Led Zeppelin

I'm reviewing a bio of the dread Zeppelin and realizing that they were my first foray into sophisticated music. Laugh if you must but they went far beyond the simple textures and orchestrations that I'd been listening to up until then. They, more than Pink Floyd, were the Radiohead of the 70s. Except that they were so much better than Radiohead (Wait, maybe that means Radiohead was the Pink Floyd...).

The Abrasion of Formless Time

Robert Stone has a particular American story that he keeps telling in all his books. There's always an idealist, a drug-fiend, and an enlightened realist, although sometimes the realist and the drug-fiend are the same. The idealist dies; the realist suffers but makes it. Meanwhile we get a dirty version of America and environs over the last half century.