One of my more popular posts in terms of visits and comments has been my post on the Jimmy Page soundtrack to Kenneth Anger’s film Lucifer Rising. The post contains the full soundtrack that I uploaded to a dependable site and it should be downloadable but may require a little patience and I think a full veriosn of Quicktime. If that is too much to figure out then the soundtrack is actually available on line with a little searching and here is a working Rapidshare link to get the full album. I just tested it and the link seems to be okay:

Jimmy Page’s Lucifer Rising Soundtrack at Rapidshare

I recently got a comment form reader Karl and was stunned to discover that he actually had a copy of the album and was kind enough to share some scans of the cover art and a little story of how he happen to acquire a copy. As legend has it there were only 666 copies of the blue vinyl version ever made it is a rare thing indeed. I really like this soundtrack and have listened to it in it s entirety several times. It is a very special thing to have had someone who owns a copy contact me and share he experience and now I will share it you as I posted his story below. Thanks Karl for the scans of the booklet and a picture of the actual blue vinyl itself with the label. I believe  that the album was to be played at 45 rpm and each side was about 11 minutes long. Some people online believe the existence of the album is myth and that the recordings were only recently salvaged from old tapes. I think we can put that belief to rest now.

MORE ABOUT KARL’S ACQUISITION OF JIMMY PAGES SOUNDTRACK TO LUCIFER RISING HERE >>

SEE ALL OF KENNETH ANGER’S LUCIFER RISING HERE >>

I have been hearing about this infamous falling out between Led Zeppelin maestro Jimmy Page and filmmaker, writer Kenneth Anger for decades now. Sadly the only the material I can find on the net still seems to the same variety of articles that appeared in rock fan magazines back in the seventies. This is actually one of the few great legends in the world that I have some sort of  connection with. Well, in a sort of incalculably indirect  way. I saw Page with Zeppelin back in 1977 in Ohio, and briefly met Anger at a book signing at the fantastic Scarecrow Video store in Seattle, where he signed my special copy of Hollywood Babylon with the Aleister Crowley quote Do What Thou Wilt from The Book of the Law. I had a nice little collection of Crowley books, most from Samuel Llewellyn  Press at one time, though I doubt it could compare to the collection by Anger and of course the filthy rich Jimmy Page who was reputed to have had at one time the 2nd largest collection of Crowley books and memorabilia in the world, including Crowley’s Boleskin House, perched on the cheery shores of Loch Ness in Scotland. It was one of three fantastic houses a then young Page owned (all have since been sold I believe). He also owned a house in the Kensington district of London called the Tower House, designed by Victorian architect William Burgess and formally owned by Richard Harris, and it is in this house  that the drama between Anger and Page unfolded.

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Jimmy Page was asked by neighbor Michael Winner to score his 1982′s Death Wish II and Page accepted the project, being as Led Zeppelin was now history following the death of drummer John Bonham. 1974′s original Death Wish was scored by jazz keyboardist Herbie Hancock and is a good movie score. Page does not try to top Hancock and instead does a rock/blues solo album with a few tracks of incidental music. The album was recorded in his SOL studios and features a collection of musician friends. The album is a strange piece of music overall but not in a negative way. Page uses ample Roland guitar synthesizers as well as actual synths. Reputedly some of the score was revisions of Page’s Lucifer Rising soundtrack which was never used for the Kenneth Anger film due to personal conflicts. I have that soundtrack and there are similarities in pieces like Hotel Rats and Photostats and A Shadow in the City, but I would say not really all that much. The incidental music is droning and eerie while the rock parts are straight ahead jams and classic Page riffing. The album went nowhere as far as the charts are concerned and only Page aficionados seem to even know the album was ever made.

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