Zep’s sound was
heavy
, a chthonic crunch rooted in loud, distorted riffs and the combined power of John Paul Jones and John Bonham, who moved into the lower register like they owned the place. It is possible to make cross-cultural arguments about the shadowy psychic states catalyzed by deep beats and a heavy sound; in his
Crawdaddy
article, Burroughs mentions the Jajoukatrance music of Morocco, whose rites revolve around the goat-god Pan. But you only need to open your ears to hear Led Zeppelin toying with what Johnny Cash called “the beast in me”: something seething and base and more than a little crass. As Page noted, the band made “music from the stomach rather than the head.” You can see it in the way he slung his guitar onstage: Page liked to take it as low as you can go.
It is a measure of Led Zeppelin’s command that their low-end, folk-fringed crunge—coupled with the castles and ringwraiths that floated through Plant’s lyrics—staked out territory wherein an entire subgenre of rock would grow. Alchemical language is unavoidable: Zeppelin took the weighty riffs of heavy rock and transmuted them into heavy metal, a term which they nonetheless rejected, reasonably enough, for themselves. In any case, their riff mythos launched a thousand black ships. It is as if they forged a sonic portal into the abyss, and then broke the cardinal rule of ceremonial magic and left the damn thing open.
Who let the dogs of doom out?
In fairness, it must be said that many rock bards name Black Sabbath rather than Zeppelin as the true font of heavy metal. After all, Sabbath pack an unparalleled eldritch punch, and in many ways represent a purer source of bane: the riffs more consistently morbid, the stance more prole, and the whole shtick more out-of-nowhereand hence more monstrous, more contrary to nature. But Zeppelin had a vaster palette, a more richly perfumed darkness; perhaps most importantly, they sold way more records. Like all origin stories, this one depends on your frame of reference, your own lineages, your taste. It’s very much like the question of who deserves blame for the genre of heroic fantasy, whose multi-volume sagas of dwarf-lords and magic blades continue to clog the SF sections of bookstores. Hard-core sword-and-sorcery buffs will rightly name the pulp peregrinations of Robert E. Howard’s
Conan,
while more literary types will nominate, with equal justification, Tolkien’s
Lord of the Rings
. Sabbath is
Conan
; Zeppelin is
Lord of the Rings.
But Zeppelin is a special sort of
Lord of the Rings
, one where you get to
root for both sides
. Whatever its biographical basis, Page’s apparent diabolism is counterbalanced with the bucolic hippie paganism concentrated in the lyrics, persona, and hairstyles of Robert Plant. Led Zeppelin derives much of their mythic power from this seductive but disturbing ambiguity. Who do Zeppelin swear fealty to? The devil or the sun? Mordor or Middle-earth? Is Faery really just a theme park of Hell? The polarity between Page and Plant is even reflected in their very names. The plant is the pure green spunk of earth, whereas the page is a work of man, a skeletal void upon which we inscribe our plots and spells.
A similar polarity underlies Page’s persona, and helps to explain the aura of magical power that characterizes his mystique. Susan Fast cites one fan survey focused on the guitarist: “He is the sage. He knows how to take chances and make it work. He is the producer and ultimate architect of the goods.” 38 On the surface, Page’s live performances present typical rockist values of spontaneity, virtuosity, and sweaty abandon. But Page adds a novel element to the figure of the guitar hero, an element that Steve Waksman has identified as
mystery
. So even as Page bares his cock rock before tens of thousands of fans, the Zoso doodle emblazoned on his clothes and amp remind us that
he knows something that we don’t
. There is a gap between the hero whose
heavy
, a chthonic crunch rooted in loud, distorted riffs and the combined power of John Paul Jones and John Bonham, who moved into the lower register like they owned the place. It is possible to make cross-cultural arguments about the shadowy psychic states catalyzed by deep beats and a heavy sound; in his
Crawdaddy
article, Burroughs mentions the Jajoukatrance music of Morocco, whose rites revolve around the goat-god Pan. But you only need to open your ears to hear Led Zeppelin toying with what Johnny Cash called “the beast in me”: something seething and base and more than a little crass. As Page noted, the band made “music from the stomach rather than the head.” You can see it in the way he slung his guitar onstage: Page liked to take it as low as you can go.
It is a measure of Led Zeppelin’s command that their low-end, folk-fringed crunge—coupled with the castles and ringwraiths that floated through Plant’s lyrics—staked out territory wherein an entire subgenre of rock would grow. Alchemical language is unavoidable: Zeppelin took the weighty riffs of heavy rock and transmuted them into heavy metal, a term which they nonetheless rejected, reasonably enough, for themselves. In any case, their riff mythos launched a thousand black ships. It is as if they forged a sonic portal into the abyss, and then broke the cardinal rule of ceremonial magic and left the damn thing open.
Who let the dogs of doom out?
In fairness, it must be said that many rock bards name Black Sabbath rather than Zeppelin as the true font of heavy metal. After all, Sabbath pack an unparalleled eldritch punch, and in many ways represent a purer source of bane: the riffs more consistently morbid, the stance more prole, and the whole shtick more out-of-nowhereand hence more monstrous, more contrary to nature. But Zeppelin had a vaster palette, a more richly perfumed darkness; perhaps most importantly, they sold way more records. Like all origin stories, this one depends on your frame of reference, your own lineages, your taste. It’s very much like the question of who deserves blame for the genre of heroic fantasy, whose multi-volume sagas of dwarf-lords and magic blades continue to clog the SF sections of bookstores. Hard-core sword-and-sorcery buffs will rightly name the pulp peregrinations of Robert E. Howard’s
Conan,
while more literary types will nominate, with equal justification, Tolkien’s
Lord of the Rings
. Sabbath is
Conan
; Zeppelin is
Lord of the Rings.
But Zeppelin is a special sort of
Lord of the Rings
, one where you get to
root for both sides
. Whatever its biographical basis, Page’s apparent diabolism is counterbalanced with the bucolic hippie paganism concentrated in the lyrics, persona, and hairstyles of Robert Plant. Led Zeppelin derives much of their mythic power from this seductive but disturbing ambiguity. Who do Zeppelin swear fealty to? The devil or the sun? Mordor or Middle-earth? Is Faery really just a theme park of Hell? The polarity between Page and Plant is even reflected in their very names. The plant is the pure green spunk of earth, whereas the page is a work of man, a skeletal void upon which we inscribe our plots and spells.
A similar polarity underlies Page’s persona, and helps to explain the aura of magical power that characterizes his mystique. Susan Fast cites one fan survey focused on the guitarist: “He is the sage. He knows how to take chances and make it work. He is the producer and ultimate architect of the goods.” 38 On the surface, Page’s live performances present typical rockist values of spontaneity, virtuosity, and sweaty abandon. But Page adds a novel element to the figure of the guitar hero, an element that Steve Waksman has identified as
mystery
. So even as Page bares his cock rock before tens of thousands of fans, the Zoso doodle emblazoned on his clothes and amp remind us that
he knows something that we don’t
. There is a gap between the hero whose
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