Last week, while travelling by train and bothered by the surrounding chatter, I turned to my laptop and ended up finding music that I didn’t even know I had. Technically challenged, I have a strange disconnect with my own laptop—many underutilized features there. Desperate for good sounds, I came across Jefferson Airplane’s 2400 Fulton Street: An Anthology. My obssessive self has been listening to it every day since. Most of the songs I know, but haven’t heard in a very long time, and I’d forgotten how good they are. I’m particularly fond of a few of the more haunting tunes such as Today, Pretty as You Feel and Comin’ Back to Me.
It just happens that before I left for my trip, W unearthed a handful of my old ticket stubs—tickets from almost every movie theater in the Alexandria area (that you’ll no doubt see in future posts…ahhh, livin’ in the past), as well as a few concert tickets from the old Capital Centre in Largo, Maryland. A Jefferson Starship stub was among them.
Mistakenly thinking I had seen Jefferson Airplane, I did a little investigation to see just how the change to Starship came about. It seems that when Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady of the Jefferson Airplane spin-off group, Hot Tuna, showed no interest in coming together again, rhythm guitarist and singer, Paul Kantner, decided to form a band without them and named the altered unit Jefferson Starship. Consisting of the remaining members of Jefferson Airplane, Jefferson Starship started rehearsals in January 1974 and kicked off their first tour in Chicago in March of the same year. By the time I saw them in October, they had just released their album Dragon Fly. Read more on Jefferson Starship here.
If you’re interested, have a listen at my playlist—I couldn’t find all my favorites, but found most, though I really wish Pretty as You Feel were among them…
Grace
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justin
YogaforCynics
Twitter: jodapoet
I love the Starship/Airplane. That was my era. All the important and fun stuff that happened in my life was during that era. Brings back many great memories.
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More music nerdness (nerdity?): in 1974, the Starship were still far closer, in attitude at least, to the Airplane than to what Jefferson Starship turned into (particularly after the godawfully cheesy Mickey Thomas replaced Marty Balin). Then, when Paul Kantner, the last original member got kicked out and sued for the “Jefferson” part of the name, they became one of the yuckiest acts of the 80′s (which is really saying something) as “Starship.” Meanwhile, Kantner, Balin, and Casady formed the half decent KBC band, which, by the end of the 80′s became the reunited Jefferson Airplane, which made a mostly crappy album and did a pretty good tour (I saw them at the Greek Theatre) before breaking up again. Then, a couple years later, Paul Kantner reformed Jefferson Starship with Casady, Balin, and Papa John Creach, and, though Kantner is again the only original member, they continue to tour (though I only saw them right after they reformed, back in ’92). Alright, I’ll shut up now….
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Twitter: earthtoholly
Hi Joanne. I know what you mean. I love just about all music, but nothing beats what you grew up with, huh?
Agreed. The very early Jefferson Starship was pretty close to Airplane… The “futuristic” slant (ie. ‘starship’ evolved from ‘airplane’) came mostly from Kantner, laid own on “Blows Against The Empire”… The album “Red Octopus” is fairly decent, and as close to the Airplane vibe as they ever got, despite Jorma & Casady’s absence. I far prefer Jefferson Airplane.
***However,*** a vastly underrated album, which surpasses Jefferson Airplane in brilliance in a few spots, is Kanter & Slick’s ‘solo’ effort “Baron Von Tollbooth & The Chrome Nun” – very obscure and an ***absolute must listen*** for Airplane fans… Guests include: Jerry Garcia, The Pointer Sisters, Mickey Hart, David Crosby, and more…It also includes future members of J. Starship http://is.gd/CW9D
Twitter: earthtoholly
Welcome back, drjay…we missed ya.
More music nerdity? Or did you mean nudity? Uh, no, of course you didn’t…did you?
Anyway, wow. You are a storehouse of musical information and I love comments that “fill me in.” I am so bad with this stuff that I actually thought Journey, or some such band, sang “We Built This City,” which I don’t like…at all. I definitely like the Airplane days better…Starship was a whole different feel. I’m glad I caught them on the cusp, though I’m guessing they didn’t sing all of the old favorites…just guessin’ as I don’t remember a thing. I mean, I remembered at the time…I think…
Twitter: earthtoholly
Hi lightsweetcrude and thank you for the link…I’ll need to take some time and listen to those. I expect that anything touched by Jerry Garcia and David Crosby is worth listening to, as The Grateful Dead and CS&N are probably my two favorite bands. Like I commented to drjay, I appreciate any info as I’m not great with rock history stuff. It’s interesting to hear these stories.
$5.50!
Twitter: earthtoholly
Hi Roy. Yeah, just $5.50. And I saw a Jefferson Starship ticket stub on eBay that was dated 1975 and the price had only risen $1 in a year…it was only $6.50!
Oh yeah, Baron Von Tollbooth’s an incredible album, even better than Blows Against the Empire…including “Harp Tree Lament” which always makes me think of glowing dancing chubby happy mushroom people ever since that night…erm, never mind…
YogaforCynics´s last blog post..The World’s Only Imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize Recipient
Twitter: earthtoholly
Hey drjay…ya know, except for the “mushroom” part, that coulda been me.
I know…yikes.
Well…they kinda popped out of my eyeball then disappeared…it was a really excellent night, actually….ah, but that was a long, long time ago…
YogaforCynics´s last blog post..The World’s Only Imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize Recipient
Twitter: earthtoholly
Hee-hee…I don’t think I was clear, drjay…(or was I?). I meant “…except for the ‘mushroom’ part, that coulda been me that you thought of.” Hence, the “yikes.”
Okay, I’ll move on now…time to work on that personal writing that I can’t get right…