Take a Walk on the Dark Side

by R. Gary Patterson

  In John Bonham’s segment, the drummer skips the occult references and drag races in his hot rod around town. “John Bonham chose to be real, simply himself,” says Massot. “He’s sort of a teddy boy—playing snooker, riding hot rods, a whole exercise in energy and power. He drives a nitrogen-fueled dragster at 240 mph on a quarter-mile track [Bonzo was filmed at Santa Pod Raceway at the controls of an AA Fueler]. The sequence ties in nicely with his drum solo which is pure power and energy.”30 There is also a scene in which he practices his drums next to his young son, Jason, who has a matching scaled-down drum set just like his father. The interacting of all three film sequences helps create an atmosphere of illusion that drifts back and forth to the crashing sounds of Led Zeppelin in concert. At times it becomes difficult to determine the difference between reality and filmed fantasy. In a tragic foreshadowing, this tender scene between a father and son reinforces the terrible tragedy that will soon shake Led Zeppelin to its very core.

  The Song Remains the Same was released on September 28, 1976. Within the next year tragedy would once again strike Robert Plant. During the American tour of 1977, Plant received an emergency phone call at his hotel in New Orleans. The call was placed by his wife and the news was almost beyond belief. When Plant returned to join his friends after a two-hour phone conversation, he announced that his young son, Karac, had just died. Karac was five years old at the time and can be seen innocently playing in a mountain stream in The Song Remains the Same. Plant had named his son after a great Celtic warrior, Caractacus. Caractacus waged a fierce war against the Roman invasion of Britannica in A.D. 43. When Caractacus was finally captured by the Roman legions and returned to Rome, the emperor Claudius was so impressed with the hero’s bravery that the captive warrior’s life was spared. However, Robert Plant later stated that he and his wife also referred to their infant son as “Baby Austin, after that Bionic Man. He knows no fear, has no anticipation of danger. I envy him.”31 It seemed that Karac Plant had contracted a respiratory infection the morning of July 26, 1977. His condition worsened and an ambulance was called to take the child to the hospital, but Karac died on the way. Doctors called the infection “strange” and “extremely rare.” Plant was devastated, as any father would be. He stated, “All this success and fame, what’s it worth? It doesn’t mean very much when you compare it to love of a family.” 32

  Plant immediately flew home and the remainder of the tour was canceled. The funeral was held one week later, but Richard Cole says that he and John Bonham were the only two Zeppelin insiders in attendance. When Plant asked where Page, Jones, and Grant were, Cole answered that maybe they were uneasy about death and funerals. Plant replied, “Maybe they don’t have as much respect for me as I have for them…. Maybe they are not the friends that I thought they were.”33 Plant then asked, “Why do these terrible things keep happening? What the hell is going on?” The press also seemed to have the same questions, and in the tabloids the Zeppelin Curse made front-page news. Early fans recalled the rumors of a secret pact with Satan. Was this the pay-back? Had Kenneth Anger’s curse finally caught up with the band? Critics blamed the misfortune on bad karma, and Jimmy Page was forced to answer: “It’s [karma] just the wrong term to ever use, and how somebody could write that down, knowing the full facts about what has happened, I don’t know. It shocks me. The whole concept of the band is entertainment. I don’t see any link between that and karma, and yet I’ve seen it written a few times about us, like ‘yet another incident in Zeppelin’s karma—John Paul Jones has a broken hand.’ It’s nonsense—that was years back. It’s all crap. This thing about karma really bothers me. Where’s the clue? Why are they using that term? It’s a horrible, tasteless thing to say.”34 A disc jockey from Detroit claimed that “If Jimmy Page would just lay off all that mystical, hocuspocus occult stuff, and stop unleashing all those evil forces, Led Zeppelin could just concentrate on making music.”35 The press re-called Page’s infamous sorcerer’s suit that he wore in The Song Remains the Same and how he immediately flew to Egypt after interpreting a zeppelin flying over the pyramids as some mystic sign. Robert Plant was rumored to have blamed his son’s death on Page’s fascination with the occult. Only it was Plant who paid the demon’s monstrous debt. If Plant had his doubts, he never acknowledged them publicly. Page again answered angrily: “The people who say things like that don’t know what in the hell they are talking about. And Robert sure doesn’t need to hear that kind of crap. A lot of negative things have occurred recently, but tragedies happen. Why do they have to have to make it worse by talking that way? Why don’t they let Robert mourn in peace?”36

  The death of Karac served only as a tragic prologue to the bizarre events that would follow. The following month, August 16, 1977, Elvis Presley died. Led Zeppelin had always considered Presley one of their main inspirations. (Presley and Zeppelin had actually met once, and Elvis wanted to know everything about the wild rumors connected with Led Zeppelin on the road.) The next month, September, while returning home from a pub, John Bonham suffered two broken ribs in a car accident. For the next year things became quiet while Plant mourned in seclusion with his family, but in September of 1978, Zeppelin friend Keith Moon of the Who died from an overdose of a medication prescribed to help him stop drinking. So within a year, an influence on the group (Presley) and the individual who was claimed to name the group (Moon) were both dead.

  It was two years before Zeppelin began recording In Through the Out Door. The album was released on August 15, 1979, ironically one day before the second anniversary of Elvis Presley’s death as well as the sixty-first anniversary of Robert Johnson’s death. The album’s artwork was designed in a series of six shots. The bar scene resembles a Caribbean bar, and to some onlookers the man in the white suit burning a small slip of paper bears an uncanny resemblance to Jimmy Page. Each album was placed in a shrink-wrapped paper bag so that the buyer could not tell which artwork it contained. The albums are numbered on their spines with the letters A to F. (Some of the original vinyl recordings contain the term “strawberry” inscribed into the run-off grooves.) Each of the six photos reveals a different perspective of the bar as seen by a different onlooker. As a final touch, if the album jacket came into contact with warm water, it supposedly changed colors. The recording contained some brilliant work, such as the beautifully moving “All of My Love” composed by John Paul Jones and Robert Plant. Side one, however, begins with the haunting, discordant sounds of “In the Evening.” Some of these musical passages were inspired by musical themes left over from Page’s Lucifer Rising sound track. The release of the new album brought the group members attention on the promotional tour. It had now been over two years since the band had toured America in concert. A few concert dates in England seemed to rekindle the creative spark within the band. They all felt as if they had been reborn. Rehearsals were scheduled, and for yet another time, the possibility of the Led Zeppelin jinx would once again make headlines throughout the world.

  On September 24, 1980, drummer John Bonham was chauffeured down to Jimmy Page’s new Windsor mansion, the Mill House. He had purchased the estate from British actor Michael Caine for £1 million. On the way to the rehearsals, Bonham stopped in a pub and drank an estimated four quadruple vodkas. When he arrived at Page’s new home he continued to drink, downing two or three large drinks. He then attended a reunion party hosted by Page and continued to drink at least a couple of larger drinks each hour. He passed out on a couch at midnight, and Zeppelin associate Rick Hobbs helped a very intoxicated Bonham to a bedroom. Hobbs placed Bonham on his side and left him alone to sleep it off. When Bonham had not made an appearance by midafternoon, Robert Plant’s assistant Benji LeFevre went in to wake him. After shaking Bonham, LeFevre noticed the body was blue and cold. An ambulance was called and the ambulance crew worked diligently to resuscitate John Bonham, but it was to no avail, and John “Bonzo” Bonham was dead at the age of thirty-one.

  With the announcement of Bonham’s death the rumors of
the Zeppelin Curse again took precedence at the newsstands. One fan claimed to have seen thick black smoke coming from Page’s home the night Bonham died. Other fans swore that Page had spoken in strange, unknown languages. Another rumor made the rounds concerning the existence of a Zeppelin “Black Album.” This mysterious recording was said to contain death chants translated by a German writer from Old Swabian. Also, “The London Evening News headlined ‘Zeppelin “Black Magic” Mystery.’ An unnamed source close to the group commented, ‘It sounds crazy, but Robert Plant and everyone around the band is convinced that Jimmy’s dabbling in black magic is responsible in some way for Bonzo’s death and for all those other tragedies… I think the three remaining members of Zeppelin are now a little afraid of what is going to happen next.’”37

  John Bonham’s death was declared an accident after the coroner had determined that the drummer had consumed forty measures of vodka in a twelve-hour period. The body was cremated within a few days of his death and a memorial service was held for him on October 10, at Rushock parish church. Ironically, the funeral service was only two days before Crowleymas, the occult celebration of the birth of Aleister Crowley! All the surviving band members attended Bonham’s funeral. Within a few weeks it was determined by a unanimous decision that Led Zeppelin would be no more. In 1982, a few outtakes and some unreleased recordings were made available. The album title was Coda. This was to prove appropriate, since in musical compositions a coda is the closing section of a song or movement. The black discs on the cover are said to represent records. Others believe that the circular objects are actually mystical crop circles. (If this is the case, then it would foreshadow the release of the four-CD box set with its crop circles theme.)

  Plant, Page, and Jones went their separate ways and recorded their own solo projects. Page joined the Firm and later teamed with former Whitesnake vocalist David Coverdale. Plant recorded a number of successful solo albums, and if you look at the album jacket credits, on certain cuts you can see the Zoso symbol representing a Jimmy Page contribution. John Paul Jones retired to the studios and became a very successful writer and producer. Of course there were to be continued rumors of Zeppelin reunions throughout the years that followed. Some reports suggested that Jason Bonham would take his father’s place within the band. When Led Zeppelin performed at the Atlantic Records anniversary shows, Jason Bonham took his father’s place as the band ran through several of their classic hits. Yet, that year also ended with the cold realization that Zeppelin would fly no more.

  The next few years saw the release of the Led Zeppelin box set in 1990. A large number of Zeppelin hits had been digitally remastered. The cover art portrayed a zeppelin flying over a field marked with crop circles. There is a series of numbers included in the corners of the album jacket. The numbers are: 54 (which happens to be the exact number of tracks contained in the set); 69 (the year of the first Zeppelin release); 79 (the year that the last studio album was recorded; and ∞(the mathematical symbol of infinity, representing how long the music will last).

  Since everyone had thought that the collaboration between Page and Plant was over, and that Plant was still upset over the rumors of Page’s occult dealings, the music world was suitably stunned when Jimmy Page and Robert Plant announced that they would reform a new group and continue onward. (Curiously, John Paul Jones was left out, and Jones made it known publicly when Led Zeppelin was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.) The new Zeppelin project was simply called Unledded. This recording had a number of Zeppelin songs that were performed with acoustic instruments. It was now perceived that the jinx was over, and that Plant and Page had made up and would continue to write new material. It was also believed that Page had ended his interest in the occult. However, when the date for a live broadcast was announced, viewers couldn’t help but notice its significance. Ironically, it occurred on the night of October 12, 1994, the date of Crowleymas and the 119th anniversary of the birth of Aleister Crowley!

  In 1998, Plant and Page released Walking into Clarksdale. While in concert in Memphis, Tennessee, Plant told the audience, “It all began just over one hundred miles from here.” Of course he was referring to Clarksdale, Mississippi, one of the birthplaces of the blues. Page and Plant also made their way to a private collector who was said to have a film lasting only a minute or so showing Robert Johnson performing. The filmed musician was not Robert Johnson, however.

  Today, four years later, many fans wonder if the title Walking into Clarksdale was a celebration of Page and Plant’s blues background and a reference to the influence of Robert Johnson, or a subtle reminder of musicians in two different times who made a pact for fame and fortune. To those onlookers, it would appear that indeed, “The Song Remains the Same”!

  7 “WELCOME TO THE HOTEL CALIFORNIA”

  —The Eagles, “Hotel California” You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave.

  —Anton LaVey, The Satanic Bible Satan has been the best friend the Church has ever had, as he has kept it in business!

  —David Bowie, Rolling Stone, February 12, 1996, p. 83 Rock has always been the Devil’s music. You can?t convince me that it isn’t.

  In the late 1970s, many parents groups began to complainabout “backward maskings” and occult references in rock recordings. Rock groups of the late 1960s and 1970s performed Gothic sets of music included with album art that seemed to come out of Hammer Films. When did pretense end and reality begin? One of the first groups who created headlines by using occult references was Black Sabbath, fronted by Ozzy Osbourne. Many followers at first believed that the group took its name from a witches’ gathering, when in reality they took their name from the 1963 horror film that starred Boris Karloff. The song lyrics hinted at occult references, and at some shows the band performed in front of a cross that was turned upside down and exploded into yet another Satanic symbol. Throughout his career, charges of following the dark side have haunted Osbourne. To his credit Ozzy Osbourne has appeared on many talk shows explaining that he is far from a Satanist and that his shows include only elements of the theater. Osbourne has also made the statement that the closest Black Sabbath got to black magic was in opening a box of black magic chocolate. In yet another interview he was asked if the name Black Sabbath implied the group’s devotion to the occult. Ozzy’s answer was, “The Rolling Stones don’t cause avalanches.”

  Black Sabbath has had some strange supernatural happenings in their history. Terry “Geezer” Butler, the bassist, is the band’s resident psychic. In dreams of precognition, Butler would often have visions that would many times come true. To better understand his abilities, Butler began researching the occult. It was in the 1970s, and Ozzy gave Geezer a four-hundred-year-old handwritten book on witchcraft and the occult. After he received the antiquated book strange things began happening in Butler’s home. The first night he brought the book home, a black cat was said to have appeared in front of him and then simply disappeared. Butler was convinced that what he had just witnessed was an apparition. At this time his studies in the occult lessened significantly.

  During the making of the Sabbath Bloody Sabbath album, the band stayed in a medieval castle to do some recording and play a concert. One night Ozzy fell asleep in one of the rooms and a burning coal fell from the fireplace and started a fire in the room. Ozzy awoke in the smoke-filled bedroom and made his way to safety just in time. The band left the castle shortly after this episode.

  In the United States during the same time period, rumors surfaced that the Ohio rock group Cheap Trick was led to its name by consulting an Ouija board. Theatrical rocker Vincent Furnier was also said to have chosen the name Alice Cooper as a stage name after conferring with an Ouija board. This urban legend states that Furnier was in contact with a seventeenth-century witch who was condemned and executed for witchcraft. After he had become the father of shock-rock, Alice Cooper’s performances ghoulishly contained scenes with him being hanged and later beheaded upon a guillotine as the crowd r
oared its enthusiastic approval.

  It was also during this time period that comedian Flip Wilson coined a phrase that places all our faults and failures upon the proper guilty party: “The devil made me do it!” In 1966, Anton Szandor LaVey, a former assistant lion tamer with the Clyde Beatty Circus, began his Church of Satan in San Francisco, California. LaVey chose the night of April 30, 1966, as the birth of his “Magic Circle.” Symbolically, the night of April 30 (Walpurgisnacht) is the witches’ sabbath celebrating the spring equinox. Since this sabbath is very close to Easter it is rumored to be a night when all evil forces are at the height of their powers. It is ironic that April 30 is also the date of Adolf Hitler’s suicide in his bunker in 1945. Perhaps it is only appropriate that Hitler, who had a keen interest in the occult, died on the very night when demonic forces were to be given full sway. (Then again, it may represent another coincidence that the name LaVey sounds very similar that of Eliphas Levi.) LaVey proclaimed the year of the birth of his church as the Age of Fire and Annus Satanas—the first year of the reign of Satan.1 The so-called Black Pope was born Howard Stanton Levey on April 11, 1930, in Chicago, Illinois. As Aleister Crowley was defined by his enemies, so LaVey defined himself. Stangely enough, he was called “the evilest man in the world,” in contrast to Crowley, “the wickedest man alive.” Much of LaVey’s biography has now been discredited, and it would appear that his whole life has become an urban legend within itself. For instance, Anton LaVey died on October 29, 1997, yet his death announcement was altered to give the date as October 31, 1997. Employment records with the Clyde Beatty Circuses and the San Francisco Police Department also differ greatly from the Anton LaVey published biography. However, Halloween would be the most appropriate time for the death of such a dark force as LaVey.