So I’m watching a Led Zeppelin DVD I have and during the song Dazed and Confused, Jimmy Page uses what seems to be a violin bow to beat on his guitar. This must be the coolest and weirdest thing i’ve ever seen. 
I’m not a guitarist but I imagine some of you are. Has anyone ever tried this? The things he was doing with it seemed impossible or atleast incredibly difficult.
Oh and Robert Plant kind of looks like a girl 
This is how it’s done: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWJT-SZRH8Y
Eddie Philips of The Creation did it first.
Back in my Page infatuated days I aquired a violin bow and copied all that. It isn’t all that tricky but it leaves the strings all sticky with rosin. The neatest trick Page does is playing off against an echo/repeat (that’s probably the bit that looks impossible), all the screechy Tufnellesque stuff I find a bit tiresome now.
What do you make of his Theremin technique?
Rather specifically he seemed to be channelling Janis Joplin.
If playing the Guitar with strange things interests you, check out:
Adrian Belew in the Laurie Anderson film Home of the Brave, he plays with BBQ tools!
Rob Fetters in the Bears Live dvd, he does a truly amazing trick with a balloon.
Unclviny
Yeah!
Not much to add from the other posters. I remember seeing Jimmy on a guitar documentary commenting that, while doing studio work, he worked with David McCallum’s dad who was a violinist (fellow fogeys will remember McCallum from the 60’s TV Show The Man from U.N.C.L.E.). McCallum’s dad, so said Jimmy, recommended that he try a bow.
The rest is over-indulgent, quasi-psychedelic history.
Now - is that the way it really happened, or might Jimmy have gotten it off somebody else - much like he lifted much of Dazed and Confused itself from folky guy Jake Holmes, or Black Mountainside off of Bert Jansch? I have no problem imagining Jimmy seeing someone else do it, McCallum or no, and taking it on. I have undying love and respect for Mr. Page, but he is the Picasso of rock, borrowing liberally from other artists, then putting enough of his own stamp on things to make them his own…
ETA: Oh, and Robert Plant’s nickname within the band was “Percy”
Yeah; I’d be more inclined to believe he just cribbed it from Eddie Phillips and took it to the next level, standard M.O. for the Zep.
Well, Duane Allman played all the time using an aspirin bottle.*
Playing with a bow is fun BUT…you need a second guitar to do it on cause of all the rosin it kills the strings and it works better if you set your strings up in an arc like on a violin…so you wouldn’t be playing much more than one song with the bow then change guitars if you were Live.
I do the same thing with a drum stuck that has been rough sanded, no mess
I believe Clarence White was known to play with a quarter sometimes, in order to get a “thick” sound out of his acoustic guitar.
That’s nothing! Check this out, about 35 seconds in…
Joe
Whitesnake, the 80s hair band Plant said was led by David Coverversion since they were such a Zep ripoff in terms of sound, had their guitarist of the day do the same trick in, “Still of the Night.” It was even featured in the video.
I always enjoyed Eddie VanHalens use of a screwgun. He striped it like his ax. Nice.
The first slide I ever used was the glass section of an automotive fuel filter. I think the brand was CR and it had screw on chrome ends that had the nipples for the fuel lines on them. Very smooth.
I think most rock guitarists like to give the bow a try if they ever get the chance. You can make some weird noises with it, but it gets old fast – especially to the other band members. I used to like to experiment with banging or scraping the strings with all kinds of casual objects. Add some flange or echo and you can get some strange sounds. You can get some crazy noises with a comb.
Once again, though, this kind of experimentation gets old in a hurry for the rest of the band. It’s like a thing to do when you’re in the practice room alone.
Coricidin. The aspirin bottles I’ve seen don’t look like that all.
Nels Cline (Geraldine Fibbers, Mike Watt, now with Wilco) uses an egg whisk on his guitar.
Now that’s cool. 
Does he play “Beat It”?