Rock Bottom: Dark Moments In Music Babylon by Pamela Des Barres Page A

untested and untried?
    But after Jimmy Page heard John play with Rose at the Country Club in North London, he could see the future of his new band and was determined to hire the no-holds-barred, energetic firebrand.
    John still couldn’t afford a phone and was stunned when the telegrams started to arrive at his local pub—eight from Robert Plant and forty from Jimmy Page’s infamous, imposing manager, Peter Grant. (There were none from Jimmy, already a notorious skinflint, who would soon be dubbed “Led Wallet.”) The drummer balked, weighing his options, finally deciding to take the job with the New Yardbirds. “I knew that Jimmy was a good guitarist and that Robert was a good singer,” Bonham said years later, “so even if we didn’t have any success, at least it would be a pleasure to play in a good group.”
    For the first rehearsal Jimmy, Robert, and John were joined by session player/bassist John Paul Jones, and after pumping out a couple hours of old R&B classics, the foursome knew they had struck rock gold. John was a bit intimidated by the quiet, mysterious Jimmy, but he also knew the music they created together was supernatural.
    A few days later the New Yardbirds left for a tour of Scandinavia, where they got an inkling about their potential. The music they played was sheer, mad magic, and it demanded a new name. In Richard Cole’s book, Stairway to Heaven (he would later be Zep’s road manager and constant companion), he recalled how the band name came from a conversation he had with two members of the Who: “Moon and Entwistle were growing weary of the Who and were kidding about starting a new band with Jimmy Page. Moon joked, ‘I’ve got a good name for it. Let’s call it Lead Zeppelin ’cause it’ll go over like a lead balloon!’” Despite being the butt of a good joke, Jimmy decided to use the name, changing it to “Led Zeppelin” so there would be no chance of mispronunciation. Wasting no time, Led Zeppelin went into the studio, where
they cut their first record in thirty hours for a cost of less than five thousand dollars, including the cover art of the Hindenburg zeppelin sinking into the ocean. The album—full of forever-imitated raunchy riffs, Bonzo’s frenzied, primal attack, and Robert’s seductive caterwaul—sounds like it was recorded in a sweaty little club full of sweaty little girls. It’s still one of my favorite hunks of rock and roll, despite the lambasting it took from the critics.
    While they waited for the record release, Zeppelin played a few club dates in England, but Peter Grant had his huge sights set on America, the land of the almighty dollar. After signing his band to an unprecedented deal with Atlantic Records, he booked Zeppelin’s American tour without the benefit of product in the stores. It was a risk that paid off beyond even Peter’s grandiose expectations.
    America knew they were coming. I could certainly feel it in the air when a new British band was about to hit town, and January 2, 1969, Zeppelin clobbered Los Angeles with transcendental force. The Whiskey-a-Go-Go was full of sweaty little girls, ready for mischief. Haughty Robert Plant shrieked and preened, totally at home in his glory. Enigmatic John Paul winked at the agog audience, and Bonzo’s thrashing made us all thrillingly deaf. But even though his guitar raged, the frail darling Jimmy Page was ill with the flu. I can still see the damp ringlets clinging to his cheekbones as he was carried offstage by road manager Richard Cole. One of his red patent-leather slippers fell off and was quickly retrieved—one of those memorable rock-and-roll moments.
    By the final date at the Fillmore in New York, the album was being played on the radio and the members of Led Zeppelin were amusing themselves with two-hour sets, setting new rock-and-roll standards. The show was so extraordinary that the headliner, Iron Butterfly, refused to follow them. But the bad press had started. Rolling Stone called