I stumbled onto this absolute gem of a video clip today while perusing the endless live snippets of Zeppelin on YouTube. It’s an interview that John Bonham and Robert Plant gave just before coming to the US for Led Zeppelin’s huge MSG show in 1970. The two newsmen are a perfect example of the default tendency of humans to try and taxonomize and sort of put down anything that is foreign to them. What’s funny too is the interviewers use of the Beatles as the benchmark for understandable, sensible rock music. Even in 1970, the Beatles were doing some stuff that was pretty out there.
It’s almost laughable now to think that once upon a time there were people who thought rock music, long hair, and the electric guitar would be the undoing of the civilized world. This video is a good reminder of how threatened the people who were on the outside of the movement looking in felt. Maybe that too is why the music was so good; there was a genuine tension between the establishment and the artists. That tension no longer exists. The establishment and the artists are entwined in a art-destroying, money-making symbiosis.
Anyhow, without further adieu, here’s the awesome video. Enjoy.
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