Steven Alderton

'Doing it the Zeppelin way'
The Led Zeppelin World Tour Exhibition Catalogue, 19 January 2008.

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Hey, hey mama, said the way you move,
Gonna make you sweat, gonna make you groove
from Black Dog (Jones/Page/Plant)

“I heard Stairway to Heaven and my life changed. Rock music has a lot more to say than the music of the previous generation”.
(Northern NSW fan reliving the 1972 concert)

When Led Zeppelin walked out onto stage on a warm Sydney afternoon in February 1972, Ted Harvey was in the front row armed with camera – and intent. Ted had just driven around the back of the stage, and then positioned himself between 28,000 people and a stage of lonely instruments.

The day before the concert, Ted’s good mate George spent the day building a ladder. He didn’t queue for a day like many to buy their $4 ticket. Dave had other plans for entry. The morning of the concert he took his home-made ladder to the side brick wall of the Showgrounds with a view to scaling it.

Some people were brazenly walking down the street carrying ladders. Others were scurrying through holes in the fence. When George got there he found 3 other ladders leaning on the fence. One of them was far superior to his, so he discarded his lumpy version and used the better one to join the masses.

Mad Dave borrowed a stewards white overcoat and started directing traffic into the restricted parking area next to the stage. The first person that was fortunate enough to take advantage of Dave’s unofficial duties was a young Michael Chugg.

Once inside, Dave, George, Chuggy, Geoff Harvey, Ted Harvey and 28,000 other official attendees were quietly anticipating a life changing cultural phenomena. As far as a shift in popular culture and society goes, Led Zeppelin truly left their mark that day. Be it the harrowing vocals of Robert Plant, the maniacal drumming of Bonzo or the trance inducing layering of rhythmic sounds.

Led Zeppelin left their mark on the generation that attended the concert and equally with generations that have followed. From Wolfmother the band to Danius Kesminas the visual artist, there are many associations and references to Led Zeppelin in contemporary pop culture.

This exhibition spans the ages and will always have currency to those who have been touched. Be it on a Sunday afternoon in 1972 at the Sydney Showgrounds, the Byron Bay East Coast Blues and Roots Festival, or in a garage in Mullumbimby, there is an enduring legacy of music, freedom, creativity and identity offered to the world by Led Zeppelin.

The exhibition includes black and white images of the concert by Ted Harvey and responses by leading Australian artists; Adam Cullen, Gareth Sansom, Lucille Martin, Geoff Harvey, Craig Waddell, Danius Kesminas, Nicholas Harding, Euan MacLeod, Alan Jones and Reg Mombassa. Some of these artists were at the concert, some wanted to be at the concert, and the others have been influenced by the band generations after the concert. To see life size freezes of Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones and Bonzo from 35 years ago is a chilling and inspiring moment.

CRAIG WADDELL has a connection with Led Zeppelin and his own youth – the boys from the ‘burbs, riding high on adrenalin. Youthful, free, exploring masculinity, breaking rules and having fun. The Wings of Darkness offered a flight of freedom, a passageway out of the darkness associated with confinement and conventions. For young people growing up in western Sydney, Zeppelin blasted light and shade into the adolescent years of confusion.

“In the back of Rob’s Toyota wagon we drove around looking for good times, bad times and anything in between. Johnno stood tall on Fra Denar’s desk in German classes, smashing out air guitar to ‘Stairway to Heaven’. We looked for a flight zone out of the boredom of rules and regulations. ‘Stairway to Heaven’, blasted out of the stereos in ‘bong houses’, everybody unashamedly stoned, speechless but flying high,” said Craig.

“Boys who grew wings to fly to a mystical heaven, removing themselves from life’s uncertainties. Zeppelin – at last the sense of release; the Wings of Darkness set free, no longer bound by adults telling us what to do, when to do it, and more importantly how to do it.”

“Betty got his P plates and we flew up the Gosford highway, in his old man’s souped up V8 Commodore. Zeppelin screamed out loud from the speakers, I thought they were going to combust. Betty hit the infamous wind tunnel that led to the suspension bridge. A boy in search of manhood, possessed, his foot hit the accelerator hard. The V8 started to shake. No relenting, he had grown his wings and darkness was now left in his wake.”

Boys from the ‘burbs, bush boys desperate to impress. Testosterone levels rising – these were the days of new-found independence.

“Zeppelin lifted the darkness of the working week; blurry eyed, slurred speech and sloppy kisses. We all shed our wings, sometimes soaring to great heights. The melancholic tunes left us floating above the tedium of our reality. The pied piper called us to join him and we did, in walks a lady we all know, under these lights she stole the show.”

GEOFF HARVEY’s work, Bingo sings black dog for Ted Zeppelin is a whimsical found object sculptural piece Geoff made in response to Ted’s time-arresting photos. The photos were taken in a time when being young was the only experience they knew. Listening to Led Zeppelin was the coolest thing you could possibly do.

‘For me the photos of the band represented everything that was great about being of that generation. We were truly liberated by Zeppelin music, we were nothing like our parents generation, and we looked so different to them with our long flowing hair and hippie beads,’ said Geoff.

For the length of his art career ADAM CULLEN has been the bad boy of rock. He has played up to it, but beyond the public persona there is an artist at work of considerable skill and sensitivity with an innate understanding of popular culture. There is a real blunt sense of honesty in his work that almost beats you with a stick. Yet beyond the bravado, there are many layers of meaning in Adam’s work.

Led Zeppelin were always looking for new influences and sparks to spawn new ideas and ways of thinking. ‘The very thing Zeppelin was about was that there were absolutely no limits. We all had ideas, and we’d use everything we came across, whether it was folk, country music, blues, Indian, Arabic’, said John Paul Jones. Similarly, Cullen scans the cultural horizon looking to feed on fresh new influences like Antipodean clichés (kangaroos are a favourite), Japanese manga, relationships and his Irish heritage. His work is strong, powerful, angry and yet balanced with humour. In the end, Cullen’s work is universal, readable from any standpoint.

REG MOMBASSA is a visual artist, graphic designer and musician – a real renaissance man. Some of his paintings and his designs for Mambo can be seen as a form of anti-social realism. Reg has spent 30 years in the forefront of Australian popular culture. He has played guitar for Mental as Anything, designed images for Mambo shirts and held numerous exhibitions. His tee shirts defined a generation of youth in the eighties and nineties. Like Led Zeppelin, wearing a tee shirt with an artwork of Reg Mombassa on it was a statement, it said who you are. As much as Led Zeppelin is more than a tee shirt, by wearing a Led Zeppelin shirt you identified with the band and promoted your spiritual allegiances for all to see. Like Led Zeppelin, Reg Mombassa paintings have an almost mystical power that seem to conjure up primal passions.

Reg formed the iconic Australian pop band Mental as Anything in 1976. ‘We were an art student band, we had that in common so we had our creative tensions and squabbles,  but we seemed to be tolerant enough to get on quite well and plus we had that shared background, I think. It was like being in a slave ship in a way in those tour buses with the little racks and bunks. I mean, I probably shouldn’t say that, I’m sure a slave ship is a lot more unpleasant than a tour bus, but it was that kind of claustrophobic atmosphere. You’re kind of protected and looked after, it’s like being a child really.’

To LUCILLE MARTIN music was a balance to her conservative education in a Catholic Ladies College. Her introduction to the music of Led Zeppelin was a heady mix of passion and rock; stirring the hormones. Í rocked and sometimes rolled along to Whole Lotta love in the 70’s as a point of rebellion while studying for my HSC.’

“In the years that followed, growing up on the coastal city of Perth, Western Australia, my girlfriends and I would meet the guys from the neighbouring colleges driving around in their noisy VW’s (Voxwagon Stationwagons) from suburb to suburb coasting for waves. We were apprentice surfie chicks. Crammed eight to a car, girls sitting on the boys laps, arms slung around each others shoulders, a ‘Stairway to Heaven’ cassette tape blaring out from every window, all of us singing our lungs out.” said Lucille.

“We all knew the words were a promise to our future. We had been liberated from the generation of the 60’s, no wars to fight, just the expansion of freedom and a whole lifetime ahead of us. Those two songs were the only ones I knew, but Led Zeppelin were poets to us, musical fortune tellers, experimenting with life and sharing their wisdom.”

Lucille’s artwork simply honours the words to Stairway to Heaven, and explores Plant & Page’s communion with nature. She is most concerned with how to support nature whilst we grapple with climate change. Stairway to Heaven was the definitive cycle of birth, life and death – all things to all people, a lot like the band. Why? “Because, it makes me wonder.”

DANIUS KESMINAS spends a lot of time in contemporary pop and rock culture. Danius’ Houses of Holy 2008 artwork is the sculptural embodiment of Led Zeppelin’s untitled fourth album (although the title takes its cue from the band’s subsequent release, Houses of the Holy). It is a riff on Richard Serra’s seminal 1969 lead plate sculpture One Ton Prop (House of Cards).

The four outer plates with perforations of the band members’ runic symbolisations are an exact scale replica of Serra’s original. Like a mother ship, it contains a smaller version repeated internally in the manner of Jimmy Page’s double neck guitar (Mothership, incidentally, is the title of the most recent Led Zeppelin compilation CD). Serra’s lead prop pieces chronologically coincide with the recording of the band’s first four records.

Rosalind E. Krauss’ could be writing about Led Zeppelin in her description of One Ton Prop, “Four lead slabs (each weighing 500 pounds) maintain their mutual erectness through the reciprocity of their leaning sides, propping each other up, by weighing each other down.”

This fake lead rock prop also refers to the stagecraft stylings of Spinal Tap’s Stonehenge model which, to the band’s horror, was replicated at 20” not 20’!

Serra’s sculpture and its House of Cards subtitle strangely resonates with Page’s enthusiasm and use of Tarot cards. Houses of the Holy also physically and ritualistically articulates the Led Zeppelin songs, When the Levee Breaks, Four Sticks and No Quarter. It is a literal cover version of the founders (in both senses) of heavy metal.

(Meta)Physical Graffiti 2008 by Danius is a work of lead castings from the Houses of the Holy plate moulds. These vaguely mystical runes symbolize the four individual members of Led Zeppelin as a rock’n’roll secret society.

The Zorso symbol represents Page; the trinity imposed on a circle, John Paul Jones; three interlocked circles, John Bonham and the feather inside a circle, Robert Plant. The meaning of each symbol is difficult to divine. Drummer Bonham claimed he chose his because it was an inversion of the trademark for his favourite beer, Ballantine. Jones’ symbol has been interpreted as a rune to exorcize evil spirits. Plant has commented that, “I like to lay down the truth. No bullshit. That’s what the feather in the circle is about.” Page’s symbol is far more elusive and esoteric. It is connected to his obsession with the occult, the Norse god Thor, the Roman god Jupiter and the Rosicrucian Order. Page allegedly offered an explanation of his symbol to Plant alone. According to Plant, ‘you may not believe this, but Pagey once took me aside and said “look, I’m going to tell you this once and then I shan’t ever mention it again. And would you believe that I’ve since forgotten what it was, and now Pagey won’t tell me. That’s the only light I can throw on it.”

Led Zeppelin is a band that has influenced ALAN JONES’ life and his upbringing since the first time he helped himself to older brother Todd’s record collection. He was 12 years old. Reaching for Led Zeppelin IV there was a sort of curious excitement. “As I touched the needle on the black turning vinyl, I heard Black Dog for the first time, every note in its riffs propelled me into adolescence.”

On the Rock ‘n’ Roll shows a human figure morphing into another life form and ascending into another reality. The work references the experience of Alan’s youth when he played that vinyl for the first time.

GARETH SANSOM wasn’t interested in Led Zep in the 70’s like everyone else.

He discovered them late, only a few years ago at the age of 63 or 64. Someone gave Gareth a DVD of the best of Led Zep live performances. After viewing the DVD he became infatuated with the performance of Kashmir and eventually named a small painting as a kind of tribute.

Robert Plant wrote the lyrics in 1973 while driving through the Sahara Desert in Morocco. He said it was the song that best defined the band.

For much of 2003 and 2004 Gareth painted whilst Kashmir was playing on his sound system. The paintings weren’t directly related to the music, but it was there – providing a constant state of rock as the foundation of thought.

Gareth said, “It was Jimmy Page who seduced me I think. It was odd seeing how they looked now in the recent concert – but then I quickly remembered how handsome I was in the early 70’s!

EUAN MACLEOD recently was in New Zealand, his homeland. He worked on a series in response to Led Zeppelin called Misty Mountain Hop.

“With the painting, I’ve responded in an obvious way to a song title that I thought would be easier to paint while I was on holiday in New Zealand (usually lots of mist and mountains there). I’ve never been that interested in the lyrics (too hippy!), but love the contrasts of soft/heavy, quiet/loud and delicate/raw which I think is also a strong element in my work.”

“I first heard Led Zeppelin along with bands like Black Sabbath and T-Rex listening to my older sister’s records in the late sixties. I would have been about 12.”

Interestingly, a few of the artists were 12 when they first heard Led Zeppelin. Maybe this is when you grow your musical tastes, or else it’s just the energy of Led Zeppelin that has continued to be a ‘guilty secret’ for Euan.

As with many artists like Gareth and Nicholas, Euan usually paints to music to help get him in the mood. Led Zeppelin has consistently got an airing, especially Led Zeppelin III and Physical Graffiti – probably his favourite albums.

NICHOLAS HARDING grew into adulthood with the pulsating discovery of Led Zeppelin’s music. “Decades ago I was a testosterone-riddled teenage loon air-guitar dancing around the lounge room to Led Zeppelin II, IV and Physical Graffiti. What a wonderful rumbling racket they could make!”

As soon as he could drive he had many head-banging moments to and from the beach listening to Led Zeppelin. Other times “I could just lie on the floor of my darkened bedroom with headphones on to soak up all those deliriously delicious crunching chords dancing on a walloping back-beat or the epic strings and pastoral sheets of twelve-string guitar and always the whisper to scream of Plant’s freak-of-nature pipes.”

For Nicholas, they embraced all kinds of music and their excitement was contagious. “Playing with the traditions of American Blues and British folk, inspired and influenced by such extraordinary contemporaries as Hendrix, this immensely gifted group created a sexy, revolutionary rock music infused with gospel, jazz, reggae, soul, pop, Arabic and Eastern forms opening doors and windows to other great music. These things become a part of you forever. The contemplative or loon moment is still there for me when they turn up on iPod shuffle.”

And so,

Talk and song from tongue of lilting grace, whose sounds caress my ear
But not a word I heard could I relate, the story was quite clear
Oh, oh.

Oh, I been flying… mama, there aint no denyin’
from Kashmir (Bonham/Jones/Page/Plant)

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