“smaug” see credits below.
When I think of bootlegs I think of Led Zeppelin. My whole life while growing up I heard rumours about rare bootleg albums with legendary live performances from far off concert venues of equal repute. We also heard rumours of a secret vault and secret tapes, and that Jimmy Page was sitting on a trove Zeppelin demos and performances like the Dragon Smaug sat on his treasure under the mountain. The internet has brought many of those bootlegs within reach of any fan willing to look for them, and many more have come out of the woodwork as the traders have connected over the digital realm and opened up their private collections. As we’ve seen with the recent Remasters, Jimmy had indeed been sitting on reels of tape with all kinds of recorded gems behind his castle keep, but there was also another rumour; a rumour of a theft sometime in the early to mid eighties where Jimmy lost some of those very cherished and secret tapes. The specific nature of this theft has never been fully disclosed, nor has scope of it. We don’t know who, or how much, or when – or how many times. We do know that this was no Bilbo Baggins nor some Robin Hood – it was a theft and Jimmy was injured and suffered loss.
Some of these tapes (seemingly) started appearing in bootlegs quite quickly after the theft, but you had to have been a hard core trader or insider to have found them. The rest were considered lost, and their contents open to all kinds of speculation and conjecture until some of it slowly started appearing online.
As much as I abhor the theft and the violation Jimmy experienced having lost all that stuff, I have to say I am very thankful to have been able to hear some of it. One of those lost treasures is Jimmy’s original home demo recordings of the pieces of music that eventually became Ten Years Gone. These are possibly the most gorgeous and compelling bit of guitar music that Jimmy has ever wrote or played. In their demo form they are a masterpiece that I think even rivals Stairway. As much as I love the finished studio recording, these tapes are absolutely magic – and literally can’t be topped. I present them here to be heard and only wish that they had remained in Jimmy’s possession to be released by him in a moment of sharing rather than the back-stab of betrayal and theft.
Featured Image: Tustin Blimp Hanger, by John Fellner, via flickr, C.C. by 2.0
smaug image credit by debbie.elzing, via flickr, CC BY-NC 2.0