Friday, November 21, 2008

Just want a little Taste...

Midnight on a carousel ride
Reaching for the gold ring down inside

Never could reach
It just slips away, but I try...

-Robert Hunter (Grateful Dead), "Crazy Fingers"

An immortal instinct, deep within the spirit of man, is thus, plainly, a sense of the Beautiful. This it is which administers to his delight in the manifold forms, and sounds, and odours, and sentiments amid which he exists… [But] There is still a something in the distance which he has been unable to attain. We have still a thirst unquenchable, to allay which he has not shown us the crystal springs. This thirst belongs to the immortality of man. It is at once a consequence and an indication of his perennial existence. It is the desire of the moth for the star. It is no mere appreciation of the Beauty before us - but a wild effort to reach the Beauty above. Inspired by an ecstatic prescience of the glories beyond the grave, we struggle, by multiform combinations among the things and thoughts of Time, to attain a portion of that Loveliness whose very elements, perhaps, appertain to eternity alone. And thus when Poetry – or when by Music, the most entrancing of the Poetic moods – we find ourselves melted into tears – we weep then – not as the Abbate Gravina supposes – through excess of pleasure, but through a certain, petulant, inpatient sorrow at our inability to grasp now, wholly, here on earth, at once and for ever, those divine and rapturous joys, of which through the poem, or through the music, we attain to but brief and indeterminate glimpses.

- Edgar Allan Poe, “The Poetic Principle”


All lovers live by longing, and endure:
Summon a vision and declare it pure.

- Theodore Roethke, from “The Vigil”

The one thing that we yearn for in our living days, that makes us sigh and groan and undergo sweet nauseas of all kinds, is the remembrance of some lost bliss that was probably experienced in the womb and can only be reproduced (though we hate to admit it) in death. But who wants to die?

- Jack Kerouac, On the Road



And so we live on, day by day, looking forward to the next occasion we find to get a taste. Cause that's all that we really need to rejuvenate ourselves, is just a taste of it. The taste comes through art, or music, or love, or whatever. And it's that continual anticipation of our next taste that keeps us going.

Thought you'd enjoy some philosophical ranting for a change. Gettin' deep and heavy is good for ya every once and a while, we should try it more often.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Led Zeppelin Tour Update (Bad News)

So after the successful one-off Led Zeppelin reunion show last year, rumors of a tour have been intensely spreading around the internet. Way back in last November, with all the buzz surrounding the reunion, Robert Plant told Rolling Stone that "I never wanted to do it again, now I want to do nothing else." This got many, many people tremendously excited.

But through 2008, Plant was touring with Alison Krauss in support of their quiet, country/Americana-tinged album Rising Sand. He has now made a statement saying that he does not want to play "loud" music anymore, and will never tour with Zeppelin again. On its own, this is very bad news. But now we know that Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones have been happily rehearsing together and are "ready to go," and still plan to tour as Zeppelin, even if it means recruiting a new singer. Combined, these two pieces of news are utterly and horribly devastaing.

But wait, it gets worse. We now know that they have allready named a potential new lead singer that they decided on through try-outs. It is some schmuck named Myles Kennedy, singer of some shit post-grunge band named Alter Bridge, which contains multiple members of the shittiest band in recent history: Creed! This could be one of the worst things to ever happen to music. To have the singer for a Creed-like band singing Plant's lines in Zeppelin would be a legacy-ruining move for Jimmy Page. This would be like, I don't know, if the Beatles reunited with George Michael replacing John Lennon. Just horrible. Sacreligious.

This is why I propose that a new singer is recruited. If Robert Plant is stubborn enough to turn down a huge pile of money AND watch his legacy get shit on by some imposter by not touring, then I think Page should get Chris Robinson from the Black Crowes to sing lead. This would be a respectable choice, as Robinson is probably the best modern frontman in Rock. He's taken his cues and style from the classic 70s frontmen, and though he sounds more like Faces-era Rod Stewart, Robinson would be a perfect decision for a replacement. He oozes sexuality like early Plant did, and has the pipes to back it up.

We allready know that Robinson would rock the Zeppelin songs, as Jimmy Page has allready played them with the Black Crowes; this collaboration was released on the excellent double album, Live at the Greek. I suggest that you get your hands on this album immedietely, as it rocks very hard, and long. Having already toured succesfully with Robinson and the Black Crowes, I don't really know what the fuck Page is thinking by not considering him. He should get his head out of his ass before its too late, and realize that he may ruin a legacy that deserves more respect than some guy from Creed can give it.