Food, Wine & Rock N Roll
Monday, May 25, 2009 - Scott Ian
Ah spring, rebirth, the flowers are blooming and the air smells like orange blossom (well it does in Los Angeles, here in NYC it smells like pee and exhaust) and the weather is getting good and an overwhelming sense of optimism grips me like Hellboy’s fist.
I am an optimistic person by nature but for some reason right now it’s on ten. I’ve got so many things coming to fruition right now, new Anthrax record, Pearl’s debut record, my Lobo book for DC, kicking ass at poker on Ultimate Bet (I must admit I am still excited about winning the 200K weeks back), the WSOP right around the corner and of course eating and drinking like a maniac. I love that word, maniac. It’s hilariously descriptive. Willard Scott is a maniac. And Michael Myers is a maniac. That just kills me.
One of the definitions of maniac is an obsessive enthusiast and I guess you can say that I am an obsessive enthusiast over everything I do (I guess that’s why I got so deeply into poker so fast) so when I was approached to be a part of this crazy idea, a wine pairing where wines are going to be paired with Led Zeppelin songs, I maniacally answered yes. My friend Joe Bastianich (restaurateur, winemaker, guitar player and headbanger, he co-owns Babbo, Osteria Mozza, The Spotted Pig etc etc with Mario Batali) came up with this concept and asked me what I thought about it. At that moment I realized Joe was a maniac like me and I told him I thought it was a great idea. I wasn’t sure how he would pull it off but I loved his passion for it. To take Jimmy Page’s riffs and figure out what wine would go best with let’s say Kashmir or Whole Lotta Love was a leap only an obsessive enthusiast could make.
Who wants to drink great wine and listen to Led Zeppelin?
Show of hands please.
If you have a soul, you just put your hands up.
OK so a few months ago I was at dinner in LA with Joe Bastianich and Mario Batali and it turned into (as they always do) a late night Amaro (it’s like Italian Jager but stronger) session. It was a Friday night and I realized that the best Zeppelin cover band in the world, Six Foot Nurse was playing at Molly Malone’s. I rousted a bunch of the crew out of their liquid-herb induced haze with promises of “I swear if you close your eyes IT IS Led Zeppelin.” Now I’m going to have to ask you, the reader to take me at my word on this and if you ever have the chance to see the Nurse, take it.
We made it to Molly’s in time to catch the last twenty minutes of the set and if memory serves, three seconds into The Ocean Joe turned around to me with huge eyes and said “Holy shit.”
The rest of the evening was just piling on more wood to the already raging fire and before Joe left he said to me, “We have to do something with these guys, have to bring them to NYC and do something.”
Joe being the man of his word that he is called me the next day and asked me if I thought the band would be interested in coming to NYC to do an actual live show where he would pair wines with specific Zeppelin songs. Take his idea and realize it!! He didn’t have any other details other than the most important one which was, let’s do this.
Of course the band was excited about the opportunity to go to NYC and we worked it out where I would play a few songs with them as well. I was nervous about this because as strange as it may sound, other then Rock N Roll, I don’t know any Zeppelin songs on guitar. Or, I don’t know any Zeppelin songs on guitar correctly. I’ve never sat around and learned Zeppelin. Crazy right? Well Nalle Colt (guitar player for The Nurse as well as Pearl) knows it all note for note so on one hand I knew that if I learned something wrong he could show me the right way to play it and on the other hand I was stressed because he knows it all note for note and I didn’t want to come in to rehearsal like an idiot. It would be like playing hold’em with Annie and playing like a donk.
I woodshedded and learned The Ocean, Rock N Roll, The Rover, Whole Lotta Love and Heartbreaker. At rehearsal I learned Good Times Bad Times and then day of show learned Tangerine and Since I’ve Been Loving You. After rehearsal I felt really good about where I was at with the songs and after Nalle showed me a couple of little Page-isms, I was ready to rock. The band sounded sick with the rhythm guitar.
We had a pre-show meeting at the Spotted Pig the night before where we ate and drank for five hours and discussed how the show would run for fifteen minutes. That’s pretty much how the whole week in NY went. Pearl and I would make one plan, like “let’s stay in and be mellow tonight because we’re super hungover” and that would turn into Joe texting me and saying “Come into Del Posto for dinner. Please let me feed you. Pasta will heal your soul.” How do you say no to that? So we go for dinner and that turns into Pearl and I and the Nurse guys in the private room at Del Posto drinking all night with Joe, Mario, Jay McInerney and NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson. Weird, random and totally in context with my life. Jay and Jimmie were both really cool and Jay had some great Michael J. Fox stories (but those are for the book my friends, sorry). Jimmie said he’d take me out on the track and I plan on taking him up on it.
Anyway, I digress.
Show time at the City Winery, a killer new venue from the people that started the Knitting Factory in NYC. Live music, food and a wine program where you can make your own wine with help from an expert and with grapes flown in from the world’s best regions.
The show was oversold. Four hundred and change packed around tables. Six glasses in front of each person with a place mat explaining what each wine was and why it was paired with the accompanying song.
The show was being hosted by Joe and his buddies Mike Edison (ex editor of High Times and Screw magazines) and David Lynch (wine expert, not the Blue Velvet guy). If anyone can make the unlikely coupling of fine wine and rock music work, it would be these three eclectic mofo’s. They all took turns on the mic explaining as best they could to the crowd how this evening came to be and even had the band kick into short five to ten second bits of songs to whet their appetites. I could tell the evening was going to be a success. Besides the obvious fact that the place was sold out, as soon as the band played the first five-second tease, the place went nuts. These people were starving for rock!! Lots of mid to late 30’s white whiteys that have the cash to drink well and would never go out to a rock show. They didn’t even know they wanted this night and we gave it to them.
After Mike Edison described Zeppelin as like “the moment right before penetration” they introduced the first wine, Henriot Blanc de Blanc Champagne that was paired with Immigrant Song. Try and think about the acidity of Champagne and then think of Plant wailing and Page’s biting riff and it makes sense. Or it doesn’t and it doesn’t matter because you’re drinking killer booze and getting your ass kicked by the Nurse. I can’t remember all of the pairings as I was getting ready to play (I was to get up for the last pairing, Bordeaux and Whole Lotta Love) and then I would stay up and we would play all the rest of the songs. There was a Chablis with Misty Mountain Hop which worked as the edgier notes of the Chablis (compared to the Champagne) matched Page’s deliberate phrasing in Hop. Kashmir was paired with a Barolo and the wine, like the song both took their time to unfold their epic bodies.
By the time the six glasses of wine were finished the crowd was well oiled and when we kicked into The Ocean, spontaneous dancing broke out all over the room. Amazingly, as buzzed as I was I didn’t fuck up once. The energy got better and better with each song and Rock N Roll closed it out in true bombastic Zeppelin style. The reaction to the band was so overwhelming you would think these people really saw Led Zeppelin. Maybe it was all the great wine? We came back and encored with Since I’ve Been Loving You and said goodnight. After the show we “helped” Joe finish off some triple magnums of fine Bastianich vino.
It was an insanely decadent week. Being fed by Joe and Mario everyday is amazing and brutal at the same time. I swear I gained 190 pounds. I’ve been on tuna with oil and vinegar since.
So since this unlikely pairing worked I started thinking about pairing poker hands with Zeppelin, or for that matter, any songs. There are the obvious ones like Killer Queen or Number Of The Beast (set of sixes). I’m looking for a deeper connection. Feel free to chime in and I’ll let you know how I progress.
Cheers,
Scott
Related posts:
- I wanna rock and roll all night and play poker every day! Well you might just get those two wishes granted in...
- H Dizzle Final Tables Hard Rock Casino Megastack! Well my peeps, another week, another FT, baybee! I went...
- Hey rockstars! Well today may be Thanksgiving but Christmas came early this...
- Ultimate Bettor’s Hello my fiends, (Freudian slip?), and hello my friends, how...
- Crazy Schedules!!! The WSOP is here! Non-stop poker and partying for six...
Tags: Led Zeppelin, NASCAR, Rock N Roll, Scott Ian, ub, Wine, WSOP
May 25th, 2009 at 7:09 pm
Come on lets not make poker boring … Led Zep ?
The only song they have in common with poker is “in through the OUTdoor”
Mind you you could have Motorhead “The ace of Spades” and dont forget teh joker ” Poke her face” :00
Get into Depeche Mode and treat yourself , its not all doom and gloom .
May 26th, 2009 at 9:50 am
We are happy to announce that Phill Hellmuth and Annie Duke will be playing in our event in September!
The Sports Legends Challenge is the ultimate sports fan’s dream come true! Not only do you get an opportunity to win a share of $5,000,000, but you also get to spend 4 days at that Atlantis in the Bahamas with some of the greatest legends of all time in the NBA, NFL, MLB, PGA, and NHL!
July 9th, 2009 at 7:37 pm
[...] Then I read the article on CBR. Then, the quote below was copied straight from Scott Ian’s blog. I am an optimistic person by nature but for some reason right now it’s on ten. I’ve got so [...]
July 10th, 2009 at 1:54 pm
Re: Lobo.
Good luck. If ever anyone was tailor made for a character…
Y’know, I might actually read this.
K-