Whither Now, Zeppelin?

Led Zeppelin's history, like much of the past, is now fodder for re-examination by those filled with unease because they love the music but are offended by the behavior of the time. The irony is that the music itself, the reason the band is even known certainly more so that any shenanigans they got into or boorish behavior they engaged in, is almost never discussed.

Stereo Williams, in his DailyBeast article, notes the stories that are part of Zeppelin's lore concerning bacchanalia, groupies, and their noted nicking of other people's music. None of this is new. Nor I suppose is the righteous indignation that is heaped upon those of us who were actually alive at that by those who were not.

Sorry, but if I'm supposed to feel bad, it's not working..

I won't argue that during the 60's and 70's a certain attitude prevailed within the rock 'n roll community concerning sex and drugs. Nor would I dismiss accusations that it was male dominated and that misogyny played a role in the attitudes that some had towards women. Should they have had sex with 14 year olds? No. And I won't dignify the argument that the boys in the band thought they looked older or that booze and drugs addled their judgement; they knew what they were doing. And believe it or not, so did most of the groupies. As the woman in the article admitted, she didn't think she was abused, though she thinks, in hindsight, that it probably wasn't a smart thing to do.

And it wasn't as if what was going on wasn't known about, it was. I know people now hate to hear this, but it was cool back then and a lot of people wanted in on it.

That doesn't make it right, of course, but it's always easy to judge at a distance...

As far as Page and Zeppelin using other people's music without accreditation, unless sued, I won't try to justify that either. Whether it was cultural appropriation depends on how you view legacies and the sharing of music, but to me, the problem, and I get it, is that a good number of people will think Zeppelin created their songs whole and won't have any inkling of the songs history or who originally performed them and more often than not, it was by black performers, who have largely gone unsung, though the British rock stars most noted for it, from Clapton to Richards and Page, have acknowledged their love of American blues, R&B, etc.

The difference, of course, is that Zeppelin and the others made a fortune with the music whereas the black performers did not. I'd be put out too. If someone makes a fortune off your song, then you should get a piece of the pie. Hence the need to sue. Page, for his part has been more than willing to obfuscate the obvious, almost to absurdity. It's ok to own up, dude.

My biggest problem with a lot of these "how shocking" pieces is that it's easy to bad-mouth people you don't know and times you didn't live through (though I think a great many, in their heart of hearts, would love to see what it was really like, though they'd be loathe to admit it). This assumes that these terrible things no longer take place, to which I would say BS. It's human nature. Given the opportunity, sad to say, people will drink and drug and f**k themselves to death. The opioid crisis is the latest iteration of our self-destructive tendencies. The other assumption is that because we're now aware or woke, we can easily condemn those who were not. The real work, however, is making the world better, in real tangible terms, not just an awareness that it should be. Talk and self-congratulation is just that.

Inevitably, this always circles back to the art; in the case of Zeppelin, to the music. The art endures, and that's the problem for some. It's also easy to bad-mouth the dead, because they can't call you on it from the grave. If you abhor their behavior in life, then don't follow their example. In 20 years, it's probable that there will be no living members of Zeppelin left. All that will survive is their music. At that point and beyond, it's whether it says something to you, and if you base your opinion on the artist's life and behavior, then you do, but most people won't take a lot of time exploring the past. If the art moves them, whatever the artists flaws, then the art endures. History is replete with artists, in all realms, music, literature, painting, whose behavior I wouldn't condone, but if the art endures, it is because it speaks to something that moves us, that moves beyond the actions of who created it.

©2019 David William Pearce

Art For Art's Sake

There are, at times, bizarre arguments about the merits of art, in whatever endeavor, that revolve around what constitutes legitimacy. In music it's making it, which can mean almost anything, although mostly it consists of getting a record deal and making money. That pursuit doesn't always pan out, in fact in most cases it does not, but for those of us who were either disinterested in that pursuit or appalled by how artists are often treated, never mind the artist's own lack of awareness of how the biz works, it held no great sway.

Closer to home is the question of whether you're serious or merely playing music as an extracurricular activity, akin to, let's say, quilting.

Leave aside the insult to quilters,who are artists in their own right, and ask what is decisive in authenticating an artistic vocation versus just being labelled a hobbyist. Often this is promoted by the frustrated. The biz is tough and it's more interested in marketability than artistic expression. And this inevitably rears its head for those whose talents gets them very close, but not quite, to the cusp of "Making it." Then it's what are you willing to change or sacrifice to really make it? But most never get close.

Is making the art, in this case songs, more or less important than being able to sell and make money from them? If you're a singer-songwriter, which is more important: Being a singer or writing songs? Those who write to, and for, the biz and those who want to be a part of it, always state that the songs have to come first. If you're a songwriter, you've got to have songs, good songs, interesting songs, even gimmicky songs to get a foot in the door. That takes time, that takes energy and desire, and is often the hardest thing to do, but when you've finished it and are ready to lay on the people, then what?

That takes a lot of work too.

It also means that at some point you're going to have to be real about how far you can go with it. If you write and play songs, you're an artist, whether at an open mic, for friends, at house concerts, bars, or the promised land of music venues. Some see more authenticity in playing bars and coffee houses, whether the audience is paying attention or not, than at open mics or songwriter get-togethers, but this misses the point.

Art is inevitably a personal journey, a personal expression whatever the medium. The tried and true dictum that making what you think will be popular with others, but not yourself, will leave you unfulfilled is accurate. Creating on spec isn't the same. It may utilize the same talents, and for a rare few, John Williams, the composer as an example, they may be one and the same, but that does not mean that Mr. Williams may not have any affinity for a particular soundtrack composed beyond that it met the needs of the filmmakers. 

Obviously, most artists would love to make a living through their craft. So would I, but whether or not I can monetize my art to produce a living wage does not in and of itself determine whether the art has any value or is worth the effort of its creation. If I'm content to go no further than a few open mics to share my music to the world, that ought to be enough. Whatever another artist wishes to do is up to them, but it doesn't ipso facto relegate those who don't to the status of hobbyist.

©2019 David William Pearce

I'm a Recording Artist!

Sounds pretty pretentious, Dave...

I suppose it does.

But, in my defense, it is accurate. Recording, when I started in the early 80's was split into 3 basic categories: record label recordings, the albums and tapes you bought of your favorite artists, with varying degrees of production, but generally a decent sound, local production at studios for the purposes of demos, or vanity projects, as they were called in the old days, that would make no money, and the noisy, ratty recordings the rest of us made in our cheap Panasonic cassette recorders.

I made quite a few bad recordings with one of these!

It was a friend of mine, in the Navy, who turned me on to, what was then, a novel new way for "home recording enthusiasts", like myself, to make actual multi-track recordings. He had a Tascam 244 4-track cassette machine.

After fooling around with it, naturally, I had to have my own.

Now having one didn't mean anything beyond being able to make bad recordings with 4 channels instead of 1 or 2, assuming there was a stereo input on your recorder, but I began to hear what other people were doing with the 244 which sounded good, and I figured I could do that too. I bought a good mic and outboard gear, at least that which I could afford. From there it was trial and error.

And it worked for me.

That doesn't mean I didn't want to perform or couldn't get along with others. It was, rather, a way for me to get the songs out in a way that I liked. I wanted to have a fully realized, given the equipment I had, song to show people rather than just me beating out a few tunes on the guitar. Not that that's a bad thing, but for me, It was frustrating because I could hear the songs in my head and wanted to see what I could do with them. And finding studio time I could afford was frustrating. The other problem was the people I wanted to work with were already in any number of bands or were moving away or tired of life out of a van.

Then it was time for me to move. My wife at the time, Yoshie, wanted to come to Seattle, and I saw no reason not to. I could still record and do my thing. And, if I'm honest, I am a bit stubborn when it comes to how I want my songs to sound, so doing it myself was the way to go. I didn't need someone telling me to do it this way, only to have it be out of fashion or style the next day. I like guitars and synths, but I didn't want to necessarily do New Wave pop or hair band rock.

I just wanted to do my own thing.

And I still do.

Song of the Week: This week's song, Faces, from Broken Hearts and the Fabulous Perch, is basically a commentary on how women are presented to us through the media, and how in person, they're not really like that at all, or that the life we're expecting isn't how life turns out. The clash of imagery versus reality along side a jaunty beat. You can hear it at mrprimitivemusic.com.

©2019 David William Pearce