A Very Generous Plug for Back To Schoolin'

Writer, musician, and creator/maintainer of the Lemon Squeezings Led Zeppelin Web Site, Steve Sauer, is recently featured in an exclusive interview by Sonya Alexander, for the Led Zeppelin Examiner, in which he VERY generously plugs Back To Schoolin':

"Examiner: Why do you think Led Zeppelin is one of the best bands in rock history?

To me, the depth and variety of Led Zeppelin's music is a big part of it. The fact that those four guys are so great individually and blended so well together is another part of it. That all makes them one of the best bands in rock history, but that's a function of the even stronger opinion I hold that Led Zeppelin is probably the most intriguing band in rock history for reasons that deal with more than just the music alone.

I have to credit a musician and author out in California by the name of Kevin Courtright who published a highly informative book last year called Back to Schoolin': What Led Zeppelin Taught Me About Music. He definitely beat me to the punch when it comes to fully explaining how every last aspect of the band is so impressive. Basically, you could look at any of their album covers and point out something, and there's a story behind that. Who are the children on the cover of Houses of the Holy, and why are they purple? Is this massive mountain real? Where did they get this idea from? That's just one thing out of a million.

Kevin says he learned a lot from things like that, related to Led Zeppelin. I did too; it's just that Kevin actually put it into a book. Definitely read this and put the books in the hands of any aspiring musicians out there, or creators of any art, to be influenced -- both positively and negatively, because there are a few things Zeppelin did you may not want to repeat."

I am extremely pleased and honored by this generous plug. Steve previously reviewed my book for his web-site, again, very generously, (posted earlier on this blog-site), and I can't thank him enough.
Please take a moment to read the entire interview with Steve. He is very well-spoken and engaging. (Find the link both to the interview, as well as to Steve's Lemon Squeezings web-site below.)

Steve's interview:
http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-39490-Led-Zeppelin-Examiner~y2010m6d12-An-Interview-with-Steve-The-Lemon-Sauer
Steve's web-site:
http://www.ledzeppelinnews.com/

Greatest Band Of All Time According To The British

As reported by Telegraph.co.uk:

"According to BBC2 viewers and Radio 2 listeners, Led Zeppelin are the best band ever. A live poll conducted at the finale of the BBC 2 series ‘I’m In A Rock And Roll Band!’ crowned the Seventies rock gods, after boiling it down to a short list of three: Zep, Queen and The Beatles.

"All good choices, of course, coming from a long list of The Clash, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Joy Division, Nirvana, Radiohead, The Rolling Stones & The Smiths. Presumably a lot of names got weeded out along the way but it’s hard to argue with Led Zeppelin, an incredible coming together of great musicians who pushed and pulled rock music in a host of new directions while essentially defining what it meant to be a hard, heavy, sexy rock band.

"But personally, I would put them third on the list. The Beatles and The Rolling Stones are the bands who set almost the entire parameters for rock music in the Sixties. They remain the quintessential rock bands, and everything that followed is a kind of offshoot, either by reacting against them, or following through on their inspiration. Led Zeppelin certainly took up the baton and charged into the Seventies, but by that time the core of what it meant to be a rock band had already been defined.

"For me, there is something undeniable about a triumvirate of Beatles, Stones and Led Zeppelin as the best bands ever, that makes every other possible choice seem merely subjective."

For anyone who has read my book, you know that I sit squarely in the Led Zeppelin camp, holding them up as the greatest rock band of all time (in other words I agree with the voters in England). And with the British voters having also recently voted "Stairway to Heaven" as greatest Rock song of all time, I certainly find myself in kinship with those of the Mother Country (not so much that I believe "Stairway" to be the greatest Rock song, but that a Zeppelin song is the choice). Granted, these sorts of "polls" are subjective. But, they are also often influenced by present trends and points-of-view, making this choice all the more authentic as the choice is a band who have not officially existed in 30 years. So, I say, "Thanks, Mates! You have great taste over there on the other side of the pond!"

 http://www.amazon.com/Back-Schoolin-Zeppelin-Taught-About/dp/1615790454/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1361939337&sr=1-1&keywords=Kevin+Courtright