Did that show really happen?  Has it really been five years since that cold, cloudy London evening when I took the Tube from the Queensway station north of Hyde Park to Bond Street, changed from the Central Line to the Jubilee, rode some 40 minutes until the North Greenwich station where I disembarked for what would be the greatest and most surreal concert I've ever seen?

Yep.

Led Zeppelin hadn't played a full, two-hour-plus set in 27 years had been rehearsing like mad for this one-off benefit for the Ahmet Ertegun Education Fund that had attracted more than 20 million requests for tickets. Yet somehow this kid from Murray, Kentucky now working for KLOS-Los Angeles snared one--thanks to my friend Jeff Albright, who was unable to attend once the concert was rescheduled after Jimmy Page's finger injury.

Surreal doesn't begin to describe watching a band I hadn't seen since the 1975 Physical Graffiti tour and would probably never see again.  With the recent Celebration Day DVD & CD releases of the concert, everyone can see what the select few of us got to witness five years ago.  No band this big ever faced greater odds to leave a one-last-show legacy this tremendous. To this day, I look at these 2007 artifacts and shake my head in disbelief that the concert not only happened, but that I somehow weaseled my way in to witness it.  Funny how no concert since then has quite measured up--or could.

Welcome Back My Surround-Sound Friends!

In the beginning, there was mono and it was meh.  Then came hi-fidelity stereo and things were getting warmer.  Then audio geeks figured that if two channels were good, four might be mack.  So quadraphonic sound appeared and it was really good--especially, believe it or not, the 8-track versions (except for the fading out of one program into another right in the middle of a song; that'll never NOT suck).   The vinyl quad stuff, not so much.  But sometime in the late 70s, 4-channel audio faded into the sonic sunset and remained dormant until....DVDs!  That's when multi-channel home hi-fidelity returned with a passion, this time with FIVE speakers and a sub woofer.  The 5.1 Phoenix, in movie format and the subsequent DVD Audio and SACD discs, was the greatest thing these ears had experienced since those crankin' quad days of Emerson, Lake & Palmer's triple live album, "Welcome Back My Friends To The Show That Never Ends."

And speaking of them progressive rock blokes, we've come full circle.

If you've got a 5.1 system set up at home you'll want to check out all the multi-channel mixes of classic albums.  The latest?  Emerson, Lake & Palmer's first two albums:  the self-titled debut and Tarkus.  Razor & Tie have done a phenomenal job of not only remastering and repackaging these but enlisting Porcupine Tree's Steven Wilson to remix new stereo AND 5.1 Surround Sound mixes.  Steven did remarkable jobs on Jethro Tull & King Crimson releases besides being Grammy-nominated for his work.  And take it from a longtime fan, these new ELP mixes are beyond superb.  As Steven did with many of the softer passages on Tull's Aqualung, the analog tape hiss from the quieter moments on things like "Take A Pebble" finally has been eliminated.  Back in the bell-bottomed days of stereo components--separate turntables, receivers and the like--there were a few well-produced & engineered albums you would bring in to the stores to compare the speakers.  ELP's debut was one of those albums (along with Doobies' Captain & Me and Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon) and the new remixes make their first album that much brighter and crisper.

The great thing about 5.1 versus simple stereo is that quite often musical passages and nuances get lost in the compacting of two channels.  5.1 lets the music breathe and allow you to hear things that have always been there but that you might have never heard.  It happens almost every time I listen to a 5.1 mix--at some point I'll think "That's been there all along? What was I, medicated or something?"

You can find out more about ELP's first album here and their second, Tarkus, here.  It's a very decent price for 2 CDs and a DVD plus great new liner notes about the making--and remaking--of each.

Hackrophenia!

Thanks to NBC's idiocy, The Who and Ray Davies' performances--among others--was gutted from the first 2 1/2 hours of Olympic Closing Ceremony coverage so that the network could shove some inane monkey-in-a-lab-coat "comedy" down our throats.

Wanna see SOME of what you missed?  The Who got edited but it's better than a TV sitcom wasteland.  Click here.

The greatest album from the world's greatest rock & roll band turns 40 this month.  And the making of it is coming to a screen near us in the not-too-distant future.  As long as the joint gets ripped, shit gets scraped right off the shoes and there's fever in the funkhouse, the producers probably can't go wrong.  Read all about it here.

Ready To Rock, Punks?

Aerosmith showed up at The Grove/L.A. to talk about their upcoming Global Warming Tour and the new album (still unnamed) for about ten minutes today. Looking forward to hearing it and seeing them at the Hollywood Bowl (with Cheap Trick!) at the Hollywood Bowl August 6th. BTW, Brad Whitford is on tour with the Hendrix Tribute show and outta town today. But all are well, getting along great and seem more than ready to hit the road.

We Loves Us Some March Madness

So I got that John Wooden Basketball Camp shirt at the UCLA Bookstore and it became my new favorite t-shirt. UNTIL I got the one above that's the poster for the Stones '72 tour in San Fran. Both are made by Original Retro Brand, so I send off a note saying how freaking soft they were and next thing I know the ORB guys and I are in a mutual admiration society. They even think I know something about college hoops (it's either my bluegrass heritage or that KLOS office pool I won a few Marches ago) and challenged me to this.

I still can't believe Murray State was ice-cold from ThreepointLand.

Talent is God-given; be humble..Fame is man-given; be grateful...Conceit is self-given; be careful.

That's one of the many timeless things John Wooden said years ago. It's always good to revisit (and heed) his wisdom, and now his legacy is newly celebrated in a series of shirts benefiting the "Nell & John R Wooden Scholarship Fund." After buying the one above at the UCLA bookstore, I emailed the guys at Original Retro Brand just to say "great idea." Turns out they're fans of KLOS, I'm a retroholic, so they ended up interviewing yours truly for a future blog feature. Stay tuned..

You can find the John Wooden collection here at ORB's site or here (with his books) at UCLA's site. They'll even sell to SC fans.

They Shook Them

This is the week Led Zeppelin first played Zoo York City, at Bill Graham's legendary Fillmore East, January 31st & February 1st. Nowadays most bands hit NYC first, so they can exploit all the media outlets that will in turn send out ripple effects across the country. In 1968, however, Led Zep treated the Big Apple like flyover, opting instead to make their debut in the snowy confines of Denver, followed by shows in cold, damp northwest locales like Seattle, Vancouver, Portland and Spokane. In fact, they weren't even listed on the bill for that first Denver show with Vanilla Fudge. But by the end of January '69, word was out that this was one white-hot band.

British rockers The Move were scheduled to support headliners Iron Butterfly for those nights at the Fillmore, but instead dropped out and the Zeppelin signed on--much to the misgivings of IB's people, who were label mates (IB was on Atco, LZ on the more respected, big brother Atlantic imprint). By the end of Zeppelin's first set--they did two each evening, at 8 & 11:30 pm--they'd done two encores and had the crowd in such a lathered frenzy that Iron Butterfly waited a good 45 minutes before beginning their anticlimactic set. You can reviews of the show and check out some very cool memorabilia from those nights (including every page of the program everyone received those nights) here. For $3, $4 & $5 a ticket, people saw history for a bargain.

A mere four months later, May 30th 1969, Led Zeppelin returned to the Fillmore--but this time as headliners. No, Iron Butterfly wasn't reduced to being the opening act this time--that chore went to Delaney & Bonnie & Friends and jazz great Woody Herman and his orchestra. Bill Graham loved putting variety on his bills, like having Miles Davis open for The Grateful Dead, Chicago open for Zappa & The Mothers or Chuck Berry open for The Who. You can read all about those May '69 LZ shows here.

But what goes around....

On the bottom of page 20 here (you may have to scroll up a little), check out what happened later in 1969 when Led Zep's manager Peter Grant forcibly made opening band Grand Funk's manager stop their warm-up set because they were upstaging the Zeppelin. Sure, LZ could dish it out as support, but now as headliners? It wasn't long after this they decided that being the sole act on the bill was probably best--for finances AND karma.

And Cheech & Chong Were A Big "Hit" Here Too

I'm a Murrayan. I grew up in Murray, Kentucky from age 3 until I left for college at 18. That's the same Murray as in Murray State the sports world is talking about. And for good reason: It's the greatest season ever for a tradition-rich program in a basketball-crazy part of the world. Their 13 year-old arena is filled to rafters, finally--kinda like the old days. But this was the arena I watched many an MSU game in. It began life as The Fieldhouse, then was renamed Racer Arena. From 1954-1998 it was where Murray State played its men's and women's basketball games and hosted many a concert (Diana Ross & Supremes, Billy Joel, 3 Dog Night, ELO, Kenny Rogers & 1st Edition, Sly & Family Stone--even Andy Williams--all played there). In 1971, Murray State hosted Western Kentucky when both were ranked in the top 20. See that long steel support beam in the front? The one that curves all the way over to the right press box, just above the word "volleyball?" I stood on top of that very press box and leaned on that very beam during that sold-out, SRO game in 1971. With memories like that still reverberating 41 years later I can only imagine what the big bang of this season will do for my hometown and its people--the best you'd hope to meet--for decades to come. Go Racers!

(BTW Justin Seeley took the photo above; here's his site for more great shots.)

"We Don't Give A Damn How Ya'll Do It Down South."--rest of America

Lowest-rated BCS title game ever. SEC becomes the first conference to simultaneously win and lose the BCS championship game. Dominating defense, ordinary-to-nonexistent offense.

Yes Virginia, there will be a playoff system, but not nearly soon enough.

Having a #13 Michigan/#11 VaTech Equal/Splenda/Sugar-Substitute Bowl and a #15 Clemson/#23 West Virginny Sunny D Orange-Substitute follow a fantastic #5 Oregon/#10 Wisconsin Rose Bowl and a #3 Ok. State/#4 Stanford Fiesta Bowl is like seeing Bruce & E Street Band then Paul McCartney then trotting out as an encore Yanni and Vanilla Ice.