Legendary LED ZEPPELIN singer Robert Plant took part in a performance and interview on last night’s (Friday, February 4) edition of CBS-TV‘s “Late Show With David Letterman” at 11:30 p.m. ET/PT. You can now watch video footage of his appearance below.

According to The Pulse Of Radio, Robert Plant says that BAND OF JOY‘s next studio set won’t rely on cover songs and will be the band’s first to feature newly-written original material. Plant and the band are currently out on the road and dipping into his solo catalogue and including his 1988 solo hit “Tall Cool One” in the show’s setlists, along with revamped versions of such LED ZEPPELIN classics as “Ramble On”, “Houses Of The Holy”, “Tangerine”, “Gallows Pole”, “Thank You” and “Rock And Roll”.

Plant told The Pulse Of Radio that for BAND OF JOY to continue to grow as a band, they need to hunker down and start creating new original music. “We’re talking, we have to write songs now,” he said. “It’s all very well celebrating other people’s songwriting, and I know there are other artists who have had an entire career; whether it be Elvis (Presley) or (Frank) Sinatra, or a lot of the country artists who never write. But we’ve got to be heading that way soon.”

“Band of Joy” sold 49,000 copies in the United States in its first week of release to debut at position No. 5 on The Billboard 200 chart.

Plant‘s first release since recording the six-time Grammy-winning bluegrass album “Raising Sand” with collaborator Alison Krauss in 2007, the “Band of Joy” CD enlists the help of an array of U.S. musicians, all of whom are performing with Plant on tour.

The new lineup of BAND OF JOY includes: Patty Griffin on vocals; Darrell Scott on multiple instruments and vocals; Byron House on bass and vocals; Marco Giovino on drums, percussion and vocals; and co-producer Buddy Miller on guitar and vocals.

“Let There Be Rock”, the AC/DC concert documentary that was filmed December 1979 at the Pavillion De Paris, will finally receive its long-awaited DVD release in June (postponed from the previously announced January). Eddie Trunk, the co-host of the VH1 Classic television program “That Metal Show”, was interviewed about the band’s impact for one of the DVD’s bonus features. He wrote last year on his blog, “[The company which is releasing the DVD is] doing some cleanups to the audio and video and making it as high-def as the source will allow.” He added, “I can tell you I have an advance and it looks and sounds great, but they are making it even better!”

According to the All Music Guide, “Let There Be Rock” was released in France a year after it was filmed, though American release was delayed until well after the band had established themselves in the States with new vocalist Brian Johnson and the multi-platinum success of the “Back In Black” album.

In his review of the original “Let There Be Rock” film, Fred Beldin of the All Music Guide wrote, “Director Eric Dionysis captures the excitement of the live show with an energetic style and effective close-up shots, though the staged interviews and sub-‘The Song Remains The Same’ fantasy sequences show the band to be bemused but not convinced by these attempts to add some arty depth to the proceedings. The highlight of the extracurricular segments is Bon Scott, radiating warmth and humility in these last interviews before his untimely death at age 33 from alcohol poisoning.”

Photos from the studio can be viewed below (courtesy of Queensryche.com).

In a 2010 interview with Attention Deficit Delirium, QUEENSRŸCHE drummer Scott Rockenfield revealed that the band’s upcoming CD is taking the quintet in some new directions.

“I add a lot of film score elements or sound effects [into my drum work], especially on the new thing we’re working on right now,” Rockenfield said. “Geoff [Tate, vocals] and I have really spent a lot of time together redesigning the QUEENSRŸCHE thing, which you’re going to love. It’s huge rock but with a great dance vibe to it, real modern dance. It’s kind of like ‘Rage’ [‘For Order’] through a time tunnel, bringing it into the now. There are a lot of electronic elements to it. It’s a big rock thing that is going to have a lot of color to it — it’s good and really intense.”

When asked about the progress of the songwriting sessions for the follow-up to QUEENSRŸCHE‘s 2009 CD, “American Soldier”, QUEENSRŸCHE singer Geoff Tate stated on Eddie Trunk‘s “Friday Night Rocks” radio show on New York’s Q104.3 FM, “In a sense, it is [a concept record]. It’s a very contemporary record.

He continued, “‘Empire’ was a record of the time. Rock music was really the music of the times in 1990. Unfortunately, rock music isn’t the music of the times anymore — it’s very underground.

“What we’re doing with this record is we’re taking the ‘Empire’ song structure, in a sense, where it’s very strong songs, very melodic, but we kind of restructured the rhythm section, and Scott‘s done an amazing job on restructuring that — him and Eddie [Jackson, bass] have just really gone to town, and they’ve made it very contemporary-sounding.

“These days, in comparison to the old days, people used to sit in their houses and listen to music right in the front room on their stereo system. People don’t do that anymore. They plug in and they’re mobile and they’re moving and they’re doing stuff and the music, they’re listening to it as they’re doing stuff. This music has that feel. It’s very contemporary in the sense that it’s very rhythmatic. The rhythm structure kind of reflects the way modern life is — we’re all busy, we’re all doing stuff. And Scott being the incredible drummer that he is, the various time signatures, the feel of the record, it’s now — it’s very, very now.”

QUEENSRŸCHE‘s Queensrÿche Cabaret tour was filmed for future DVD release. The trek, which kicked off in late July 2010, was previously described by the group as “Teatro ZinZanni meets Cirque du Soleil, with the band performing their hits and never-heard-before selections accompanied by go-go dancers, burlesque dancers, drag queens, a juggler, ballet dancer, trapeze artist, a contortionist and others. Definitely a fun-filled evening like no other full of freaks and shrieks!”

The reunited classic “Animosity” lineup of CORROSION OF CONFORMITY — Mike Dean (bass, vocals), Woody Weatherman (guitar) and Reed Mullin (drums) — “[has] been writing new music non-stop lately,” Weatherman says in a posting on the band’s web site. “We have 12 songs or so ready to record when we head out to the studio in Los Angeles in the middle of March. I’d say the tunes cover a wide spectrum of the C.O.C. sound, from very fast to doom. Our longtime producer John Custer (1991’s ‘Blind’, 1994’s ‘Deliverance’, 1996’s ‘Wiseblood’, 2000’s ‘America’s Volume Dealer’, 2005’s ‘In The Arms Of God’) will be working with us again on the new record and Mike Dean has threatened to join in on some of the production work as well. Also a lot of touring in the very near future. In addition to the already announced European dates in April, we have scheduled a handful of U.S. dates and another European tour in June and July that will be confirmed shortly. Looking forward to all.”

CORROSION OF CONFORMITY‘s October 14, 2010 concert at King’s in Raleigh, North Carolina was professionally filmed and recorded for an upcoming DVD.

With the twenty-fifth anniversary of the classic “Animosity” album approaching, the original incarnation of CORROSION OF CONFORMITY played its first live show in over twenty years on July 30, 2010 in Asheville, North Carolina.

The reunited trio has recorded a new seven-inch single, “Your Tomorrow (Parts 1 and 2)”, which was made available via Southern Lord‘s web site.

Mullin co-founded CORROSION OF CONFORMITY in 1982 as a hardcore punk act alongside Weatherman and Dean before leaving the band in 2001 amidst health concerns.

CORROSION OF CONFORMITY‘s latest album, “In the Arms of God”, came out in 2005 on Sanctuary Records. The group’s first collection of new material since 2000’s “America’s Volume Dealer” was produced by C.O.C.‘s longtime collaborator John Custer.

Published by rbtaleman

Heavy metal (fiend/friend?) Writer, frustrat(or), frustrat(ee), decorated U.S. Navy veteran, Husband(twice), father(three times), grandfather(of seven), FM radio veteran, Concertgoer, music collector, muscle car aficianado. Grown up since five. Child since 45. View all posts by rbtaleman