ANGEL:
Yes, that’s true. I knew I had photographed them very early on but I had no idea it was their very first performance! When I saw them at Gladsaxe Teen Club that first time in September 1968 and photographed them, though, there was a “special energy” from their show.
REDDON:
Do you still have unpublished photos from that Saturday, September 7, 1968, performance of The New Yardbirds?
ANGEL:
I recently scanned a few more frames. I had previously skipped these for various reasons…it was like, four, five, six or something additional ones, to put on my website. I skipped them only because they were totally impossible to make in the darkroom.
When they’re treated in the computer program, Adobe® Photoshop®, it’s possible to get something out of them. I don’t think I’ve got them on my site yet, but I will soon. So in the very near future, everything from that first night will be on my website.
REDDON: How many years did you take photos at the Gladsaxe Teen Club?
ANGEL: From 1966 until 1969, when it stopped.
REDDON: There must be a great deal of photos!
ANGEL:
Yes and no. Maybe not as many photos as you would think. It was about saving film that was expensive. That’s another reason I knew Led Zeppelin was special.
REDDON:
Still on the topic of The First Performance lithograph, you told me you had an exhibition in May 2006 at the annual Polar Music Prize awards ceremony in Stockholm, Sweden. Led Zeppelin was one of the recipients of the award that year, for 2006. From what I understand, the Polar Music Prize is awarded to musicians in recognition of outstanding achievements in the creation and furtherance of music.
You mentioned Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones and Robert Plant were there. They saw your exhibition and your lithograph,The First Performance. What was their reaction to your work? Did you talk about that performance The New Yardbirds put on, thirty-eight years earlier at theTeen Club?
ANGEL:
Yes, they shared a lot of funny memories and details. They came at two different times and they stayed for an hour or more on both occasions. We went over each individual photo on the walls. We went back and forth, talking about all kinds of things. They were sharing these funny details in one of the shots of them from ’68…and others I took from that first performance, you can clearly see the clothes that John Paul Jones is wearing.
REDDON: He was wearing clothes that looked like something a medieval king would wear!
ANGEL:
There’s actually an interesting little story behind that one. I’ll get to that in a moment about John Paul Jones’ clothes from that evening in ’68. Also, they reminisced about the instruments and gear they saw in those ’68 photos. It was great. It was like a high school reunion! You know, old boys talking about when they were young. So it was not a question of stars coming in to talk then. That’s why it was a very pleasant conversation. It went here, there and everywhere. Just chatting along as we went from photo to photo. More questions arose as our conversation continued.
Anyway, John Paul Jones told me about the clothing that he was wearing for that ’68 performance. I pointed out Bonham was just wearing a T-shirt, while Page was wearing a white silk-like shirt. And Plant was wearing a flower-patterned blouse or whatever.
But John Paul Jones was wearing something out of about the 17th century. When you look at the lithograph, you can see what I mean. This strange suit with these “fluffy things” in the sleeves, and all that. And I said to John Paul, “What was that all about?”
He replied that when he found out The Yardbirds were going to go on tour in September of 1968 in Scandinavia, he and his wife, Mo, went down to this old theatre company that was going out of business in London. Costumes from their wardrobe collection were being sold off. That’s where he got that outfit. When I asked John Paul if he recalled that 1968 Gladsaxe show, he said, “Yes, it was bloody hot!”
Yardbird Jimmy Page, garbed in an ornately patterned gold coat, deftly plays an equally psychedelically decorated guitar.
Courtesy: Howard Mylett Collection, used with permission. Enzepplopedia Publishing, Inc.
REDDON:
That would be fun to reminisce like that. As you say, you were all young at the same time. So it must have been as enjoyable for you, as it was for Jones, Page and Plant to talk about your youth and the time you spent that night at the Teen Club.
ANGEL:
Yes, it was. Jimmy Page told me the story about his “Dragon Guitar” [referring to the psychedelically-painted, 1958 Telecaster Page used in The Yardbirds and the early career of The New Yardbirds and Led Zeppelin: 1968-69]. It’s supposed to be a dragon and it’s hand-painted by Page. He used a very special light-reflecting paint. And Page was very happy with that design he’d painted on. But he was going away for awhile on this one occasion. So he left the guitar with a friend of his who was an artist. When Page came back, the friend said he had a gift for him. He had painted something really nice on the guitar, the friend told Jimmy.
REDDON: Oh man, I would have flipped!
ANGEL:
And it didn’t seem to me that Jimmy was over that yet!
REDDON:
No kidding…I don’t blame him. That was such a fine looking design on that Telecaster. Ah, that’s a superb story.
ANGEL:
And I said to Jimmy, “Couldn’t you have someone restore it to its former design?” But he said that wasn’t possible because his friend had done a thorough job and had totally removed Jimmy’s hand-painted pattern, and then re-painted it with the new design.
REDDON:
Wow, a priceless piece of music history inadvertently erased like that. Me? I’d be looking for a new friend!
ANGEL:
Poor guy, I felt very sorry for him! Well, those are some of the recollections we talked about. We also looked at details in the photos hanging in the gallery. “What is that in the photos?” we said. “What kind of amplifier is that?” Going forth and back, all the different gear and knobs on the equipment. They enjoyed looking at the photos because it reminded them of different kinds of things. They all looked not only at the photos from ’68, but also from ’69, when they came on their Second Scandinavian Tour in March of that year.
Another interesting recollection from John Paul Jones was made when he noticed that, in the September 1968 Gladsaxe photos, there was a metal apparatus over the strings near the bridge area of the bass guitar. You could rest your hand on that metal piece when you play the bass guitar, with the right pick hand.
So John Paul noticed the second time Zeppelin came to Copenhagen (in March ’69), he had taken the piece off his bass. And I asked John Paul, “Why did you take that piece off your bass?” And he said, “It was in the way!” It was funny because many people were wondering sort of, “Why would he take that off?” So he had the simple and logical response of it being in the way. The Led Zeppelin guys were all really, really pleasant and we all had a good time going over those photos and the fond memories they brought back for us all.
REDDON:
After having The New Yardbirds