TONE WORLD "NEWZ"
09/30/08
“Hopping Around With My Friends On A Misty Mountain.”
The Led Zeppelin Project.
Part One: “An EpicTale. Two Years In The Making!”
(1A: The Preamble.)
The Slashtones recently completed production of “Misty Mountain Hop” and “Friends” for a Led Zeppelin tribute CD due out November 25th, 2008 called “Misty Mountain Hop” A Millennium Tribute To Led Zeppelin. This will be a rather long report in three parts because it takes place over a two year period and because I’ve been considering putting this whole Slashtones thing on the shelf. This may be our last recording session report and at times it will be very detailed.
(1B: The Ramble)
Jake Brown, CEO of Versailles Records, knows how much I love and have been influenced by the music of Jimmy Page and Led Zeppelin so when the label decided in "Zeptember" of 2006 to do a Led Zeppelin tribute for a late September or early October ‘07 release, Jake gave me first choice of songs as well as up to three song slots to produce for the CD. (I originally wanted 10.) Without a moments thought or hesitation I immediately chose “Misty Mountain Hop” as The Slashtones’ main track and they made it a the title track of the CD based on our prior work. (And it's a really cool title anyway.)
I had 3 other slots I could fill at the time and naturally offered the second slot to Reckless Fortune. They chose “Custard Pie”. then changed their minds and picked “Nobody’s Fault But Mine”, then wanted to do an acoustic version of that before changing their song to “The Immigrant Song” followed by both the studio and live versions of “Whole Lotta Love” followed by “You Shook Me”, followed by several others. (At one point the 42 minute live bootleg version of “Dazed & Confused” from the LA Forum in 1976 was mentioned.) It’s not always easy to pick the right song for yourself, especially when a band has such a vast catalogue and only 3 of their songs have been taken by other bands. They gave it some thought and went back to their first choice of “Custard Pie” which really was the best way to showcase themselves as a band.
The third slot would be another Slashtones tune, but I wanted to cover something from Led Zeppelin's folk based acoustic side. It was down to “Black Country Woman” and “Friends” and I gave the final vote to Mark Hitt. He chose “Friends” because that song also lent itself best to also doing something experimental and explore a blending of several different cultures’ musical styles.
The fourth slot was a “maybe”. Tarik Solongi and I had been discussing the “The Prime Time Players” concept of a non-band comprised of differant musicians from various bands that record with, or are associated with Prime Time Studios in Yonkers NY. We asked Versailles Records to put several different style songs on hold for us including “Since I’ve Been Loving You” (blues), and “Hot Dog” (rockabilly) just in case. I even reserved the instrumental song “Black Mountain Side” because I had this insane Frank Zappa inspired idea of Arno Hecht arranging it to be recorded as a 24 track horn section of saxophones, trumpets, trombones, tubas, french horns, clarinets, basically every wind instrument he and (occasional “Studio-tone”) Mac Gollehon owned and could borrow. (This almost happened, but shouldn’t and didn’t.)
This was happening during the time we were recording songs for a Van Halen tribute. If you listen closely to “You Really Got Me” you’ll hear Tony Moore drop a subtle hint about the Led Zep tune as he briefly plays a variation of “Misty Mountain Hop” on bass during the breakdown. But before we could get started on “The Led Zeppelin Project”, Tarik and I had to first finish the Valn Halen tunes and then the (soon to be unenviable) task of recording “City Boy Bluessss” for a Motley Crue tribute. Nothing against Motley Crue or the song itself, but there’s a reason I’ve never written a detailed session report about it like I have for other projects. (It burned me out so bad that I didn’t even update this website for five months.) The only thing that kept me going at some points during those recordings was thinking: “There’s a Zeppelin on the horizon.” But in all honesty, “City Boy Blues” turned out to be a really good song when all was said and done. (“The end of the journey was wonderful because the road getting there was not.”)
We finally got going on the Led Zep tunes in June of 2007. After that things kept happening and other projects including Kiss and Guns N' Roses tribute CDs kept crossing our paths and it wouldn’t be until "Zeptember" 8, 2008, two years almost to the day that I was first informed of this project, that we would have a final mix.
“Hopping Around With My Friends On A Misty Mountain.”
The Led Zeppelin Project Report.
PART I: “An EpicTale. Two Years In The Making!”
PART II: “Happenings Ten Months Time Ago.”
PART III: “Friends, Romans and Countrymen.”
PART IV: “Coda.” (forthcoming)
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