ARP "From Jimmy With ARP" half-page black and white advertisement from page 41 in the June 20, 1974 issue of Downbeat Magazine.
Well, look at this! I hope you are noticing the trend. As part of trying to get all my 2020 ARP 50th anniversary celebration posts... eeer... posted, I've been uploading quite a few ARP pieces this month, including two of the many ARP advertisements from the time period that used a very similar half page, black and white format.
And now... I've posted the third. With more to come.
I love that all three of these ads all fit into a theme, but yet they are all very distinguishable from each other. There isn't a stagnant "photo/artwork at top" - "text in the middle" - "Logo in bottom right" format to them. Each of the ads has kept a unique look. As unique as the different artists that are featured in each one.
One other thing I like about all three ads is they all contain one of those little cookies I went on about in my last Carpenters ad. This earlier ad uses the code "DB-620" (Downbeat June 20), but curiously leaves out the "year", unlike that those other 1975 ads included (DB 1-16-75). Looking at a few of the other earlier ARP ads like the Edgar Winter ARP ads that appeared around six months earlier, they too used the earlier cookie format that didn't include the year. No real other comment to make on that fact - just interesting that they changed the format.
Another little thing that separates this earlier ad from the others is the little picture in the bottom right hand corner of three of ARP's products. This little photo also appears in Edgar Winter's Frankenstein and Freeride ARP ads, but not in Billy Preston's Space Race ARP ad or Stevie Wonder's WonderArp ad (none which I've posted yet). Once I've mapped out the timeline for all these half-pagers, it will be interesting to see when exactly they were added and removed.
My past experiences of 'Zep run along the same lines of The Who. I didn't really understand or 'get' the synth influences first time around. The one thing I do notice when looking back, is that fans of Townsend were much more accepting of the band's use of synthesizers where Led fans weren't so sure they shared their favourite band's love for them. Just my observation - your mileage may vary.
Now, where deeper knowledge of most Zeppelin songs flew over my head (except for the mandatory ever butt-grabbing Stairway to Heaven), there was one song I was always willing to get behind...
Carouselabra.
For some reason I've always had an affinity for that one. Maybe it was the synths that first got me hooked? Maybe? It could also have been that some of the dreamier parts reminded me of Alan Parson's stuff. I dunno. Hard to say. But I can tell you when the topic of Led Zeppelin came up with friends at a party, I would turn the convo towards that song, and trying to convince them to play it on whatever stereo system was handy.
Just for fun, I googled the song to see what others had to say, and this rather interesting post on Cheatsheet.com came up - "What Robert Plant Regretted About Led Zeppelin’s ‘Carouselambra’". It takes a little bit of a deep dive on the lyrics of the song.
Go Cheatsheet! Go Carouselabra!
And okay... go Stairway to Heaven!
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