Robert Plant:Then and Now

The Song Remains the Same
You can’t give up something you really believe in for financial reasons. If you die by the roadside-so be it. But at least you know you’ve tried. Ten minutes in the music scene was equal of one hundred years outside of it. Robert Plant

   Robert Plant is the self-proclaimed Golden God of Rock. He was the inspiration behind Cameron Crowe's guitarist, Russell Hammond, in the now-classic film Almost Famous. The movie itself, an ode to groupies who were too polite to call themselves that and instead chose to call themselves "Band Aids", followed the arc of success and the ultimate Superstardom of an imaginary rock band named Stillwater, who rose in the film from small-time gigs to Rock Gods status, jetting about the US from stadium to stadium, all within the short period of a few months. Stillwater, and their alter-image Zeppelin, was merciless to their Band Aids. If you were a young girl deluded enough to think that you had any more value to a band than a piece of meat, than the scene in the movie where Hammond sells his prized groupie, Penny Lane, to another musician for a mere 50 dollars and a case of beer quickly should have dispelled any notions of deeper love and affection.

Plant and Audrey Hamilton

Zeppelin was equally hard on their groupies- the Penny Lane scene in the movie was most likely based on an undisclosed real-life event during a Zeppelin tour.  The stories of endless degradations that a nameless series of girls endured in an endless series of hotel rooms, just to rub elbows with Mr. Plant, Mr. Bonham or Mr. Page, are well-known and legendary, even darkly fascinating in their utter abandonment of traditional values and pure hedonism. Band members lacked grounding in anything even remotely related to real-life human relationships, and their wanton use of  groupies take on the tinge of  half-grown and over-indulged boys playing dress up (and more) with their sister's Barbie dolls. But alas, without the shame and secrecy that a boy found playing with his sister’s dolls would face in real life; instead the stories were met only with the winks, nudges and pats on the back that any rock band worth their salt would receive when they treated their women like unpaid porn stars in a poorly scripted scenario. The girls, they claimed, liked it, which may be true enough, as so many clamored back for more.

Plant knew his strengths and his short-comings, and had a sense of humor about his superstar position in the rock world. As he’s stated, “I’m pleased with how ridiculous I am. I like me. Though I’m not a huge fan. I know when to switch me off”. Crowe allegedly based Almost Famous on the time he spent as a rock journalist on the road touring with Zeppelin. Hammond was loosely based on the antics of Plant. A central scene in Almost Famous, where a drug-addled Hammond declares himself to be the Golden Boy of Rock as he plunges from the roof of a fan's house into the pool below, mirrors the real life tour antics of Zeppelin band members, Plant in particular. In both the stylized movie and Zeppelin’s daily life on tour, fans drool and slobber over band members, fighting for five minutes of their attention, be it scoring a measly autograph, to the more serious endeavors of trucking around a series of girls who could supplant your wife and take care of you as your mother would, if only your wife would let you have your way with her with a red snapper, and having sex with your mother wasn’t culturally repulsive.

Plant's favorite on-the-road groupie, Audrey Hamilton, seemed to have no other purpose in life other than to care for Plant both sexually and physically (Plant’s lawfully wedded wife being in England), and then to make herself scarce when it came time to return to life as a dutiful family man with the kids and the missus. She was readily available to tour, with apparently no job or obligations to hold her back from coddling Plant. As Plant acknowledged in an interview, “I don’t know what people think. I don’t care”. It was good to be Robert Plant. 

Fans wholeheartedly agreed. Record sales boomed, so much so that  Zeppelin reached the point where they could go into tax exile status from the UK, making more millions in ten minutes than most made in a lifetime, enough to run away from the Queen's tax collectors, who indeed have a long and greedy arm.

Fortunately for Plant, Zeppelin followed the same trajectory as Stillwater, and shot to the status of Supergroup, never to be unseated by the fickle tastes of public opinion. Fans never got tired of Zeppelin; the band's record sales never faltered from the release of Led Zeppelin in 1969 to the death of John Bonham in 1980. Bonham, aside from Keith Moon of the Who and possibly Martin Chambers of the Pretenders (an admitted personal favorite, but certainly a less well-known contender than Moon or Bonham), may be one of the greatest rock drummers of all times, and his untimely death put an end to Led Zeppelin. Bonham, in Plant’s opinion, “was the main part of the band. He was the man who made whatever Page and I wrote basically work, by what he held back, by what he didn’t do to the tempos. I don’t think there’s anyone in the world who could replace him”. According to Plant, "John was the greatest drummer in the world. I knew this because he told me so”.

And Bonham was probably the glue that kept the band together. Without him, there was no need to go on. The song list would forever remain the same after Bonham passed, and Zeppelin fans would have to make do without new material. Instead, there remained a never-ending parade of timeless gems, classics one and all: from the haunting opening notes of "Kashmir" to the driving vocals of "Immigrant Song"; from the eternal classic rock favorite, "Stairway to Heaven" to one of my go-to classic tracks, "Ramble On", a perfect ode to Tolkien's Middle Earth.

And yet, for Plant aficionados, the story did not really remain the same. Plant has done some excellent solo work and his vocal abilities remain untouchable, even as approaches the age where most would retire and rest of their laurels. Although his body of solo work has never received the accolades of Plant’s work with Zeppelin, his output since Zeppelin has nonetheless been eclectic and play-worthy. Plant has, for example, teamed up with Country legend Alison Krauss, and more recently with Patty Griffin. His recent music, unlike Zeppelin’s repertoire, has a greater Bluegrass and Country tinge.  Plant takes more of a back seat to the leading ladies, but in the end, he has crafted intelligent music that deserves as much attention as his artistry with Zeppelin. The record sales may not be as stellar as his earlier work with Zeppelin. Plant has put together his own back-up band, the Sensational Space Shifters, who allow him to recreate the old Zeppelin standards, but again, with more of a Country twist, sometimes using a mandolin instead of the usual electric guitar. In the end, Plant may have grown beyond the antics of his youth with Zeppelin, faced his own personal demons and become a better man and a more varied artist But to many fans, Plant is still stuck in the 70s. Some fans can't let go of Zeppelin's impressive history or easily forget its impact on rock music. To some fans, unfortunately, the song will always remain the same, in spite of Plant’s best efforts to spread his wings musically.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMswPuc2QyQ

Joe Strummer, The Man and the Myth

I was not a Clash fanatic. But like everyone else, I liked The Clash. Their impact on music is undeniable, and their impact on today's world of rock lingers on. Artists as diverse as Jakob Dylan to the Edge to Babyshambles have acknowledged their musical debt to The Clash; The Libertines, an off-shoot of Babyshambles, was indeed produced by Mick Jones, the lead guitarist of The Clash. Jones formed The Clash in 1976. After seeing Strummer perform with his band the 101'ers, Jones put the pressure on, and gave Strummer 24 hours to decide to leave the 101'ers and join The Clash. Rock and Roll is a cutthroat business, and Strummer saw his future with The Clash. He drank the Kool Aid, so to speak, and threw his hat in the ring with Jones, seeking as many musicians do, fame and fortune. Lucky that he did, though, as Jones and Strummer  became a legendary writing team. Hits such as Rock the Casbah, White Riot and White Man in Hammersmith Palais amply attest to the strength of their songwriting abilities. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9eLeZS9OeY

However, it turned out to be Strummer who eventually took the reins of the band. Strummer actually turned the table on Jones, and forced him out of his own band in 1983. Strummer had previously sacked the band's drummer, Topper Headon, for excessive heroin usage, which seems to be a bit like faulting the Pope for being too religious. A rock star on drugs- really, you're kidding, right? How absurd. Yet, Strummer outed Headon and then Jones, marking himself clearly as the band's Alpha Male. Later, Strummer would remark that, "I was trying to prove that I was the Clash and it wasn't Mick. I learned that that was kind of dumb. I learned that it wasn't anybody, except maybe a great chemistry between us four, and I really learned it was over the day we sacked Topper, and not the day we sacked Mick. There was quite some time between them. We played a whole tour between those times. But it was the day we sacked Tops".  Strummer was a man who had tasted power, and later regretted his misuse of said power. Strummer found his own form of redemption and peace with ever-looming legacy with The Clash, and later made peace with Jones.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZBaklS79Wc

Redemption, and acknowledgment of mistakes made, is what made Strummer a Rock Hero in my eyes. Many bands have sacked a member. The Pretenders, as one example, sacked their bassist, Pete Farndon, for excessive heroin use in 1982, the same year that Headon was fired. Farndon and Headon coincidentally tried to form another band, but their plans were derailed by Farndon's heroin OD in 1983. Ironic, conidering the fact that Farndon saw no problem in his heroin usuage and never saw himself as addict. The difference between Strummer and let's say Chrissie Hynde, the Pretenders' leader, is that Strummer regretted firing a band member, realizing the impact that a group's chemistry has on its success. Later Strummer said that "If you're allowed to make your mistakes, I think you should. But people don't really like hearing you admit them. Although I'd never wanted to dump on the musicians that were involved in that.... Because it was not their fault". Joe Strummer was a thinking man, a man who reflected on his life and on the twists and turns in his life,  a man who knew his good deeds from his not so great deeds.  "The toughest thing is facing yourself. Being honest with yourself, that's much tougher than beating someone up. That's what I call tough".  Strummer, though always an icon and always a rock star, evolved and became a functioning adult as time went by, as opposed to the type of eternally adolescent rock star. Or the rock star who could do or say no wrong, and never found wrong with his own actions, much akin to Keith Richards variety rocker, who admitted in his recent biography that he had used his school-aged son as his tour manager. I could never see Strummer using his elementary school aged child to fend off drug dealers.

And so, ten years after Joe Strummer's passing, I too shall throw my hat into the proverbial ring and write my own memorial to a great musician, a great but flawed man, a man who was actually great enough to recognize his flaws and rise above them, or in the end redeem himself from his own image. Because to me at least, Joe Strummer's journey after The Clash imploded is what makes him so interesting, and marks him as a model for any aspiring musician. Any man who is man enough to acknowledge that "Everyone has got to realise you can't hold onto the past if you want any future. Each second should lead to the next one" is my kind of Rock Star, a rock star that I can still admire as I myself grow older. I admired many rock stars in my youth, damn it for slipping away, but Joe Strummer was 50 years old when he died. He was a grown man who had left many of the silly perks of being a rock star behind, and who had himself grown up, as we all must eventually do. He became an adult, much as the young Clash fans eventually also had to growp up and pay bills, find jobs, marry and raise families. As the fans grew up, Joe did right along side them, which is a refreshing change of pace from the rock stars who always seem stuck at 18 years old. And what, pray tell, is so interesting about them?

In fact, as I read about Joe's contribution to the music world with The Clash and later The Mescaleros, I realize that Joe had his faults, as all grown men do.  But he owned all of his mistakes. He was the political voice for those who were disenfranchised, he spoke against the wrongs of a society which, in Strummers time and still now, sweeps the nastiness under the rug and focuses on the young, beautiful and rich instead. He led the young to rebel against an authority that did not best serve their interests. Yet, Joe Strummer also spoke for the good in humanity, in the positive aspects of being a human being and treating everyone with kindness. He rejected the mean-spirited side to punk, where sheer might too often equaled right.  He was the voice against those in the Punk Movement who aligned themselves with Nazi fascism, and spoke of humanism over brutality. “In fact, punk rock means exemplary manners to your fellow human being. F**k being an a*****e, what you p****s thought it was twenty years ago.” Long Live Joe Strummer.


  Joe Strummer on the being a rock star:
"I learnt that fame is an illusion and everything about it is a joke. I'm far more dangerous now because I don't care at all."