Happy Birthday to John Henry Bonham

The birth date of John Henry Bonham :

Bonham was born on 31 May 1948, in Redditch, Worcestershire England, to Joan and Jack Bonham. He began learning to play drums at the age of five, making a drum kit out of containers and coffee tins, imitating his idols Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich. His mother gave him a snare drum at the age of ten. He received his first proper drum kit from his father at fifteen, a Trixon kit. Bonham never took any formal drum lessons, though as a teen he would get advice from other Redditch drummers. Between 1962–63, while still at school, Bonham joined the Blue Star Trio, and Gerry Levene & the Avengers.
Bonham attended Lodge Farm Secondary Modern School, where his headmaster once wrote in his school report card that "He will either end up a dustman or a millionaire". After leaving school in 1964, he worked for his father as an apprentice carpenter in between drumming for different local bands. In 1964, Bonham joined his first semi-professional band, Terry Webb and the Spiders, and met his future wife Pat Phillips around the same time. He also played in other Birmingham, UK bands such as The Nicky James Movement and The Senators, who released a moderately successful single "She's a Mod," in 1964. Bonham then took up drumming full-time. Two years later, he joined A Way of Life, but the band soon became inactive. Desperate for a regular income, he joined a blues group called Crawling King Snakes, whose lead singer was a young Robert Plant.
In 1967, A Way of Life asked Bonham to return to the group, and he agreed — though throughout this period, Plant kept in contact with Bonham. When Plant decided to form Band Of Joy, Bonham was first choice as drummer. The band recorded a number of demos but no album. In 1968 American singer Tim Rose toured England and invited Band Of Joy to open his concerts. When Rose returned for another tour months later, Bonham was formally invited by the singer to drum for his band, which gave him a regular income.

The Ocean.....

Well, it's more like a pond now!!  But damn listen to it on headphones and I mean a good quality pair of headphones,  not those little nobby things that come with your Ipod.  Go out and buy a good pair of Sennheiser's and really LISTEN to music my brothers and sisters.

Back to The Ocean (Led Zep)  seriously doubt it can be pulled off anymore which is why there is no more Led Zeppelin, that's right I said it folks...there will never be another Led Zeppelin.
I'm sure JP will release another album and he might even do a few shows but it won't be anything like what you might expect, that's just the way it is.  RP will probably slam into another drug counselor, which I laughed my ass off to by the way!!
JPJ will pittle about doing whatever strikes his fancy.... and there might be an attempt to replace JHB   but they will always miss the mark in doing so, because they jump on the bandwagon cuz that's what musicians do these days.  Integrity is lost in today's music world  a decision might be made to use shit I don't know Dave Grohl, that guy's got about as much ability to play those classics grooves as Jerry Lewis has the ability to play Jackie Gleason's character in The Honeymooners!!  Slim to none!!
Everyone thinks they know what it takes to pull of that gig, I got news for ALL of them.  The only one who even came close  and only in energy really was Michael Lee, but only in energy.
No one has or will come close!!   And that is fact!!  Indisputable and forthright!!
Peace ta all ya knuckleheads!!

Trampled Under Foot

This is the best version I have EVER heard bar none!  John Henry is just driving this tune the whole way!! For the most impact listen to it with a pair of decent headphones, that bass drum is just killin'.
Enjoy ya'll!

My Travels

My trip to Bolton Abbey

Another Ting...

It kills me when drummers try and make videos about any of Bonham's grooves for instance,this attempt Aaarrgghhh! is well intentioned but, it's not the groove that was played by Bonham.
I'm not really sure if drummers even realize that those 16th notes are dubbed they weren't actually played during the actual performance of the song in the studio.
If you listen to the fills John Henry plays you'll hear that there's no way he's playing 16th notes, it was dubbed to give the song more of a active feel to that's all.

The groove is a lot simpler than that!  There's probably a few 8th and 16th combinations on the hi hat but a majority of the groove lies in the feel between the hi hat and snare drum.  I've talked about this in one of my earlier posts how drummers even well known drummers usually miss the mark with replicating these very simple grooves.  It's not what John Henry played it's how he played these grooves that makes them rhythmic gems.

Just had to get that off me chest is all!
Peace

How Many More Times

You know something, I've not had anything which I felt like I've needed to write about lately but there is one thing I have been paying more and more attention to.

I'm not sure how many of you have heard LZ's song "How Many More Times" but there's two things that have always intrigued me about this tune one is the intro where Page, Jones and Bonham are grooving during the intro and it sounds like Jones and Bonham weren't on the same page as far as where the time is then when JP comes in with that trademark riff, you can clearly hear that Bonham is on top of the situation.
Coming from the jazz world, if that kind of drop in time were to happen the track would have been scrapped and another take would've ensued, but that's what makes Zep, Zep afterall, innit?

The production quality is not very heavy in the low end, that's probably on purpose,  but there are some other really cool devices used most notably during the "bridge" way back in the mix you can hear Page has layered in what sounds like a slide guitar on volume swells or something to that effect, afterall I'm not a guitarist.
Also throughout the bridge you can hear Bonham's fills but the time is not being marked by a hi-hat which has always peaked my curiosity as well, was it taken out in the mix or was it just not there?

The energy on this tune is fantastic, it's mean and driving which is rock n' roll epitomized of course but it also reflects the attitude of the group as a whole when approaching song craft.  The consistency of the band's approach to all of their recordings is without doubt one of the best in the history of rock n' roll, in my humble opinion.

If you listen to this Recording you'll hear exactly what I'm saying about the intro, but if you listen to the live recording in Denmark HMMT Live you'll see there's no problem at all so I guess my question would be, what's up with that?
Whatever the reason it's a great tune and that's all that really matters!