Here's a rare item, recorded under interesting circumstances by Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page, but never officially released until recently.
During the early 70's, Page's well-known interest in occultist Aleister Crowley led him into the trajectory of avant garde filmmaker and fellow Crowley devotee Kenneth Anger. At the time, Anger was usually recognized as a former child actor and author of the 1958 book, Hollywood Babylon. A small, but growing audience, however, knew him as the auteur behind a series of abstract films of occult significance. Beginning with Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1954-56,) Anger began filming carefully choreographed and highly stylized occult ceremonies in an arresting visual style, which owed much to the grand visions of early Hollywood. Scorpio Rising (1963,) gave these ceremonies pop culture cache by relating them to motorcycle culture and rock 'n' roll. Invocation of My Demon Brother (1969,) documented Satanic cadres within the California hippie scene.
Anger's ties to the rock and roll scene predated his association with Page. In 1967, Anger fell in with model and actress Anita Pallenberg, who was dating Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones. Anger was accepted into the Stones' entourage, and the Stones - particularly Jones and Mick Jagger - became fascinated with their new friend's liberated attitudes and occult philosophy. Anger's tenure in the Stones' inner circle saw the transformation of the Stones' public image from that of British R&B bad boys into a more decadent, overtly satanic vibe. The 1967 album, Their Satanic majesties Request, is a direct product of Anger's influence. The cover art, for example, is patterned after "Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome's" technicolor visual style. Although the Stones would soon tire of Anger, their interest in occult themes and lyrics would continue on through 1968's "Sympathy for the Devil," and 1973'sGoat's Head Soup, culminating in Tattoo You's cloven-hoofed innersleeve photo from 1981.
Page met Anger at an auction of Crowley ephemera, and learned that the director had been working for several years on a film he called "Lucifer Rising." Filmed throughout Europe and Egypt, "Lucifer Rising" was a celebration of the end of the Christian epoch and dawn of a Luciferian Age of Light, as fortold in the writings of Aleister Crowley. Much of the film had been completed at one time , but most of Anger's footage had been stolen by Anger's boy-toy, musician Bobby Beausoleil, when Beausoleil joined the Manson Family in 1967.
Anger had re-shot enough footage to complete the film, but was running short on cash and had no editing equipment, or even a place to work were the equipment made available. Page, intrigued by Anger's reputation and the Crowleyite angle of "Lucifer Rising," gave Anger free access to his house in London, as well as the basement full of film editing equipment Page had amassed there.
Anger hired Page to compose and perform a soundtrack for the film. Page initially showed great enthusiasm for the project, recording several ethereal but sinister arabesques, built around ambient synthesizer washes and heavily treated guitar synthesizer tracks.
Over time, however, Page's obligations to Led Zeppelin and the cooling of his friendship with Anger put the soundtrack on indefinite hold. After four years of little or no progress, Anger fired Page in 1976 - the day after Page's girlfriend had evicted Anger from Page's London house. Page's soundtrack was never released, except as the bootleg, until recently when a fan of Anger's secured copyright to both the film and its soundtrack, releasing the Lucifer Rising soundtrack as a limited edition EP on the Boleskine House record label. Until that, the only excerpt of the soundtrack most Zeppelin fans had ever heard was the brief, bowed-guitar and synth intro to the song, "In the Evening" on In Through the Out Door.
When "Lucifer Rising" was finally released in 1980, it featured a Wagneresque, guitar-driven soundtrack, written and performed by Bobby Beausoleil. Beausoleil is serving a life sentence for the 1969 murder of music teacher, Gary Hinman, and recorded the soundtrack (shown above) from his studio in prison.
You can probably still hear the complete soundtrack via the Prog Not Frog blog:http://prognotfrog.blogspot.com/2007/12/jimmy-page-lucifer-rising-uk-1973.html
Here's "In The Evening," with the intro Page adapted from his Lucifer Rising soundtrack
...and here's an excerpt of Anger's completed film, with the Bobby Beausoleil soundtrack. It's excellent in its own right:
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