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Thursday, May 29, 2014

Rock Recap: Led Zeppelin, Ace Frehley, Beatles

I've finally graduated college a week or two ago, so you might be seeing more blog posts from me. I'm going to something a little different here and recap the news stories I haven't done posts on.

Led Zeppelin sued
As many of you might know, Led Zeppelin were sued by the management for psychedelic rock band. Spirit's attorney has filed a lawsuit against Zeppelin for copying Spirit's 1968 instrumental "Taurus" in the beginning of Zeppelin's 1971 classic "Stairway to Heaven." This is most likely being done now due to the fact that Jimmy Page is starting a series of Led Zeppelin reissues, starting with the band's first three albums. Next year, it's likely we will see the reissue for Led Zeppelin IV- which is the album "Stairway" can be found. I've talked about this incident before. As a Spirit fan, it makes me angry that Page never at least gave Randy California co-writing credit but Randy didn't think to do anything while he was alive, as he passed in 1997. As of now, singer Jay Ferguson and bassist Mark Andes are the two surviving original members of Spirit's original line-up- with California, keyboardist John Locke and drummer (as well as California's step-father) Ed Cassidy all deceased).

Recently, a judge in Pennsylvania called the lawsuit "unprofessional." It turns out the lawyer in this lawsuit has filed several other lawsuits relating to song plagiarism, one including Usher. Jimmy Page has also chimed in on the news, calling it ridiculous.

Ace Frehley
Former Kiss guitarist Ace Frehley will have a new studio album out next month. The album, Space Invader, will be the guitarist's first studio album since 2009's Anomaly. Today, a single called "Gimme A Feelin'" premired on Rolling Stone.com. Click here to listen.  The album will be released on July 8.

Beatles
As mentioned before, A Hard Day's Night will be re-released on DVD and Blu-Ray through the Criterion Collection on June 24. The movie will also be seeing a re-release in theaters. Late last month, it was announced that the movie will be in theaters during the 4th of July weekend, most likely trying to release it as close to the movie's original release date- July 6, 1964.