Latest news with #LedZeppelin
Forbes
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Forbes
‘Becoming Led Zeppelin' Documentary Arrives On Netflix This Week
"Becoming Led Zeppelin" partial poster image featuring Robert Plant, John Paul Jones, Jimmy Page and ... More John Bonham. Becoming Led Zeppelin — a rock documentary featuring Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones and John Bonham — debuts on Netflix this week. Directed by Bernard MacMahon and Allison McGourty, Becoming Led Zeppelin debuted on IMAX screens on Feb. 7 and expanded to regular theaters on Feb. 14 before pivoting to digital streaming on April 4. The official summary from the film's studio Sony Pictures Classics reads, 'Becoming Led Zeppelin explores the origins of this iconic group and their meteoric rise in just one year against all the odds.' Led Zeppelin, featuring Plant on lead vocals, Page on guitar, Jones on bass and Bonham on drums, formed in 1968 and disbanded in 1980 following the tragic death of Bonham at age 32. During Led Zeppelin's 12-year run, the band released eight albums of original material and in 1982, issued a final album, Coda, which consisted of unreleased rejected tracks, outtakes and live recordings. The band released several classic songs from 1968-1980, including 'Black Dog,' 'Immigrant Song,' 'Rock and Roll,' 'Whole Lotta Love,' 'Stairway to Heaven,' 'The Ocean,' 'In the Evening,' 'Kashmir,' 'Ramble On' and 'Houses of the Holy.' According to Netflix, Becoming Led Zeppelin will arrive on the streaming service on Saturday, June 7. For viewers who don't subscribe to the platform, Netflix offers an ad-based package for $7.99 per month for two supported devices, an ad-free package for $17.99 per month for two supported devices and an ad-free package for $24.99 for four supported devices with 4K Ultra HD programming. Becoming Led Zeppelin marks the first time a documentary about the classic rock group has been authorized by the band. As such, Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones granted all-new interviews to directors Bernard MacMahon and Allison McGourty, while the filmmakers tracked down never-before-heard and seen footage featuring John Bonham. During an interview with Hey U Guys alongside MacMahon and McGourtry,' Page explained why he finally said yes to a documentary about the group. 'All the documentaries that I'd seen up to this up to this one were really, really very, very lightweight,' Page told HeyUGuys. 'They didn't actually give any sort of perspective on what was actually happening with the music and why the music was what it was, why there was improvisation every night and that made us very different to everybody else. No, they missed all of it.' Page added that prior attempts by people attempting to document the career of Led Zeppelin 'could put in the figures of how many albums we sold, but it's like, 'Yeah, but you're forgetting why those albums are selling.'' 'So, I didn't have very much uh patience with those sort of things,' Page explained to HeyUGuys. 'I had a lot of patience with Bernard and Allison when they were when they were presenting the idea of what they wanted to do because it was so in line with the way that I thought about it, too … I'm so thrilled to be here now that they manifested exactly what they said they would do.' Becoming Led Zeppelin begins streaming on Saturday, June 7, on Netflix.
Mint
2 days ago
- Business
- Mint
Why the president must not be lexicographer-in-chief
ON MAY 28TH a specialist American court for international trade struck down many of Donald Trump's tariffs. It did so on several legal grounds, including linguistic ones. As in so many cases, the two sides in the case presented different views on what several words mean. The next day another court temporarily stayed the decision. The tariffs remain in effect but the legal question remains. Many of the tariffs rest on a law Congress passed in 1977, giving the president the authority to 'regulate" aspects of American trade 'to deal with any unusual and extraordinary threat". The first court found that 'regulate" did not include the power to impose tariffs. Tariffs are not mentioned anywhere in the relevant parts of the law. The Trump administration naturally disagreed. Under such a view 'regulate" would mean what the president says it does, a worrisome precedent. The case will probably land with the Supreme Court. The high court, with its 6-3 conservative majority, has repeatedly held that the president must have almost unconstrained executive power to carry out his constitutional duties. But those duties do have constraints: taxation is squarely Congress's remit, not the president's, in the constitution. The 'emergency" law lays out specific conditions under which the president can temporarily wield the power to 'regulate". Even if regulation included taxation, the president has not passed other crucial tests. Reconsider 'any unusual and extraordinary threat". The 'and" makes clear that both tests of 'unusual" and 'extraordinary" must be met. Are America's trade deficits either? They are not: America last ran a trade surplus in goods when Led Zeppelin were at the height of their powers, in 1973. The worst years for the trade balance, as a share of GDP, were in the middle of the George W. Bush administration, two decades ago; the deficit has shrunk as a share of the economy since. Today's trade balance meets the definition of 'unusual" under no conceivable standard. If the Supreme Court decides that not only does 'regulate" (which could at least arguably include tariffs) mean what the administration argues, but 'unusual" does too, they would hand him extraordinary power (though they could strike the tariffs down for other reasons as well). Mr Trump has already made another lexicographical power-grab. He has deported Venezuelans the administration accuses of being gang members to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. This grants the power to eject people from the country without legal proceedings 'whenever there shall be a declared war between the United States and any foreign nation or government, or any invasion or predatory incursion shall be perpetrated, attempted, or threatened against the territory of the United States, by any foreign nation or government". That 'whenever" clause forbids the arbitrary use of this power. So Mr Trump declared Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang, to be a group directed by the Venezuelan government, and conducting an 'invasion". His intelligence agencies found otherwise—whereupon some of the top spies who had so concluded were sacked. Presumably Mr Trump will now promote some who will tell him an invasion is what he says it is. Statutes are meant to be precisely drafted so that it is clear what they forbid, require and permit. But legislators are not linguists and they leave in mistakes and ambiguities all the time. This is why lawyers spend so much time arguing about the meaning of terms used in the laws. As for the judges themselves, they have several ways of determining what a term means. You might think of 'the dictionary", but there are dozens of quality dictionaries, and judges can sometimes go dictionary-hopping to find the one that defines a term the way they want it to be for some other reason. Another problem is that dictionaries themselves are today nearly all descriptive, meaning that they try to portray how a word actually is used, not how the lexicographers think it should be. They use large archives of citations of real text to that end. So judges are ultimately getting the conclusions of bookworms at Merriam-Webster and Oxford University Press about how words are ordinarily used. This tricky descriptive task, carried out by fallible human beings, is not ideally suited to being such an important part of lawmaking. Today, briefs submitted by amici curiae ('friends of the court": ie, outside parties) sometimes include research by linguists who can use their own big-data sources. For example they can use statistical techniques to see how frequently the word 'regulate" occurs in sentences also including 'tariffs". They have done so with a big body of founding-era texts to conclude that the phrase 'bear arms" occurred nearly always in a military context when the constitution was written, and therefore that the Second Amendment was about militia service, not personal self-defence. (The Supreme Court, before that research was done, held otherwise.) Such developments are a welcome improvement on dictionary-hopping. Pinning down what a word means is far harder than most people realise. Dictionaries will never be perfect. Big data is better but will be subject to argumentation and interpretation. But the simple fact is that the arbiter of meaning cannot be the president, himself also a litigant in so many cases. If the Supreme Court's justices grant any president such authority, they would hand over not only Congress's power but much of their own, with dire consequences.
Winnipeg Free Press
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
Cultural history of late-'60s rock hits some sour notes
There's a depth and richness in rock 'n' roll that, at its best, rivals other art forms. But to reveal it, the music has to be placed in the broader texture and framework of culture and politics. John Einarson is the Winnipeg author of more than 20 rock-music music biographies. His past subjects include Neil Young, Randy Bachman, John Kay, Ian & Sylvia, The Byrds and Buffalo Springfield. From Born to Be Wild to Dazed and Confused Despite his literary output, he allows his crowning epitaph to be that 'he opened for Led Zeppelin' as the 17-year-old guitarist of local band Euphoria at the Man-Pop Festival at Winnipeg Stadium in August 1970. He's clearly a rock-music musicologist of the first order. And he also knows the tech stuff inside out. As a former rock musician, he writes knowledgably about guitar makes and models, tunings, chord progressions and amplifier manufacturers and sizes. But his focus this time round is conceptual, and much more ambitious than a rock bio. It's a cultural history, viewed through the lens of rock music in the late 1960s. He's set himself a tall order — one he doesn't fill, and which is handicapped by a dubious editorial choice in the book's format. Einarson traces the evolution of rock 'n' roll from psychedelia to heavy rock to heavy metal. Each of the three years he principally treats of — 1967, '68 and '69 — is introduced by a 'Timeline of Significant Events,' multi-page month-by-month one- or two-sentence bulleted lists of significant historical or musical events of each year. It's the kind of pedagogical aid Einarson, a former schoolteacher, might employ for instructing middle or high school students. But it has no business in a cultural history about rock music. Some of the timeline potted summaries also surface in the chapters that follow. But far better if more of them were integrated into the music-driven narrative, and the bulleted lists nixed. The net result: the music isn't fully and seamlessly placed within the larger context of the times and shaping historical events. The book's title encompasses two songs Einarson considers signal recordings for the birth of hard rock — Steppenwolf's Born to Be Wild, released in 1968, and Led Zeppelin's Dazed and Confused, released in 1969. But he begins the narrative in 1965, with the rise of psychedelic music. He charts how psychedelia's gentler, more experimental ethos gave way through 1966-67 to a louder, heavier and more visceral sound, pioneered by the Who, the Jimi Hendrix Experience and Jeff Beck. It finally crystallized in the likes of Steppenwolf and Led Zeppelin, he maintains. He links the evolution of psychedelic-cum-flower-power rock into a darker, heavier rock genre due to worsening geopolitical events — the Vietnam War's Tet Offensive, the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy, increasingly violent student and civil-rights protests, the presidential election of Richard Nixon. This heavy rock, often today dubbed 'classic rock,' in turn gave way to a host of successor imitators, collectively known as heavy metal. Heavy metal music's intellectual quotient is near zero. It's a kind of a soma, loudly lulling its fans into ignoring real-world issues. Both early and later practitioners (Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Megadeath, Metallica) are weak derivatives of the pioneers of heavy rock (Jeff Beck, Cream, Led Zeppelin, Steppenwolf). What heavy metal imported was more overt sexual content, dilettantish dabbling in the occult, mysticism and Satanism, and adolescent proto-anarchism. Weekly A weekly look at what's happening in Winnipeg's arts and entertainment scene. But Einarson renders neither a critical judgment nor an endorsing defence of the genre, remaining pretty much mute on its merits or lack of same. This is an intelligent record of rock music's evolution in the late 1960s. But while it's an interesting chronicle, there's a dearth of considered scrutiny. The music's interaction with politics and geopolitics is thin. The music's interaction with contemporary books, movies, plays and television is negligible to non-existent. The broader context of the music is too often missing. As cultural history, it's criticism lite. Douglas J. Johnston is a Winnipeg lawyer and writer.
Chicago Tribune
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
Live music for summer 2025: 10 must-see concerts in Chicago beyond the fests and arena shows
This summer's concert slate points to a transition that continues to slowly unfold locally and around the country. Shying away from big festivals, artists are opting for standalone tours or participating in smaller, manageable package bills. That's welcome news for music lovers who prefer the equivalent of a savory main course to a prix-fixe buffet. And great for anyone looking to catch performers in more intimate environments where headliners can stretch out with a dedicated show. In the next few months, Chicagoans have no shortage of first-rate options in smaller venues purpose-built for music — and, in most cases, at prices that remain below the three-figure threshold. Here are 10 such stops that should be on your shortlist: Samia: 'I wanna be untouchable,' Samia sings in the first verse of the opening cut of her third LP, 'Bloodless. 'I wanna be impossible,' she wishes two stanzas later. The Minneapolis-based singer-songwriter doesn't hurt for confidence, though she has plenty of doubts, regrets and misgivings. Plenty of 20-something indie-pop tunesmiths fit that mold. Yet few possess the imagination to loosely base a record around the bizarre concept of bovine excision and leverage it as a metaphor for reconciling one's prior relationships with and senses of the opposite sex. Melodic, rich, bittersweet, hushed, intimate, albeit insistent: Samia's voice offers another reason to lean into the narratives. Album art and merch that evoke the dark designs preferred by Norwegian black metal bands lend further credence to her ideation. Alison Krauss & Union Station: The last several times Alison Krauss came through Chicago, she partnered with Robert Plant in support of the duo's surprise second duet record. Though the possibility of a third go-round with the former Led Zeppelin legend cannot be dismissed, the Illinois native recently reconvened with her longtime ensemble Union Station for their first LP ('Arcadia') in 14 years. The songs' myth-busting notion that hardship riddled the 'good ol' days' carries weight in our current age. For the group's first tour in a decade, dobro and lap-steel virtuoso Jerry Douglas receives deserved co-billing with the headliner. And newcomer Russell Moore steps in on co-lead vocals and guitar for former stalwart Dan Tyminski. You won't find a better excuse to connect with the premier purveyors of bluegrass. Kathleen Edwards: Sometimes, you need to follow your heart, not what other people want or expect you to do. Kathleen Edwards quickly established herself as one of the wittiest, spunkiest and craftiest singer-songwriters during the early 2000s. She issued four acclaimed albums that culminated with an effort ('Voyageur') spearheaded by Bon Iver leader Justin Vernon. Then, just like that, she dropped out. Or rather, she opened the cleverly named Quitters, a coffee shop outside of her hometown of Ottawa, Ontario. The Canadian operated the cafe as she slowly returned to music, releasing 'Total Freedom' (2020) and a covers EP this spring. Edwards also sold Quitters, remarried and started writing again. All positive developments for anyone drawn to smart, crackling country-rock and incisive, self-assured narratives. MJ Lenderman: Current indie-rock darling MJ Lenderman used a childhood fascination with the game Guitar Hero as a springboard to learn about predecessors who influenced his own work, which he started documenting on a laptop in fifth grade. After paying his dues in the North Carolina club circuits, Lenderman soon gained a wider following in 2022 after making his first properly recorded album ('Boat Songs'). The ascendency of the shambolic collective Wednesday, which Lenderman joins in the studio, and the fact that he unleashes memorably ragged, go-for-broke guitar solos further raised his profile. Last fall's 'Manning Fireworks,' brimming with penetrating character studies, exquisite detail and barbed humor, signaled the 26-year-old Lenderman had officially arrived. Obligatory magazine profiles, best-of-year nods, meme posts and a sold-out tour provided confirmation. FKA Twigs: FKA Twigs began dancing professionally as a 'tween, advanced to performing for global stars like Kylie Minogue and Jessie J, and got her solo break after playing at a party connected to a fetishwear company. Unsurprisingly, body language, fashion and sensuality serve as principal impetus behind everything the British multi-instrumentalist/singer touches. Especially the club music on 'Eusexua,' an electronically sculpted journey that spotlights her finessed vocals, reveals introspective lyrics and rearranges house, ambient, techno, dubstep and synthpop motifs at will. Built for headphones, FKA Twigs' textured sonic portraits transform into ethereal and empowering physical experiences when the singer gets to act them out onstage. Alabama Shakes: For reasons nobody can explain, promising rock bands that form in the 21st century inevitably have short lifespans. Alabama Shakes count themselves among those ranks. Led by vocal dynamo Brittany Howard, the quartet electrified crowds and won over audiences with two studio albums, particularly the aptly titled 'Sound & Color.' Then, just as the group appeared to leap from mid-sized hall to arena status, it went on hiatus. Howard busied herself with a solo career. Circumstances turned bleaker for former drummer Steve Johnson. Now operating as a trio, Alabama Shakes seek to rekindle their old spark on their first tour in more than eight years — one they hint will involve old and new material. Yeah Yeah Yeahs: If you were fortunate to catch Yeah Yeah Yeahs in their prime at Metro way back in April 2003, you witnessed the band's dervish of a singer, Karen O, attack with a blend of grit, humor, brazenness and New York City-style cool that felt too real and spontaneous to be anything else. Don't bet on the vocalist summoning the ghosts of her younger self here. Instead, the edgy trio plans a tactic that on the surface sounds like the exact opposite: reconceptualizing favorites and deep cuts with piano, strings and acoustic guitars. An arty retort to carefree nostalgia, or the next logical step for a group that seldom adheres to convention and values surprise? Yeah Yeah Yeahs' penchant for unpredictability says all bets are off until the shows happen. Pelican: In its most basic form, Pelican is a rock band that doesn't use a vocalist. Beyond that, the quartet endures as one of the most dynamic, diverse representatives of this city's creative climes. Cheekily characterized as 'Post-Emo Stoner Deathgaze' on its Facebook page, Pelican skirts simple description. Having evolved beyond the churning metal of its early era and even dared to adopt classically inspired motifs, Pelican functions as a two-way bridge to Chicago's hard-nosed noise-rock of the late '80s and anything-goes Fireside Bowl scenes of the mid/late '90s. Melodic devices and mysterious intrigue augment the quartet's palette. Another reason to cheer on the local heroes? The release of 'Flickering Resonance,' its first record with original guitarist Laurent Schroeder-Lebec since 2009. 100 concerts for Chicago summer 2025 — starting with music this weekendKing Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard: Depending on the source, lo-fi cult favorites Guided by Voices have released somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 studio LPs, 20 EPs, four box sets and dozens of singles during an on-again, off-again legacy that stretched to the early '80s. Which means at the rate they're going, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard will lap their prolific forebearers in roughly five years, all the while adding chapters to their 'Gizzverse,' a fascinating galaxy with recurring characters, stories and themes. The forthcoming 'Phantom Island' marks the enviro-conscious sextet's 27th album since 2010 and witnesses the shape-shifting Australians lean in symphonic directions. At this ambitious outing, the Chicago Philharmonic helps the collective bring it to life. Expect fireworks without the boom. Dave Alvin and Jimmie Dale Gilmore: Elder statesmen Dave Alvin and Jimmie Dale Gilmore make up in pedigree what they lack in mainstream-name recognition. Alvin's sparkling resume includes a stretch co-leading the seminal roots-rock outfit Blasters; stints in the Los Angeles punk collective the Flesh Eaters; and having songs from his deep solo catalog hand-picked for revered television series such as 'The Sopranos.' The 80-year-old Gilmore counts membership in 'alt-country' forefathers the Flatlanders; Grammy-nominated records that double as middle fingers to the Nashville establishment; and a memorable acting turn in 'The Big Lebowski' among his achievements. Together, the explorers channel the aura of the lonely highways, high plains dustiness and bordertown barrooms that populate their bluesy folk and cosmic country.
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Jason Bonham's Led Zeppelin Evening Announces Summer 2025 North American Tour
The post Jason Bonham's Led Zeppelin Evening Announces Summer 2025 North American Tour appeared first on Consequence. Jason Bonham's Led Zeppelin Evening have added a Summer 2025 North American leg to their ongoing tour celebrating the 50th anniversary of Led Zeppelin's classic 1975 album Physical Graffiti. The new leg follows the current spring outing, which wraps up May 31st in Los Angeles. The summer tour will kick off August 1st in Omaha, Nebraska, and run through an August 31st show in Vancouver, Canada, hitting such markets as Oklahoma City, Denver, and Seattle along the way. Get Jason Bonham's Led Zeppelin Evening Tickets Here A Live Nation pre-sale begins Thursday (May 29th) at 10 a.m. local time using the code FREESTYLE, while a general on-sale starts Friday at 10 a.m. local time via Ticketmaster. The show features drummer Bonham and his band (including guitarist Akio 'Mr. Jimmy' Sakurai) performing Physical Graffiti in its entirety, along with other select classics from the Zeppelin catalog. Jason, who is the son of late Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham, stated at the time of the initial leg's announcement, 'This is my favorite Led Zeppelin album of all time. Being able to celebrate it the way we are planning on this tour is something I am extremely excited about. I can't wait for people to come out and see these shows and celebrate this extraordinary record with us.' He added, 'My goal is to play at least 50 shows to commemorate 50 years…And don't worry there will be plenty of other songs that you also love played that night.' See Jason Bonham's Led Zeppelin Evening's 2025 tour dates below, and read our review of the band's 2024 show at the Capitol Theatre in Port Chester, New York. Jason Bonham's Led Zeppelin Evening 2025 Tour Dates: 05/28 – San Diego, CA @ Humphrey's Concerts by the Bay * 05/29 – Paso Robles, CA @ Vina Robles Amphitheatre * 05/30 – Henderson, NV @ Green Valley Ranch Resort Spa & Casino – Backyard Amphitheater * 05/31 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Greek Theatre * 08/01 – Omaha, NE @ Steelhouse Omaha 08/02 – Oklahoma City, OK @ The Criterion 08/03 – San Antonio, TX @ The Aztec Theatre 08/05 – Albuquerque, NM @ Kiva Auditorium 08/07 – Vail, CO @ Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater 08/08 – Denver, CO @ Paramount Theatre 08/10 – Park City, UT @ Snow Park Outdoor Amphitheater at Deer Valley Resort 08/12 – Flagstaff, AZ @ Pepsi Amphitheater 08/13 – Tucson, AZ @ Rialto Theatre 08/15 – Lincoln, CA @ Thunder Valley Casino Resort 08/16 – Napa, CA @ Blue Note Napa Summer Sessions at Meritage Resort 08/17 – Redding, CA @ Redding Civic Auditorium 08/19 – Monterey, CA @ Golden State Theatre 08/21 – Anaheim, CA @ Grove of Anaheim 08/22 – Alpine, CA @ Viejas Casino & Resort 08/23 – Bakersfield, CA @ Dignity Health Theater 08/25 – Salem, OR @ Oregon State Fair 08/26 – Jacksonville, OR @ Britt Music & Arts Festival 08/27 – Boise, ID @ Morrison Center for the Performing Arts 08/29 – Spokane, WA @ Martin Woldson Theater at The Fox 08/30 – Seattle, WA @ Paramount Theatre 08/31 – Vancouver, BC @ Orpheum Theatre * = w/ Jager Henry Popular Posts Billy Joel Diagnosed with Brain Disorder, Cancels All Upcoming Tour Dates Man Wearing Nazi T-Shirt Gets a Beatdown from Fans at Punk Rock Bowling Fest The 30 Best Action Movie Stars of All Time, Ranked Freddie Mercury's Alleged Child Revealed in New Biography Is The Who's Farewell Tour in Turmoil? Zach Braff to Return for Scrubs Reboot Subscribe to Consequence's email digest and get the latest breaking news in music, film, and television, tour updates, access to exclusive giveaways, and more straight to your inbox.
