Friday, January 15, 2010

Zeppelin vs. Stones

Doing research for a gig I'm going to sub on bass next month. Two and half pages of cover material.. so far so good. One of the songs is "Rock And Roll" by Led Zeppelin. Using You Tube for my library, I found a version of it from 1973. And I'm watching and listening to it and you know what just occurred to me? Led Zeppelin? EH! NOT really doing it for me. See what I mean here?

I mean, tons of respect, but I don't know. It's sort of dull. Bland. IMHO. Compare that track to say, this other well known band from that era (also on my set list):


SO much more soul. Less flash, more cash. Just me.
*edit: why in the heck are some of my words getting broken up at new lines? Anyone know
what I'm doing wrong here?

6 comments:

GeologyJoe said...

i can remember covering 'rock n roll' at a show i did in high school.
the bass line is pretty easy as i remember.

Kate said...

yea, but the song itself.. kinda lame, don't you think?
I am I just that jaded?

Verdant Earl said...

I wasn't a fan of either band growing up (I dug The Who), but I was shocked to hear that Led Zep was basically a glorified cover band. Soooo many of their big songs are ripoffs from other artists that they failed to give credit to. There are websites all over the place that document the songs they ripped off. Weird.

And the Stones...eh. I was just never into them. But that's always been a pretty good tune.

GeologyJoe said...

kind of lame, yeah. but if this is a lame song contest then J.J.F takes the win.

remember too that they songs are now more than 40 years old and have been over played since 1968. that can't help.

Kate said...

Earl - yes, I remember hearing stuff like that about Zep, too. Though I'm sure some giant Zep fan has lot's of examples of great original stuff they made.. The Stones were certainly guilty of covering lot's of great blues songs, but at least they gave credit and new life to the material. Love The Who, too. All original, right?

Joey - ha! I'm not saying Jumpin'jack Flash is my favorite Stones song.. def not my top ten even. Performance wise, though, Mick and the boys do it for me, 'sall I'm saying.

Hey, I'm still covering songs older than that in the blues bands. Can't be helped. Yep.

Dr Zibbs said...

Stones win but LEd Zep rocks too.

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