Archives: May1995

• Live Shots: Jimmy Page and Robert Plant America West Arena May 10, 1995

  “This can’t be a Led Zeppelin show. I feel so safe.”

• The Black Crowes: Something to Crowe About

  Steve Gorman, drummer for the Black Crowes, remembers the first time he realized his band was no longer the new kid on the block.
  “Two years ago,” he recalls, “I was sitting at my brother’s house in Baltimore and he puts on MTV. The veejay goes, ‘After the break, we’ll have the Crows for ya.’ And it comes on and it’s Counting Crows! I’d never even heard of this band, and all of the sudden they’re the Crows. But I think Darwinism always wins out. Give it time.”

• Hank Ballard: Annie Had a Co-Worker

  If room-temperature lyrics like “just the thought of your kiss sets my heart on fire/I reminisce and I’m filled with desire” inspired banning, what possible hope could Hank Ballard and the Midnighters have had with getting this lascivious couplet on the radio: “Annie please don’t cheat/Give me all my meat”? Answer–not a hope in Hades!

• From the pages of Planet: Tea & Sympathy

  This ran in the May 19, 1995 edition of the short-lived Planet Magazine. Serene wrote the article under one of his Serene Dominic Companion nom de Plum’s Art Poppadopolous.

• WHO’S THE FIFTH LED ZEPPELIN?

  If this notion of a “fifth” honorary member is so prevalent in one British supergroup, why in all these years has no one ever come forward and staked a claim to be the fifth Led Zeppelin? Zeppelin has sold just as many records and cast an equally long shadow over today’s recording artists as the Fab Four. Quite rightly, Zep should also have an honorary fifth member who can share some of the credit for the band’s remarkable success. Let’s examine some possible candidates upon which we can bestow this most coveted of honors!

• Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers/Jayhawks – Desert Sky Pavilion, April 25, 1995

  Tom Petty occupies a strange place in our collective psyche. Because of his notable collaborations with respected rock elders like Bob Dylan, George Harrison and the late Del Shannon, we tend to view him as a rookie instead of the 20-year veteran that he is. When he and the Heartbreakers began recording in the mid-Seventies, his sound seemed like a throwback to the British invasion, especially in light of the bloated excess it was forced to compete with in the pop marketplace. Although nobody bandied about the term “classic rock” back then, it seems like a category tailor-made for Petty. He has staunchly avoided ever-changing musical trends, the only exception being when he let Eurythmic Dave Stewart mar his Southern Accents album with an obviously trendy “sound of the month” production approach.