Nobody's Fault But Mine

That’s a very appropriate song title because I messed up this month. In the mad rush of Christmas (and with a few other “life” things going on), I forgot that Frank and I were supposed to put together an Enzepplozine for you.

Instead, I’ll just talk to you off the cuff and from the heart, ok?

First of all, Frank and I both hope you and yours had an excellent Christmas and that the New Year will be your best year ever.

I can’t tell you how much I’ve enjoyed getting to know many of you through our Facebook Fan page. Thank you so much for sharing your love of Led with everyone. You’ve been so generous with your comments and photos. Zep people really rock.

For those of you who are new to our site and our ezine, this might be a good time to tell you a bit about Enzepplopedia, who we are and what the heck we’re trying to do here.

Frank is my younger and only brother. (Not my husband, as some of you have imagined, thank you very much anyway!). We both have “real” jobs that keep us busy, so Enzepplopedia is a labour of love that we work on in our spare time.

Frank’s a graduate of the renowned Niagara Parks Commission School of Horticulture and also has a B.A. from the University of Guelph, Ontario. He currently works as a Class A Gardener with the City of Welland Department of Parks and Cemeteries.

You know those beautiful garden beds that spell out service club messages or logos? He and his work partner design and maintain those. They did one for a local radio station’s anniversary – a 50’ berm that featured a guitar in living flowers. Gorgeous stuff.

I’m a freelance writer and editor with a degree in French translation and a background in print advertising that now encompasses writing for the web. I can keep cut flowers alive for days longer than I can a plant. All black thumbs. An herbicidal maniac. I absolutely despise gardening.

Life is pretty weird sometimes, isn’t it? Who’d have thought such different skill sets would ever dovetail together as they have? More on that in a minute.

Frank first coined the word “Enzepplopedia” at my place, when I was living in a suburb north of Toronto called Thornhill (I’ve since moved back home to the Niagara area of Ontario). He would come up there whenever he needed time and space away to work on his writing. Think of it as his “Bron-Y-Aur”. He did!

“Enzepplopedia” in its original and purest form is an encyclopedia-style glossary of musical terms he created to describe Led Zeppelin’s music in a way that has never been done before. Based on the live concert recordings he’s been collecting since high school, he analyzed the band’s musical evolution throughout its career. It’s an absolutely massive work. No one can quite believe it when they first see it.

In 2005, he and I hauled his original manuscript to London, England and showed it to someone who shall, for now, remain nameless. But I promise you, he’s a well known and respected figure in the Led Zeppelin world. He sat there in the lobby of our hotel, transfixed for hours. Never budged. I kept fetching him tea and biscuits.

Finally, he told Frank that it was a masterpiece and absolutely had to be published. In fact, he said that there should be a place made for the finished book in the British Conservatory where there are works on The Beatles and The Rolling Stones but, sadly, nothing similar on Led Zeppelin.

The problem he had (that we’ve also been struggling with) was HOW to publish it? It’s just so darned big. With the fortieth anniversary of the band’s formation coming up on September 7, 2008, we decided to break it down into more manageable chunks by focusing on that first year of the band’s existence.

In addition to the musical analysis (which you have to be a real Zed Hed to appreciate because it’s so intense), Frank had interviewed some pretty amazing people. His interest in Led Zeppelin has always been the music first, not the tawdry details of life on the road. The other thing that fascinated him was how the band influenced other groups, music in general and popular culture.

With that in mind, we decided on our title of Sonic Boom: The Impact of Led Zeppelin. Volume 1 would be called “Break & Enter” because it told the story, through Frank’s interviews, of how Led Zeppelin first “broke” in Scandinavia in 1968 and “entered” the North American market and music history in 1968-’69.

This is funny. Now. It wasn’t so funny at the time...

In December 2007, Frank and I travelled to a traditional publishing house in the U.S. At that point, we were thinking about self-publishing but weren’t sure we could – or should – do it ourselves. The suits we met with included the owner, a production person and a woman who sniffed that it was such a pity the public preferred the likes of Led Zeppelin to opera and classical music. Well, excuse us! (By the way, we both happen to love all kinds of music, not just Zep, and have been somewhat classically trained).

After a very uncomfortable hour of total disdain, they told us they might be interested in helping us out. “When were you hoping to have it published?” they asked. I said, “It absolutely has to be published on Led Zeppelin’s 40th anniversary date of Sept 7, 2008.” They said, “Oh my. That’s not possible. It takes us two years to produce a book.”

Did I mention that I come from a print advertising background? In my world of catalogue and flyer production for two of Canada’s leading retailers, no one can take two years to get a bloody book printed and hope to stay in business. Then they said, “Well, send us the manuscript and we’ll see if there’s any way we can squeeze it in.”

When I told them the manuscript wasn’t finished yet, they laughed us back to Canada. Fine. We’ll do it ourselves. We’re like that. Determined to do the impossible. Frank runs 100-milers for crying out loud. So we formed Enzepplopedia Publishing, Inc.

By the way, Frank was still interviewing people up until June of 2008. I had exactly one month to edit the entire book (it turned out to be 736 pages) and have the pre-press people prep it for the printer. But we all worked together and got ‘er done on time. It was a total thrill to send an autographed copy to that publishing house. (Because we honestly couldn’t have done it without them igniting the necessary fire under us).

A lot of you have been wondering about Sonic Boom Volume 2, which we’ve entitled “You Shook U.S.” (Get it? Like the blues song they covered at that time, You Shook Me. Only this is an in-depth musical analysis of the band’s debut album and a first look at that “Enzepplopedia” I was telling you about).

Well...it’s still our dream to publish it someday (it IS pretty awesome and not at all like the first book!). But Volume 1 taught us many lessons and the publishing/self-publishing world is in the same kind of transitional chaos now as the music industry was a few years ago. It has been a bit overwhelming. It’s taking us a while to get our bearings and sort it all out.

And then there’s Volume 3: The Tape Kept A-Rollin’. Can you tell it’s about boots? Actually, that one’s almost in the can, ahead of Volume 2.

Frank is still passionate about the research and writing he has done. We both want to get it all out there and share it with you. He really has unearthed all kinds of amazing stuff and it’s not doing anyone much good where it is. Volume 1 was just about that first year of the band’s career: 1968-’69. Only twelve years’ worth left to go (and that’s AFTER Volumes 2 and 3)!!!

So there you have it and here we are, at the end of another year. We hope 2011 will be full of great news about your favourite band and ours. At the end of his newly minted and much ballyhooed biography, Jimmy Page teases us with these words: “It Might Get Louder”.

We all hope it does, don’t we?

A very Happy New Year to you and yours from Frank and Lou at Enzepplopedia.

Best wishes always, Lou Anne

PS - I know this email says it's coming from Frank and his signature appears below. Our developer is away for the holidays and I'm a technodunce, so I'm doing the best I can here. Like the Wizard of Oz, I don't know how to make it work...

Reminders

Want to learn about Led? Visit Learn-about-Led.com

Order Sonic Boom Volume 1 here.

And don't forget to tell us what's YOUR favourite Led Zeppelin album!

Do you already own True Blues & Beyond, my e-book that explores Led Zeppelin's earliest influences in the blues? It's free for Enzepploziners. Click here to download it.