Hot Poop

· Marco Minnemann's latest DVD, The Marco Show, includes almost one full hour of drum solos and performance with the Buddy Rich Big Band, Bryan Beller and Mike Keneally. Mike also plays additional guitar on two tracks on Marco’s imminent A Mouth Of God CD.

· This Idiot is currently interviewing Denny Walley, Robert Martin and Jimmy Carl Black. Extracts from my chat with Zappanale headliner Denny can be pre-viewed now at http://idiotbastard.com/Interviews/DennyWalley.htm

· Chad Wackerman is touring the UK with Allan Holdsworth later this year. Vinnie Colaiuta will also be here, with Herbie Hancock, in November (he’s also part of Chick Corea & John McLaughlin’s Five Peace Band, play the Cork Jazz Festival in October). And Terry Bozzio will be over even sooner for the PMT Drumfest. See Bastard’s Diary for all the dates.

· At the Quebec Festival on 8 July, Julie and Eric Slick will be on stage with Adrian Belew, Tony Levin, Pat Mastelotto and the California Guitar Trio, opening for Primus as F.o.C.K. ("Friends of Crimson King"). Apparently the Adrian Belew Power Trio will do a half hour set - they will then be joined by Tony and Pat for a half hour of Crimson music, after which a huge jam with the Trio...and possibly Les Claypool. On the preceding two days, the ABPT opens for ZPZ (in Ottawa and Quebec).

· Gail has been posting a lot at the Zappa Forum recently: first, seemingly in support of some anti-English sentiments aimed at me and my ‘bullshit spinning’ (interestingly, Dweezil’s latest blog is now much more carefully worded: “introducing Frank's music to a new generation of fans is one of my biggest goals”). But then, even more interestingly, to explain one of the reasons why FZ’s music isn’t on iTunes anymore (“Ryko believes they have the digital rights and that we do not.”)…and, most recently, to advise that “…we are working on a minimum of four more releases this year.” Drool.

· The Gail-approved Ascolta plays Zappa in the UK at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival on 29 November. The band’s Erik Borgir tells me “this will be a singular event for now”. Regarding their proposed album (that will include recordings of Frank’s otherwise unreleased Synclavier compositions, Uncle Sam and Samba Funk), he says “we are still waiting for the release of our CD, which is more or less fully produced, but needs to clear some hurdles…we are hoping for a release this Fall.”

· KMB (that’s Keneally-Minnemann-Beller) will be shooting a live concert video at their official live debut on Sunday 20 July (at Channel Twelve 25 in California) to promote their planned European tour in 2009. Oh joy, Ren!

· Thanks as ever to the Radar Station for this: It Comes To You In A Plain Brown Wrapper, intended to be the second Captain Beefheart album, will finally be released on vinyl 22 July by Sundazed Records - with sleeve notes by Drumbo and a “plain brown like slip cover thing that wraps the package” on which Cal Schenkel “did some doodles”, replicating the album’s planned 1967 design.

· Check out the July edition of Guitar World magazine, which has an article on Zappa and features the Dweez showing off the Hendrix start at UMRK on the CD-ROM.

· You can now order the new FZ CD, One Shot Deal, from Barfko-Swill (click the pic above). Here’s some helpful (though possibly a little inaccurate) details, as posted at Kill Ugly Radio: http://www.killuglyradio.com/2008/06/13/zappa-one-shot-deal-status-released/#comment-1438. Given the short clip posted at zappa.com, most folk think the final track is actually from Royce Hall 1975 – ie. the Abnuceals Emuukha Electric Symphony Orchestra, not Petite Wazoo. And Space Boogers is believed to be from the only known gig where Michael Urso of Rare Earth filled in on bass for Tom Fowler after he broke his arm in November 1974 (hence ‘one shot deal’?).

· The Jack & Jim Show is currently touring Japan with the Mothers Of Invasion featuring Kawabata Makoto of the Acid Mothers Temple on guitar. And here’s a review of JCB’s latest CD.

· John French (aka Drumbo) is re-equipping, re-forming and re-vitalising. His Rogers drums - which he's used since the early 80s - are for sale at eBay http://tinyurl.com/5lqlpz or http://www.beefheart.com/blog/.

· Cuccurullo Brillo Brullo will be playing in Delft with some very special guests on 3 July: let's hear it for ace axe artist Pierrejean Gaucher and ‘The Amazing Siamese Hornsection’ that is estranged MufFinZ Andy Frizell and Martin Smith.

· At the International Zappa Conference in Paris on 5/6 July, Les Fils De l'invention is proud to announce that speakers will include Dr Richard Hemmings (aka Evil DIck), Ben Watson (aka Out To Lunch), Dr Esther Leslie (aka Miss Pinky), Simon Prentis (aka the Semantic Scrutinizer), The Wrong Object’s Michel Delville and Arf Society President, Thomas Dippel. And ahead of their performance at Zappanale, the Delicious Band Research Kitchen will perform on Saturday. Find out more at http://lesfilsdelinvention.net/.

· The latest MOJO includes an article by Dave DiMartino on the relationship between FZ and Captain Beefheart, with some interesting quotes from the likes of Miss Pamela, Cal Schenkel and Gary Lucas.

· Matchbox Twenty guitarist Paul Doucette will release the debut album from his side project, The Break And Repair Method, this Autumn. It will be called Milk The Bee. One of the guests on the album is Moon Zappa, his wife, who sings on several tracks.

· Barfko-Swill has unleashed The Torture Never Stops DVD, including liner notes by Scott Thunes, bonus material featuring the audio of two songs from the Halloween ’81 shows previously not included (Teenage Prostitute and City Of Tiny Lites) and the YAWYI promo video, plus a photo gallery. As some will recall, the Dub Room DVD liner notes referred to this and the KCET 74 TV show being "slated for DVD as whole concerts, mixed in multi-channel." The package for this new DVD says it is in PCM Stereo, but it isn't. Explains Vaultmesiter Joe Travers: "We originally were going with PCM audio but we decided that we would go Dolby Digital 2.0 since we did not treat the audio in any way, nor remix. We went for picture quality instead. But when we switched the audio, the print work had already been completed. That's the story. We are planning on a special edition-type release with (hopefully) the full shows & all remixed in surround."

· Walt Disney Studios has signed a multiyear deal with Ahmet Zappa to help oversee its newly christened Kingdom Comics, which will shortly announce which graphic novelists and artists plan to collaborate on upcoming projects.

· The life and career of Motörhead frontman Lemmy Kilmister is being celebrated in a new documentary, tentatively titled Lemmy and slated for release in 2009. The film includes an interview Steve Vai.

· Mike Keneally is "26 minutes into recording on Normalizer 2: Evidence of Humanity which is an entirely insane collaboration with Marco Minnemann. The story of this one: Marco recorded a 51-minute improvised drum solo, and then gave the recording to a few different composers to record music. Following the twists and turns of Marco's improvised musical choices has led me to write some of the most intense and crazy music I've ever done, probably.” Meanwhile, Marco's new band, UKZ (led by Eddie Jobson) is about to reveal its first piece of music via YouTube. And the band will apparently also be playing at a festival in Kazan in Russia in late August with Patti Smith, Keith Emerson, Fairport Convention, and the Adrian Belew Power Trio.

· “Jimmy Carl Black was living in Albuquerque at the time and was a friend of mine, he was going to perform Harder Than Your Husband with Frank at the October 12, 1980 show. We asked Frank if Jimmy's performance could be videotaped and he said, "yes." He also authorized an audio feed from the front of house mixer. The video was shot on 3/4" videotape using a professional ‘portable’ three-tube RCA camera. These two songs are the only video that exists of this show. Frank had his own cameras there and the entire show may exist in his archives, but has never been released in any form." And now John Cline (who shot this footage, and who I’ve quoted above) has posted some related news/interview footage at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2-NqXbVcPM.

· Patrick O’Hearn spent the month of April in the studio with Terry Bozzio. Their collaboration of improvised duets was filmed and will be viewable later this year with the launch of The Drum Channel. But before then, Patrick can be heard, then seen, with singer-songwriter John Hiatt; Patrick played upright and electric bass on John's soon to be released album, Same Old Man. They had not met previously, but got on so well that Hiatt has now invited Patrick to join his band for an upcoming Summer tour.

· Read about Scott Carter Thunes’ personal style.

· Wymer Publishing is planning a Zappa book: http://www.wymerpublishing.co.uk/in_the_pipeline.htm.

· As mentioned earlier, on 10 July at the Jazz Festival in Vienne, France, L'Ensemble de Basse-Normandie (conducted by Dominique Debart) pays further homage to FZ with its The Big Note, Zappa Alchimiste show…and now confirmed on Jean-Luc Ponty’s website, “JLP will perform with his band and will also join the Ensemble to perform four tunes from the King Kong album, which he never performed again since its recording with Frank Zappa in 1969”.

· A bust of FZ is to be erected in Baltimore; see http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/baltimore_city/bal-zappa0507,0,5047730.story Gail has said that she supports the project, spearheaded by Zappa fans from Lithuania. Baltimore's public art commission has accepted the gift of the bronze bust, which will sit atop a stainless steel pole. It's a replica of the bust that went up in 1995 in Vilnius. GZ says the creators of the bust "have gone about this in the right way, with total respect for the composer." Eric Leicus, a Lithuanian resident in Baltimore says: "A friend who works in the Baltimore Office of Promotion & the Arts (BOP&A) tells me that various well-trafficked locations have been denied for placement of the statue because Frank Zappa was not an appropriate image to have on their grounds. Therefore, its very possible that the Zappa statue could be put on the outskirts on the city...meaning, it’ll be put in a place where no one will see it. I’m thinking it should be in Fells Point Square/Mt Vernon Park or at least somewhere downtown where people can actually appreciate it." If you agree, Eric suggests you send an email to Kim Domanski (public art coordinator for BOP&A, kdomanski@promotionandarts.com) and tell her that you’d like to see the statue in a highly trafficked/visible area, and not pushed to the outskirts of the city where no one will see it.

· Time was when this Idiot used to send FZ ‘media spots’ to T’Mershi Fred…now the radiant Mr Tomsett sends me stuff like this: “There's a film called Things We Lost In The Fire with Halle Berry and Benicio del Toro and David ‘X-Files’ Duchovny. The music contained within features a snippet of FZ's Little House In What We Used To Live and the opening to (one of the versions of) Black Napkins, as well as a long chunk of Beefheart's Cool Spot (and all of the VU's Sweet Jane). The film is about a recovering heroin addict (BdT) who loses his best mate (DD) and ends up moving in to the garage of his best mate's wife (HB) - sound complicated? Not really. Good performances from the two main leads - DD dies very shortly after the film starts, though re-appears throughout in flashbacks.”

· Read this press release about travelling to “this quote-unquote festival slash event slash what the fuck" in Bad Doberan in August.

· My Soul - The Complete MPS Fusion Recordings, a 4-CD box set comprising George Duke’s Solus; The Inner Source; Faces In Reflection; Feel; I Love The Blues…; The Aura Will Prevail; and Liberated Fantasies, has just been released. Not sure where this leaves the Promising Music remastered reissues.

· Wendy Bannister: “We have two of the big original 1971 tour posters left (with a slightly larger tear than the ones we sold through your site for £75) for only £45.” Anyone interested should email Wendy on info@rockmusicmemorabilia.com or phone 01954 268088.

· Vivid Entertainment plans to release what it says is a film from the vaults of classic rock: a sex film supposedly of Jimi Hendrix. The film shows a naked man who resembles Hendrix, but his full face appears on screen for only a few seconds, with his eyes closed. The film has no audio, but the DVD includes commentary from two women who believe the tape is real: Pamela Des Barres and Cynthia Plaster Caster, who says “I’m 100 percent sure it’s him. The facial bone structure is the same. The eyebrows and the moustache are true to the style he was wearing in 1970.”

· Warren Cuccurullo's long awaited next release should be N' Liten Up this September 2008 on Edel Records in Germany. This album features Joe Travers, and will be followed by Playing In Tongues, the album that includes FZ's Recollection and performances by Terry Bozzio. Warren has recently been recording new material with Joe and other ZPZ band members, Scheila Gonzalez and Billy Hulting.

· Ray Scherr and Steve Vai are the Executive Producers of Crazy, a new independent feature film inspired by the tragic life and music of 1950s-era guitarist Hank Garland. Steve performs a cameo as Hank Williams.

· Last year saw the release of Tony Palmer's All My Loving DVD. Now, available for the first time, his All You Need Is Love has made its DVD debut as a lavish boxed set containing all 17 episodes of the TV series on 5 discs. This includes interviews with some of the major names of the past 50+ years including John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Elvis Presley, Jimi Hendrix, Tina Turner, Bill Graham, FZ and Eric Clapton.

· German label, Promising Music, has gained access to a range of more than 400 titles of the MPS catalogue and has remastered and reissued Don ‘Sugarcane’ Harris’s Got The Blues and George Duke’s Faces In Reflection. They may also reissue George's I Love the Blues, She Heard My Cry (featuring Ruth Underwood, Bruce & Tom Fowler, Janet Ferguson and Johnny "Guitar" Watson), The Aura Will Prevail (featuring Echidna's Arf and Uncle Remus), Feel (featuring FZ), and Liberated Fantasies (featuring Napi). The CDs are packaged in downsize replicas of original LP, with inner sleeves, an extra booklet with legible reprints of liner notes.

· I Believe In Music: The History Of The Gross Prophet is a 50-track, double CD collection featuring tracks recorded by Gross Prophet members before, during and after their time in the band (1962–1999). The band’s prime line-up included bassist/vocalist Gerald Sanders of the Tornadoes. The collection (which includes the FZ-engineered Tornadoes’ track Moon Dawg) has been put together by Greg Russo (with Gerald’s help) and will be available from Crossfire Publications in May. If you haven't checked out the two Tornadoes CDs that Greg put together (Now And Then and Charge Of The Tornadoes), visit the Crossfire site for more info now.

Lukewarm Poop

Here’s a press release on the 5-Disc Deluxe Edition Zappa Plays Zappa set and more from Razor & Tie: http://www.idiotbastard.com/ZPZ.htm (includes a video player with a couple of extracts from the DVD – scroll to the end)…Bright Eye Pictures has two new DVD releases: Prometheus’ Garden (28 minutes, 1988) is the only film over which Bruce Bickford maintained complete creative control. The DVD features a commentary track by Bickford, an alternate score by Laird Dixon, and the half hour documentary featurette, Luck Of A Foghorn: The Making Of Bruce Bickford’s Prometheus’ Garden, directed by Brett Ingram. The other is an exclusive release of the new Monster Road “Collector’s Edition” DVD, featuring a DVD-9 encode for superior image quality, plus the movie soundtrack by Shark Quest and 15 additional minutes (45 min. total) of extras, including rare Bickford animation and deleted scenes from the documentary…got a very sweet email from Frank’s big brother, Bob Zappa, the other day: “I have been reading - and enjoying - material on your web site for quite some time and would like to thank you for keeping Frank's memory alive for so many of his fans,” he wrote. Guess that makes me Zappa Family approved? And with Bob’s son, Stanley, playing Zappanale this year, that means the festival has both the spirit and the genes. Double sweet…Claude Nobs and Perry Richardson have just published four hardback books – Live! From Montreux: 40 Years Of Music From The Montreux Jazz Festival – that include many photos from the 1971 casino fire…Guitar Center's Fresh Cuts Volume 1 CD, featuring Guitar Center employees & more, includes Magic Carolina by Dweezil Zappa, seemingly an excerpt from a ZPZ show of the segue between two songs by his daddy. Get it on eBay today…last year, Marty Smyth released an album of tunes played on a church organ, called Synchronous, that includes Peaches En Regalia (http://www.martysmyth.ca/Listen/A39642BC-30AB-49D2-BA57-C54A30CFA358.html)... even further back in time, Hasidic New Wave released an album called Kabalogy that included The Frank Zappa Memorial Bris…YouTube, a great place…oh no, it’s an embarrassed looking Idiot with Blurp: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2TJjAvNdJw...like father like son: Dweezil's version of the mighty Zep's Stairway To Heaven can be heard on three new-ish releases: Led Box: The Ultimate Tribute To Led Zeppelin (2008, Cleopatra Records); Rock Band Classics (2008, Deadline); and Classic Rock Masters (2008, Deadline). Sounds like Axl Rose on the out-chorus…Pamela Des Barres is “looking for former groupies or modern girls still hanging with bands for an upcoming doc based on my last book, Let's Spend the Night Together. The bands have to be very well known, sorry! Please send me a brief note about your exploits,” she asks…watch George Clinton’s P-Funk All Stars rip into I’m The Slime on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Bqf2mPoOns (thanks to The Amazing Mr Bickerton for that)…Steve Vai has contributed a previously unreleased song to the new Musicians For Minneapolis - 57 Songs for the I-35W Bridge Disaster Relief Effort benefit CD. Without Me is a soaring ballad originally recorded during the Ultra Zone sessions, and features Philip Bynoe on bass, Mike Mangini on drums and Mike Keneally on keyboards. Says Steve of the track: “This piece of music is contributed to this project out of respect and love for the great city of Minneapolis, and with sympathy and support to the families who were affected by the August 1st, 2007 bridge disaster. We are perpetually rebuilding everything, from our cities to our souls. God Bless.”…Jon Larsen on some upcoming projects: "a new CD with the marvellous Mar Vista Philharmonics - Tommy Mars, Walt and Bruce Fowler, Kirk McGettrick (RIP), Larry Klimas, Arthur Barrow and Vinnie Colaiuta! A wonderful and ecclectic free jazz/rock jam; The Jimmy Carl Black Story - a groovy production with Jimmy and a bunch of marvellous musicians. I have actually composed music to his own, spoken (docu-rap?) life's story...and what an amazing story! Jimmy is really a story teller, and writing music to and playing with him is always an adventure. Quite a lot of explosive stuff too...you can imagine, and a lot of juicy stuff from the Zappa years; part two of Strange News From Mars...so hang on!"…I mentioned this before it was published, but not since: Kevin Courrier (who wrote Dangerous Kitchen: The Subversive World of Zappa) has written one of them 33⅓ Continuum Books on Trout Mask Replica. In his introduction, he slips in a pre-emptive strike about Internet fan sites that only crave new information. The book was published in June…oops! Of course, the ever-van-vigilant Radar Station has read and reviewed…nice bit of footage of the Jack & Jim Show live in NYC covering another native of Baltimore, Maryland on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pnbBih27vg...a nice photo of Frank appears in Deborah Chesher's 208-page coffee table book, Everybody I Shot Is Dead. See it here: http://www.telegram.com/article/20071223/NEWS/712230493/1102/RSS01&source=rss...get the latest DVD (or CD) from Robert Martin here: http://www.lookgreatnakedatanyage.com/...Phish has released a new live album (old recording: Vegas 96) that includes their version of Peaches En Regalia. Look here: http://www.phish.com/news/index.php?year=2007#story374...Billy James, the ANT-BEE, tells me he bought a Tascam 24-track a couple of months back and has been “cranking through the Electronic Church Muzik album finally after so long - two songs still have to be finished in the studio (Don't You Ever Learn? and Eye Of Agomoto) - I suspect many are going to think I've really gone way too far out on this one and I guess they are right."…readers of T’Mershi Duween may recall Bruno MacDonald (also of The Amazing Pudding Floyd ‘zine)? Well, he’s written a book with Robert Dimery called Rock & Roll Heaven (Quintet Books) – about musical icons who have joined the great gig in the sky…including FZ. Read it and weep.…Eddie Jobson has a new band: UKZ, “a likely 2008 successor to the great virtuoso bands of the past — Mahavishnu Orchestra, Zappa and The Mothers, King Crimson and, of course, UK”. Returning from a self-imposed 27-year retirement from band and touring activity, Eddie has recruited some great musicians: Aaron Lippert (of Boston-based alternative rock band, Expanding Man, on vocals); Trey Gunn (10-year veteran of King Crimson - working with Belew, Fripp and Bruford – who has also performed with John Paul Jones, on Warr touch guitar); Alex Machacek (who played with Bozzio and O’Hearn in OUTtrio, on guitar); and Marco Minnemann (who has recently been playing with Keneally, but who has also collaborated with Terry Ted and Chad Wackerman and sounds pretty damn amazing, on drums). They’re currently writing and recording their first self-titled album, for a 2008 release…the mighty Paul StatusBaby asked 200 Motels director Tony Palmer about the chances of the fillum coming out on DVD. And this is what he said: “Keep your fingers crossed - we are doing our best! We have now found the master tapes, so are looking into the potential contractual problems.” Any extras? “We are still examining the material, but there might well be an interview with me about the film's origins, if only to dispel some of the garbage that has been written about what actually happened, usually by people who were not there.”…d’oh! Bit slow latching onto Aaron Diaz’s Zappjazz, a tentet playing the music of FZ from Birmingham. The ensemble played its debut gig at the city’s Yardbird Jazz Club supporting Henry Lowther and has just recently finished its first self-titled recording. Zappajazz plays a varied repertoire of Uncle Frank’s compositions “while also focussing towards improvisatory platforms”. Check out www.myspace.com/zappajazz...FZ’s complete appearance on Saturday Night Live from 12/11/76 came out on DVD in December 2007, as part of the complete SNL Second Season set…read Dr Dot’s most excellent Zappanale blog: http://drdot.blog-city.com/18th_annual_zappanale_1.htm…Pinky & Perky has been posting MufFinZ moovies on YouTube. Just type in ‘oldgreygoat’ and you’ll find ‘em. And while we’re talking cupcakes, the loveable Liddypudlian moptops appear on an expanded and reissued vershum of JCB’s Where’s The ‘Kin Beer? CD. See Reviews...on 14 July 2007, Ensemble Ascolta gave world premiere performances in Berlin of two of FZ’s unreleased Synclavier pieces. Here’s what the Ensemble’s Erik Borgir told me: “The concert was a great success! We had a full house at the hip new ‘RadialSystem’ - Berlin’s first sewage treatment plant rebuilt as a concert venue - and an audience of everybody from diehard Zappa fans to hard-core New Music freaks. The new Synclavier works got a huge rise out of the audience, especially Overture to Uncle Sam, Part 1, which features some of the funniest writing of his we have ever heard. The week before the concert we spent recording at the Nalepa str. studios in Berlin. Both of the unpublished works - Uncle Sam and Samba Funk - will appear on the recording, as well as two other Synclavier pieces and a handful of rock works. The album should be out around the beginning of next year and, hopefully, may appear on the Zappa label, if all goes according to plan. We are working closely with Gail on all of this, who has been kind enough to entrust us with the task of arranging and performing any and all of the lost Synclavier music. It’s quite a task and will take a few years, but this is the first step.”…the artist formerly known as L Shankar is now Shenkar. His upcoming self-produced solo release for Big Deal Records was released on 25 September 2007 and features guest artists and musicians such as Patrick Leonard, Natasha Bedingfield, Wendy & Lisa and former Pussycat Doll, Ana Maria…after Zappa Plays Zappa Phaze II, Dweezil went back to What The Hell Was I Thinking?, “a project I was hoping to finish last year, after working on it for 14 years. It’s a continuous piece of music that’s also a 75-minute audio movie featuring 35 different guest guitar players. It’s a ‘Guinness Book’ sort of thing, I guess.” Hoop-la! Meanwhile, Dweezil can be heard on the soundtrack to new film, Gracie, playing a song called Bad Intensions (not the Dr Dre song, one assumes?). The film, set in 1978, sounds like a Gregory’s Girl/Bend It Like Beckham teenage girl plays footie type thing...trumpet player Malcolm McNab, who toured with both Grand & Petit Wazoos, released his first solo album last year, entitled Exquisite - The Artistry of Malcolm McNab, which includes a cover of The Be-Bop Tango featuring (among others), Earle Dumler on bass oboe, Bruce Fowler on trombone, Ruth Underwood on marimba and Vinnie Colaiuta on drums...okay, this didn’t make it onto my CD, but this entry into WFMU’s Sixty Second Song Remix contest is well worth a listen: http://blogfiles.wfmu.org/KF/2007/01/one/General_Assembly_-_Idiot_Son.mp3...spiffing news from Mike Keneally: Vai Piano Reductions Vol. 2 is underway. “We’ve settled on a list of songs for me to tackle and I’ve started work on arranging Love Secrets for solo piano. Wicked.” Indeed. If you haven’t got the first volume, what you waiting for, godammit?...Frank’s little brother, Charles Robert “Bob” Zappa, has written a book (Frankie and Me: Growing Up ZAPPA), but it’s still out on submissions and has not yet been sold.

...and finally, Esther...

…what is HMV’s obsession with selling Led Zeppelin 1977 t-shirts? They’ve been selling one for a while now advertising that year’s US tour, and now have another for the LA Forum show of 22 June 1977. Let it be remembered that this was the year the band admits it was ‘showboating’, when Jimmy Page's heroin addiction began to affect his playing, when Peter Grant and John Bonham were arrested for beating up a man, and the year that Robert Plant‘s son Karac died. So why are people celebrating this? Whatever, I went to see Percy with Alison Krauss at Wembley recently and, as you can see, had fucking excellent seats…

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