this is a sappy love story, about rock and roll.

it's jimmy page's birthday today! he's seventy!

so. i adore jimmy page.

andrew and i were lucky. we grew up listening to led zeppelin and all sorts of other great classic rock, thanks to the great taste of our parents and aunts and uncles, but i remember when we were in high school and really discovering the bands for ourselves. it was serious bonding time and changed both of our lives. neither of us would be where we are today if we didn't pore through our mother's record collection when were teenagers. andrew got a guitar when he was fifteen or so, and my love for him at least quadrupled when he started playing all of our favorite songs over and over and over and eventually, learning some of my very favorite songs just for me.

we spent a lot of time watching videos of these legends and reading anything we could find about them. i vividly remember the first youtube video i saw of zep in our friends' basement. andrew called me over and said "nicole, you gotta see these guys, watch how they do this." and we just stared. our love for music grew and our appreciation for the brilliant minds that came before us grew.

jimmy page wrote my most favorite song ever. he is solely responsible for the beautiful work of art called bron-yr-aur. it has no words. it's six-string poetry. in 1970, jimmy and friends went to a two hundred year old cottage in the welsh countryside, bonded, and wrote some incredible music. all the live variations are great, but time stops when you listen to the studio recording. 

i didn't plan on writing all of this out. i was just gonna write "it's jimmy page's birthday! he's a genius, guys!" and be done with it, but then all of this spilled out. so there you go. get a couple drinks in me near my record collection and you'll hear a lot more...

it started with uncle dan, he shared it with his sisters, my mom got right into it, and both my dads too, and they all made sure we knew what goodness there was. uncle dan, mom, dad, aunt kathy, aunt sue, and well, dad, thank you all so much. and andrew, you are the coolest person i know. i am so proud of you. thank you for sharing all of that with me and now doing what you're doing.

music is everything. it's for everything and everyone.

he's a genius, guys.

love, nico.