Fly, Jefferson Airplane DVD -- and an appreciation of late-'60s acid rock. (1 Viewer)

[Jack Briggs]

Oh, and I thought the band's eventual decline began with its first LP on its own Grunt label, Bark -- though I loved the dope song, "Mexico."

By this time, Paul Kantner was becoming more obsessed with the Jefferson Starship offshoot (though Red Octopus was a pretty damn good record). And say what you will about Papa John and his violin, his presence just wasn't in keeping with the band's legendary acid-rock roots.

BTW, I got into the Airplane before Grace even was in the group (and when Skip Spence was the drummer); Signe Tolly Anderson was the vocalist, though she was hardly used as a soloist. I bought Jefferson Airplane Takes Off when it first hit the shelves.

The transformation in the band's music from that album until the legendary second LP was as dramatic as was The Beatles's transformation from Please Please Me to With the Beatles.

 

[Zen Butler]

Jack, I think a good rival to JA's Bless Its Pointed Little Head is Quicksilver Messenger Service's Happy Trails. Yet another great live album of that period.

Since we're in that era, how about Moby Grape's debut? Country Joe & The Fish Feel Like I'm Fixin' to Die

So many to mention in the year of 1967 alone.

 

[Larry Geller]

You don't need this disclaimer. Volunteers came out in 11/69. Mexico was JA's ONLY release in 1970 (excepting Worst Of). Bark came out in the Summer of 1971, so Mexico WAS before the decline. BTW, the 45 of Mexico is one of the great lost tracks (as was the b-side Have You Seen The Saucers), as the 45 for both were DIFFERENT, FAR SUPERIOR takes than the versions that are on every subsequent reissue. The 45 has incredibly powerful bass from Jack, a screaming Jorma lead, and an almost buried vocal from Grace. The more familiar alternate has weak bass & the vocal track is mixed very loud. Saucers isn't as different, but the 45 take is also superior. Hopefully, when they remaster Bark, these will be on it.

 

[gregD]

Another shout-out for JA... very few clunkers in those first several albums... I'm a Baxter's man myself.

Saw them at Winterland in '70, shortly before (or maybe sorta during) the transition to Papa John (a nifty musical addition IMO)... they were quite stunning... Slick and Balin continually carrying each other to greater heights... Jorma and Jack...

Those were the days... said the geezer...

 

[Dennis Nicholls]

Every time I see the Sack Dee logo I think of those posters...

 

[Rachael B]

Baron Von Tollbooth And The Chrome Nun... available on long-playing record or CeeDee.

Be an "eggsnatcher". People forget about this album because it's not a JA or J-flying object album. But, it's out there, somewhere.

Zen, I saw Todd Rundgren with all 3 of his groups (that's excluding Nazz) for all practical purposes. First he had the Hello People with brothers Hunt and Tony Sales for a ryhthm section. Then there was the the early Utopia with dual keyboards of Moogy Kllingman and Roger Powell, with the amazing John Siegler on bass. This Utopia really had a different kind of sound that I liked. Roger Powell's fusion album, AIR POCKET, is worth a listen, BTW. I don't know if it's ever made the jump to CD??? John Siegler is one of the best bass players I've seen play live. He had a jazzy style and could do all that stuff Stanley Clarke became so famous for.

Latter Utopia is OK but the group isn't so unique in sound. Zen Machine is totally bitchin' though...IMO.

 

[Zen Butler]

Rachael, I have Baron Von Tollbooth And The Chrome Nun. It is out there. In more ways than one. I have the re-master, which is pretty decent. I love this album.

What I love, now, about 77-78ish Utopia is the obvious tongue in cheek approach. I was totally oblivious to this at 10-11 years old. I just ask Mom's to buy me the records because their album covers were so cool. So many great bands I discovered on the merits of their album art alone. That and the fact that my neighbor had some pretty tasty "tomato" plants about that time. He had a killer stoner garage bedroom that, to this day, is still local legend. I remember praying to the gods to bring me a room like that one. I still remember every detail.

 

[Rachael B]

Zen, sounds like nice organic produce. ...sort'a reminds me of Flowers Of The Night!

Zee stoner garage sounds intresting. Black lights and day-glo posters, si? That's what I liked! One of my friends had an attic apartment completely painted black with posters and hand-painted day-glo art and black light tubes, of course! I painted Mickey Mouse in a robe and wizard's hat smokin' a doo-bee. My fav painting on the wall was one of those half human, half horse thingies from Greek mythology. This one had that rasin-tit granny from Playboy as the human part. I wish I'd painted that one! He had a nice stereo up there. He had a drum set and a 100 watt Marshall amp fer zee get-tar and parents who were hardly ever home to complain about the db level = teen-topia! What a place to get "small"!

I have all of Todd Rundgren's albums except for some of those fan club only albums and a few LD's of him and Utopia too. He is "outstanding in his field".

 

[Zen Butler]

Side Topic: The 70's Stoner Garage/Bedrooms



So wild!

 

[Jack Briggs]

I like this thread a lot.

Larry Geller, you clearly know your Airplane. Good! I just made an incredible fool of myself in a Stanley Kubrick thread in Movies. HTF's resident SK expert, and I was writing about one film while thinking about another. Still embarrassed or I wouldn't be posting about this. Dennis Nichols was there. He saw it all.

Oh, the shame, the shame.

Anyway, back to Jefferson Airplane and Larry's insightful comments: Yes, I could tell that the 45 of "Mexico" was superior to what was on the Bark album. By the time that 1971 effort streeted, I already had begun to listen almost exclusively to serious music, so dismayed by what I was seeing happening to rock (The Beatles had disbanded a year earlier and rock, as a result, seemed to be losing its way; celebrated 1960s bands were putting out subpar music; the nauseating advent of the singer-songwriters; mediocre new bands; the coming of "arena rock" -- why, it was all enough to send a 1960s hippie rock snob into a tailspin; I sought refuge in Mozart and Berlioz).

 

[Zen Butler]

Jack, I feel that. It seems a lot like what I went through in the 80's with its' own version of bombastic cock rock. I too, while in college, dove into classical, jazz and The Cure. As to the 71-75 time period, don't care much for the whole arena-rock. I do enjoy:
Ohio Players
Edgar Winter Group (my favorite of that period)
Todd Rundgren's Hello it's Me was great.
Kraftwerk would immerge
War
Pink Floyd(DSOTM and others)
PAul McCartney-Band on the Run had moments
Bob Dylan's awesome Blood on the Tracks
Average White Band
I love Robin Trower's mood.
As Jack eluded to, Jefferson Starship's Red Octopus is a damn good record.
Just to name a few. There was some good stuff out there despite the Gods of Rock mentality in the mainstream, right?

Probably my favorite of the period would have to be
Patti Smith's debut Horses which is near perfect.

 

[Rachael B]

Zen, I have about 25 lava lamps all shapes and sizes. I usually have about a dozen deployed at a time all about the house. I lost a pair of rare French "cooker" lava lamps on E-bay last year, if I'd of won those my collection would be complete. I keep looking. My lava lamps are all on digital timers and turn off and on automatically. Call me lava mama!

 

[Rachael B]

Jack, do you think the Electric Flag will ever reunite?

In the early 70's my fav's were:

Seatrain
Cactus
Allman Brothers
Zappa
Return To Forever
Les McCann & Eddie Harris...Compared To What!
Sugarloaf
Quicksilver Messenger Service
Leon Russell
Marc Benno
Flying Burrito Brothers
...any group/album with Kantner & Slick & sum-thymes Kaukonen...
Todd Rundgren with his Hello People
Funkadelic/Parliment
Free
Jeff Beck
Savoy Brown
George Benson
Poco
Goose Creek Symphony
Barefoot Jerry
The Meters
J. Geils Band
and Rod Stewart

I liked 70's music just fine, the good ones were in the bag if you sorted....

 

[Zen Butler]

"Rachlava", I thought the thread could use one. I've got to post some pics of my spread man.


That's really cool.

Heheheh, ironically(not really), I watched Head last night for the first time. Outta sight!

 

[Jack Briggs]

One of our members has a great sig image that includes the cover to the first-ever "concept album" in rock history: Freak Out! by the Mothers of Invention. I bought that double-LP when it first came out solely because the band looked so "weird." It blew me away when I spun it. I'll never forget the impact of the leadoff cut on the second disc, "Trouble Coming Every Day" -- a Frank Zappa proto-rap take on the 1965 Watts Riots here in good ol' L.A.

Magnificent album.

Shortly thereafter, I discovered the Airplane.

Then The Beatles turned into hippies.

My life was changed.

 

[Dennis Nicholls]

I was 14 years old in 1967. Just a little too young to get with the program as it were. I remember 1968 a lot more vividly, what with Johnson opting out, riots in Chicago, the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, et al....

 

[Jack Briggs]

And Apollo 8!

 

[Dennis Nicholls]

It's seared - seared - into my memory....









And of course a certain Stanley Kubrick film that showed a bunch of ape men jumping up and down chanting the Dies Irae.....

 

[Jack Briggs]

That last image: Wasn't that the movie that put Martin Scorsese on the map?

 

[Zen Butler]

Who Are The Brain Police? - I really dig that album.

1968 was also the year of another great Zappa record We're Only in It for the Money. One of my closest friends is a Zappa nut. I've benefited from that.



The signature that Jack talked about is Michael St. Clair's

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htfo...96#post2227696

Pretty cool