i'm listening to a track by england's the music called "the truth is no words," and it's one of the most unlikely things i've heard in some time. rock scholars have put forth the question for years and now this leeds-based band, one of the music press's latest raves, has arrived on the scene with the answer. the question: what if led zeppelin were a BAGGY band? the answer: why, they'd be the music. it's a preposterous, unthinkable thing, something you couldn't imagine existing in this millennium. and yet it does and it's absurd and i'm finding its charms increasingly harder to resist.

baggy bands were always trying to be the stones or the beatles (and, sometimes, the zombies); i'm not sure why it never occurred to them to try to be led zeppelin...besides the fact that, well, you know, it's utterly INSANE. the 'e' is gone and in its place are the old tropes about squeezing the lemon and 'love' measured in inches (probably, i have no idea what the song is about). the singer is like jack white with a clamp on his scrote and the band emits a sense of groove that is decidedly, endearingly english. perhaps bell bottomed bluesmen derek & the dominoes explained it best, saying a little about their own appeal in the process: "it's all wrong but it's alright."