Biomechanical Robotic Android Intended for Nocturnal Sabotage, Troubleshooting and Efficient Repair  

 
Politics and other Pastimes
 
 
 
Favorite Blogs: Right Wing News

Conservative Grapevine

Lucianne

Allman's Stove

Ankle-Biting Pundits

Kitty Litter

Radio Patriots

Pam Meister aka Blogmeister USA

Third Wave Dave

Lucky Dawg News (Hiatus)

And You Thought You Were Cranky?

Songbird

Dodo David

On Wings of Eagles

Alive and Kickin' Oldies

A Rose By Any Other Name

Airborne Combat Engineer

American Protest

Anonymous Opinion

Astute Blogger

The American Scratchpad

La Shawn Barber

BlackFive

Blue Crab Boulevard

Lorie Byrd

Captain's Quarters

Carol Platt Liebau

Rudy Carrera

CentCom

Chicago Ray

Chief Brief

Christian Conservative

Combs Spouts Off

Conservative Comet

Constitutional Public Radio

Crazy Politico

CrosSwords

Church & State

Danegerus

Decision '08

Richard Delevan

Dynamo Buzz

Eating Arizona

EckerNet

Educated Shoprat

Fear & Loathing

Flopping Aces

Gawfer

GeosciBlog

GOP and the City

Granddaddy Longlegs

Hell's Freezing Over

Here There and Back Again

Hillary Needs a Vacation

Hot Air

Hugh Hewitt

Illumination Inc.

In My Taxi (Liberal)

In the Right Place

Irish Pennants

Jackson's Junction

Jihadophobic

JREFForum Conspiracy Theories

Leather Penguin

Graham Lester

Let's Play King's Bounty

Liberty or Death

Little Bit Tired, Little Bit Worn

Lone Star Pundit

Marathon Pundit

Mark In Mexico

Twin Cities Chess

Memeorandum

Michelle Malkin

MilTracker

Molten Thought

Moonbattery

Mr Media Matters

Mrs Media Matters

Neander News

New Hampshire Insider

Neo-neocon

NoonzWire (Alex Nunez)

No Pundit Intended

The Nose on Your Face

Punch

Slugger O'Toole

Pajamas Media

Pajama Pack (AKA L-Dotters Blog)

Partisan Pundit

Passionate America

Pink Flamingo

Please Make It Clear

Polipundit

Politburo Diktat

Poor and Stupid

Radio Equalizer

Reaching for Lucidity

Real Ugly American

Regime Change Iran

Right-Wing & Right Minded

Right Wing Nuthouse(AKA Superhawk)

Satire & Theology

Fred Schoeneman

Sister Toldjah

Small Town Veteran

Roger L. Simon

David B. Smith

Shock And Blog

Some Soldier's Mom

Stolen Thunder

Stop the ACLU

The Strata-Sphere

Tel-Chai Nation

Texas Rainmaker

The Kingpin 68

Time Cannon

Tinkerty Tonk

Valley Greaser

Viking Pundit

Weapons of Mass Discussion

Wilkesboro Square

Wizbang

Tim Worstall

WuzzaDem

Ya Libnan (Cedar Revolution)

Add to Technorati Favorites
 
 
Saturday, January 01, 2011
 
The Yardbirds

Although they were nowhere near as famous as the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, the Yardbirds were much more talented instrumentally than the former and more influential than the latter. These days, about the only song of theirs that gets much airplay is Shapes of Things to Come, but their catalog includes many terrific songs.

This version of Train Kept A-Rolling (retitled Stroll On apparently to avoid copyright issues) from the 1960s movie Blow-Up features Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page. Beck is the guy who gets annoyed at his amplifier, while Page does the later guitar solo:

Obviously Beck's antics were inspired by Pete Townshend's guitar-smashing performances. The extras seem like zombies, with almost no toe-tapping or head nodding going on during the performance.

If having Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page in their lineup seems an embarrassment of riches, consider that the original guitarist for the band was Eric Clapton. Probably the biggest hit for the band during this era was For Your Love:

However, that song is not really typical of the Clapton years; they focused more on blues standards like this (Yardbirds song starts about 20 seconds in):

Clapton wanted to stay with the blues and following the success of For Your Love, he left for a brief stint with John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, then when on to form Cream with Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce. Beck joined, followed shortly by Page who was originally a bassist, then a rhythm guitarist, and (mostly after Beck's departure) lead guitarist.
Here's Beck on the instrumental version of What Do You Want:

And the version with lyrics:


The best album of the Beck era is Over Under Sideways Down, with the title track:

Here's an oddball little tune called Hot House of Omargarashid. Be sure to listen to the guitar work building in the background starting at about 1:00 in and leading to Beck's scorching solo:

Beck left the band in 1966 ostensibly retiring from music. He returned a few years later with a couple of albums featuring Rod Stewart on vocals.
The Page years were not very successful for the band; they released an album called Little Games with a notably weak title song:

Although Think About It still holds up:

The band was stronger in their live performances. Here they are doing an early version of Dazed and Confused, which of course became a monster hit for Page's next band:

After the band dissolved, Page briefly formed a group called the New Yardbirds to fulfill some contractual obligations; the band was renamed in late 1968 to Led Zeppelin.

Ultimately, the band became better known for the groups it spawned afterwards. Clapton with Cream, Derek and the Dominoes and his solo career has arguably been the most durable. Beck, who released several terrific fusion albums in the mid-1970s was the most experimental. And Page was the most commercially successful with Led Zeppelin being the colossus of arena rock in the 1970s.

Singer Keith Relf went on to form the initial incarnation of the band Renaissance along with Yardbirds' drummer Jim McCarty, although that band had much more success in the mid-1970s with a completely different lineup featuring Annie Haslam on vocals. Rhythm/bass guitarist Chris Dreja went on to become a professional photographer; his photo of Led Zeppelin appears on the back cover of their first album. Paul Samwell-Smith, the original bassist of the group, moved into record producing and worked on Cat Stevens' most successful albums.

Labels: , , , ,

0 comments

 

 
  Endorsements: "11 Most Underrated Blogs"--Right Wing News

"Brainster is the Best"--Allman in the Morning FM 97.1 Talk (St. Louis)

"This is blogging like it oughta be"--Tom Maguire (Just One Minute)

"Quite young and quite nasty"--Civil Discourse Bustard (One out of two ain't bad)

Contact Me: pcurley (at) cdwebs (dot) com

Brainster in the Media

Howard Kurtz's Media Notes: May 27, 2005

Slate Today's Blogs:

March 16, 2005

May 9, 2005

June 3, 2005

Cited for Breaking the Christmas in Cambodia story (at Kerry Haters):

Hugh Hewitt: KerryHaters was on this story a long time ago. How could the elite media not have asked these questions before now?

Ankle-Biting Pundits: Our friends Pat and Kitty at Kerry Haters deserve the blog equivalent of a Pulitzer for their coverage of Kerry's intricate web of lies regarding Vietnam.

The Weekly Standard

Les Kinsolving

Greatest Hits

What If the Rest of the Fantastic Four Were Peaceniks?

Lefty Bloggers on Gay Witchhunt (linked by 16 blogs including Instapundit)

Kitty Myers Breaks Christmas in Cambodia

Brainster Shows Brinkley Says No Christmas in Cambodia

Explanation of the Blog's Name

Power Ratings Explained



blog radio

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting


Archives


 
  This page is powered by Blogger, the easy way to update your web site.  

Phoenix Commercial Properties

Window Cleaning Phoenix

Leather Goods, Leather Craft

Home  |  Archives