Frank Zappa - "Stairway To Heaven"

Today's post looks at the equally celebrated and maligned Led Zeppelin song "Stairway to Heaven".

Well, one interpretation of it at least.

I say "equally celebrated and maligned" because it is the most played, listened to, discussed, talked about and covered 8 minutes of the entire Led Zeppelin catalog. For anyone getting started with the band's music, this is usually the entry point. The band themselves have cited this as a milestone in their career.

It has also been played more times on American radio than any other song. This may go a long way to explaining why it is so maligned. In the year 2000, Triple J estimated, in the absence of official numbers, that the song had been played over 3 million times. Let's assume in 2014 that the song has been played 4 million times, as a conservative estimate. If you were to play it end-to-end constantly (that is, as soon as it finishes it starts again) it would last for 60 years, 10 months and 19 days. In the film Wayne's World, the music shop had banned the playing of the song by customers trying out guitars - largely because staff would be sick of people attempting it and routinely stuffing it the intro.

In short, familiarity breeds contempt. It may as well be tattooed on our collective psyches.

We're not looking at the original today, but rather an obscure cover, And to be fair, you're looking into very murky waters when investigating "Stairway..." covers. There's country versions, cod-reggae versions, versions by the Russian Red Army Choir. Australian TV presenter Andrew Denton took the idea to a ridiculous extreme in 1990 with musical guests on his program "The Money Or The Gun" having to take on the song and do it in their own style. He released a CD with 22 versions and a home video with 25 versions of the song from the show. One just happened to be by Rolf Harris, but let's not go there...

Still, the version of the song I have unearthed is one of the standouts, in my view. Frank Zappa played it as one of the centrepieces of his last ever concert tour in 1988, and first released in 1991 on the double album "The Best Band You've Never Heard In Your Life". This version has elements of Frank's trademark humour and oddness in it, to be sure. in between vocal lines he throws in strange synth-noise interjections, as well as short, sharp and frantic guitar solo blasts.

The band plays the entire thing with various reggae grooves throughout. He starts off with a slow roots reggae feel, speeding it up slightly and ending with a fast ska/rock-steady feel at the end.

This version is not notable for Frank's contribution, although his soloing is amazing. His skills as an arranger are the star here. How he manages to get a twelve piece ensemble to play such a tightly crafted arrangement is a true testament to the calibre of musicians in the band. And the way he treats the iconic guitar solo in the latter half of the piece is a revelation - a completely novel way of recontextualising within the piece.

As an arrangement, it is a thrill-a-minute ride around a piece we all know by heart. I genuinely think it's worth multiple listens. The clip below is a dodgy audience shot film from a performance in Vienna that has been re-dubbed with the version taken from the aforementioned live album.

Let us know what you think in the comments below.

Enjoy!

Sunday Sessions: Dread and the Baldhead

Hey all,

We're back in the saddle for 2014. And here, is the first Sunday Sessions for 2014

Down here in Australia, it is Summer. And it ain't summer in Australia without cricket. Currently, the old foes of the motherland (that is England) are down here defending their Ashes series victory from earlier in 2013 when they clean-sweeped Australia at home. Since they have arrived here at the end of last year, England have been white-washed by the Aussies 5-0 in the follow-up series on Australian Soil.

In short, we've smashed them!

Aside from the Ashes, there's been heaps of 20-20 cricket on as well. For those who don't know, the Big Bash league is a series that specialises in short games, of only about 3 hours, where each side faces 20 6-ball overs with big slogs required in order to get the best runs and provide the most entertainment for the punters. They are thrilling games and they have been a joy to watch.

In the commentary team of these Big Bash matches is one Sir Viv Richards, one of the members of the killer 1980s and 1990s West Indies cricket side. Aside for barracking for the Aussies, I always had a soft spot for the Windies and games where they faced off the Australians were always great fun. The Windies were a strong side that required the Aussies to work their butts off. It was great stuff to watch.

The other night on one of the Big Bash matches, Sir Viv mentioned to Mark Waugh that he plays in a calypso band from time to time with former Windies players Curtly Ambrose and Richie Richardson called Dread and the Baldhead. There's precious little tuneage around the internet of their works, largely because there was another band called Big Dread and the Bald Head who were more of a roots reggae band around some years before.

This particular band has some fine booty-shakin riddims (if I may appropriate the local terminology) with their track from around 2010 called "Back In Yuh Face" being a cracker of a tune.

It sure as hell puts their local cricket heroes' musical attempts to shame. The less said about the Lee Brothers' abysmal efforts "Six & Out" the better.

Vale Nelson Mandela

It came as a shock to the world, despite the fact he was 95 years of age, to hear that Nelson Mandela has passed away. While not a musician, he became a folk hero, a freedom fighter battling against an oppressive and racist regime in South Africa known as Apartheid.

How he became the face of the anti-apartheid movement, from his jail cell, where he was with plenty of other people jailed for the same reasons, I'm not quite sure. But he did inspire a hell of a lot of people and a great deal of music as well.

Most notably, he inspired Gerry Dammers, leader of The Specials, to write a freedom anthem calling for his release from prison, in 1983. It would be a further seven years before that would actually happen.

In looking for other examples of music inspired by the great man, I found this. It is a dub-reggae album inspired by his life, his story and his struggle, and what it means for other oppressed nations around the world, especially impoverished ones like Jamaica.

The album is called "Nelson Mandela: African Dub Excursion" featuring artists like URoy and the Mad Professor. Aside from being a gorgeous piece of music with its sublime grooves and inspirational lyrics, I think it is a fitting tribute to a man who was the first to admit he was no saint, but who was one of the reasons an international movement to end institutional racism began.

100 LPs Shortlist #29b: Easy Star All-Stars "Sgt Pepper..."

What would you think if Sgt Pepper went Dub Reggae?

Think about that for a moment. The Beatles a la reggae. In theory, that should be dreadful (no pun intended). In the hands of the Easy Star All-stars, it's anything but.

Easy Star All-Stars had previously made a name for themselves with other Dub Reggae interpretations of Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" and Radiohead's "Ok Computer". "Dark Side of the Moon" Easy-Star style was done brilliantly. I was less enamoured with "Radiodread", their interpretation of "Ok Computer", and I held some trepidation as they released a version of "Sgt Pepper". I shouldn't have worried - they treat the music with the respect it deserves and bring out the flavour and groove of reggae at the same time. The whole experience for some reason, feels so natural...

...well, for me at least. In some respects, this album is the culmination of something I had always wanted to do. You see, around the time I was 16, the reggae bug bit. Like the Funk bug that caught me at age 18, it bit hard. For a few months, everything I played on my guitar had that "skank" rhythm to it. Whether it was the hymns in music class at school, or Beatles songs, I played them all with that staccato, clipped, choppy, on-the-off-beat rhythm. I had even worked out my own reggae arrangements of "Day Tripper" and "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band". I played them once for my then-girlfriend's father (the Kinks fan in 100 LPs #24) - he thought I was being sacriligious.

However, Easy Star have worked out something that I felt all along - that not only are the rhythms of reggae incredibly infectious, and also that The Beatles' songs were so well written that you can apply a reggae arrangment, or almost any arrangement, to them and they still sound good. Master songwriters can only achieve that.

So here for your listening pleasure is Easy Star All-stars doing the complete album of Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, eloquently renamed "Easy Star's Lonely Hearts Dub Band":

Enjoy!