Hammer Time

One book that I have intended to read for a long time is Hammer of the Gods: The Led Zeppelin Saga by Stephen Davis, and for Christmas it ended up in my stocking. I wasn’t that impressed with Old Gods Almost Dead — Davis’ bio of The Rolling Stones. OGAD was an easy read but I was disappointed with the gossipy gallop of it. Hammer of the Gods seems to be along the same style, but whereas OGAD told me nothing new, Hammer has produced some interesting tidbits already.

One thing I had always believed is that Keith Moon came up with the name Led Zeppelin. According to Davis, it was actually Who bassist John Entwistle:

While the Yardbirds were in New York, Richard Cole (Yardbird’s tour manager) hung out with Keith Moon and John Entwistle at Salvation, the hot disco of the day. One night Moon and Entwistle were bitching about the Who, about how they hated Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend and wanted to break up the Who and form a band with Jimmy Page and Steve Winwood. And Entwistle said, according to Cole, “Yeah. We’ll call it Lead Zeppelin. Because it’ll fucking go over like a lead balloon.” Moon roared out his maniacal bray, and Richard Cole told Jimmy about the idea the minute he got back to the hotel.

Well, Entwistle was wrong about the general fate of Led Zeppelin but he might have been right about a band fronted by Winwood. Zeppelin and the Who were better off that this version of Zeppelin did not pass. Rock history would have been dramatically different. Later Jimmy Page talked about the choice of Led Zeppelin as a name:

“I was quite keen about Lead Zeppelin… it seemed to fit the bill. It had something to do with the expression of a bad joke going over like a lead balloon… (but) there’s a little of the Iron Butterfly light and heavy connotation.” (Later), the a was taken out of lead so the thick Americans wouldn’t mispronounce it leed.

The Led Zeppelin name even became part of Jimmy Page’s derogatory nickname. Richard Cole, tour manager, was not a big fan of Page’s thriftiness and had this to say:

“I’m sure he (Page) was born with a fucking gold nugget up his arse — and he’s probably still got that fucking original gold nugget, with two coats of paint on it. He’s the meanest [cheapest] in the world, that’s why they call him Led Wallet.”

Wow. Pretty nasty.

But with Davis’ writing, some stuff has to be settled between myth and truth. AS Robert Plant had to say about the book itself:

“I want to believe Hammer of the Gods because it’s done us huge favors in terms of aura.”

In other words, don’t always believe what you read.