The 70s and rampant hard core drug use became mutually attached manifesting into a proverbial Siamese Twins joined the hip. All the cool rock stars were either binging on their daily dose of cocaine or heroin or both. Since the passage of time many a boring book was written on many a boring band and how the circumstance of fame was a dark cleft on the mountain of stardom. The natural precipice was to embrace all the woe the fortunes of being a rock star by aping your own brain chemicals in hope of having a creative outlet. It was a tried and true formula that worked well for a short time. Cocaine and heroin did make good on their promise to deliver some quality material which one can date back to the days of Miles Davies, Charlie Parker, Jackie McLean, and Dexter Gordon who were all shooting smack like spoiled Abyssinian cats waiting upon their next fix.
Jimmy Page circa 1976.
The burden heroin had to offer was becoming scare as seeing jazz was declared officially dead sometime in 1964 when white, mainly British acts were stealing from their American rock ‘n’ roll pioneers who were too chickenshit or overtly racist to try the black man’s social ill escapism into musical bliss. Eric Clapton once said he never saw a black person in his entire life until he came to America. This lead to some problems as popular 70s acts such as the Osmonds, Captain and Tennille, Bread, and ABBA to flourish. They all wrote mediocre but well-crafted pop hits designed for AM radio and profitable sales of singles.
Back when American rock 'n' roll was drug free and loving it.
Schleppy was never about singles. They hated the idea of having to make them and were pleased with distancing themselves from the fray of marketing their drek on an economic stance for their gullible fan base. Instead, Schleppy wanted to write and record long-winded and extremely boring songs clocking in over an average of 6 minutes in order they were achieving some kind of conceptual musical history much in the same way of their proggy rock counterparts. Much of what Schleppy produced resulted in the most comical nonsense ever to be committed to tape and live shows. Presence was an album that thrived upon those principles even though Schleppy had exhausted all of their creative reserve on the previous offering leaving Schleppy but mostly Page to delve into his unconscious delicacy of guitar gimmickry offset tunings and an unvaried series of sounds. His guitar playing comes off being so dated that when he was chasing the dragon it must have been the same one he wore on his ridiculous pants. Nothing much in the way of having a creative spark was to be found here even if Page himself believed heroin was a ticket towards restitution recollecting himself that he was some kind of musical genius. Page’s whole contribution to this album comes off as sounding suspicious and solitary in thought.
Robert Plant returning from The Elysian Fields of plagarism
Plant’s lyrics were of no help once again truncating his (ahem) poetry into complaints and perceived Tolkien imaginations going one to many times in that well of perspicacity that fit snugly into the Schleppy narrative of entangling fantasy with little reality. Just one listen to this album and you can define that Pant was struggling between the two. Atlas Mountains, Greek Mythology, New Orleans drag queens, more blooz plagiarism, rockabilly and idiotic self-reflection all expressing repine and lament rather than actual songwriting effort. It was becoming quite clear that even heroin could not help Schleppy forsaking themselves into a seven song sorrowful meditation that their best days and albums had already passed them by.
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by Terry
