Jimmy Page and the Yardbirds Played a Cincinnati High School Prom

“Jimmy’s first question was, ‘Why are you dressed like that?’ ” Pelley told me. “I said, ‘You’re playing at our prom.’ And he said, ‘What the fuck is a prom?’ ”

Even in f you've already managed to catch a screening of Becoming Led Zeppelin, you need to to surf on over to the The New Yorker and check out David Owen's essay on the Yardbirds playing the prom at St. Xavier High School, an all-boys Catholic prep school in Cincinnati. 

Click here to read "Before He Formed Led Zeppelin, Jimmy Page Played a Prom in Ohio," by David Owen.

It's a great example of not only how unpolished the business of rock and roll was then, but also provides a rough timeline of sorts for the pending breakup the Yardbirds and the subsequent birth of Led Zeppelin.

Here's the band performing the night before on Cleveland's UPBEAT! TV show:

And of course, here's the official trailer for Becoming Led Zeppelin:

For those in the cheap seats it's worth mentioning that seven years later, Frank Marino and Mahogany Rush would play a similar Catholic Boys Academy in Toledo, Ohio:

Rick James Snowmobile Is the Best Snowmobile (Give It To Me Baby)

When Mother Nature turns on the chill and the snow flies, only one thing is certain: Rick James is gonna get his ass on a snowmobile.

YouTube

 "Raised in the ghetto of Buffalo New York where his mother was a numbers runner, Rick is now a multi-millionaire who has recently moved back to his hometown from LA, where he found the social scene around the music business crazy."-Jeanee Beker, Much Music TV, aka M3, Much More

 

Rick's story is a well-known one, just another tired take on the classic "poor boy from the wrongest side of the tracks ditches the navy, forms a band with Neil Young in Canada, gets caught, does his time, moves to LA, moves back to Buffalo and forms the explosive Stone City Band, hits multi-platinum selling pay dirt, buys an Arctic Cat Panther, writes and produces for everyone from Smokey Robinson to Teena Marie, starts to run out of money, dates Linda Blair, guest stars on the A-Team, loses more money, has his finances recover on the strength of licensing deals with up and coming rap acts, gets addicted to crack, kidnaps a few people, ends up in Folsom Prison, gets out and then passes at age 56 from heart failure."

But along the way, Rick James, born James Ambrose Johnson Jr. (February 1, 1948 – August 6, 2004), laid down grooves and vibes that still haven't been topped. Comfortable in any situation, he never put on a personality for cameras or the audience, always letting his rust-belt heritage show through as the video below so clearly illustrates.

While we can't be entirely certain, the sled in question appears to be an Arctic Cat Panther from the early 1980s, based in part on its regal burgundy and gold exterior finish. Powered by a 431cc Suzuki-two stroke twin, the snow machine was a cool thing that slid, not walked, like a Panther across the snow. 

Bonus: Mama Cass on a Snowmobile