Led Zeppelin News

Paul McCartney has expressed his disappointment at Led Zeppelin’s decision to reunite without frontman Robert Plant.

The Kashmir hitmakers announced last month that they plan to hit the road in 2009 without Plant, who has opted out of the reunion shows.

The remaining members of Zeppelin, Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones and the late John Bonham’s son, Jason, are now auditioning singers to take over vocals.

But fans of the rockers don’t want to see the group with another frontman - and former Beatle McCartney concedes it won’t be the same without Plant.

He says, “What’s happened to Planty? He was great at their gig. It’s such a pity.”

http://nightwatchershouseofrock.blogspot.com/2008/11/paul-mccartney-disappointed-in-led.html

Funeral services for British drummer Michael Lee (Robert Plant, Lenny Kravitz, Thin Lizzy, The Cult, Little Angels, The Quireboys) will be held on Wednesday, December 3 at 10:45 a.m. at Darlington Crematorium in Darlington, England. All flowers and cards can be sent to:

John Meynell Funeral Service
150 North Road
Darlington
County Durham, DL1 2EJ
United Kingdom

Daniel Stanton of Coallier Entertainment, which has worked with Thin Lizzy in the past, said in a statement to BLABBERMOUTH.NET, “The results of post mortem was a seizure, apparently the worst one he could have had.

“Michael passed away at his flat (home) in Darlington. He was found at his home by his friend and police on the floor beside his bed.

“Michael was out the night before [he died]. He said he wasn’t feeling well and went home to rest it off. When he didn’t answer his phone the next morning, a friend had the police enter his home.

“Michael will sadly be missed.

“I have received endless calls from fans, friends and family members surrounding Michael’s death.

“The guys in Thin Lizzy are crushed, I have spoken to people in the Robert Plant camp who have also expressed the same. Spike from the London Quireboys has been dedicating their shows each night to Michael. Dave Ling from Classic Rock magazine is said to be doing a feature on Michael Lee in an upcoming issue.

“We will all miss Michael. His boyish smile, his humor, his love and his talent, [but] most of all, we will miss his friendship.

“Michael died way too young. He shares his death with Freddie Mercury of Queen and drummer Eric Carr of KISS who also passed away on the same date.

“We love you, Michael. You are forever in our hearts and your music forever in our souls.”

Michael Lee was born Michael Gary Pearson on November 19, 1969. He landed a gig in Robert Plant’s solo band in time for 1993’s “Fate of Nations” album and stayed with the Led Zeppelin singer when he reunited with Jimmy Page in 1994. The drummer toured extensively with the Zeppelin duo and appears on both Page & Plant’s official albums: 1994’s “No Quarter: Jimmy Page and Robert Plant Unledded” and 1998’s “Walking into Clarksdale”.

http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbermouth.net/news.aspx?mode=Article&newsitemID=109853

Pianist and singer Diamanda Galás is famous for her intensity, and that’s no less true in conversation than it is in performance. But if her concerts often start with sorrow and spill over into horror, her interviews are punctuated with laughter on both ends of the line.

Although she often performs in sacred spaces—as she will on Saturday (November 29), when she plays St. Andrew’s-Wesley United Church, as part of World AIDS Day—she’s a wonderfully profane raconteur. Over the course of our more than hourlong chat, she touches on wolf songs, the inadequacies of digital sound, Whitney Houston’s brilliance, Wynton Marsalis’s ego, plus the slim possibility that she might be tapped to fill in for Robert Plant should Led Zeppelin ever stage its long-delayed “reunion” tour.

Which isn’t so strange, really, given that she occasionally makes music with Zep bassist John Paul Jones, notably on their 1994 collaboration The Sporting Life. Galás claims that she’s been teasing her pal about “his little gig with Zeppelin without the singer”.

“I’m just dying,” she says, reached at home in New York City. “I’m laughing. But would I do it? Yes. I would do it for a limited amount of time, as if I were doing a musical, like the Ethel Merman role. I would do it for money.

“I have to say that I love John Paul Jones, don’t get me wrong,” Galás continues. “And, I mean, Led Zeppelin? My God, what a great band! It’s just that I couldn’t sing ‘Communication Breakdown.’ I did it once, and that was enough for me.”

http://www.straight.com/article-172356/diamanda-rough-taps-life-and-zep