http://www.seattlepi.com/pop/426942_144295-blogcritics.org.html
By GLEN BOYD
BLOGCRITICS.ORG
September 18, 2010
When I was a kid, I can remember having two favorite bands. The first
was the Beatles of course (for obvious reasons).
The second though, was the Jefferson Airplane. Some of the reasons
there should be fairly obvious Grace Slick's dark and druggy
sexuality made me cream my very hormonally charged thirteen year old
jeans the same way that I'm sure they did many other young boys
growing up back then in the sixties as I did.
But where the Airplane really cast their spell on me was in the way
guitarist Jorma Kaukonen and bassist Jack Casady wove such
intoxicating tapestries of sound. They were more like tunnels which
took you deep into the rabbit hole Grace sang about actually.
There was nothing quite like the way Casady's rumbling bass lines
sucked you deep down into that tunnel and there really has never
been another like him before or since. Couple that with Kaukonen's
sharp, raga-esque blasts of guitar and you had a uniquely different
flight into the other worlds of consciousness altogther. Fantasies of
Grace's own rabbit hole notwithstanding (sorry, couldn't resist...)
I mean, sure. Grace was every sixties male teenyboppers hippie chick
goddess and undoubtedly the focus of many a pre-pubescent
masturbatory fantasy back then (which forty some odd years later, I
can now admit included my own). Where Janis was sorta scary, Grace
was more like comely, okay?
But while Grace may have made one hell of a psychedelic flight
attendant, it was Jorma and Jack who were truly flying this
particular Airplane. With these two amazingly gifted musicians as
your psychedelic pilots, any additional drugs were completely
unnecessary. Fly Jefferson Airplane indeed.
Another thing I used to do back then was mark the songs on my vinyl
albums with stars for the songs I really liked. The ones I'd skip
over would be unmarked, while others might have one star or two. But
the ones which really kicked ass might have four or even five.
When Jefferson Airplane released their first official live album
Bless Its Pointed Little Head back in 1969, the song "Plastic
Fantastic Lover" was marked with five stars. No question about it. As
songs released on live albums go, this one ranked right up there with
the fourteen minute version of "My Generation" from The Who Live At Leeds.
To this day, I have never heard a bass riff that rumbled my speakers
and my entire being, the same way that this one did, and still does
to this day. Kaukonen's leads razor sharp and concise likewise
cut through Casady's deep as thunder bass runs like a knife to
butter, and Marty Balin's vocals here are the icing on the cake.
Not long after this album, as well as the one great studio album they
had left in them (1969's Volunteers), the Airplane disintegrated into
the embarrassing mess that eventually became those god-awful Starship
albums of the eighties. If you'd like to forget those, trust me, you
are not alone.
But for that one brief moment in 1969 forget the Stones, forget the
Who the Jefferson Airplane were the undisputed greatest live band on earth.
Which is why I submit, they need to leave at that. The Stones have
Get Your Yas Yas Out. The Who have Live At Leeds. And Jefferson
Airplane have Bless Its Pointed Little Head. But, can they leave well
enough alone? Of course not.
In the end, it is history which ultimately decides these things. But
in the meantime, it is up to the record executives and the like to do
everything in their power to muck the rest of it up. Just ask the
Stones and the Who.
Although they got it right the first time, Jefferson Airplane (or at
least the record companies with both the rights and the access) have
continued to release a number of live albums in the years since, and
none have yet to measure up to the standard of Pointed Head.
The latest of these attempts is a series of four live albums that
will be released next month by Collectors Choice Music. Although
taken as a whole, these four albums recorded between 1966 and 1968
at the Fillmore and the Matrix also fall largely short of capturing
the magic of the Airplane as a great live band, they do come the
closest to date. They also place things in much more of a historical
context, and contain some truly spellbinding musical moments along the way.
Take "Plastic Fantastic Lover" for instance. It's no mistake that
this song appears no less then four times on these four discs (and
three times on the November 1966 We Have Ignition set from the
Fillmore alone).
Hearing the live evolution of this song from the lucid, druggy jam
most closely resembling the studio version heard on Surrealistic
Pillow, to the statically charged version that is closest to the
definitive live perfection from Pointed Head heard on the 1968 Return
To The Matrix -- is a textbook example of watching a song take on a
life all of its own onstage. It's no mistake that "Plastic Fantastic
Lover" was the Airplane's signature live tune much more so than the
much bigger hits like "Somebody To Love" and "White Rabbit."
But not to worry those songs show up here too. Of the two of them,
the version of "White Rabbit" fares the better on the 1966 version
from the Fillmore.
Grace Slick still new to the band at the time plays things fairly
straight here, and as always Casady's bass just kills it dead. By
contrast, on a version of "Somebody To Love" from the 1968 Matrix
discs, Slick seems to be somewhere else entirely (there is
improvisation, and there is also just plain stoned). Here again
however, on the intro Casady's bass thunders along like nothing short
of the breath of God himself.
In the final analysis, these live recordings will probably be of the
most interest to hardcore students of rock history, and particularly
of the sixties psychedelic period. They trace the Airplane from
original vocalist Signe Anderson's final performance, to Grace
Slick's debut (the very next night), all the way through to embryonic
pre-release versions of Crown Of Creation songs like "Ice Cream
Phoenix" (a standout from the 1968 Matrix set).
As post Pointed Head attempts at bottling the volatile electricity of
the original live Jefferson Airplane go, this four disc series is by
far the best effort to date.
It is also exactly the long awaited official document of the
Airplane's live evolution as a band, that rock historical types have
long awaited (previously available streams at Wolfgangs Vault and on
bootlegs notwithstanding).
But all historical significance aside and there are some really
great performances spread over this series Bless Its Pointed Little
Head remains the definitive live Jefferson Airplane album, and
indeed, one of the greatest live albums ever. You just can't top that
kind of perfection.
The Collectors Choice series arrives in stores on October 26.
.
0 comments:
Post a Comment