It’s Music Monday here at the RollerBlog and today’s featured artist is Led Zeppelin.  I discovered Led Zeppelin in high school and I’ve been a fan ever since.  These days I like to exercise to Led Zeppelin, or as I like to call it, Zeppercise.

The following is one of my favorite Led Zeppelin songs, Black Dog, performed live in 1973:

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In a stroke of creative genius, my husband has come up with the next great thing to rock the exercise world: exercise videos set to Led Zeppelin music. In other words, Zeppercise.

The idea came about at the end of a snowy day here in Seattle as we were sitting around listlessly and trying to find something to do. That’s right, it actually snowed in Seattle yesterday. I had gone out to meet my friend Lisa for lunch earlier in the day and by the time we were finished giant snowflakes were flurrying down and I had two inches of snow on my car. After a rather nerve-wracking drive home that involved slipping and sliding on a few hills, we scrapped our plans to go out and spent the evening at home.What to do? I was feeling antsy after holing up in the house for most of the day. As we flipped through our cable On Demand options, I was strangely intrigued by a video called ”

BootyBeat - one in a series of “Flirty Girl” videos that shows you how to be sexy and stay in shape at the same time. Hmm…. learn stripper moves and lose weight? Count me in! Adam thought it was pretty funny so he joined in too. The video started out easy enough but the moves soon got so complicated (pelvis thrust! hip gyration! cowgirl lasso!) that we just ended up stumbling around and laughing.

After this rather failed attempt to be flirty girls, Adam and I found that On Demand cable also has an entire section of Led Zeppelin live concert footage from the 1970s. As we watched Jimmy Page and Robert Plant rock out to a 1971 rendition of “Black Dog”, Adam had his stroke of genius. Why not set exercise videos to to Led Zeppelin music?

Zeppercise - it’s not just for flirty girls.

Tags Led Zeppelin . Flirty Girls . 1971 . exercise videos

Today I did not listen to the new Wilco album, sky blue sky, which I am so in love with right now that I am compelled to listen to it at least twice a day. I did not listen to the Arcade Fire, the Meat Purveyors, of Montreal, or any of the other usual suspects rounding out my current favorite list of bands. Instead, I hurriedly grabbed some CDs on my way to work this morning from our collection which I knew to be from the seventies. These albums turned out to be Physical Graffiti by Led Zeppelin, Electric Warrior by T-Rex, and the Neil Diamond Album His 12 Greatest Hits.

All throughout the day I let the music wash over me as I worked away at my desk, basking in a warm seventies glow as I composed clever emails and discussed important issues with my colleagues over instant messenger. I began the day listening to Neil Diamond as he gently crooned “Song Sung Blue,” “Shilo” and my personal Neil Diamond favorite “Sweet Caroline.” After lunch I endeavored to stay awake during the 11-minute long Led Zeppelin epic “In My Time of Dying”, and then shouted for more cowbell during “Houses of the Holy”.

As I drove home this afternoon I had to physically restrain myself from turning on the radio to the NPR Program All Things Considered. During a typical drive home, the soothing voices of my beloved drivetime friends, Melissa Block, Michele Norris, and Robert Siegel keep my mind off of the dreadful hour-long commute and in turns bemused, intellectually stimulated, and thoughtfully concerned about world events. But no NPR for me today. Instead I popped the Electric Warrior CD into my car’s CD player, turned the volume up to “11″, and discovered that rocking out to “Mambo Sun,” “Jeepster,” and “Bang a Gong” keeps my mind distracted from road rage almost as well as listening to NPR does.

But it’s not quite the same. I wonder if there are NPR podcasts from the seventies that I can listen to…

Tags: Led Zeppelin . T-Rex . Neil Diamond . Wilco . Sky Blue Sky . Of Montreal . The Meat Purveyors . Arcade Fire . NPR . All Things Considered