LED ZEPPELIN :: ACHILLES LAST STAND

+ Sonic Boom: The Impact Of Led Zeppelin, Volume 1: Break & Enter

"Page was really, really fast on the guitar. What a player - and loud! Plant's vocals were almost out of control and had a desparate quality to them that i hadn't heard in any other singer, quite like that. Bonham and Jones looked and sounded like they knew what they were doing. Like I said before, we didn't know who Jones, Bonham and Plant were. My friends were stunned at how Zeppelin played too. We were all impressed at how good they were. And they were only an opening act." -Bob Stall on Led Zeppelin's Dec. 29. 1968 Portland, Oregon Performance.

Sonic Boom: The Impact Of Led Zeppelin, Volume 1 Break & Enter by Frank Reddon is the first part in a series on Led Zeppelin as told by people that were there, seeing them live and concert and from the outside perspective of those that were alive and aware of the changing times of rock music.

From Don Fitzpatrick, who promoted Led Zeppelin at the JFK Pavilion, Gonzaga University at Spokane, Washington, who got swung at by Jimmy Page for introuducing the band incorrectly to the late, great DJ/VJ J.J. Jackson who attended Zeppelin's January 1969 Boston Tea Party shows to Andy Simpson, a San Francisco blues guitarist who discusses the 1960s music scene in San Francisco, I really got a total and complete sense of Led Zeppelin in their infancy.

This 736-page behemoth boasts 53 separate interviewees as well as a section of learning resources, which contains suggested books, articles, websites, officially released CDs and DVDs.

Volume 2: You Shook U.S. and Volume 3: The Tape Kept A-Rollin' are future volumes in this series set to be released later in 2009 and I personally cannot wait to read them as quickly and with such enthusiasm as I did this 1st edition.

You can order Sonic Boom: The Impact Of Led Zeppelin, Volume 1 Break & Enter online and via mail from the Enzepplopedia Publishing, Inc. website.

+ The Making of Led Zeppelin's

The Making of Led Zeppelin's (2008 Edition) by Robert Godwin is a thoroughly exhausting discovery into every aspect of Led Zeppelin's fourth untitled album.

This softbound book starts off right away, diving into some of the band's most mysterious aspects, the four symbols. From John Bonham's symbol that looks like the Ballantine Beer logo, to John Paul Jones' man-woman-child-themed logo, to Robert Plant's Ra symbol to the eternally unknown Zoso, everything gets explained, with historical documentation.

Godwin also displays different album covers and singles covers from different countries, as well a history of the recording of the album, with interview snippets from the people that were there, a history of Headley Grange, the old house in which most of the album was recorded in as well as a description of how the epic "Stairway To Heaven" was created.

Around the time that the fourth album was released, Led Zeppelin had finished their Return To The Clubs tour, another US tour, a trip to Japan and were about to start a tour through England. A chapter on these tours that featured songs from the fourth album is chronologed.

Finally, a listing, a description and a bit of history is told about each track in the album.

This book should have a rightful place in every Led Zeppelin fanatic's bookcase. It contains 112 pages of pure facts, no bloat.

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