Random Nuclear Strikes

A couple Sunday’s ago I burned blogspace contemplating the re-recording of Led Zeppelin’s fourth album (yeah, yeah, I know, blasphemy).

I pointed out that after I’d made my selections a rather hardcore Zep fan informed me of the live album made by Jimmy Page and The Black Crowes back in 2000 Live at the Greek.

I wanted to share some of it with y’all to prove I was right about Chris Robinson being the best choice to cover the vocal spot, but while I had the hard copy, my CD R/W decided it wanted to take a huge steaming poop and refused to even read data discs.

It is the same reason I haven’t yet shared anything from the Them Crooked Vultures album.

Between the tightness of cashflow (because of school costs) and time to go get it, it wasn’t until this last weekend when I got this sweet little thang and plugged her in.

So for you to compare at your leisure, some live Zepplin

Notice how Robert Plant live sounds much more raw than the studio Robert Plant?

Now slide this into your ears, ladies and gentlemen.

Nobody’s fault but mine – Jimmy Page and The Black Crowes: Live at the Greek

Hmmm?

Yes, savor the sweetness. Having listened to it multiple times on the three mediums (headphones, home theater and vehicle sound platform) I’m really having a hard time denying the album a spot up there with The Allman Brothers Band – Live at the Fillmore East. It just rocks and rocks and rocks.

Here’s another slice

Custard Pie – Jimmy Page and The Black Crowes: Live at the Greek

OK, that’s enough. You know what you need to do if you want to hear more.

PS: I was going to make Whole Lotta Love downloadable, but it is so good that it might have blown your mind right out your head holes.

My local Lowe’s had decorated and lighted Christmas trees for sale on September 30th. That’s not right. I refuse to put up Christmas decorations until the first week in December.

I dunno what Phil’s got lined up for today’s Soundboard, but in the holiday spirit I’ll pull a Lowe’s and give it to you early. Remember the Budweiser commercial with the cool Xmas lights and that Christmas-y hard rock track? Yeah, that was Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s Wizards in Winter. And it ain’t no 30-second spot, either: as Mandingo says to Mya in another context [NOT safe for work], “It’s not gonna stop, oh, no….”

Truly impressive. Enjoy.

A bit of a change of pace, today. I’ve not read Washington Irving outside of the high-school standards — “Rip Van Winkle” and “Sleepy Hollow” — but last night, as marvelous Spanish guitar sparkled from the stereo, I was drinking Madeira from the bottle and savoring the mellifluous prose of his Alhambra:

The ancient kingdom of Granada, into which we were about to penetrate, is one of the most mountainous regions of Spain. Vast sierras, or chains of mountains, destitute of shrub or tree, and mottled with variegated marbles and granites, elevate their sunburnt summits against a deep-blue sky; yet in their rugged bosoms lie ingulfed verdant and fertile valleys, where the desert and the garden strive for mastery, and the very rock is, as it were, compelled to yield the fig, the orange, and the citron, and to blossom with the myrtle and the rose.

On paper, it’s close to a run-on sentence, but read it aloud, as if on stage (as I did to the wife), and the words work their magic. Damn, the man could write. Small wonder he was the first post-Revolutionary American author to achieve international renown.

I’m past 40 years old, now. I’ve spent most of the past 30 years building my library, and I’m finally able to settle down most evenings with a book that may have been in my possession for decades but whose contents are brand-new to me. I’m like a kid opening a present when I get to do that, you understand. I’ve been building up to this for a long time; Christmas most every night, for the next forty years, that’s what I’ve been looking forward to. And this Fall I finally realized that if I didn’t start doing it, it wasn’t going to happen.

What this all means for you, of course, is that I’m gonna be tossing book reviews into the RNS mix on a fairly regular basis.  Enjoy!

You’d better check under the sea.

It’s no SeaLab, but it’ll do for now.

It looks more like the Starship Enterprise sinking in the sea – but this huge vertical vessel could be the future of ocean exploration.

Called the SeaOrbiter, the huge 51m (167ft) structure is set to be the world’s first vertical ship allowing man a revolutionary view of life below the surface.

Although currently only a prototype its inventor Jacques Rougerie thinks his international oceanographic station will soon be setting sail.

Captain Murphy, reporting for duty!