It’s been a little more than 11 months since I first posted this controversial view. One of the characteristics I most admire in our Townspeople is our ability to reconsider past views and objections. Now may be as good a time as ever for each of us to reconsider our initial opinions and for newer members of Rock Town Hall to chime in on this issue.
Frankly, I was surprised at the lack of support my query elicited. I didn’t expect the majority of Townspeople to hear things as I heard them, but I surely didn’t expect that the closest thing I got to agreement was a vote for plain, old Starship! Why don’t you join me in reviewing our first discussion of these matters, replaying the supporting video clips, and sharing any new insights that may have resulted from your growth as a music listener? I look forward to your comments.
This post initially appeared 11/30/08.
Granted, Jefferson Airplane is a favorite whipping band among certain segments of Rock Town Hall – and I don’t believe anyone who’d hang here like Jefferson Starship, but when you really think about it, Jefferson Starship may have produced a stronger quartet of songs than any four songs by Jefferson Airplane.
I speak specifically of a quartet of mid-70s Jefferson Starship songs:
- “Count On Me”
- “Runaway”
- “With Your Love”
- “Miracles”
Unfortunately, with one exception, I could not find the most visually appealing YouTube clips. Appropriately, however, I can proudly state that I do not own any of these recordings on vinyl or digital media. (For the record, I do own two Jefferson Airplane records.) Close your eyes, if need be, and check out this quartet of surprisingly tuneful and moving songs.
“Count On Me”
“Runaway” (stalker-produced video)
“With Your Love”
“Miracles” live!
Despite this quartet of respectable, tuneful, mid-70s hits, the band never lost its ability to turn out meandering turds, like this 1974 track from Dragon Fly, “Hyperdrive.”
Ugh, that’s the kind of music post-hippie death cults are formed around! Here’s a well-known Jefferson Starship hit that should have made any survivors of the ’60s regret that Kantner and Slick didn’t drink their own Kool-Aid.
So let’s leave all the turds done under the name Jefferson Starship out of it – and let’s not get near the band’s ’80s output, like YOU KNOW WHAT! Let’s stick to that quartet of respectable AM radio hit, “Count on Me,” “Runaway,” “With Your Love,” and my personal favorite, “Miracles” – and I’m putting those four Jefferson Starship songs against any four Jefferson Airplane songs of your choosing. Give that Jefferson Starship quartet your best shot! Convince me that there are four Jefferson Airplane songs that beat the four Jefferson Starship songs I’ve selected.
As food for thought, here’s relatively decent-period vocalist Mickey Thomas on his stint with the band.
Mod, you don’t intend to be convinced, nor do I have any interest in trying, but there are four better Airplane sounds on every Airplane studio album than the four radio-friendly enjoyable pop trifles you mention.
Takes Off:
“Bringing Me Down”
“It’s No Secret”
“Come Up the Years”
“Let’s Get Together”
also “Tobacco Road” and “Chauffeur Blues”
Surrealistic Pillow:
“Somebody to Love”
“3/5 of a Mile in Ten Seconds”
“White Rabbit”
“Plastic Fantastic Lover”
After Bathing:
“The Ballad of You and Me & Pooneil”
“Wild Time”
“Watch Her Ride”
“Won’t You Try/Saturday Afternoon”
Crown of Creation:
“If You Feel”
“Crown of Creation”
“Greasy Heart”
“The House at Pooneil Corners”
Volunteers:
Every song except “A Song For All Seasons”
I prefer Starship to JA or JS, ’cause they at least knew they were putting out disposable pop(the same way I kinda like 80’s Heart). It might be an age thing, since I was born in 1970 and a MTV generation poster child (13 in 1983) I was excited to see Starship open for Julian Lennon in 1985/6. shorty after I found some of the JS and JA stuff in a stack of my uncle’s records and thought it was horrible and dated (and I thought Count on Me was a Fleetwood Mac song for years)
mwall, you’re absolutely right. The mod is well known for his aversion to folk rock, as indicated by his undervaluing of bands such as the Byrds. The Airplane is in a lot of ways the SF counterpart to McGuinn & co.
To your list, I would add:
Surrealistic Pillow:
She Has Funny Cars
Coming Back to Me
My Best Friend
Today
Baxter’s:
Martha
Young Girl Sunday Blues
Crown of Creation:
Ice Cream Phoenix
Ugh! What is it with you and “Miracles”?
I have no objection to those additions, good Doctor. I was only being asked for four, so generally I stuck with four per record when I could have chosen a few others.
That quartet takes me back to the wide-eyed romantic 12 year-old I once was, thinking about how I’d like to “Runaway” with the only girl with only girl with womanly breasts in 6th grade. How it would be a “Miracle” if she would “Count on Me” to be gentle “With Her Love”. Thinking about it and hearing these songs again, makes me feel as icky and dopey as that twelve year old. It’s not an emotion I often seek to feel again, but Marty Balin summons it with aplomb. Guess that’s something.
Seeing Mr. Mod’s list I had no recollection of any of these songs at all except for Miracles. What does that tell you when I could see these titles and be unable to pull up anything at all out of the memory banks? After listening a few thoughts:
On Runaway,what’s with the grotesque way Balin sings these lines?
Sun is coming and its getting warmer
They tell me spring is just around the corner
I been sitting watchin all the flowers
Birds are singin getting louder and louder
The lines are pretty stupid anyway, but the mannered singing is offensive. And what a meandering, pointless guitar solo!
Same kind of vague solo on With Your Love, with the added stupidity of the title. Making a prepositional phrase your title is risky (cf. the Beatles’ In My Life), but then they don’t do anything with it. The whole song just goes from one bit to another without any direction. The effect of 70s mellowness (cue the chimes) is all that’s there.
Count On Me is the worst is terms of no there thereness. There’s a big chorus and absolutely nothing else to the song. I was trying to place this song in my memory and suddenly I realized it was R.E.M.’s Fall on Me that I kept hearing. Same basic chorus, but listen to the rest of the song and hear how you surround a chorus with interesting bits of an actual song.
Miracles is the least bad of the bunch, but something about the lyric has always bothered me. If only you’ll believe in miracles, we’ll ….. get by? That’s what happens when a miracle takes place, you ‘get by’? I never understood the Dead song from the same era, I Need a Miracle, either. Mazybe the government devalued miracles in the 70s.
Ugh. “Miracles” is on my most hated songs list. I’m determined not to think at all about Mr. Mod’s query here. I don’t want to waste any more brain cells on JA, JS or Starship…they all put me in a baaaad place.
Man, I got in BIG trouble for going to see the Marty Balin era Jefferson Starship. Mom said, “No way.” and I just split and went anyway. They played longer than Springsteen! Mod’s songs were good to have in theeight track player for a certain type of girl back then, but in retrospect, that is some truly wimpy stiff!
Ride the Tiger wasn’t horrible, and I think everyone liked Fast Buck Freddie a lot. I think the Airplane was a lot better, though. I remember thinking how old they were when I saw them. I saw the Mickey Thomas version, too. We Built This City is even worse live! I think they let Mickey Thomas sing Fooled Around and Fell In Love, too.
I’m with Mr. Clean! But for my money, the Airplane had three or four songs I like ok. And even so, the crackle and pop at the end of side one of Surrealistic Pillow is better, and causes far less psychic distress, than the poster children for Psychic Oblivion you cite. How is it, that while saying nothing that could be a reference to teenage nihilism and fear, “Miracles” and a few others readily became such deep, lush, fully-realized soundtracks of pubescent despair? And I will thank you for ruining a perfect thirty-year recod of not knowing who sang that atrocity of human expression.
Ugh. Talk about a Hobson’s choice! Though Starshit does have the dubious honor of recording the song with the *second* most stupid solo in the history of rock music. That being “Jane,” by the way. The stupidest, of course, was “25 or 6 to 4.”
I wish I knew how to post a photo of Craig Chaquico in his spandex leopard-print pants with fourple-pointed Carvin mail-order guitar. How that man tormented me as an impressionable 16 year-old, reading my mail-order copies of “Guitar Player” magazine. Not because of the leopard-skin pants, either! Instinctively, I knew there was something very *wrong* about that guitar he claimed to love so much. But what was it? Chaquico was a “rock star,” wasn’t he? Shouldn’t he know more than I did?
2000 Man:
“I think they let Mickey Thomas sing Fooled Around and Fell In Love, too.”
I think Mickey’s contracts stipulates that whenever he hits the stage in any circumstance, “Fool Around & Fell I Love” will be played.
-db
chorus out:
“I fooled around and fell in love
I fooled around and fell in love, oh yes I did
I fooled around, fooled around, fooled around, fooled around,
fooled around, fooled around, fell in love
Fooled around, fooled around, fooled around, fooled around,
fooled around, fooled around, fell in love
I fooled around, fell in love
I fell in love, I fell in love, yes I did”
Mickey Thomas gets to lug around “Fooled Around and Fell in Love” (another song the Airplane would have had trouble matching, by the way) the way Paul Carrack gets to lug around “How Long Has This Been Going On.”
General Slocum wrote:
This scratches one part of the surface that I’m getting at.
Hrrundi wrote:
As does this comment.
What I hope you can focus on, however, is Jungleland2’s comment early on:
No one confuses one of those Manson Family death chants that the Airplane specialized in with the tasteful pop of Fleetwood Mac!
By the way, Dr. John claims that my beef with Jefferson Airplane is rooted in my dismissal of folk forms. What folk culture would embrace the sort of caterwauling typical of the Airplane’s classic output? The ability to fingerpick does not ensure Kantner, Slick, and Balin a place in the tribe. I think most folk cultures would cast at least two of them out.
I’ll try to get you some comments on specific songs later today. Along with the three gimmes I spotted you, Mwall may have nailed the fourth Airplane song that stands up to the Starship’s best work.
Don’t give up on this question. I’m confident a few of you will see the light. Thanks.
This post retroactively ruined my holiday. I think I hate music now.
I actually don’t own any Airplane albums (nor JS or Starship). But I’d like Mr. Mod to explain what exactly is wrong with the Big Hits: “Somebody to Love” and “White Rabbit.” Those two songs are stronger and more durable than any song (or songs in any grouping) by the other two groups.
Oats, “Somebody to Love” and “White Rabbit” are but two of the four solid, well-written, well-performed songs by the Airplane that I sought to match up against the quartet of professional, tuneful numbers I’ve chosen from Jefferson Starship’s catalog. The third Airplane song I would select in this match up, which is my favorite – although it’s a complete mess and runs out of gas early into its initial launch, is “Volunteers.” Truth be told, I think “White Rabbit” runs out of gas after an initially promising start, but it’s much better composed and performed than the rest of the Airplane’s catalog, so I’ll let it slide. There is a fourth song I like that Mwall put forth, “Watch Her Ride”; however, that’s not really much of a song but a 2-chord jam. It’s like Hrrundi saying “Here She Comes Now” is his favorite Velvet Underground song. It’s a groove – and a mighty good one at that – but for a legendary band like the Jefferson Airplane, which produced so many poorly sung, haphazardly structured recordings as they did, it’s not saying much to consider “Watch Her Ride” the band’s fourth-best song.
Listen, I can appreciate that some folks appreciate the jamming aspects of the Airplane, but I’m talking about songs. The four Starship songs I’ve put forth hold up as songs with no glorification of the San Francisco scene, mannnnnn; no need to imagine a young Grace Slick in your bed; no need to get high and marvel at the cool cover shot on Surrealistic Pillow. They are bread and butter pop songs that people can hum. They are not much different than the hits of Fleetwood Mac released at that same time, just that no one wants to fantasize about any member of the Starship other than Slick, do they? In contrast, what is “Crown of Creation” but some Broadway showtune redone as a rallying cry for the next Manson Family murder spree?
I’m not the most well versed in either bands’ catalog, but based on what I’ve heard by both bands, I’ll take Fooled Around and Fell In Love by Mikey Thomas and Chico Marx.
Mr. Mod, this is the dark side of appreciating song craft/pop hooks, etc. Pretty soon, you’ll be extolling the expertly crafted hits of the Pussycat Dolls.
Hey man, I’m callin’ ’em like I see ’em. The comparison I’m making is RELATIVE and confined to two bands composed of essentially the same members: Jefferson Airplane and Jefferson Starship. Pussycat Dolls, Avril Lavigne, et al do not factor into this discussion. I know you’ve got it in you, Oats, to confront the HARD TRUTHS. In a moment, I’ll post a classic Airplane track for you to consider in a new thread.
The Airplane’s Today is a better version of Miracles. Marty Balin’s singing is really difficult to take anyway, why did they always need a frontman with Grace around?
I’m with Oats here. The Mod’s comments aren’t so much RELATIVE as they are ridiculous. “Which Jefferson Airplane songs fit the cliches of meaningless 70s pop pablum craftsmanship as the pop pablum craftsmanship achieved by Jefferson Starship in the 70s”?
Follow-up question: Which Beatles songs are as new wave as the music of Joe Jackson?
“What I hope you can focus on, however, is Jungleland2’s comment early on:
…(and I thought Count on Me was a Fleetwood Mac song for years)”
When I was 10 years old! (hey I also though Changes by David Bowie was The Beatles back then)
I would never put JA / JS anywhere near the Buckingham era Fleetwood Mac. Some, (not all)of the early 70’s Mac had some of the directionlessness of Jefferson Starship (too many singers, writers and no focused sound)
And now I can’t get Count on Me or Miracles out of my head(well just the choruses) thanks a lot!
Actually, this brings up a noteworthy (and relevant) subject.
You guys are aware that there are children of the ’70s who prefer Wings to The Beatles, right?
Isn’t that just a little similar to what this thread is about.
I mean, “We Can Work it Out” is nice and all, but what about “With a Little Luck”? Dig the electric piano and synth interplay, and those lush Denny Laine harmonies!
Mwall, I respect the fact that you have little respect for my Points. It’s one thing to dismiss the quartet of songs as “meaningless 70s pop pablum,” but you’ve got some ‘splainin’ to do regarding the “meaning” of the band’s better-regarded work. I look forward to your thoughts as a series of Jefferson Airplane/Starship threads develop throughout the day.
Oats, is that what it’s all about? At least you’ve posited a more convincing way of ignoring the HARD TRUTHS.
Sure, Mod. Every bit as much as The Clash, JA was at the forefront of the political and cultural problems of their era. They wrote about things that lots of people cared about (and still do, in some ways) significantly. They’re an uneven band, and could be especially bad when live, although they could play very well live at times too. Actually, I think you also underestimate the degree of craft they show on their records. A couple of cuts on each album were radio-ready. They took a lot of chances, and a lot of them didn’t pan out, but that’s still better to my mind than playing live carbon copy versions of the hits.
But what’s the point of rehearsing these points again and again and again? You’re not gonna budge and I’m not, and almost nobody else here gives two cents either way.
I think the worst thing about Starship – and there are many, many awful things about Starship – is that it highlights how uncool Jefferson Airplane was in retrospect. The existence of Starship is a constant reminder of the failures of their generation. They are the musical equivalent of your parents visiting at college, seeing somebody with a lava lamp in their dorm and launching into awful stories about getting high or protesting something back when they were your age.
Anyway, can we deal with the real question we should be asking? That is, when they get back together again to put out a new album of shitty music – which they obviously will at some point – isn’t it time to update the band name again?
Mod, doesn’t the name change make it sort of obvious that they were planning to go in another direction?
So your argument (which consists of not a few strawmen) really holds no water unless you can prove that the JS musical vision was “better” than that of JA.
If you’re going to equate musical vision with success, keep in mind that JA were massively popular and a commercial breakthrough for underground music–to the point where they had total artistic freedom at RCA.
Alex, how many important bands of the 60s that were still playing in the 80s (in some variation) did not make shitty music later on? Your weak point is the equivalent of saying the crappy Stones records of the 80s and 90s prove that they were uncool in the 60s.
That said, there’s no doubt that post-JA made a remarkable amount of bad music of a remarkable degree of badness. Kaukonen and Cassidy, I think, made the only later music of the band members that’s worth listening to, although I grant Mod’s point that the Starship could churn out a nice, rote, wimpy 70s pop song.
Dr. John, I don’t get what’s not clear about my argument? Why do I need to address the band’s name change or new vision? Why do I need to address either band’s level of popularity? I’m only concerned with addressing 4 songs by one band and the entire output of the other.
At the route of my argument – and I hope it’s clear I’m not a fan of either band and have spent way more time listening to my copy of After Bathing at Baxter’s than any JS album I do not own – is my belief that JA was not much of a “song” band. I grant them a special “revolutionary” vibe that they projected – successfully, for many. But beside their two radio hits, does anyone spend much time humming or covering the songs of JA? Did Fairport Convention or The Move, to cite two contemporary British bands that covered plenty of US folk-rock songs, ever tackle a JA song? I don’t think so.
JA shares a well-known song or two with CSNY by overlapping as songwriters, right, but is either band’s version of “Wooden Ships” worth writing home about? YUCK!
I’m sure there’s something to the music of JA that appeals to people, and I would imagine it resonates on deeper level than any of the JS songs I’ve selected, but are there more than three JA songs you would honestly hold up as examples of “well-crafted singles?” I don’t care if the singles succeeded or not – people like myself rave about The dB’s and they didn’t have one well-crafted single that succeeded on the level of the JA.
OF COURSE that’s not the end-all and be-all of recorded music, but it’s one thing to dig the ramshackle “Volunteers” for its overall vibe and quite another to be able to easily comprehend and hum along to “Runaway” or my personal favorite, “Miracles.” I listen to JA albums and can’t even find totally solid, hum-along songs of the quality of their SF scenemates, The Grateful Dead. Come on, where’s “Casey Jones” or “Bertha” among the JA’s output? All I ever hear is Manson Family chants and stilted folk-rock. Beside “Volunteers” and “Somebody to Love” few examples of songs that simply follow a strong, forward-moving hook or melody come to mind.
What it probably comes down to is my inability to find much tunefulness or skillful presentation in the music of JA. Whether they do that “Crown of Creation”-style Manson rallying cry music under the guise of JA or JS (you can’t tell me “Ride the Tiger” isn’t of the same “vision”), I’m not satisfied in terms of hearing a SONG. Marty Balin, as you all acknowledge, sings like a failed Broadway performer. What you skirt around are the shortcomings of Grace Slick. Do you guys really like her tone and phrasing? I feel she’s got less a feel for the swing of rock ‘n roll than Balin. She’s about as comfortable with the essentials of rock ‘n roll as Nico, and she doesn’t have the excuse of not growing up with the genre.
At end of the day, whatever. This was a losing battle, but I’m hopeful it will prove to be a “Pyrrhic loss.” We’re all friends here, and I’m comfortable with my “deaf spots.”
Seems to me that JA and JS both sucked pretty major ass, but for different reasons. JA was kind of tuneless and irritatingly artsy, while FS was kind of tuneful and irritatingly artless.
“…is either band’s version of “Wooden Ships” worth writing home about? YUCK!”
No purple berries for you, with that attitude.
Sorry, mod, that I’m not clear about your argument, but it keeps rising to new levels of incomprehensibility.
I can’t figure out how you define what a catchy song is. I can certainly hum along with “Greasy Heart,” among the other songs mwall posted. I mean, it’s not like they’re using harmonic structures that were beamed in from another planet. Many of JA’s songs are three chord based and around three minutes long. I think your imaginary version of JA would keep good compmay with your imaginary version of the Stones.
HVB wrote:
Freudian slip?
Greasy Heart is a good one. Also I think We Can Be Together, the flipside of Volunteers, was pretty hummable. In fact it has the same kind of Balinesque melodiousness as the later Starshit singles.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard “Greasy Heart” before now. The tune is hummable, but it’s got that Tina Turner doing “Acid Queen” (ie, from the Tommy soundtrack) sort of drama to it that they seem incapable of avoiding in JA. It lacks the relative restraint and taste that JS might have given the song. Dr. John, you’re usually a great proponent of taste and restraint, aren’t you?
“We Can Be Together” is a track I’ve never paid attention to. Too bad. For starters, it picks up on the riff from “Volunteers.” I love that riff and the accompanying guitar solo, which is also picked up in this song. I also dig the Balinesque melodiousness. I’ve gotta say, Marty Balin was the best thing that band had going for it. Balin should replace Freddie Mercury in Queen. Here’s a very healing video I found with the song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWhWMYqDNtk
Congratulations! You have identified a fourth song by Jefferson Airplane that matches the so-called Four Horsemen of Jefferson Starship!
Oh, no — that quite accurately describes the FS *I* know.
Sure, I’m a fan of restraint and taste, but not when it’s at the expense of honesty. “Greasy Heart” sounds just the way it should: a scathing Dylan-esque put-down of Grace’s ex-boyfriends (a radical gesture to be sure–given that male/female relationships in the 60s tended to be unequal), powered by a searing guitar riff.
I agree that Balin’s musical contributions are often overshadowed by the more open-ended sonic exploration favored by Slick, Kantner, Cassady, et al.
Accordingly, I direct you to Surrealistic Pillow, where Balin does much of the songwriting. “Coming Back to Me” is a mellow song-speak that still feels as intense as Lou Reed’s street-corner blues.
Commenting on this thought:
“Though Starshit does have the dubious honor of recording the song with the *second* most stupid solo in the history of rock music. That being “Jane,” by the way. The stupidest, of course, was “25 or 6 to 4.””
I always thought the stupidest solo in rock history was in “Walkin’ on Sunshine.” Especially when it’s coming from the same guy who played on “I wanna destroy you.” But then, maybe it’s self-conscious in its stupidity, and thus gets a pass for irony. But I don’t think so.
I don’t know if I can revisit this thread without Jefferson Starship killing my soul.
Okay, I’ve gone through and tried to listen to some of that stuff again and each time I hear the Airplane I like them less and less. Their songs are really poorly written, they have no discernible sense of melody and their singers are strident and grating.
I like Volunteers (2 minute, 2 chords, it would be tough to screw that up) and Somebody To Love but you can keep the rest of it. I’m giving them B’s for those two songs, a D+ for White Rabbit and an F for the rest of their catalog.
As for the Jefferson Starship, the vocals are less strident but no less grating. The songs are more tuneful but not in a particularly interesting way. I’m giving them one C+ and then C’s across the board.
JA’s four song average: 1.875
JS’s four song average: 2.125
It’s a triumph of mediocrity.
Thanks for keeping an open mind, cdm.
Man, this thread was a lame, pointless dead end the first time, and now Mod wants more of the same for a second go round?
“Miracles” is one of the wierdest songs ever. What’s with all of those “baby baby” lines filling up space where they couldn’t think of any actual lyrics? It’s completely bizarre. Am I the only one who listens to it and wonders what in the world they were thinking? The backing vocals are really weird too.
That song goes on forever and is, to me, the epitome of peace and love 70s horny hippiedom, the saga of people who have no energy left for changing the world so all they want to do is seduce somebody.
If you have no recollection for these JS songs than you probably weren’t there! They most certainly were being played on AM radio.
The songs don’t resonate with you because this is not your genre of music. Marty Balin doesn’t resonate with you either.
In response to your comments about Runaway:
“What’s with the grotesque way Marty sings these lines?
Sun is coming and its getting warmer
They tell me spring is just around the corner
I been sitting watchin all the flowers
Birds are singin getting louder and louder.”
I wouldn’t call them “grotesque”. I wouldn’t be “offended,” but that being said, it sounds like Marty is singing them with a Brooklyn accent, yet he is from Ohio! 🙂 They are not stupid lyrics. Love tends to blossom in the spring for a lot of people.
“With Your Love” and “Count On Me” have very good harmonies. Because the harmonies sound so good to me the lyrics pull me in. Ok, they may be simple, but who cares? They are love songs. Many love songs tend to be mushy and sound like dribble. It’s not what Marty is singing but how he’s singing it. You don’t pick up on the ache in his voice. You don’t pick up on the subtleties. You are not a “sensor/feeler.” You are more of a “thinker.”
I disagree with you about the “pointless guitar solo.” No way! I happen to think it’s beautiful, an inspiration to pick up the rhythm/lead guitar. Paul Kantner nailed it!
In regards to your comments on the song “Miracles” “If only you’ll believe in miracles, we’ll ….. get by? That’s what happens when a miracle takes place, you ‘get by’?” I questioned this too, but it’s not enough to annoy me. I am not sure what Marty would say instead. “We would have enough.” “We would do okay.” “We could overcome our difficulties.” “We’d be inspired.” It’s hard to say what to put into it’s place. There’s also a saying about over thinking things.
This is just my female perspective. It seems as though I am the only one here.