Posted by Dread Zeppelin makes for an excellent elevator pitch. The moment I read (I believe it was in Rolling Stone magazine) that there existed a band that played reggae versions of Led Zeppelin songs with an Elvis impersonator impersonator for a lead singer I was deeply interested. How could I not be? I love Zeppelin, I love reggae, I love Elvis, and I love novelty music. Heck, Dread Zeppelin was checking boxes I didn’t even know needed checking.
(Now, I’m no fan of cover bands – not by a long shot – but nothing in the description of Dread Zeppelin even remotely suggests “cover band” or “tribute act”. Clearly these guys were using pre-established material and doing their own thing with it, just like jazz and blues artists have long done, along with a million musicians before them. Heck, one could argue that Elvis himself was more of a cover band than Dread Zeppelin is. But I digress…)
And then I heard them! Dear lord have mercy, if Dread Zeppelin’s Living Loving Maid isn’t better than the original then I’m a blasphemer. I tell you, their debut album Un-Led-Ed is an astounding achievement; it’s nothing less than a tour de force. The arrangements, the playing, the production value…I mean the album is brilliant, simply brilliant.
So when I saw that Dread Zeppelin was coming to little tiny Zaphod’s on June 3rd, 1994* I was on it like Jimmy Page on a Howlin’ Wolf riff. I didn’t care that none of my friends would or could join me and I didn’t care that I was so broke that I showed up at the bar around 7pm*** hoping to skirt the cover charge. Sure I loved the band, but I was literally busking outside the liquor store and making balloon animals for tourists to make a living, and thin money makes thinner pride.
So it was that I was alone in the bar when Dread Zeppelin did their soundcheck, which provided a tasty start to the night. After they finished I spoke to one of the guys in the band – I believe it was the guitar player – and was amazed to learn that at this point Dread Zeppelin had been together for years. I’d assumed that someone had come up with the whole concept (likely under the confluence of some combination of Jack Daniels, sweet ganja, and off-brand veterinarian prescription pills) and put up a poster looking for musicians but no, it turns out that Dread Zeppelin had been a band since…get this…since high school!!! For a few of the musicians Dread Zeppelin was the only band they’d ever been in. I was astounded.
But not as astounded as I was by the show itself. The door guy ended up coming ’round and charging me before the band started so I didn’t duck the cover after all, but my early arrival gave me a great seat up close in an already-modest bar and the show was fantastic. I have already expounded on how much I like the music, and they just nailed it live. It was so exciting, so engaging, and so blatantly fun. You may have noticed that I described the singer as an Elvis impersonator impersonator and if you did, you probably thought it was a typo. Well, I don’t maek typos buddy! Because the frontman for the Dread is not directly impersonating the King, not a bit. In fact, Tortelvis is impersonating Elvis impersonators themselves, which results in the most cliché, over-the-top Elvis impersonation imaginable, and all while belting out way-on-down versions of Led Zeppelin classics. He even has a sideman named Charlie Haj who lurks in the shadows ready to hand Tortelvis a fresh towel (a play on key Elvis crony and founding member of the “Memphis Mafia”, Charlie Hodge).
The attention to detail is incredible, as was the band itself. They played everything I knew from Un-Led-Ed and a bunch I only half-knew (‘cuz I knew the original material) from their not-yet-released and not-nearly-as-good followup entitled 5,000,000**** and it was all so very fantastic. I strongly urge you to check them out online; every track is another tasty Jamaican patty of Memphis British blues appropriation dripping in clever-crispy reefer-grooves, and it is all sonically delicious.
I see that a Dread Zeppelin documentary has recently been released. I hope it catapults the band’s popularity enough for them to break their promise and start touring again****.
*Or perhaps it was October 22nd, 1993, but I’m leaning pretty heavily on the June date. Somehow I neglected to record this show in my ticket book so I was left to turn to the internet, which informed me that DZ played at Zaphod’s** twice during this general time period. But I’m really thinking it wasn’t jacket-weather outside, so I’m going with the June date. Sue me.
**The real name of the bar was Zaphod Beeblebrox, named after the President of the Galaxy from the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series. The place closed down in 2017 after a rather impressive 25+ year run as a staple in Ottawa’s live music scene.
***Though this sounds like an absurdly early hour to be showing up to see a band, it was in fact merely crazy early, as Zaphod’s strict policy dictated that live music started at 9pm sharp and ending absolutely unquestionably certainly and definitely by 11pm. No matter what, no matter who. Except maybe when The Rolling Stones played there.
****The album title 5,000,000 is a reference to the band’s promise/threat that they would break up once they had performed in front of a total of five million paying customers. So the fact that I attended this show means that I am directly responsible for breaking up Dread Zeppelin.
Sorry everyone.
Todd Man Out 