Led Zep

Amen.  Nothing goes down heavier than the Led Zeppelin.

Love the Led!

Just for a fun comparison > https://youtu.be/FH9Ow2DvpQc

Bustle in Your Hedgerow, Lockn 2AM set at the small stage in the camps

I was in that crowd, somewhere...

....and while no Led cover band can compare with the authentic version, imagine how stoked i was to be walking through the camps and suddenly hearing the first notes... I wasn't even heading for that stage! 

Bustle is the best.  I like them better than JRAD. After  all they, gave birth to JRAD.  

The idea of all the songs played as instrumentals with Marco interpreting the vocal melodies through the keyboards is beyond musical brilliance!

I shared an elevator with the Page and Plant of Bustle.  I had no idea who they were, but they were tall and looked like rock stars.

Ken do you really think zep is heavier then sabbath? I love them both as I know you do too. I have my feeling but curious where you stand on this most important topic.

Nothing like the bass line in good times, bad times to make such a career opening statement. But Black Sabbath is a pretty damn heavy introduction as well.

It dawned on me last year when listening to Cream's live version of Spoonful on Wheels Of Fire, that bands like Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath weren't the first bands to play loud and heavy.  The Jimi Hendrix Experience is another one, The Yardbirds, The Kinks, The Who, The Seeds and a whole lot of Garage Rock bands before that.  The Sonics 1964 single "The Witch" is a great early example:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7_HiQomh_Zo

I stumbled across this cover of Johnny Kidd and the Pirates 1959 single  "Shakin All Over" that the Guess Who recorded in 1965 and was surprised that they got that loud and raw so early:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=f2lCDQ8j9bE

I guess what set Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath apart was that they were almost exclusively loud and heavy, didn't pander to the pop market while still becoming pop stars, unlike the Sonics, and surrounded themselves with the aura of the occult.

Vanilla Fudge baby. 1965. Carmine is like a heavy metal Demi-god to me.

Man, shaking all over sounds great, thanks for that. Never heard it before.

Deep Purple has a seat at this table too I think.

>>>>Ken do you really think zep is heavier then sabbath? 

Yes.  Kind of an "X factor" thing. 

Of course, Sabbath set out to be heavier than Zeppelin.  According to Ozzy, he and the Sabbath guys (they may have been still "Earth" at the time) first heard Zeppelin I at a party in London and were raving about it in the van all the way back to Birmingham.  Ozzy was going on about heavy Zeppelin was, when Tony who was driving looks over and says "We will be heavier."  Geezer has also talked about how when they were cutting their first album, they laid on the studio floor, smoked a fatty, and put on Zepp II for inspiration.   The reason I mention this is that by consciously trying to out heavy Zeppelin, Sabbath's heaviness is a wee bit contrived.  But it set a trend that would follow heavy music through the years, with subsequent bands trying to one up each other in term of speed, distortion, and aggression.

But where Zeppelin really outpaces Sabbath goes back to that X factor.   The song "Black Sabbath" from the first album is arguably one of the most evil songs ever recorded.  But again, the whole evil side of Sabbath was contrived and was for entertainment purposes only.   Ozzy and Geezer have admitted so much.  By contrast, Jimmy Page was a serious student of the dark arts.  No bullshitting around.   Especially combined with Zeppelin's light and shade musical dynamics, the fact that Jimmy Page was really tapping into unseen dark forces further solidifies Led Zeppelin's position as the heaviest band of all time.  

My brother Mark and his buddies used to hold a marathon "Zep Fest" annually for several years.  They'd listen to every album and several bootlegs, starting in the afternoon and ending sometime the next day.

They were such geeks that they developed a table with every participant having their own row and the columns were marked in half hour segments.  The table was on the wall and you were supposed to enter important data, like when you drank a beer or had a shot, when you threw up, ran around naked, etc.

I visited for two of those and it seemed like that was enough to shave a few years off my life.

They were pretty fun, though.

I think that one of those fests was in close in proximity to a Dead show (either Frost or Oakland).  I was happy to decompress and mellow out during that show.

Post some of these heaviest songs, please. 

Dazed and Confused seemed pretty heavey to me.

Off the top of my confused head.

Ironically, Page ripped off their heaviest shit from the likes of Bert Jansch and Davy Graham - some of the finest acoustic guitarists in London, who would also be contemporaneous to Young James, the Serial Session "Borrower."

I will hand it to Zeppelin, at least they came around to crediting the likes of Willie Dixon (although the harm to the estates of Jansch, or California, et. al remains unrepaired, as far as I can tell) where a, say, Paul Simon will go to his grave as a tiny, unrepentant schmuck...

Wow, awesome answer. Most of that is news to me (except the contrived and occult stuff), so I appreciate the summary.

Iconically, Jimmy Page is forever linked to Gibson guitars through rock photography.

Really though, he made all those album sounds on a telecaster.

  NIce posting team

and good to acknowledge the earlier leaders of " heavy"

Quite a legacy 

>>>>Post some of these heaviest songs, please. 

Exhibit A  - Communication Breakdown & Whole Lotta Love - Royal Albert Hall - January 9, 1970:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ilVMa2D-OA

This is probably the earliest instance of fans headbanging caught on film. 

Exhibit B - Immigrant Song - Sydney - Feb. 27, 1972

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66ChMPV0LTg