Like Ringing A Bell

We're scanning the second section of the FT this morning, when a weird dissonance catches our eye. There seems to be some kind of metal/high finance mash-up going on. Hang on, it's Jimmy Page rockin' the IPO of Warner Music Group at the opening bell of the New York Stock Exchange!



We'll link, rather arbitrarily, to the Lincoln Journal Star Online for the details, but you could also read the press release of the shameful deed. What is interesting, is that Jimmy, bless 'im, was not the first choice for the deed at all, but stepped up after Linkin Park turned down the gig.

We suspect the culturally malformed workers down on Wall Street probably got the best of it. Jimmy apparently played Whole Lotta Love, which was exactly what investors didn't show to the offering, har, har. Linkin Park, of course, are now engaged in legal war with Warners over artistic freedom and flipping great wodges of cash, and all that jazz, as the Times' silly billy outlines. This is all very confusing, since at least one of Linkin Park originally wanted to become a lawyer and Jimmy invented metal.

Now Jimmy has a fair deal of experience as a Fink For The Man, as a sixties session musician. In fact, he single-handedly kept the UK's Freakbeat/R&B scene from sounding inept, as you can hear on Freakbeat Freakout. But Jimmy, like a couple of the other Zepplings, was a session musician begging to be adored in his own right. No more hackery, right? That is, until he needed a hand flogging the Zep back catalogue. Funny, we though he'd already sold his soul to the devil, fnar, fnar.

While we were tootling around Jimmy's site searching in vain for an explanation for this corporate tomfoolery, we stumbled on a nother droll picture of his, which we feel duty-bound to steal and share:



We doubt that Chuck Berry ever thought that his lyrics could be used this way.