The first use of the Jefferson Starship moniker was in 1970 for a side project from the very much active Jefferson Airplane; credited to Paul Kantner and the Jefferson Starship, the project was a concept album named Blows Against the Empire that would even go onto win a Hugo award for Sci-Fi. The album like David Crosby's first solo album were recorded at the same time and in the same studio and would feature a large ensemble of artists cross pollinated from different SF bands workin on this and the Crosby project with no real connection to the Jefferson Starship's official debut four years later; only Paul Kantner, Grace Slick and David Freiberg would remain to for the Starship's debut.
Mau Mau (Amerikon) is a Cream SWABLR sounding rave blues with Dylanesque accents and town cryer vocals and an archaic centuries old acapella intro; while it owes a debt to the noise rock of bands like Velvet Underground, The Seeds, The Sonics etc, by this point bands like Zeppelin and the Stooges had already moved passed that beat group style of garage rock to heavier fare. The Jerry Garcia banjo tune The Baby Tree is the same Pete Seeger working class folk style of song, stickin out like a sore thumb on this album due to it's stripped sensibility. The next track Let's Go Together could easily be the most generic Hippy tune of all as they wail defiantly about going to a starship 'right now' as they 'wave goodbye to America', sought've fits with the Post Trump era sentiments; possibly a track that could be in use in a couple weeks for the next election.
A Child is Coming is Sunshine Pop a year after it went out of fashion, but still a nice detraction if a little lacking in creativity as the vocals continue to prattle on with this empty rhetoric; none of the bite of later social conscious hip hop for example, just more of a mix of fantasy with some clumsy attempt at real world relevance. The call and response between Kantner and Slick in the middle is at first dramatic but soon goes on too long and repetitive and you start to question is it really 'gettin better' as they repeatedly claim? The ramping up tension of the rootsy strumming, piano scale leads to a great interjection of searing, whining lead guitar that feedbacks in and out of your left channel. However, it just keeps going till the end dominating the six-minute tune with the hopeful lyrics falling flat, much in the same way that the progression never really takes off. After a while the track just sought've stayed put never built to a climax in the way they would do so expertly on Epic 38 on Grace's solo album (see prior post).
Sunrise is an FX extravaganza as a droning electric guitar is fed back itself in big harmonic walls of dissonance, while Slick cleverly uses a Middle Eastern style of throat singing where she pushes her voice to it's limits, using the slightest twitches of her vocal cords to create skipping stone series of natural vibrato and breaks that only instruments and the most talented Berber singers usually achieve. Layers of overdriven guitar ring out in thunderous clouds of feedback; bassist Jack Cassady of the Airplane uses a stringed bow to drawl, scissor and dither over the bridge of his bass guitar (ala Jimmy Page), this allows a rumbling, synthetic orchestra whilst remaining a shape shifting monster of fuzzed out notes; abruptly able to change pitch and cutoff girth.
Hijack starts off sounding almost exactly like Friends by Led Zeppelin with it's jumpy acoustic hammer on eastern riff and tabla; the vocals, however, remind me of the Byrds and as always feature Grace sticking out from the background as if kept to the back of the studio due to her piercing tone always poking through. In Hijack, Kantner claims the Starship will start building in 1980 and be ready by 1990; more like built in 74 and ready by 84 for their big chart-topping successes with the shortened Mickey Thomas line-up. The change of tempo and a new acoustic riff at the 3-minute 20 mark is gloriously preceded by a little count off keeping a neat live performance feel that is unless there are overdubs and fixes, which I'm sure there are as these are polished performances and their live shows never matched their studio craft. Two minutes later and a Gypsy lyric and a funky rock strum enter and we get treated to some modal soloing before a laser beam of crackly electric distortion segues and seethes in a raging wah wah; Star Wars laser gun sound effects also ping off. The mundane piano and mandolin like acoustic slowly fade the tune out reminding me for some reason of the Cosmic Celtic bluegrass amalgamation of The Eagles' Journey of the Sorcerer; which like my earlier Star Wars reference was still several years off by this point.
The 37 second snippet Home packs a lot in; as tinny, canned cymbals clang before an oscillating signal enters and the tape is sped up to astronomical high pitch as if it's being rewound. Then follows, more blotches of 'cigarette burn' laser beams, a whirring wall of noise; which I believe is just a series of takes of distorted electric guitar with a tubular bell hammered sparsely for ambience, then this recording is sped, slowed and panned off into atmospheric static white noise that undulates like the ocean....Anyhoo, monk chanting finish the dirge Home and an acoustic guitar strums along joyfully.. a cutting pedal steel guitar peers in and out in crystal teardrop notes and a chorus finally returns as we realise, we are well into the next track; Have You Seen the Stars Tonite?
A bicycle bell rings in childish jingles, and a strange yet smooth coagulating distortion wriggles every now n' then, potentially produced by an electric reverbed guitar amp or something else..like a synth. XM is even more wild, starting with World War 2 era explosions and turbine sounds before some wobbling signals and radiator like buzz takeover before being washed away by ear caressing and very modern sounding phased 'whooshes'.
Industrial sounds of hydraulics, wind, ghostly theremin, white noise and many clipped sound crashes are weaved as if by a studio console, mixing desk or a synthesizer. Next song, Starship, drifts in with a happy piano progression, a nice little bass line, acoustic strum and group vocals espousing their hippi credentials, but it does contain a great line about 'an acid fever' that swamps the mind and gets in the way of the human experience, preventing you from connecting with others; it's a nice albeit brief bit of introspection on a very big concept album full of 'big picture' statements and counter cultural messages. But of course, it's Jerry Garcia with his lightning rod guitar solo that really stands out, he was often the cameo appearance who stole the limelight; as we all remember his immortal pedal steel on Crosby Stills and Nash' Teach Your Children.
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