Fist of Doom

Track listing:
We're Gonna Groove (1970)
Poor Tom (1970)
I Can't Quit You Baby (1970)
Walter's Walk (1972)

Ozone Baby (1978)
Darlene (1978)
Bonzo's Montreux (1976)
Wearing and Tearing (1978)

Hokeyboy

OK. Try to conjure up an album that featured nothing but the LZ songs you routinely skip because they represent filler at best or total shit at worst. That's Coda. An album full of "The Crunge", "Hats Off To Roy Harper", "Night Flight", "Down By The Seaside", etc. But WORSE.

I suppose "Bonzo's Montreaux" is kind of worth it for fans. It's probably the only salvagable cut off the album (other than MAYBE the "I Can't Quit You Babe" alt take). Otherwise this "album" of unreleased junk is precisely that. Waste of time, worse than Pol Pot, if you try to convince me that it's some kind of hidden gem I'll find you and pee in your Ovaltine.

HUG-H

That "I Can't Quit You Baby" is actually from the Royal Albert Hall concert from the DVD in truncated form. They always said on the sleeve that it was from the soundcheck (And I think they said it's from another show, I don't remember, I haven't owned the album in a while) but the footage reveals that it's from the gig itself.

Maybe I'm a bit more of the casual Zeppelin fan, but I like the Coda LP. The songs might have been rejects, but they don't sound like filler. I guess one band's filler is another band's Revolver in some cases.
I always especially loved "Can't Quit You", "Darlene", "Poor Tom", and "Walter's Walk". Interesting they had one more outtake from HoTH even after they padded PG with a considerable amount of them!

Supermallet

Rejected tracks and outtakes. Lame. The version I have from the complete recordings box set includes "Hey Hey What Can I Do" which is not only better than anything on this album, but better than a lot of the songs they released on their official albums, too. It's the only song I listen to from that extended Coda disc.

Rypro 525

Also the extended Coda album that was in the box set also had their cover of Traveling Riverside Blues (which is also on the BBC Sessions 2 disc CD) speaking of, you gonna put that up too

rw2516

To be fair LZ has always maintained the position that these songs are rejects and not good enough for release and have never stated otherwise. This is for those who just have to have everything. You want it not matter what? Well here it is.

Ozone Baby could have possible been reworked with to make a halfway decent song.
Wearing And Tearing is pretty good as is, but some tweaking would make a great song.
The rest are best left in the vault. I don't feel any of the songs on the other albums are bad songs, unreleasable. At least Coda shows they had the ear to know when something should stay in the can.

And this is everything. To go 12 years and 8 albums and only have a handful of recordings that are crap shows these guys had their shit wired tight.

wishbone

I bought Coda for "Bonzo's Montreaux" and to complete the set. That's about it.

dhmac

Why "Hey Hey What Can I Do" was never on an official album is a bit of a mystery, but why it was not on the original release of "Coda" is completely baffling.

rw2516

Coda was all unreleased material. "Hey Hey What Can I Do" was released in 1970. It was the B side to the 45 of "Immigrant Song". The Japanese release only. It had been played on FM radio as long as I can remember. I bought the 45 from an import company sometime in the mid-seventies. It was never hard to get or valuable. I bought a second one around 1980-81 brand new for a couple bucks.

emanon

I haven't had much to say about these so far, and thus haven't contributed to any of these threads...but I do believe this is the only Zep album that I never "upgraded" from vinyl to CD.

HUG-H

Really? It was only available as a Japanese import for a while?
I think at some point they must have re-issued it here as a single because I got a red-label Atlantic 45 of it in the 80's.

HUG-H

Name this tune:

bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-BAH-bum-BAH
bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-BAH-bum-BAH

rw2516

That may be possible. Both the ones I had were identical. Red Atlantic label in English and Japanese. Came in a picture sleeve which duplicated the LZ III album art with Japanese language characters on it.

Hokeyboy

I don't think it was Japanese only? I had the 45 and didn't have to do anything special to get it, it was always readily available from the local record store. This was early 80s so maybe by then things had changed...

Hokeyboy

Gotcha. Must have sucked before 1980; I picture a ton of scratchy copies taped from FM broadcasts. I still don't understand why they never put it on LZIII as a "bonus" track, where it really belonged.