WHOLE LOTTA SICK JEFFREY MORGAN’S MEDIA BLACKOUT #343!

Led Zeppelin – Celebration Day (Atlantic) :: The bootleg, fifteen camera, audience-filmed version that I reviewed in MB241 two years ago beats this ‘too little too late’ official release by a country mile. Whoever edited this slovenly slapdash coat hanger abortion should be lynched from the rafters—especially for the retarded choice of camera angles on “In My Time Of Dying” wherein you miss not only Plant’s pseudo-mystic Crowley Doody hand gesture shtick but the priceless moment when both Page and Plant jump up and town in tandem like a couple of kids on pogo sticks, followed by Page’s giddily gleeful grin.

Oh, and if you think that you’re seeing the complete version of “In My Time Of Dying” as originally performed on stage, think again because the entire “Honey Bee” segment is missing. As is the comic relief moment when Bonham does a spot-on impersonation of Plant wailing “Whoa-a-whoa-a, I can’t quit you babe” on the first album. Not to mention the “Let That Boy Boogie Woogie” bit in “Whole Lotta Love.”

Then again, if you got sued for unpaid royalties as many times as these thieving magpies have, you’d be a Nervous Nellie and edit out everything litigious, too.

SIZZLING BOOK OF THE WEEK: Barney Hoskyns – Led Zeppelin: The Oral History Of The World’s Greatest Rock Band (Wiley) :: Not only is this the greatest Led Zeppelin book ever assembled, it’s the only Led Zeppelin book you’ll ever need to read. And folks, when they say “oral” they ain’t just whistling in Dixie—which explains why I’m reminded of another “oral” extravaganza I once read.

In the June 1982 issue of CREEM: America’s Only Rock ’n’ Roll Magazine, I wrote a review of Thomas Kiernan’s hardcover biography The Roman Polanski Story, which I began like this:

“The good people at Grove can feel free to quote me on the back cover of the paperback edition of The Roman Polanski Story when I say that it’s nothing short of unbelievable—and, make no mistake, I’m talkin’ positively butane! It gets an easy 98.6 on the causticity meter for sheer, unadulterated (no pun intended), dredged-up dirt.

“If you’re looking for a sordid cross between Bob Guccione’s Caligula and The Tool Box Murders—the real rise and fall of the Roman Empire, as told in the classic Greek tradition (if you catch my drift)—then look no further. I mean, forget about Elvis: What Happened? and Hollywood Babylon ’cause this is the one trip to take straight to Hell with you on a handcart in terms of Grade A perversion. A brief list of the topics contained herein looks like an agenda for an evening of fun at Rick Johnson’s house...”

Well, you get the comparitory gist—but just in case you don’t, here’s what Pamela Des Barres has to say about Led Zeppelin and their uncongenial congenital gang of thugs halfway through the book on page 228:

“They thought they could get away with anything—and they could, because everyone wanted to get near them. They were very debauched, and the girls got younger and younger and more willing to do anything. It got to be incredibly sick. I mean, it’s weird to see Richard Cole today, because I have images of him kicking people’s teeth out.”

Want a second opinion? Here’s writer Mick Farren on page 230:

“With Zeppelin it just seemed to be running in semen and beer and unpleasantness and old Tampaxes. They were number one on the groupie-target roster, and Rodney Bingenheimer was pandering to them as they sat in the back of his cupboard-sized discothèque getting their dicks sucked by thirteen-year-olds under the table.”

Over to you Iggy Pop on page 232:

“I would meet these horrible little girls who were fifteen and were fearing becoming nineteen. And that’s not healthy, that’s sick.”

This is where we came in, with groupie Morganna Welch on page 233:

“I was sixteen when I started out, but these girls were thirteen and very immature. And look, Roman Polanski got caught, but there were all these forty-year-old men who were seeing young girls on the Strip.”

And what’s sex without a little more teeth-kicking ultra violence, as Spillaned by the author himself on page 243:

“Wired to the gills on cocaine, manager Peter Grant and psychopathic criminal Johnny Bindon almost beat one of promoter Bill Graham’s henchmen to death in Oakland.”

A sentiment echoed by Nick Kent on page 285:

“I’ve never seen anyone behave worse in my life than Bonham and Cole. Once I saw them beat a guy senseless for no reason and then drop money on his face. It makes me sick when I hear Plant talking about what a great geezer Bonzo was, because the guy was a schizophrenic animal, like something out of Straw Dogs.”

And here I always thought that the exhaustive 800 page epic Elvis Aaron Presley: Revelations From The Memphis Mafia was the last word in oral rock biographies. Silly me, its lips are sutured shut compared to this open wide and say ewwww offering, snorts ’n’ all.

Which is why the good people at Wiley can feel free to quote me on the back cover of the paperback edition of Led Zeppelin: The Oral History Of The World’s Greatest Rock Band when I say that it’s nothing short of unbelievable—and, make no mistake, I’m talkin’ positively butane! It gets an easy 66.6 on the causticity meter for sheer, unadulterated (no pun intended), dredged-up dirt.

Maurice Chevalier – “Thank Heaven For Little Girls” (MGM) :: Exactly!

Harrison, Starkey, McCartney, Lennon – The Beatles (1960 - ∞ ) :: The World’s Greatest Rock Band.

Be seeing you!