Yardbirds
Roger The Engineer

THE REVIEW

The Yardbirds were incredible. They charged forward and cleared the path like a burst, wiping out everything in their way. In fact, they were so damn good that people still imitated them even 10 years later - and got quite rich from it, I might add - because the original group of geniuses didn't last long.

Of course, none of their adoptive children were even half as good as they were, and as time went on, those stepchildren became increasingly vain and pompous; until, around 1973, a group of emaciated dandies named Led Zeppelin held their last concert, during which the lead guitarist was assassinated with a rudimentary gun by an enraged fan high on strychnine, after just fifty-eight minutes of his two-and-a-half-hour virtuosic solo on a single bass note. Then the audience took the lead singer - who was so high on jimsonweed that he could only regurgitate lyrics like "Glip glip gag jargaruna fizzolfuck" - and cut all his hair, stomped on his harmonica, gave him a change of clothes to go incognito (I believe it was a plus-sized version of Bodyjeans Lifetime Chainmail), and threw him out.

The last we heard of him, he was reportedly trying to sing "Whole Lotta Love" to a bunch of sentimental old potheads in a godforsaken village club. Sickeningly sweet, I'd say. But the Yardbirds, you know, even though they turned all music inside out, lasted only a couple of years. P.S. Lester does it better, thanks Uncle Spara!