jones was essentially fielding questions about Jimmy Page, and had this to say about Page's vision for the band at its inception: "He had this whole thing about 'a dynamic rock band... a whole light-and-shade thing.' Which was pivotal, and it informed every musical decision that he made."

I think that the term "dynamic" encapsulates a great deal of what Led Zeppelin was: they were a medium between the "progressive" and the static, between the theoretical meanderings of bands like King Crimson and the repetitious sort of music being played by the Rolling Stones and the like. They incorporated the soft and plaintive side of folk as well as the hyperactivity of unadulterated rock'n'roll into what was essentially a blues band. They relied on riffs and grooves, but they were improvisational within that basic construct and played variants on all of their patterns. As a result, they had both permanence and novelty. The drums locked onto a solid, powerful beat and deviated from it to add drama and musicality with gorgeous tom fills, the bass and guitar generally played the same riff, with the bass occasionally answering the drums and the guitar periodically peeling off the underlying bass for soloing and improvisational leads and grace notes.

Zeppelin's genre-mixing also underscores the theme of dynamism: acoustic folk, hard rock, and a wide range of flavors of the blues blend and yet remain distinct in their albums, which, in my opinion, makes it nonsense to apply a single label to the band (especially the almost wholly erroneous charge of being a metal band). Led Zeppelin had a great variety of colors and textures at their disposal, and they used them all admirably.

Lastly, the term "dynamic" can be used to describe the musical attitude of the band. They opted neither for the sort of supremely technical, virtuosic approach favored by prog bands such as Dream Theater and Rush, nor for the simplistic, do-it-yourself approach typical of punk and pop-rock bands (with The Clash and The Beatles being the exceptions to the rule in those categories, respectively). I do not doubt that Zeppelin had the talent to adopt the former approach, nor that they had the songwriting skills to attempt the latter. Instead, they set out to construct genuinely enjoyable (and sometimes even joyful) music that celebrated the blues and rock music that they loved while also demonstrating that rock musicians could be capable of the sort of high-level musicianship that was largely lacking from it at the time. Some of Zeppelin's material borders on a classical level of complexity (notably in "Achilles Last Stand," among others) while remaining groovy and accessible.

In essence, Jimmy Page set out to, and succeeded in, creating a group of tremendous talent, variety, and musical intelligence. And that is why Zeppelin reigns supreme in my mind.

Things I Think While Watching the Steelers

1. Please, please, please tell me Troy Polamalu is going to be alright. Even if we win tonight, if he goes down for an extended period, it's a loss.

2. One thing I respect about Ben Roethlisberger: although he often makes dumb, risky throws (as in the end of half play tonight), he at least does it in a team-oriented way. He knew that he had the arm strength to reach the endzone and that it was unlikely the Titans could return an interception for a touchdown. It was essentially a no-loss proposition in terms of points, and he was willing to take that chance at the possible expense of worse numbers for himself.

3. I am watching (through SlingBox) the New England broadcast of this game. There was a national ad for health care reform. This is a massive waste of time for New England viewers. I can't imagine a more egregious case of preaching to the choir. There ought to be a better way of fine-tuning ad campaigns.

4. As observed by the broadcast team, James Harrison is indeed an animal. He hit Bo Scaife so hard that he actually dropped the football out of pain and not just due to impact. He also has been blowing up the tight ends on a regular basis.

5. It's time for the Steelers management to stop pretending this offensive line is going to work out.

The Followup

Time for overrated musicians! Oh boy, I'm excited.

Travis Barker- I couldn't wait to get this one off my chest. He's overly flashy, attention-seeking, and incredibly annoying. How he manages to garner so very many votes for "Best Current Rock Drummer" over people like Pat Carney is beyond me. The man is also seriously addicted to crash cymbals. It's annoying. Play the drums themselves, please.
Neil Peart Rush- People like to talk about how Rush took the epic, long-lasting aesthetic of '70s hard and prog rock and added more technical skill and more abstract lyrics. First of all, I'm not sure that Rush is actually better at playing music than Zeppelin, The Allman Brothers, Cream, or any of the other elite bands from that time. Secondly, while they did add "philosophical" (read, "weird") lyrics to that kind of music, they also subtracted what made that music so good in the first place: the blues, passion, and groove. Not to mention the fact that Geddy Lee's voice is irritating beyond belief.
Eric Clapton- Don't get me wrong, Clapton is a very good guitarist. But he does not deserve mention among the best ever. Hendrix, Page, Duane Allman, John Frusciante, J Mascis- all better than him. I feel like he gets something of a related-to-the-Beatles boost because of his friendship with George Harrison.
Jim Morrison- A good singer, but definitely a beneficiary of the dead=genius algorithm. He had a very interesting voice, almost big band-esque, but limited range and a frankly overrated set of lyrics.
Kurt Cobain- essentially the same as Morrison, although his problem was less "limited range" than "limited as a singer." He wrote better songs than Morrison did, to be honest, and also played guitar (though not that well), but he was not as good a singer. And he also benefited tremendously from Dave Grohl's drumming and Krist Novoselic's bass work, which is underrated.
Ozzy Osbourne- More significant for the fact that he launched heavy metal than for any other reason. Sabbath continued without him, and he was always dependent on great guitarists like Tony Iommi and Randy Rhoads (and in my opinion, the former far outshines the latter). That is not to say that he was a bad singer, just a one-trick pony. Take away his metal howls and he's got nothing. Of course, this is true of most metal vocalists, but almost none of them have the same notoriety as Osbourne.

Well, I'm sure I could come up with more, but I don't feel like it.

Underappreciated Musicians

Just because I'm bored and thinking about it, a quick list of artists that people either don't know or don't care enough about. Also, since this is about underappreciation, not complete anonymity, I'm avoiding indie types.

Junior Kimbrough- Blues guitarist extraordinaire and inspirer of much of The Black Keys' catalog.
Robert Johnson- The granddaddy of all rock, and possibly the best acoustic bluesman ever.
John Paul Jones- About 1/1000th as well-known as the other Led Zeppelin guys.
John Frusciante- Honestly, how is it that people don't love this guy? Guitar magazines know about him, but pretty much no one else.
John Densmore- The only really talented musician from The Doors, the one with the most artistic integrity, and a virtual unknown outside of drumming circles.
Topper Headon- Had he not had a massive drug problem, The Clash might have lasted a lot longer, which would have been pretty great. Also probably the best drummer in punk history.
Mick Jones- Speaking of The Clash (I definitely don't mean the guy from Foreigner), Mick was a more polished and accomplished guitarist than Joe Strummer and had just as much vocal skill, though he sang less. Ah well, to the frontman goes the glory.
Ginger Baker- All things considered, much cooler than Eric Clapton and one of the best rock drummers ever.
Dave Grohl- Not in his Foo Fighters incarnation, but with Nirvana. All anybody ever says about Nirvana is "Kurt Cobain, blah, blah, Kurt Cobain." I'm tired of it. Nirvana would have been a lot worse without the heavy, heavy drumming on Nevermind.
Brian May- Similar to above, completely overshadowed by Freddie Mercury in the public consciousness. May was one of the best guitarists of the last few decades. Not taking anything away from Freddie, but give the man some credit.
Art Garfunkel- Paul Simon wrote the songs, yes, and had an actual solo career, but Art Garfunkel was a better singer. By a fair margin.
Phife Dawg- By show of hands, how many out there knew that he was the other guy in A Tribe Called Quest?



Coming Soon: Over-Appreciated! (Although I'll probably just call it "Overrated").

Vocals

Since I'm bored and think this way pretty near constantly, I thought it would be interesting to break down different categories of vocals in music. Basically, I'm trying to figure out which of my favorite bands have:
A.) Better lyrics than vocals- that is, singers who sing worse than they write;
B.) Better vocals than lyrics- singers who sing better than they write; or
C.) Vocals and lyrics that are about the same. This does not necessarily comprise an elite group, theoretically you could have a terrible singer/songwriter who would fit this category very neatly.

That being said, let's begin.

A.) Better Lyrics Than Vocals

James LaBrie- The lead singer for Dream Theater doesn't have a bad voice, per se, but he isn't exactly Freddie Mercury (who is coming later). He also happens to have a pretty good knack for writing lyrics- he did very well on Dream Theater's best album, Metropolis Part II: Scenes from a Memory, which is more or less the only one of theirs that I can completely recommend. He also has a couple of well-written songs on Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence, although I'm fairly sure that Mike Portnoy wrote a good number of those, as the album was his idea and is named after his own experiences with a twelve-step program. I would consider him above average as a pure vocalist, but a solid-to-good songwriter, so he fits this one on the lower end.

Dustin Kensrue- Both a solo artist and the singer and second guitarist of the post-hardcore band Thrice, Kensrue has a very odd vocal style. He has a certain rasping quality that still remains distinct from mere shouting or the vocal shredding common to similar acts, but he does flirt with both. However, like Thrice itself, his body of work is highly variable, ranging from aggressive, intense punkery to soft, lilting understatement. As with LaBrie, he does have a decent voice, but his lyrics (especially if you are, as I am, a Christian) are often very, very, very good. His vocal ability in itself is nothing special, but his lyrics are excellent.

Eddie Argos- Art Brut, an excellent Brit-punk/pop/rock'n'roll band that I previously mentioned in passing, sometimes comes dangerously close to simply being a vehicle for Argos' self-deprecation. To be perfectly frank, his voice is basically just an average, pleasant-sounding one. Were it not for the sheer brilliance and humor of his lyrics, he would be completely unremarkable as a musician. However, his lyrics are that good, and so is Art Brut as a whole. It takes a more careful listening to appreciate the instrumentals, but the words are up-front and hilarious.

Tom Petty- Do I even have to explain this one? He writes catchy lyrics (and catchy songs, as well) despite his irritating, nasal whine. He hovers only a few notches above Tom DeLonge in terms of sheer annoyance.

Bob Dylan- See above.

Paul Simon- Because Art Garfunkel was a better singer and hardly ever wrote lyrics.

B.) Better Vocals Than Lyrics

This one is a surprisingly fruitful one, so I tried to limit myself to just a few choices here.

Freddie Mercury- I told you it was coming. Queen does have some decently written tunes, but who even needs lyrics with a voice like Freddie's? Possibly the best vocalist in rock history, he had an impossibly high tenor, great sustain, and a very smooth delivery. My only knock against him is that his style didn't particularly lend itself to certain genres, including my favorite, blues. In terms of sheer vocal talent, though, he is light-years ahead of practically everybody else.

Robert Plant- Another of my favorite vocalists who doesn't really have a flair for writing. Plant had a voice like a wolf (and not Howlin' Wolf, either) and a banshee shriek that was a perfect fit for the hard, wailing music that Zeppelin reveled in. He also had pretty decent chops as a softer, folky singer, and despite the sheer weirdness and oddball-ity of his sound, he remains one of the most distinctive and accomplished singers of rock music. And- he wrote mostly flat, uninspiring lyrics. Many songs, like "Whole Lotta Love," "How Many More Times," and "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You" either borrowed heavily or were direct covers of previous work. Plant's original material, such as "Achilles Last Stand" (which isn't even punctuated correctly), or "What Is and What Should Never Be" devolve into either cliche or meaninglessness with great regularity. His best composition was probably "Thank You," which is a great song, but not much better than passable in its lyrics. Still, he was a bluesman at heart, and the blues and its derivative forms have almost always had more to say with the music than with the lyrics.

Joe Cocker- I love his gritty blues voice, but his best song was written by the Beatles (that would be "With A Little Help From My Friends," a track on which Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page played during his session days). His other most famous tune is "Feelin' Alright," which is decent but nothing exceptional in terms of the lyrics.


C.) Equally Good Lyrics and Vocals

Bono- U2 has neither the best lyrics (Dylan, among others, had better ones) nor the best vocals (Queen and Zeppelin are better in my book) but they do have some of the best of each. Bono has a good, clear tenor and a strong social conscience. Often, he is not the most subtle of songwriters, but there really are some issues that deserve to be addressed with a sledgehammer instead of a tap on the shoulder- for instance, the failure of the UN to support Bishop Desmond Tutu against the apartheid state of South Africa (which Bono addressed in a live cut off of "Rattle and Hum"). Bono probably exemplifies the best of this category: insightful lyrics combined with genuine vocal talent.

John Fogerty- Better-than-average lyrics along with a better-than-average voice, a gritty and distinctively American sound. But his solo career was pretty crappy.

Sting- With The Police, that is. His solo career was awful, and he can't really hit the high notes anymore. I think he was probably about two octaves lower on "Roxanne" when I saw The Police a while back. While, with The Police, he had some creepy-but-interesting compositions about personal life, his solo material sees him dipping into the hippy-environmentalist cliche well far too often.

Umm... that's it, I guess.

What I Think Of Arturo Gatti

Arturo Gatti is dead, an apparent suicide in Rio de Janeiro, a broken man, physically and otherwise. But that's not what I want to talk about.

Nor do I want to talk about his life, his behavior, or anything like that. I did not know the man, and I do not want to judge. I simply want to talk about who he was as a fighter. Above all else, he was that: he was a fighter.

Gatti was a man. His offense was fluid but angry, quick hands and hard, with a heavy left hook. He could slug, and he learned to box. There is no doubt that he could hurt a man. But his offense was not him, and he was not his offense. Gatti had paper skin and eyes that swelled so often and so badly that they were permanently beady by the time he fought Micky Ward. And yet he would brawl. He would wade in to trade with his opponents, even as his face tore and bled. A fight in which Gatti did not look disfigured was a rare occurrence.

And, speaking of Ward, it is of course that epic, famous, bloody, brutal trilogy that must be spoken of. Gatti was more than his fights with Ward, but there is no other thing that one could start with in discussing him.

Gatti's strategy in the first fight was to box, and he was winning. But Ward popped him, and boxing was gone. Gatti was never as comfortable in that role, and he seemed to shed it gladly. It was as though he knew what was happening, knew he was being drawn in, but didn't care. He was a man, he was Thunder, and he was going to beat Irish Micky Ward by punching him, and no other way.

The key moment in the fight and, I believe, in his entire career, was the knockdown scored by Ward in the 9th (out of 10). Gatti was caught in the body, right around the kidneys, and all the strength went out of him. It was less of a knockdown than it was a man succumbing to the ludicrous amount of punishment he had taken to that point. And Gatti, the man, went to his knees.

And then Gatti, the man, climbed back to his feet. And on uncertain and unsteady legs, he retreated from Ward, ducking and weaving as he could. And then Gatti, the man, started to fight. Weak and exhausted, he threw everything he had into the punched-out Ward, short jabs followed by wide swinging rights. And he very nearly chopped Ward down, half-paralyzed and wholly spent, before his last efforts wound down. Then Gatti was helpless before Ward, who had a rally of his own, before wearing out exactly as Gatti had. The Arturo Gatti he made his way to his stool before the final round looked dead. His left eye was swollen very nearly shut, his face purple and distorted by nine rounds of reckless combat.

To me, the tenth round of Ward-Gatti I will always be Gatti's crowning achievement. As the round started, he tried to fool Ward and his own body into believing he was fresh- and he succeeded. He came out with the same sort of dancing footwork that had utterly confused Ward in the first third of the fight. After that, he started to swing. He was dead, but he was alive again. What Gatti found on that stool between those rounds was redemption- not for his spirit, and not for the fight, which he lost (unfairly, I think, but boxing often goes that way). He found redemption of his courage. The broken, defeated man who had collapsed onto his stool after dropping from a body blow was now a man fighting with borrowed strength. If it killed him, Arturo Gatti was going to finish the fight. It is no coincidence that, after he won that round, Gatti won the next two fights.

Much as I dislike Hemingway, I have to admit that if one was to use a quote for Gatti's epigram, it would be the statement of the fisherman in The Old Man and the Sea: "I will show you what a man can do, and what a man endures."

Arturo Gatti may not have been a great man; he may not have been even a good man- but he was a man, and that is a thing worthy of respect.

Why Am I Not Surprised

That David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez were using performance enhancers in 2003? I don't know if I'm just becoming cynical or if pretty much all of baseball really is on the juice. I really hope that at least one Hall of Fame-type player from this era is clean. Pujols would be good.