Stairway to Heaven: Led Zeppelin Uncensored

Rating:
Summary: Gratuitoulsy vulgar.
Review: This is mostly a vulgar, salacious, juvinile and generally banal account of one of the better Rock & Roll groups of all time. The text is mainly for a high school level of reader, and the sexual and drug related stories are disgusting and perverse. Not enough is said about the music, and too much is said about spoiled morons with too much money and not enough brains (or morals). To anyone who says this is the best book they have ever read, for Heaven's sake, get out of the house and buy some real literature.

Rating:
Summary: the real story about the zeps
Review: this is one of the best books i ever read. i have read it cover to cover more times than i can count. it tells the whole story about the group,the music,their upsides and downsides,any zep fan should have this.

Rating:
Summary: The Parasite from a Roman Comedy Writes a Book
Review: What you must first know before reading this book is that it is written from a very limited perspective, something that the author himself, who practically considers himself the Led Zeppelin version of the fifth Beatle, rarely admits. Richard Cole knew Led Zeppelin for 12 years as their road manager. From the accounts of the book, he spent much more time observing/fostering their boyish antics than actually conversing with them intimately. The quotations he gives are highly dubious at best; many of them are second-hand hearsay. It is highly unlikely that he could remember much of what was actually said twenty-something years before the book was written since he spent most of the time with them either high or drunk. The dialogue has the flavor of trite situational comedy. On top of this, Richard Cole provides very (very) little insight into Led Zeppelin's music, or music at all, for that matter. Either he did not to care to talk with them about the thoughts and experiences behind their music, or he just thought one more anecdote about John Bonham throwing something out a hotel window or defecating on/in something was too juicy to pass up. One gets the impression that Bonham may have been the only member of Led Zeppelin to talk with Cole at length about anything. The others don't really seem to know that he existed as anything more than the guy who counted their money and was high or drunk all the time, even though he suspiciously plays a central role in all of his stories about them.
All of that said, if you'd like to read dozens of accounts of how Led Zeppelin lived a life as decadent as a Caligula or a Nero, then perhaps you could do no better than hearing from their number one parasite, who shared in all of their dinner tables, women, and alcohol, and in the end exaggerated his importance to the group in much the same way that a slave or a parasite from Roman Comedy does. Richard Cole helped Led Zeppelin out of many a tight jam, but his attempts to get behind their their music or their personnae, even John Bonham's (with whom he was closest) are a failure. In the end you know nothing more about the members of Led Zeppelin than these generalities: Plant (somewhat haughty, tempermental, and doesn't like going second with a fellatrix), Page (an insecure perfectionist fascinated with the occult), Jones (quiet, not indulgent in excess), Bonham (liked to vandalize things and offend people for no reason). None of this is a revelation.

Rating:
Summary: Look for the Richie Yorke Book instead
Review: While a large amount of this book is fun to read. It has too many technical errors as far as songs, tour dates etc.. As a teenager I would have loved to have Richard Cole's job but he is very bitter about being a broke, unemployed, drug addict vise a rich semi-retired icon like the boys of Zep. Cole was fired by Zeppelin for being too out of itand his bitterness shines through here.