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The Sandbox - NationalThe Sandbox is a collection of off-topic discussions. Humorous threads, Sports talk, and a wide variety of other topics can be found here.
a bit off topic for this thread but let's discuss the "Led Zeppelin Controversy" shall we?
i rarely post anything by Zeppelin, my all time favorite band, because they are my all time favorite band. This thread works best based on things not so predictable yes?
Zeppelin is being sued by an obscure band from the early 70's called Spirit. their contention? that Zeppelin stole their greatest hit, "Stairway to Heaven" from them. No they did NOT. this lawsuit is a money grab. However, it has some merit to it. even a "fractional" stealing of an intro only, given the huge amount of money Stairway has generated could be quite a large sum. what would say, 1/50th of the total sum generated by Stairway be worth? a LOT. the "song" by Spirit isn't a song at all. it's a instrumental only bridge between two songs. No lyrics, not a complete song. However i was quite shocked when i looked into this. by the way, Led Zeppelin did tour briefly with Spirit which sets up Page hearing this intro while the bands toured together.
first the Spirit song .. "Taurus"
as you can hear, this is NOT a real song. No lyrics at all. a bridge between two songs on an album. There are, however, some obvious cord similarities to the Into (only) of Stairway to Heaven. But without any lyrics and only about 1 minute of a barely 2 minute instrumental has any semblance to Stairway. While it does seem Page lifted part of the instrumental, the rest of Stairway to Heaven is clearly the work of Page and Plant. there is no other Spirit song that even comes close to the finished product of Stairway to Heaven. NONE.
Now Zeppelin ..
This is not really good review of the suit by this lawyer (he's a better lawyer than he is guitar player, one hopes) but it does explain some of the legal text.
it ends in mid play but he points out how many other songs by famous bands also have opening cords that are similar. He notes "Dream On" by Aerosmith, which i just posted, and a Beatles tune too. So why isn't the heirs of Randy Craig Wolfe suing Aerosmith and the Beatles too? Because they have a meritless suit and they decided to sue the biggest current name they could. Zeppelin.
My opinion is that Stairway is a complete song and Taurus is not. Again, there is not ONE complete Spirit song that even begins to resemble Stairway. NONE. Yet they "might" get some loot on this frivolous crap because in their early days as a band Zeppelin did get successfully sued for doing a re-arrangement of a few blues tunes and not giving proper credit. They didn't have much original material at that point. After their second album, there is NOT one song by Zeppelin that has resulted in any successful action in it's whole. none. Now 42 YEARS later, well past any statues for infringement, these bum kids of Wolfe's decide for a cash grab. BUNK. Zeppelin should fight this tooth and nail, and we all know how wealthy the remaining members of Zeppelin are, including Bonham's family. They can hire ten times the lawyers Wolfe's heirs can, and at the very best, these people might get a few bucks. they won't get rich off this. I personally think they will lose in court.
what do you think?
and by the way, Zeppelin has never sued any band for the many blatant rip-offs of their material. Because Page said it best, there's "nothing really original anymore", given the vast body of music out there.
i enter Exhibit A. Keith Richards ...
Although Page recorded with many notable musicians, a lot of these early tracks are only available as bootleg recordings, several of which were released by the Led Zeppelin fan club in the late 1970s. One of the rarest of these is the early jam session featuring Jimmy Page and Stones guitarist Keith Richards covering Robert Johnson's "Little Queen of Spades". Several early tracks with Page were compiled on the twin album release, Jimmy Page: Session Man. Page also recorded with Richards on guitar and vocals in Olympic Sound Studios on 15 October 1974. Along with Ric Grech on bass and Bruce Rowland on drums, a track called "Scarlet" was cut. Page reflected later in an interview with Rolling Stone's Cameron Crowe: "I did what could possibly be the next Stones B side. It was Ric Grech, Keith and me doing a number called "Scarlet." I can't remember the drummer. It sounded very similar in style and mood to those Blonde on Blonde tracks. It was great, really good. We stayed up all night and went down to Island Studios where Keith put some reggae guitars over one section. I just put some solos on it, but it was eight in the morning of the next day before I did that. He took the tapes to Switzerland and someone found out about them. Keith told people that it was a track from my album".
a bit off topic for this thread but let's discuss the "Led Zeppelin Controversy" shall we?
i rarely post anything by Zeppelin, my all time favorite band, because they are my all time favorite band. This thread works best based on things not so predictable yes?
Zeppelin is being sued by an obscure band from the early 70's called Spirit. their contention? that Zeppelin stole their greatest hit, "Stairway to Heaven" from them. No they did NOT. this lawsuit is a money grab. However, it has some merit to it. even a "fractional" stealing of an intro only, given the huge amount of money Stairway has generated could be quite a large sum. what would say, 1/50th of the total sum generated by Stairway be worth? a LOT. the "song" by Spirit isn't a song at all. it's a instrumental only bridge between two songs. No lyrics, not a complete song. However i was quite shocked when i looked into this. by the way, Led Zeppelin did tour briefly with Spirit which sets up Page hearing this intro while the bands toured together.
first the Spirit song .. "Taurus"
as you can hear, this is NOT a real song. No lyrics at all. a bridge between two songs on an album. There are, however, some obvious cord similarities to the Into (only) of Stairway to Heaven. But without any lyrics and only about 1 minute of a barely 2 minute instrumental has any semblance to Stairway. While it does seem Page lifted part of the instrumental, the rest of Stairway to Heaven is clearly the work of Page and Plant. there is no other Spirit song that even comes close to the finished product of Stairway to Heaven. NONE.
Now Zeppelin ..
This is not really good review of the suit by this lawyer (he's a better lawyer than he is guitar player, one hopes) but it does explain some of the legal text.
it ends in mid play but he points out how many other songs by famous bands also have opening cords that are similar. He notes "Dream On" by Aerosmith, which i just posted, and a Beatles tune too. So why isn't the heirs of Randy Craig Wolfe suing Aerosmith and the Beatles too? Because they have a meritless suit and they decided to sue the biggest current name they could. Zeppelin.
My opinion is that Stairway is a complete song and Taurus is not. Again, there is not ONE complete Spirit song that even begins to resemble Stairway. NONE. Yet they "might" get some loot on this frivolous crap because in their early days as a band Zeppelin did get successfully sued for doing a re-arrangement of a few blues tunes and not giving proper credit. They didn't have much original material at that point. After their second album, there is NOT one song by Zeppelin that has resulted in any successful action in it's whole. none. Now 42 YEARS later, well past any statues for infringement, these bum kids of Wolfe's decide for a cash grab. BUNK. Zeppelin should fight this tooth and nail, and we all know how wealthy the remaining members of Zeppelin are, including Bonham's family. They can hire ten times the lawyers Wolfe's heirs can, and at the very best, these people might get a few bucks. they won't get rich off this. I personally think they will lose in court.
what do you think?
and by the way, Zeppelin has never sued any band for the many blatant rip-offs of their material. Because Page said it best, there's "nothing really original anymore", given the vast body of music out there.
i enter Exhibit A. Keith Richards ...
Although Page recorded with many notable musicians, a lot of these early tracks are only available as bootleg recordings, several of which were released by the Led Zeppelin fan club in the late 1970s. One of the rarest of these is the early jam session featuring Jimmy Page and Stones guitarist Keith Richards covering Robert Johnson's "Little Queen of Spades". Several early tracks with Page were compiled on the twin album release, Jimmy Page: Session Man. Page also recorded with Richards on guitar and vocals in Olympic Sound Studios on 15 October 1974. Along with Ric Grech on bass and Bruce Rowland on drums, a track called "Scarlet" was cut. Page reflected later in an interview with Rolling Stone's Cameron Crowe: "I did what could possibly be the next Stones B side. It was Ric Grech, Keith and me doing a number called "Scarlet." I can't remember the drummer. It sounded very similar in style and mood to those Blonde on Blonde tracks. It was great, really good. We stayed up all night and went down to Island Studios where Keith put some reggae guitars over one section. I just put some solos on it, but it was eight in the morning of the next day before I did that. He took the tapes to Switzerland and someone found out about them. Keith told people that it was a track from my album".
nuff said!
Interesting... Just a typical money grab... see if you can find that "scarlet" song.
here's something crazy i just tried. pick like 5 or 6 songs from anyone's posts and play them all at once. talk about one crazy mashup! insane cacophony of sound!
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