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Red-eye flight to Chicago, my musical home. I spin the tuner in the rental car to 93.1 as I pull onto I-294 toward the first appointment. WXRT is “Chicago’s Finest Rock,” but it’s the country’s finest rock based on my travels. And the morning jock, Lin Brehmer, is the finest personality in the biz – soft spoken but funny, and a Stones diehard. A very good way the start the day, particularly when Chicago traffic is thrown into the mix.

An hour to kill between the last appointment and dinner, so I scoot over to Rolling Stones Records, the iconic Chicago record store. It’s an amazing place with the consummate selection of new releases, obscure and rare classics, and imports. Very cool tunes are always playing in the shop, so I’m a little disappointed to hear the new Mumford & Sons hit being played, the one that sounds suspiciously like the Decemberists. Shrugging, I buck up and begin my shopping – new live Rundgren, Zappa’s “Hot Rats,” Joshua Radin, and an odd disc of nothing but remixes of Bowie’s “Golden Years.” The Mumford’s suddenly get yanked, and a live version of “Whole Lotta Love” I don’t recognize comes over the Klipsch speakers. I wander over to the “L’s” and sure enough, the new Led Zeppelin release, “Celebration Day” is there. Recorded on December 10, 2007, O2 Arena, London.

I walk up to the front to make payment, and I ask the young girl if we’re listening to the new “Celebration Day” disc.

“No,” she replies, “this is Led Zeppelin!”

Indeed. “Yes, it’s Zeppelin. Is this the new one?”

“No,” she corrects me again, “they’re an old band.”

I give up and smile, but she continues. “It’s nice that older customers like you know good music. I’ve been listening to this one a lot lately. I love him.”

I can’t resist. “Who, exactly, is “”him?””

“You know. Zeppelin!”

I was on the verge of rolling my pompous eyes when it occurred to me that, hey, this girls’s friends are at home listening to Lady GaGa and swooning over the new No Doubt, and here she is earning money and ditching Mumford & Sons for Led Zeppelin. The kid’s got a future.

Note to Robert Plant: successful solo career – check. Successful crossover effort from rock to folk/country – check. Successful duo album with trendy new artist – check. Now, would it kill you succumb to just one more Zeppelin album?

This entry was posted on November 15, 2012 at 7:54 pm and is filed under Music, Travel with tags celebration day, chicago's finest rock, led zeppelin, lin brehmer, rolling stones records chicago, wxrt. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.