N°107 LED ZEPPELIN - WHOLE LOTTA LOVE

Off course the jump from Dave Grohl to Josh Homme works through Them Crooked Vultures but then the next jump ties in also with the same band since John Paul Jones always has been one of the Led Zeppelin faces.

The aircraft started in 1968 and was founded by the rockstar Jimmy Page, remaining from the band Yardbirds. He added Robert Plant on vocals, John Bonham on drums and off course John Paul Jones on bass and keyboards.

Since the Yardbirds split up and Jimmy Page had to fullfill some performances in with that band he needed to find urgently a few new bandmembers to play these Scandinavian gigs. At these shows they performed under the bandname The New Yardbirds, later revised to Led Zeppelin. They liked working together for that short period of time and decided to bring a new  album under the Led Zeppelin name. Released early 1969 this album contained some hard blues and many acoustic songs. Later that year they’d already have a follow up under the name Led Zeppelin II. Also the albums Led Zeppelin III and Led Zeppelin IV followed with a year in between of them. After this fourth album the’d get more creative with naming their LP’s. 

 

Everyone knowns Led Zeppelin’s masterpiece Stairway To Heaven, covered by any, but still best in its original sounds, bu what many don’t know is that this song never has been released as a single. Stairway To Heaven never made the charts at that time although you’ll find it in many of all time music charts nowadays. You’ll find it on The Runes Album, a nickname for the fourth Led Zeppelin album.

In between 1971 and 1980 they’d bring five more albums with names as Presence and In Through The Out Door but when drummer John Bonham dies in 1980 Led Zeppelin seizes to exist leaving behind a twelve year legacy of good music. The only studio album released after the break up is Coda (1982) containing forgotten songs or earlier recordings.

Once in a while Led Zeppelin comes back to the surface and the three remaining Zeppelonians perform on different occasions with different drummers. In 1988 was a special one since Jason Bonham, John’s son joined them on drums. Earlier they played also with Phil Collins at the 1985 Live aid. Led Zeppelin will never go on tour again but once in a while, when you’re lucky you can see them perform on special occasions.

This concludes this trilogy of bands. Sorry I didn’t include Queens of The Stone Age yet; which I could have done in between Foo Fighters and Them Crooked Vultures since Dave Grohl played for them for a short period of time; but I’m working a bit ahead from time to time and I needed them in the link later on. I have a no re- appearing within 100 songs rule, remember?

They’ve taken into the rock and roll hall of fame in 1995 and got a Grammy lifetime achievement award ten years after and they also have a few famous cover bands. There are these ladies covering them in the band Lez Zeppelin and they also have a reggae coverband named Dread Zeppelin. In Belgium, my home country the tribute band is called Letz Zeppelin. All cool names for covering the real stuff.

Finally I’d like to conclude with the symbols for each of the 4 musicians. You’ll always find them in this order and are in respective order for Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones, John Bonham and Robert Plant. Did you know that the creative producer of the series Charmed based himself on Robert Plant’s symbol for the three witches? He’s a fan. All the symbols have their own meaning and have some king of magical origin:

The Zoso symbol (Robert Plant): A symbol taken from the book Saturn from 1851 which was a reprint of the 1521 book Dragon Rouge et Poulet Noir (red dragon and black chicken).  It is also a sign for the planet Saturn. 

The non interlaced triquetra overlaying the circle (John Paul Jones) is from The Book Of Signs from 1930. This symbolizes confidence and competence. 

The three intersecting circles (John Bonham) is also from The Book Of Signs. It’s a plain symbol for family values representing man, woman and child. It is also assumed the threefold represents Egyptian gods Osiris, Isis and Horus. Respectively the God of the underworld or death, Goddess of love and fertility and their son the Falcon God or known as God of the Heavens. 

And the Feither in the circle can be found in the 1933 Feather Symbol Of Truth. The feather used to be the symbol for the Egyptian goddess of justice and fairness named Ma’at.

N°106 THEM CROOKED VULTURES - ELEPHANTS

Dave Grohl (Nirvana, Foo Fighters) on drums again, Josh Homme (Queens Of The Stone Age, Eagles Of Death Metal, Kyuss) on lead guitar and vocals and John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin) on bass and/or keyboard makes one hell of a setup for a rockband. Put an extra guitarist on the live stage with Alain Johannes (Queens Of The Stone Age, Eleven) and it’s even more explosive.

The idea riped in 2005 in Dave Grohl’s mind but it took them four more years to find the time for this side project. It also started as a secret project between them but Dave Grohl’s wife stated in the summer of 2009 that the three of them sound like no other band before. Pretty Fucking Amazing she said. Later that summer the three of them would start a small tour through the European festivals and music halls. I’ve seen their third concert ever (again) at Pukkelpop 2009 where they were anouced as a surprise act. Some investigation by a friend of mine and me tought us they’d play in The Netherlands the day before and in Austria the day after the so called surprise gig so we were pretty sure it had to be Them Crooked Vultures. And so it was. I remember the Marquee stage was crowded with people and it started raining during the sound check so everyone fled into the Marquee tent. So did we and we were standing at the outer edge of the tent. Wind and rain pouring in our necks, enjoying the raging guitars and snaring drums. Hard sounds, special, three monuments on stage. It was great.

They only toured in 2009 because the three of them continued with their respective bands. They also released only one album carrying the name of the band later that year. They’ll get back together again someday for some more music but who knows when. Untill then you’ll have to do with a line-up of 13 songs. The one even harder than the other and all of them with a Stoneagian FooLed Queen Zeppelin Fighter sound., or something like that.

N°105 FOO FIGHTERS - ROPE

Rope is the key word and Rope is one of the latest Foo Fighters hit singles from last year release Wasting Light. The band released seven studio albums between its foundation in 1995 and last year. The first one carried the name of the band itself and contained songs written by Dave Grohl himself during his Nirvana period. Dave Grohl himself is a great musician and plays besides the drums (Nirvana, Queens Of The Stone Age, Them Crooked Vultures, Tenacious D, Scream) but he also plays lead guitar and bass guitar which he proves on that same first album. Dave played all the lines on every song all by himself and released the first Foo Fighters album. That same year he’d seek the companionship of his old Nirvana buddy Pat Smear, Nate Mendell and drummer William Goldsmith. The Foo Fighters album still had a lot of the grunge sound and tasted a lot like Nirvana. Not so at the second album The Colour And The Shape.

Since Dave Grohl carried on on his own after the death of Kurt Cobain with a complete new band he was used to do it all by himself and being an exquisite drummer himself he found it difficult to find a drummer who’d live up to his high expectations. This lead to many discussions during the recording period and shortly after the release of the second album, drummer William Goldsmith was replaced by Taylor Hawkins. Goldsmith couldn’t handle the fact that Grohl re-recorded his drum tracks because Dave thought that Goldsmith’s drum didn’t sound exactly the way Dave Grohl wanted it to sound. Goldsmith was replaced by Taylor Hawkins who convinced Dave that he’s the best drummer for the band and he could sound whatever Grohl wanted him to sound. Pat Smear also leaves the band before they start recording a third album called There Is Nothing Left To Lose which is a fitting title for the hard times the band is going through. Two problems keep appearing. Although already created a few strong songs like Monkey Wrench and Hero, Grohl found it hard to live up to the Nirvana legacy. On the other hand Grohl is such a perfectionist that he keeps writing the songs all on his own and asks the band to play the way he wants it to be. Later the band would admit this was the darkest period the band would have known.

Dave admits his mistakes with the band members and decides to do it differently for the 2002 album One By One. On this album Chris Shiftlett joins Foo Fighters. He was already a loose part of the band since he toured with them before. From this moment on Foo Fighters found its original line up. The only thing that changed ever since is that Pat Smear returned in 2010 for live performances and recording the Wasting Light album in 2011. One By One got followed up in 2005 with a fantastic double album called In Your Honour. Some say It’s a little tribute to Kurt Cobain since the first part of that album contains rock songs such as Best Of You and The Last Song. The other side contains acoustic songs which could relate to the famous MTV unplugged session by Nirvana in 1994. At the album In Your Honour the band is helped by great artists such as John Paul Jones, Josh Homme and Norah Jones. I promise you the first two names will appear shortly again in this musical link.

In this period Dave and Josh became close friends which led to many mutual projects. Sometimes Josh pops up with the Foo’s, sometimes Dave helps out with Queens Of The Stone Age. Both have started a mutual project as well but as said you’ll hear more of that in a few days or weeks. This is also the period when I found out about all these bands and started to create a huge love for grunge, rock, metal etc. …. But hey back to the facts.

In 2007 a sixth studio album appeared in the charts and this Echoes, Silence, Patience, Grace album is yet another highlight in the life of the fans. The first single, called The Pretender is so hard it almost kicks your brains out and to be honest the video clip is mighty great.  Let It Die, Come Alive and Home are also huge songs on that same album. From that moment on I wanted to see them live and a good friend of mine did so at the O2 Arena in London. I was jealous as hell and pretty much relieved to hear that they’d perform on last year’s Pukkelpop festival. You might not have heard but a few hours gone in the first days of the festival a huge storm ran over the complete festival site destroying everything. Five people died, many got hurt and the festival, and thus the Foo Fighters gig got cancelled. Bummer but understandable. But Dave Grohl wouldn’t be Dave Grohl if he wouldn’t be back this year and so he’ll be back in August and finally I’ll get to see my first (and hopefully not last) Foo Fighters concert. Already looking forward to it.

Did they silence up after Echoes, ….? No they didn’t. As many other bands did before them they released a Greatest Hits album in 2009. As you’ve read before the disputes with Pat Smear got resolved and he joined the band giving them some extra power on stage. February 2011 was the release date for wasting Light which again is a stronger album than the ones before. ‘Rope’ and ‘walk’ are the first two singles released. While recording the Foo’s were captured on camera for the documentary Foo Fighters: Back And Forth. A great documentary about the history of the band. In this documentary Dave Grohl is pretty open and honest about the dark periods and the mistakes the band made during the years and he also says there might not have been Foo Fighters as you know them now if Nirvana still would have existed.

Oh yeah, Foo Fighters is a common name for the different aerial phenomena spotted as UFO’s during World War II. I also forgot to mention the won various awards but for a huge band like this you could have guessed yourselves. Last year Foo Fighters also made international showbiz news when he stopped playing in the middle of a song, turned to a fighting spectator, and kicked him out with the words: “Who's fighting? Let me see him. Hey you in the striped shirt, look at me... Get the fuck out of my show right now. Get the fuck out." You gotta love him.

N°104 GEIKE - ROPE DANCER

Let’s stick with the solo project of Geike Arnaert, stage name Geike, who left Hooverphonic in 2008. As mentioned in my previous post she wasn’t even eighteen when auditioning for Alex Callier’s band Hooverphonic. Her sweet soft voice won the heart of Alex and she became lead singer for Hooverphonic between 1997 and 2008 and started touring and recording with the band at a very young age. Later, when leaving the band for a solo career she stated she had a great time but looking back she missed a part of her youth. Also being settled in the music business and being rewarded several times for Best Female Belgian Singer over the years made her decide to try it on her own.

The same day she decided to leave the band her last Hooverphonic single was to be released called Mijn Leven. This single was released to raise funds for a patient suffering from terminal cancer. He also appeared on the single. A last good deed with and for the band that was.

The same as Hooverphonic it remained silent around Geike for a very long time. She took a three year break and worked on a first solo album as well on the soundtrack for the Belgian movie Adem (Breath). For this project she shook hands with Erik De Jong from the band Spinvis and when performing together they do it under the name Dorléac. Both of them state that Dorléac still exists but there’s no rush in composing new material quickly. They do perform from time to time in small clubs whenever the both of them find the time.

At the end of 2011 Geike released a first single Rope Dancer under her own name. This first single didn’t take a high flight although it’s not a bad song. Her second ‘Unlock’ and third single ‘Blinded’ also didn’t make it high in the charts. Again not bad songs but also for the Hooverphonic fans amongst us it’s not the same as before. When Hooverphonic found a new strong lead vocalist, Geike is a little bit struggling to make it by herself although I’m pretty sure she’s happy doing so. And you must admit that a result after a long hard fight is more rewarding than when success is simply thrown at you.

I normally don't stick with the same vocalist (although the Hooverphonic song at 103 was sung by another girl) but I needed the 'Rope' to bring you 3 very very very great bands and songs which will all be intertwined. That'll be something for next Friday or Saturday. See you then.

N°103 HOOVERPHONIC - 2 WICKY

Normally it takes a band a few good songs to be promoted as a movie’s title track but not so for Hooverphonic. Founded as just plain ‘Hoover’ they produced their first album in 1995 with a spinning title like A New Stereophonic Sound Spectacular. 2 Wicky, one of the singles became a hit and got promoted as main theme for Bernardo Bertolucci’s movie Stealing Beauty. Right after the release of this album Hoover needed to change their name into Hooverphonic because of author rights on the name Hoover. Since then their climb up the international music ladder began.

At the moment Hooverphonic exists of musical genius and fifties and sixties lover Alex Callier, guitar player Raymond Geerts and a stunning Noémie Wolfs on vocals. Noémie is actually the band’s fifth female vocalist. After short periods with three singers Hooverphonic performed with Geike Arnaert between 1997 and 2008. She started with the band after auditioning at the age of seventeen. Later she’d say she had a great time with Alex and Hooverphonic but after ten intense years of success in the business she wanted to go her own way and went solo. It took Alex almost two whole years to find a decent replacement in the person of Noémie Wolfs. With the change Hooverphonic becomes less static on stage with the more extravert Noémie instead of the introvert performances of Geike.

In 2000 the band stands before it’s international breakthrough with the album The Magnificent Tree. It became successful throughout Europe and the USA also helped a hand with their performance during the opening ceremony at the European Football championships in Belgium and the Netherlands that summer. Best known song from that album is ‘Mad About You’. The Magnificent Tree got a pretty good follow up with Jackie Cane in 2002. The title track is also the biggest hit from that record and the album still is my favourite.

Since Alex always tries to re-invent himself their 2005 album (No) More Sweet Music was a bit special. This double album had the same songs twice on each CD but each with a different music style. From this moment on troubles began when they break up with their music company. Alex finds he’s being held ransom when Sony/BMG only wants to release the double CD if they sign up for two more albums. Alex refuses and the international release of No More Sweet Music is being stopped by Sony/BMG. Hooverphonic signs with PIAS and Alex keeps full creative autonomy about the band.

Again a style change for the band in 2007 with the album ‘President Of The LSD Club’ which is a more psychedelic pop album. It would be the last with Geike as lead vocalist. On this one I also have a favourite song called ‘Bohemian Laughter’. After the break up with Geike, Hooverphonic is silenced for quite a while until the release of a new single in October 2010. ‘The Night Before’ with Noémie Wolfs becomes a hit and so does Noémie who skyrockets to stardom. It took Alex two years he said because he wanted a vocalist as strong as Geike and someone who could reach the limit he always sets when performing or producing. It must be said that Noémie easily caries the old songs as well as the new ones into a new Hooverphonic era. Let’s hope she also stays with the band for at least 10 years so Hooverphonic remains a big band as it is now with appearances on CSI Miami, La Femme Nikita or Sex And The City.

If you read the text carefully then you'll know that 2 Wicky is not sung by Geike Arnaert or Noémie Wolfs. This song features one of the three elder vocalists Liesje Sadonius. Wicky by the way is the link with the Wickie The Viking song.

N°102: KAREL SVOBODA - WICKIE THE VIKING THEME SONG

The secong theme song in the list and this one is from the hand of a man with world fame in this genre. He scored the title tracks af many children's th series succh as Wickie The Viking or Maya The Bee. Also he created the music for one of my childhood's favourite tv cartoon series, The Wonderfull Adventures Of Nils Holgersson. My God I was fond of that show.

Karel was born in 1938 in the former Chechoslovakia, in Prague (later Czech Republic) and started composing songs while he was studying medicine at the Prague University. He also started to write quite a few pop songs for many Czech singers but as mentioned above he's best known for his various theme songs for series, movies and tv shows.

What many people don't know is that he also wrote the music for four musicals performed in Czech Republic and these musicals have names such as Dracula and The Count Of Monte Christo. Both of them you should at least have heared of. 

His death in 2007 untill today is still a bit of a mystery because Karel was found dead in his back yard with multiple gunshot wounds. It is said he committed suicide although some of his family still denies he had any kind of mental problems. 

N°101 LUCY LOES - MIN ZEEKAPITING

Let’s stay in Ostend, Belgium and pick another one of their world famous artists: Lucy Loes. Who? Lucy Loes! She’s world famous in Ostend and a few miles abroad. She’s that famous she has a statue standing before the fisherman’s stairs at the Fisherman’s Quai in Ostend. She was a performer of old Belgian fisherman’s songs such as ‘t Visscherslief’, ‘Min Zeekapiting’ and ‘Onk ‘soavonds nor min bedje goan’. Translated: The Fisherman’s Song, My Sea Captain and If I Go to Bed Late at Night. I did say was a performer since the Lucy died of cancer in 2009 at the age of 82.

She started to gain interest in old fisherman’s songs because her father was an emergency sea captain and when she was a little girl she heard all the great stories he used to tell her. Yet she never produced a single or an album before the age of fifty. At fifty she took over a pub at the Belgian coast and started her career in the back room for all who wanted to listen to her songs. She sings in Dutch but is better known for her songs in her local dialect. She also had a brother who died at a young age at sea fishing.

In 1970 she had the opportunity to produce an LP with nothing but her most famous fisherman’s songs. She later would produce 3 more cd’s with her best songs and one with ambi music. Although she never got famous outside her home town and surroundings she did achieved to reach national television in 2000 after her song ‘Min Zeekapiting’ was sung on television by Betty Owcziarek, a contestant in the Belgian Big Brother series.

I’ll slip the curtain a little bit aside so you can take a peek into the next song. Off course it’ll have to be linked with the sea and sailors so the next song is about a Viking.

N°100 T.C. MATIC - OH LA LA LA

T.C. Matic is a band which existed between 1980 and 1986 and is a Belgian rock band which produced quite a few hits. The best known founder of the band is Arnaud ‘Arno’ Hintjens who produced numerous albums with bands such as T.C. Matic, Tjens Couter, Freckleface and under his stage name Arno. He and Jean-Marie Aerts composed most of the T.C. Matic’s songs which was a bit normal since they continued from their former band Tjens Couter. 

Tjens Couter stood for Tjens from hinTJENS and Couter from Paul DeCOUTERe, a two man band from Ostend who continued the very first band both played in: Freckleface. But since the two of them didn’t get along very well over the years the Couter part of the band left and Jean-Marie Aerts joined in Tjens Couter, later reformed to T.C. Matic. They decided to use the initials of their old band’s name and add Matic to it so they could make a clean restart. Matic is for a mutual interest in the Serbian poet Doosan Matic. Three more musicians completed the setup: Serge Feys, Ferre Baelen and Rudy Cloet.

At the time in the early eighties T.C. Matic was mainly influenced by new wave and rock and the lyrics varied from the local Ostend dialect to the global English and French. They were a unique band with a unique style and a unique frontman and in six years’ time they produced four studio albums starting with T.C. Matic in 1981 (hit: Oh La La La), ‘lApache in 1982, Choco in 1983 (hit: Putain Putain and If You Wanna Dance, Dance, If You Don’t, Don’t) and Yé Yé in 1985. Although having a pretty strong live reputation it seized to exist after a final tour with Simple Minds in 1986. After T.C. Matic, Arno chose a successful solo career. He still performs the old T.C. Matic hits on all his shows. I believe his fans would be mad at him if he didn’t.

I’ve seen him live once at Werchter Rock festival in 2004 and at the time I wasn’t fond of the performer Arno Hintjens but I can remember that he ruled the crowd. Unfortunately for him he was warming up for the final act of that night: Metallica. And I’m a huge Metallica fan and it would be my first show of them so did I care about Arno? Nope. Next time I’ll pay more attention and enjoy more. That’s a promise.

Oh the link with Shakira is a personal one. I still remember me and Jim, a friend of mine, standing in a video rental store and watching one of Shakira's first music video's on one of the tv screens hanging there. We looked at each other and both thought the same: 'Oh la la la, she's yummie'