Tortelvis

I was lucky to have had the opportunity to see Dread Zeppelin during their heyday. It was May of 1991 – 3 days before the band’s second album, 5,000,000 (*Tortelvis Fans Can’t Be Wrong) dropped – and the band was on fire!  Playing the famed  86 Street Music Hall in Vancouver (long since shuttered), Dread Zeppelin was rapturously received by an audience that was fully vested in the fun of the construct. The band was earnest, and surprisingly tight; playing it completely straight and in character all night, and we loved every minute of it.  Pitched as the cosmic consequence of a Vegas style Elvis impersonator getting into a car accident with a van full of reggae musicians, you’d be forgiven if you actually believed the mythology surrounding the band because the conceit was so brilliantly absurd that it seemed improbable that anyone could have dreamt it up. But they were more than just a novelty act – they existed in a liminal space between the suspension of our disbelief and the will for them to be real. That was part of the magic that was Dread Zeppelin that was often overlooked by critics. We all wanted them to be real – and so they were!

Over the years Dread Zeppelin has changed members & personnel (with several distinctly different lineups & periods), and suffered losses (the late great Jah Paul Jo)^[1]Jah Paul Jo, AKA Joseph Jack “Severs” Ramsey is largely credited with creating Dread Zeppelin, but it is that band,as they appeared in 1991 that I remember and celebrate most.

The video above of course features Stairway – a song Dread Zeppelin intentionally saved for their second album (to stretch out their run), but you’d be wise to check out their first album, Un-Led-Ed, as well. It has the distinction of featuring Your Time Is Going To Come, which was recorded with such care and respect for the original that Robert Plant once said he preferred it to the Led Zeppelin version. I wish there was better live footage available from those early years to share with you (like there would be today). There’s stuff out there, but but the quality isn’t particularly good and it only partially captures what it was like to be at a show.  That may change soon though. There’s a Dread Zeppelin movie in production (though long rumoured Dread Zeppelin film projects have been in various stages of production since the early 90’s) that may surface with some long hidden performance gems.

Today the high concept mashup style parody band is a genre unto itself. As spontaneous or long-term projects, they can materialize and dematerialize at will, but it’s not unusual to find bands like The Pizza Underground or Beatallica on local bills. And none of this would have been possible without Dread Zeppelin and the path they paved through popular culture. Even performers like Puddles Pity Party can be seen as coming from this legacy – particularly when you consider how the audience actively participates in sustaining the mythology.

So here it is – almost 30 years gone from the last time I saw them perform – and I’m sitting here on my couch surfing YouTube for more Dread Zeppelin videos. And as I reflect on the concept of nostalgia and the sadness it can invoke, I take a certain comfort in knowing that Tortelvis is still out there – somewhere – and Charlie Haj is standing by with a towel at the ready.

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