Added items to the Members’ Area.

Added the “Please Read the Letter” video to the Audio Visual Club.

Added a blog entry.

Added items to the Members’ Area

Rhino Records has a new service called Damn Fine Day, where they email you a song for the day to listen and comment on. It showcases all kinds of music. Today’s listen is Alone Again Or from Love. The blurb mentions that Robert Plant listed “Forever Changes” as one of his desert island discs.

If you like a daily dose of interesting listens sign up for Damn Fine Day.

Added items to various parts of the Members’ Area

Added a Descriptive to the Trivia section.

Next to “Big Log”, “29 Palms” is probably the one solo release that I hear everywhere–in stores, at the market, in the elevator, on TV. So we might as well talk about it some more.

Robert Plant’s way with interpreting songs doesn’t stop with other people’s songs. He’s tinkered with a few of his own with interesting effect. He manages to take a song that was good already and make it something new and different and perhaps more intriguing. During 2006 we saw “29 Palms” crop up during the Mighty Rearranger tour with it’s own rearrangement.

Here are three versions of “29 Palms” done live for your enjoyment.

The first version was performed in June, 1993 not long after its release on the “Fate of Nations” album. The song is still pretty true to form. It’s full of swagger and bravado and a sense of c’est la vie.

Thirteen years later, in March 2006, the song reemerges in France. Now it’s a slowed down noirish outpouring of moody reflection. It’s quite different from the original and casts a new, albeit darker, light on a “crazy situation”.

Add another two years and we hear yet another working of the song in May of 2008, this time with Alison Krauss. The song has taken a little sidestep this time. It’s still moody but has more of a swampy, bonhomie attitude. By adding Alison Krauss on backing vocals it becomes more of a storytelling event.

I think my favorite of the three is the Zenith interpretation. I like that dark, slowed down feel to it. Robert has a bit of a lean toward dark and moody in lyrics now and then, and I think this treatment makes “29 Palms” one of those.

Listen (click the triangle to start the player)

Parkpop
June 1993 in Holland
6.0mb mp3 5:16

Zenith
March 2006 in France with Strange Sensation
5.6mb mp3 6:08

Manchester
May 2008 in UK with Alison Krauss
7.2mb mp3 5:13

Added some items to the Members’ Area.

I added a “recent comments” section in the sidebar. Now you can quickly see the newest comments that have been added in the town hall. Click on the poster’s name to go directly to the comment, click on the title of the post to go to the original entry.