So geeky … yet so cool.

Paul Lundgren Apr 13, 2011 25 Comments

One day, Duluth’s Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker of Low are at Geek Prom; four days later they are doing about the coolest thing imaginable, hanging out with Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant. Perhaps the line between geeky and cool has now been blurred beyond all recognition.

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25 Comments

Chris

about 13 years ago 

I saw some pictures of Plant with Trampled by Turtles as well. What was the occasion?

Paul Lundgren

about 13 years ago 

Plant played the State Theatre in Minneapolis last night.

Here's the pic with Trampled by Turtles.

Claire

about 13 years ago 

Geeks are cool.

Bret

about 13 years ago 

Very cool indeed.

The Friendly Old Knifey

about 13 years ago 

Hope they don't get to be too cool for the Geek Prom. Mimi's required to be there again next year as a judge for the Spaz Dance Contest.

Miles A. Broad

about 13 years ago 

Makes me a little sad/nostalgic my rock heroes get old too, and they're just ordinary folk.  I guess it's another case of hunkaloona matatta.  For what it's worth, I sat on the beach today and hammered out Stairway on an old Yamaha guitar.  All that glitters is gold...

Wes Scott

about 13 years ago 

Old rock stars are still cool. I like them better then a lot of young rock stars. The famous old quote about the Rolling Stones, they are so ugly they are appealing. I still have all the Led Zepplin albums.

Barrett Chase

about 13 years ago 

Seeing as how so many of Led Zeppelin's songs were based on the Lord of the Rings, you can't really say that hanging out with Robert Plant isn't geeky.

Barrett Chase

about 13 years ago 

I mean, seriously, the man wrote a song about how Gollum stole his girlfriend. He's the biggest nerd in the trio if you ask me.

Paul Lundgren

about 13 years ago 

Yeah, but he did it in a cool way. If Devo were to do that, the song would be called "Gollum Stole My Girlfriend."

Paul Lundgren

about 13 years ago 

... and that would be awesome.

Miles A. Broad

about 13 years ago 

Important to note, back then, before Tweets and Ear Candy, few had ever heard of Lord of the Rings, D&D didn't exist, Tolkien was an obscure British Isles author. Nowadays it's just nerdy, but since Plant has probably seen fairies and shit, we can't judge him on the modern Sam Wise franchise.  Why did that gnome hairdo, long all over but with clipped bangs, ever go out of style?  Did it pave the way for the mullet?   

And why are they all hanging out in the boiler room?  If Page was there, candles would render this photo useless, there'd be skeletons in the corner, and a crystal ball on the blood-stained pentagon table.

Barrett Chase

about 13 years ago 

Huh? Are you kidding me? "Few had even heard of Lord of the Rings"? "Tolkein was an obscure British Isles author?"

I'm not sure where you're getting your information, but that's plain wrong.

samh

about 13 years ago 

Lookin' good Alan and Mimi.  Glad to see you nerded out at ye' old Geek Prom.

c-freak

about 13 years ago 

I see fairies all the time. They are everywhere.

adam

about 13 years ago 

Bo Hansson. "The Black Riders" on Music Inspired by Lord of the Ring.

Chris

about 13 years ago 

Barrett is right in that it didn't take Led Zeppelin to make the LOTR trilogy popular. Although they were published in 1954-1955, it wasn't until the mid-to-late 1960s that they became enormously popular.  So there was a relative period of obscurity mixed in there.  That's when they were released in inexpensive paperback form and became popular with the hippies, among others.  I think Zeppelin's first reference to LOTR was in Ramble On from 1969.  So the books were quite popular by that point in time.

Claire

about 13 years ago 

Great interview of Low on KUMD this afternoon, BTW!

Barrett Chase

about 13 years ago 

Agreed, Chris. Maybe the average proto-metalhead didn't know what LOTR was before Zep, but readers knew. Just because it wasn't a household name doesn't make it "obscure." And I have to speculate that the people who were into LOTR initially were REALLY into it on a meganerd level. 

This post just made me realize that I need to get the Led out.

in.dog.neato

about 13 years ago 

I get the Led out on a regular basis.

Best. band. ever.!

I was listening to Mothership the other day @ work and ... holy. crap. Jimmy. effin. Page.

Total ear candy!

ms dean

about 13 years ago 

Audio for the KUMD session is now up on our website here.  We touched on both their geeky and cool sides in the interview.

Claire

about 13 years ago 

What Barrett wrote was totally geeky.

Claire

about 13 years ago 

Oh, and what Paul wrote right above that was also geeky. For some reason, I thought Barrett wrote Paul's comment too. I read it too fast. Yeah, I know. Geek.

Miles A. Broad

about 13 years ago 

Fine, but nowhere near as popular as now, like one one hundredth probably. Esp without the aid of internet, twas pre D@D and DVD was it not?  I think the fantasy genre at large didn't really pick up or diversify until the 70's.  Barrett, I get my information from a little voice in my head, I thought you knew that by now. Tells me to seek all five covers of In Through the Out Door.

You watch Plant's fantasy in Song Remains, and the Sword in the Stone shtick is clearly geospiritually closer to his senses than we USArs, because he is English, which in my simian world view somehow makes it less nerdy, when its been a native part of his sensibilities for longer.  He's probably even related to Merlin or Arthur.  Aside, I don't think anyone balances family life and rock star quite like the Sparhawk. But he doesn't blow me away like Haley Bonar did last night on stage with her new material. She was far better than I expected, and had me curled up in the fetal position by set's end, I wanted her to wrap me in a handmaid blanket and give me warm milk and honey, so devastating were the melodies.

Barrett Chase

about 13 years ago 

Ugh, I can't believe I'm falling for this bait.

1) Being really into something that's less popular is far geekier than being into something that's popular. That's almost the definition of geeky.

2) Inspiring the creation of D&D is incredibly geeky.

3) Not that it matters, but you are aware that it was entirely possible for books to become wildly popular before the invention of the internet and DVDs, right? That in fact way more people read books before the invention of those things, right? I'm not comparing their popularity then and now -- not even anecdotally -- because I wouldn't know how to do that. But the books were very, very popular in the 60s. Just because you hadn't heard of them before people talked about the movies on the internet, does mean that no one read them.

These points may seem contradictory, but the main thread is that your reasoning is muddled.

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