ROBERT PLANT, TECHNOBILLY

A few months back, Robert Plant walked into Atlantic Records’ London offices and played “Scream,” by Ralph Nielsen & The Chancellors. Now, I dunno if you’ve ever heard “Scream,” but it’s on Crypt Records’ Back From The Grave, Vol. 2 garage compilation, and trust me when I say it rages nastily—five adolescent Jersey Link Wray fans in shiny suits waxed it on Route 1 not far from Princeton in the summer of ’62. Here’s how Tim Warren described it in the catzine Kicks a while back: “Imagine the Burnettes’ Train Kept A Rollin’ 45 played at 78 rpm with frantic, non-stop, burnin’ guitar breaks and a voice yellin’, ‘C’mon and scream, yeah yeah yeah’ over and over; a scream howlin’ throughout the 1:56 the song goes for—I counted 63 of ’em— that’s more than one scream every two seconds!” Plant told the Atlantic honchos that this was gonna be his new record.

“All I got was a look of disbelief,” he recalls, “like I’d gone out of my mind.”