May 042010
Mad Props! to Townsman eh, who made Rock Town Hall his place and pointed us toward this video for “Jane,” Starship’s smash hit. A motion was made to bring this video to The Main Stage. So it is written, so let it be done!
The floor is open to your analytical skills!
There are times, perhaps, when I don the RTH labcoat a little too long and apply too much scrutiny to clips such as this, but I hope you’ll indulge me a bit today when I put a little extra time and effort into this clip and bring your attention to MOUSTACHE!!.
This song will always remind me of the opening of Wet Hot American Summer so I can’t totally hate it, even though it is terrible.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlpdhC7VVjw
According to Wikipedia, Grace Slick wasn’t on the JS album with this song, but I guess she was back in the band by the time of this live clip. She looks suitably lost. Kanter looks like a tool, as usual.
alexmagic, the day Townspeople feel you overstay your welcome with in-depth analysis of a video is the day I shut down Rock Town Hall! Take all the time and space you need!
I was smitten with this song during my tweens, I found the record in the adult section of the library, which meant that I needed permission to borrow it, having a children’s library card. The librarian read through the lyrics and said, “I don’t know if I should let you borrow this.” I guess I convinced her, because I know I did borrow that album.
Could’ve been worse though – I could’ve bought the stupid thing.
Cher, I have the shame of having bought that album.
I could try to blame a girl named Jane, but really, after all, it was not her fault. Also, I really think she wasn’t pretending not to know what I was talking about.
Oats, I could have sworn Grace was singing in the response portion of those vocals on the album, but it certainly could have been Mickey training for his Memorex commercial.
Speaking of which, Grace should have been doing Mary Kay or Avon commercials back then. You could scoop off enough makeup off of her face to make one of Mr. Mod’s girl punk bands look like valley girls.
Also, has anyone had a cop moustache ever end up less cop-like than Mickey Thomas?
Kantner needs to find another bowl to use for his haircuts.
I remember the album guitar solo being even worse than this.
Continuity error: At 1:47 Grace is playing a turquoise tambourine. At 1:49 she is hitting what I think is called a jingle stick with a drumstick. And then at 1:52 she’s shaking the tambourine again.
Chaquico’s super-pointy purple BC Rich guitar deserves special mention. That brand went from cool to uncool very quickly. There must be used ones available for very cheap.
A few thoughts:
1. I swear the moustache on singer dude is s stick-on costume affair. But he needs one. Seriously, I think he may be a woman.
2. But wait! Where’s Chaquico’s moustache? Was he required to shave it to make singer dude look more manly by comparison? Come to think of it, he’s also *not* playing a guitar with lots of points and acute angles on it. I am confused by you, Craig Chaquico — you, who performed the second-worst guitar solo of all time on this song!
3. On a more serious note: seriously, doesn’t the fact that the people in Jefferson Starship wrote some of the most awful music of the 80s cast serious retroactive doubt on their underground, counter-culture credibility from back in the day? Why shouldn’t it make you feel the same way you would about the high school math teacher you loved if you discovered that later in life he was busted for possessing kiddie porn?
BBC Rich Mockingbird. Also the favored guitar of Mr Pat Benetar for a while.
How about those arm garters on the guy playing the pianer? Old timey, eh?
I think I like this song more than most of the songs that I’ve heard from this collective. It probably comes in third after Somebody to Love and Volunteers.
Man, cdm, do you want to open for me on my college campus tour in which I lecture on the relative merits of “Kokomo” among post-Pet Sounds Beach Boys recordings?
Thanks for the offer but I never said it had any merit.
I’m with Oats. It worked well in that movie, but mainly as an indicator of a time period. Other than that, I never want to hear ANY Starship “music” ever again in my life, and hope this is the last we hear about them in The Hall for awhile (they seem to be fascinating to some of you; why, I can’t really fathom).
And that singer looks like a hybrid of John Oats & Tony Orlando….and a chick.
And that BC Rich guitar looks plenty pointy to me. OK, NOW I’m done with these idiots.
Dio should have sang this song.
If he did, I think we’d all mind it a bit less.
That fuckin “japanese” look on the guitarist is the shit!!!
Let me clarify: when I say a “pointy” guitar, I mean one that is designed in an exclusively angular fashion. A gibson SG (like the kind Angus Young plays) is obviously “pointy,” as is the BC Rich Mockingbird, but it does not offend the same way that this, Chaquico’s normal axe of choice, does:
http://media.photobucket.com/image/chaquico%20carvin/dspellman/CarvinV220002.jpg
I’m still a little too caught up in the moustache to go in-depth, but I do wonder what’s going on with Kantner’s outfit. It seems like he decided to dress himself like a hybrid of the less popular members of Van Halen. I see clear elements of both Michael Anthony and Alex Van Halen in that Look.
Depending on when this performance happened, it may also be possible that Kantner inspired the Look of Kurt Russell’s Jack Burton in Big Trouble In Little China, though Russell had the good sense to ditch the sweatbands.
HVB: I suggested the same thing about the potential retroactive legacy damage that this kind of thing could have on the Airplane some time ago on RTH. Someone vehemently disagreed with me at the time, and probably put a lot more thought into their disagreement than I did in the initial suggestion, but I still kind of agree with you.
Here’s a thought I had the other day: if ’80s Jefferson Airplane/Starship and ’80s Monkees proposed a Dolenz for Slick one-for-one trade, how would that have gone down? Would you, as a theoretical Commissioner Of Music, have blocked it? And which band – in their respective ’80s line-ups – would have made out better on the deal?
My early thoughts are that, based on songs like “Daily Nightly”, Dolenz could have done Slick’s songs in his sleep and Dolenz and Mickey Thomas could have gotten some mileage out of the Mickey & Mickey angle for at least half a tour, but Dolenz would have taken the band over and crushed Thomas’ ego. On the other hand, Slick struggles more with the Dolenz songs, but the ’80s Monkees could have worked a “Lady Monkee” angle for a tour and one more shitty album.
“The relative merits of “Kokomo” among post-Pet Sounds Beach Boys recordings?” Yes, and the relative merits of “Living In America” in late-period James Brown recordings.
Anyway…
1. How about the dumpy bass players purple lightning t-shirt? That’s a nice.
2. Didn’t the keyboard player for Styx wear one of those arm garters too?
3. Love the requisite synths in the bridge/break. What exactly is the origin of this cliché? Let’s have the rockin’ stop and bring in that synth now, yes that’s nice’n’mello… Now return to the rock!
I will try to get back to this one later, this song being a cherished/loathed part of one’s youth, but until then can someone clarify for me: Grace is the one without the moustache, correct?
cherguevara, the story about the library is fantastic.
“Grace is the one without the moustache, correct?”
Well, Mikey’s is more obvious but I suspect if the camera zoomed in on Grace a bit, it would reveal that the entire front line could have used a lip rip.
I am not so sure about the all-encompassing suckiness of J Starship casting a retroactive pall over J Airplane; for instance, The Faces don’t suffer for all of Rod’s legacy of sucking for these 35 years or so. But, in fact, the point is moot inasmuch as J Airplane already sucks. Not, of course, on the same epic scale as Starship; there are a few good songs in there (“Volunteers”), but the Airplane’s reputation has always been a source of deep mystery to me and I have always imagined that it must be one of those “you had to be there” things.
Having just brushed up on my Starship history via wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_Starship) my sense is that this clip dates from between 1981 and 1984. (Though the song was a hit in 79.) Can anyone confirm?
Let me add that somehow I missed the fact that “We Built This City” was written by Bernie Taupin, Martin Page, Dennis Lambert, and Peter Wolf. Am I wrong to find that weird?
Alexmagic, your description of Kantner in this clip — “It seems like he decided to dress himself like a hybrid of the less popular members of Van Halen” — is priceless.
HVB, I knew what you were getting at, but, to me, ALL BC Rich designs I’ve seen were ugly as sin, no matter their varying degrees of pointy-ness. There’s a huge difference between an SG (or even a flying V or an Explorer, which are plenty pointy) and these god-awful monstrosities, which a guitar tech friend of mine has told me aren’t even very good instruments (w/out practically replacing every bit of hardware on the f-ing things), apart from their hideous designs.
Yellow card to Chaquico for wearing his own band’s current tour shirt on stage and red card (Ejection!) for playing a solo with his teeth @ 4:15.
misterioso,
a cyber high five to you for that Faces/Airplane comment.
Peter Wolf, not to be confused with the J. Geils singer of the same name.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Wolf_%28producer%29
cher, even with the age difference, it sounds like you maybe could have put the moves on that librarian if you’d wanted to do so.
It took four people to write “We Built This City”? I bet you could design the layout for an actual city with fewer people. Was one of the songwriters holed up in a library doing extensive research on Guglielmo Marconi?
hahahahaha!
Ah, not the Woofer Goofer himself but a namesake! That is a relief, of sorts. God, this other Peter Wolf has quite a list of credits…Starship, Wang Chung, Go West, 80s Heart, Kenny Loggins…..This guy pretty much made the 80s what it is today. Wonder if he was married to Faye Dunaway, too.
Anyway, if it had been the Peter Wolf of J. Geils fame, who I see about town from time to time in and around Boston (or used to when I got out more), I would have had to have an anti-Farley moment with him:
“Remember when you wrote ‘We Built This City’?”
“Yes.”
“That sucked.”
So, I am left, then, to wonder at Bernie Taupin, who has actually written quite a few songs I do like, having written the lyrics, it seems, to We Built This City. Sic transit gloria, or something.
Put the moves on the librarian? I was something like 10 years old! What would I say to her, “Come on back to my house and I’ll show you my green eggs and ham?”
“Come on back to my house and I’ll show you my green eggs and ham?”
Well, it’s all in the phrasing.
Or if I was more around 12-13 years old, maybe I’d say, “Come over to my house and I’ll let you choose your own adventure.”
Filmed at a live show, but apparently the studio version playing, right?? I was going to be impressed that he was hitting those insane high notes live, but it’s not live. Grace switches at Flash like speed between her percussion instruments which would only work if pantomiming multiple times to the same track. But the song starts live for the audience to applaud? Just seems like they’re trying to fool us. I’m kind of confused.
Couple of minor points not mentioned yet. Guitarist is also wearing a Howdy Doody like neck kerchief. Grace looks like Joan Jett with a thyroid condition. Bass player was at the end of a laundry week to only have the lightning bolt t-shirt left. Was piano player moonlighting with Foreigner? That piano approach shows up a lot in their songs too.
And one more: Not much of a triumphant rock move at the end when he does the sheepish and apologetic shoulder shrug. “We suck, so sue me.”
Yeah, Chick, she’s like a pale, pale bullfrog.
I think we should all do such a shrug.
Or perhaps, maybe, well, um, not.
I am scared of Grace Slick’s eyes like my girlfriend’s 11-year old son is afraid of the dark. But it’s a vacant, empty, somehow magnetic abyss that I can’t recognize or understand.
But he’s just young. What’s my excuse?
Growing up, this was one of the first records that my brother actually paid for (unless he shoplifted it from Target). Plus I saw Grace sing Somebody to Love on TV, and I loved her. To me, Starship with Mickey Thomas was fake rock, like Toto. This video confirms that!
I had an old Jefferson Airplane 8-track (Early Flight) that I liked, so I was kind of shocked how bad this was — but they would get worse with “We Built this City” or whatever that stupid song is called.
First of all, I know YOUNG Grace Slick was objectively beautiful, but even in her prime she was the kind of woman who might have turned me off to women had their been more of her ilk. This has nothing to do with the musical content of this video, but the musical content of this video isn’t really the point, is it?
I like the way everyone shuffles into formation on stage at the beginning of the song. I think it’s meant to build the anticipation of all those people in the ring, milling about as the circus or Ice Capades gets underway.
Good call on the Styx-style sleeve garters and Foreigner-style ivory pounding. Horrible choices on both visual and musical counts!
Someone wondered about the derivation of the tender synth break in the middle of these types of songs. Could it have been started by The Who on “Baba O’Riley?” What a horrible, unintended legacy to have left!
I have nothing to base this on, but something tells me that Mickey Thomas is wearing one of those t-shirts with the short short sleeves – you know what I mean? Not quite short sleeves/not quite sleeveless.
Note that Thomas is using one of those tripod mic stands. At least it’s not a boom.
Yes, Grace was beautiful.
She rebelled against that.
I blame the 60s
Damn you years ending with zeros!
chickenfrank, this might well not be fully live (or at least not free from editing and overdubbing) but it isn’t the studio version. And whoever made the comparison to Toto–spot on.
My mother actually has a photo of Grace Slick, taken in the 90’s, up on the fridge. Since Grace was so beautiful back then, the photo makes her feel better about aging.
Without reading everything above, did anyone tell the videographer that Paul Kantner was in Jefferson fucking Airplane! He was a big deal! They had all those other noobs getting all the face time, and really, no one wins at that game.
Craig Chaquita is wearing his own band’s T shirt, which is my all time biggest pet peeve and supreme dork move. It’s even dorkier than Grace doing the Locomotion by herself at the beginning of the video.
But ya know what? I think I saw that tour!
Dammit, now, at the end of the day, “Jane” is stuck in my head.
0:00 kid is either wasted or was forced to go with his parents
0:20 – 0:24 Paul Kantner’s does the unthinkable. Hanging offense.
0:35 and 0:43 “Chopsticks Rock?”
2:46 – Nigel Tufnel
4:01 – 4:13 a guitar tech inexplicably features promimently for at least 10 seconds in the lower right corner of the video frame. For a couple of seconds you think it’s yet another guitarist. Was there a union video editors strike at 4:00?
Where is the “All of them are annoying and I want to erase them from musical history” choice in the poll?
Hey, I finally watched this turd through to the end, and — what a crappy ending! There were a million simple ways to bring this song to a merciful close, but the one they chose was pretty stupid.
1. I’m not well versed in Toto, but would this be a close match for this song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9f-cEM1l7Ks
2. Speaking of horrible guitar solos, WTF is Henry Kaiser doing here?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1qCczGgSxw&feature=relat ed
3. I love the idea that the bassist was at the end of his clean laundry.
As lame as the end-of-song shrug may be, it’s hard for me to say I’d do any different if I’d just gotten up and lip-synched a song in front of a real crowd of several thousand people.
I understand, I really do, but this song is a pretty good exemplification of an era. It’s got all the pieces! In a nuanced take on “six pack or shotgun,” I draw the line where I would flip the radio station, “scan or stay?” “Jane” is a stayer for me!
But the own-shirt maneuver. That has *always* been taboo, who does Mr. Chaquico think he is? Is this his way of rock-n-roll rebellion in contravening his fan’s ideas of “cool?” A dig at the JS salary scales for non-originating members?
You know, Paul Kantner has had to overcome a lot to stay relevant, and while his (pre?) Loudness getup ain’t doin’ nobody no favors, Craig is there to drag them down just a little more. A thousand cuts this band has, so much so that I almost see Mickey as humoring this bunch of washed up hippies and showoffs. “Love the thigh bandana, Paul!”
I submit without comment, from deepest darkest Wikipedialand, that there is supposedly an Aynsley Dunbar/Mickey Thomas/Jake E. Lee project going on.