Jimmy Page -

The Definitive Biography

By Chris Salewicz

Harper Collins - £10.99

A different sort of story began to emerge about Led Zeppelin on this tour, of an act whose libidinous pursuits were elevated sometimes to the level of an art form. Not least when Page, covered in offal, was wheeled on a hospital trolley by John Bonham into a Los Angeles hotel room filled with groupies, who proceeded to devour him.

('Whole Lotta Love')

Although they liked to think of themselves as muses, most of these girls were little more than trinkets, abused victims. And, as their circumstances dictated, many of them were also hard as nails and capable of being considerably vicious. Jimmy Page would later tell how one of his girlfriends from that scene had once bitten into a sandwich to discover it contained razorblades. 'I'd been on the road with Hawkwind or whoever, writing for the NME, and we'd sneak into the Hyatt and Zeppelin would be there,' said Nick Farren. 'And the whole place was full of the stinkiest fucking groupies. There was something very unclean about the whole deal. Rod and The Faces sort of kicked it off, but it went to some kind of zenith with Zeppelin… with Zeppelin it just seemed to be running in semen and beer and unpleasantness and old Tampaxes.

('City Of Angels').

The renowned, hedonistic exploits of Led Zeppelin are not only notorious, but have somehow traversed the ever changing decades since the sexually charged seventies. It is as if the likes of feminism and some sort of sexual correctness, let alone healing, never took place. And if you are of the persuasion that it did somehow descend upon the likes of Messrs. Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones and John Bonham, then you need to read this occasionally telling, yet revelatory book by Chris Salewicz.

Jimmy Page - The Definitive Biography is clearly of the no-holds barred, kiss'n'tell design, wherein page one already/immediately alerts the reader as to just what sort of literary journey one is about to embark upon: ''Mired in his Cracked Actor phase, Bowie was known to be living on milk and cocaine, and on the edge of madness. He had been inspired to devour the writings of Aleister Crowley, whose philosophy he had first dabbled in during the late 1960s: Bowie believed that Page's deep knowledge of Crowley had enhanced the guitarist's aura until it was rock hard and ringing with power.''

Rock hard and ringing with power might well in this instance, be considered something of a shimmering sexual metaphor. It might also be considered a rather apt description of Led Zeppelin as a whole, who were indeed, musically rock hard and ringing with (acute) power. To the degree that such behaviour as that described in the second of the above opening quotations was the norm.

Not questioned.

In fact, on open parade and openly promoted – as were bouts of vitriol and violence, already/immediately regaled on page three (Introduction): John Bindon, Led Zeppelin's security guard, had stagehand Jim Matzorkis pinned to the floor of a backstage trailer at Oakland Coliseum. Bindon, a sometime actor and London gangland heavy who had reputedly once bitten off a man's testicles and would stab another man to death the following year, was viciously pummelling Matzorkis with his fists and feet. But it was only when Bindon started trying to gouge out the stagehand's eyes that Matzorkis fully appreciated the danger he was in.''

Within the realm of the aforementioned quotations, one will hopefully be able to fully appreciate the literary company one is in - and what sort of book this is - without the need for further description nor overt critique.

David Marx

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