Defend the Indefensible: Jefferson Starship

But check the search function at the bottom of the page ... there was a previous thread about JS. I had an epiphany a few weeks ago listening to "Count On Me". God, that song is beautiful.

Jefferson Airplane made several great records during the late 60s though.

2. "Blows Against The Empire", which is nominally a Jefferson Starship album, is not all that bad, especially the noisy electronic bits, a result all the more surprising considering the number of hippies involved.

I like "Miracles" for the same reasons I like "Magnet and Steel" and Gerry Rafferty's "Right Down the Line".

...a couplet that was edited out of the AM version, btw.

Paul Kantner's always good for at least one decent conspiracy-theory spiel per interview. I'd bet he's got a good book in him (I know he did that 2CD spoken word thing a few years back but I haven't heard it).

"Out of Control" and "Winds of Change" are dire, though.

Even as an eight year old I knew it was bad.

I saw a video for "Stranger" last week ... and while it is a pretty crap song, they were to get much worse. On Modern Times and maybe even Winds of Change, they were still rockin'.

TS: Mickey Hart -vs- Peter Cetera... Who ruined a band more?

the hottest girl in
our junior high school had it
in social studies

we bonded over
its strange sci-fi harmonies,
sang "jane" together

I hate how he went from looking like a hirsute rock bandito circa Modern Times (which features one of the all time stinkeroo album covers) and morphed into a feathered-haired cruise director look circa dropping the "Jefferson" from their name.

Caroline
With Your Love
Miracles
Ai Garimasu (There Is Love)
Fast Buck Freddy
Tumblin'
St. Charles
Find Your Way Back

It will make you shit.

TS: Jefferson Starship v. Exlax

or at least that's how i sing it.

adding past year's guilty pleasure realisation bout "Miracles" that makes 2. wonder what else awaits? biggest volte-face for me since Bread...

Yeah, despite the noxiousness of the whole Starship enterprise

ouch.

also goes nicely with Dennis Wilson's "You And I". both have lovely Santana/Underwood-esque solo licks.

i remember this song when it came out, it's even more wtf now
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVejkvSrGgM&feature=related

I have to say, that one left me speechless

Also I think the reason this band obsesses me on a Freudian level is that my dad worshipped Grace Slick and my mother liked Marty Balin, so naturally they married the exact opposite type of person from their idols, ie each other. Which might explain why my 'relationships' have always been so shitty. (Slick and Balin apparently never even had sex with each other but they recorded 'Miracles' as if they did, right?)

This left me speechless.

I have to say, that one left me speechless

Yeah. I'm sitting here shaking my head going "What the..."

Weird that no one's mentioned "No Way Out" which was a pretty big MTV hit. Nuclear Furniture was a pretty big record — they sort of sounded like latter-period Styx at that point.

Weird that no one's mentioned "No Way Out" which was a pretty big MTV hit.

I honestly think that was the first song of theirs I heard on the radio.

I'm getting pretty into their mid-seventies run: the music, and the production - when they're mid-tempo & Marty Balin is calling the shots, they're pretty great. However, Grace Slick is one of the worst singers of the rock era and you have to train your ear to tune her out. The non-Balin songs can be p. dire though and it's weird - if you look at the songwriting credits on any given album, they're all over the place - you get the sense this was a band that had a hard time getting enough material together every time, but it was that or open up an incense store or something

OTOH "Fire" from Earth will make you hate music & singers

http://www.torrentsland.com/upload/preview/images/music/4/5/7/f6d9e318ce3c6c4d9e2a4a321b8caf19.jpg

i want to live inside that photo

otm

Naw man, "Count on Me" is a great song but the best part is when you also get to hear Grace singing in the chorus.

Grace was fantastic from Surrealistic Pillow right through to "Mexico" at least--which isn't Jefferson Starship, but does, I believe, fit into the rock era.

I mean, "Count on Me" is like Fleetwood Mac, right? But Marty Balin was like a national treasure as a singer. And then when the harmonies come in on the chorus, something deep emerges from the depths of American musical culture.

Aw, I've always really liked Slick's vocals. Makes the Airplane and Jefferson Starship for me. I can even listen to some of the 80s Starship hits. Anyway, the OP sounds like it's talking more about Starship than Jefferson Starship but I really love Red Octopus and would probably rank it among the better 70s pop/rock records. I've been curious about their other albums. Just put on Freedom at Point Zero. I like the stadium rock singles from that one.

This is the actual cover of Marty Balin's 1997 album, Freedom Flight.

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B000003QZT.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

that's an awesome cover.

puts all those chillwave kids to shame.

this is the cover of the album he made after that one

http://d.yimg.com/ec/image/v1/release/150497;encoding=jpg;size=300;fallback=defaultImage

getting pretty obsessed

The first album cut in the barn in New Hampshire was a tribute to Scott Joplin, and Marty Balin's Better Generation was the second. The late Jimmy Miller always said to use a studio that doesn't need to have the bugs ironed out, and that wisdom rings so true on Better Generation, an album of good music recorded at an inadequate facility. The album deals with GWE (Green With Envy, a terrible name for the short-lived label) emerged from Balin's negotiations with producer Jimmy Miller. Miller very much wanted to produce Balin, and in 1988 a deal was struck with Mission Control Studios (no relation to the company that handles the Jefferson Starship, also, coincidentally, called Mission Control). New Kids on the Block were recording with studio owners the Jonzun Crew and the brothers Jonzun kindly opened the doors to this project -- it was the investor with Jimmy Miller's company who completely dropped the ball. Three years elapsed between the Miller talks and the creation of this album.

pure marty fire

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEnsmN1O9-Y&feature=relmfu

do these guys actually listen to these albums after they make them? do they even know what they sound like? because they sound pretty terrible, but it never seems to bother anyone.

they try to go for that bygone BIG sound but the money isn't there or the studio and BIG ends up sounding like BUTT. they should try small. some tiny little analog studio run by a beardo. i know about ten of them. they never do that though. they could make really nice sounding records for not a ton of money.

omg scott this post is like my favorite post ever

do these guys actually listen to these albums after they make them? do they even know what they sound like? because they sound pretty terrible, but it never seems to bother anyone.

i just posted "hearts" on another thread! by mistake. anyway, 1981 marty sounded much nicer. i love that song. hell, i'll post it again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIF74lH4KPM&feature=related

Forgot there was a time when the 'plane (or a few of them, anyway) embraced keytars and electronic drums, thus gaining them entree into MTV's Spring Break lineup:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebGaDgssVcc

yeah KBC was the hottest bar band ever! but not really. if i saw them playing a wedding i don't even know if i'd look up from my shrimp cocktail. jack casady is a living god and he should be treated like one.

I would look up from my shrimp cocktail during this, if only to say, "Wait...who the fuck is that? What the fuck are they doing?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxnsmRl8x14
Jefferson Airplane/Starship pretty much cornered the market on the uncanny valley of 60s bands desperately trying to stay "relevant" in the 80s.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E35Yzr0HGto

missed the use of the term "the uncanny valley" yesterday and when I did see it today I didn't quite know how it fit but now I think it's pretty sweet

Some funny quotes in this article:

"Peter Wolf was a genius synthesizer player. The Synclavier was cutting-edge. We didn't feel like we were selling out; we felt like we were trying to land a man on the moon."

"It sounded like nothing else on the radio and had a very in-your-face, hard-edged machine bottom. Yes, I'm proud of it. Sure. The mockery came way later."

"When the song went to No. 1, I said to Bernie, 'More than ever, people are gonna ask what "Marconi plays the mamba" means.' He said, 'I have no fucking idea, mate.'"

http://www.gq.com/story/oral-history-we-built-this-city-worst-song-of-all-time

This one got discussed a bit on this thread too.

http://www.ilxor.com/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?action=showall&boardid=41&threadid=23329

we built this city on mounds of fetid shit

But what about Jefferson Starship?

This one got discussed a bit on this thread too.

Ah, thanks. I just looked at thread titles with "Starship" in them.

DID YOU KNOW?

In 1987, Starship's Paul Kantner ventured on a "fact-finding" tour of Nicaragua and the Sandanista government.

Interesting!

https://i.imgur.com/yV83zW2.jpeg

Even with the camera evidence, it still feels like a hallucination. I'm working on a computer look up a the TV in the lobby and caught this "factoid". Very strange.

Although Kantner was never a member of "Starship"; at the time he was in the KBC band with Marty Balin and Jack Casady.