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“It’s a wild time, I see people all around me changing faces”: After Bathing at Baxter’s (Jefferson Airplane)

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Year: 1967

Genre: Psychedelic Rock, Acid Rock

Preceded by: Surrealistic Pillow (1967)

Followed by: Crown of Creation (1968)

Related to: not available yet

 

 

A wild time it sure must have been, those final years of the sixties. In mainstream culture those wild times are mostly associated with Woodstock, but this event in fact took place two years after the one and only year that can fully identify itself with the declared ideals of peace, love and music. 1967, a year that has meanwhile acquired a glorious reputation in pop music’s historiography. A year about which, when you didn’t witness it yourself, you can only fantasize and presume. It helps of course to actually read this history to give shape to these thoughts, but a picture, or in this case ‘a sound’ is worth a thousand words. No other band succeeds better to offer you this sound than the one described here, so hop on the Jefferson Airplane one more time and lets fly to 1967.

It’s a wild time, I’m doing things that haven’t got a name yet. Another lyric from ‘Wild Tyme (H)’, fifth track on Airplane’s third studio album: After Bathing at Baxter’s. It’s January14th 1967 (ten days after The Doors opened pop music’s bumper year with their debut album) and people around San Francisco are gathering in the Golden Gate Park. To change faces, to question everything about their environment (especially authority) and to do new things. To raise consciousness in the first place, encouraged by performing poets, psychology professors and bestselling novelists and supported by underground chemists. The music is provided by local bands like Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service and the Grateful Dead. We’re flying a first time over the crowd with this track from Paul Kantner. Together with Grace Slick and Marty Balin he fills in the fantastic vocal harmonies here, all three chased by Jorma Kaukonen’s (soloing) guitar. It all builds up to this great apotheosis: And it’s new, and it’s new, and it’s oh, so new! I see changes, changes, all around me are changes!

February 1967, the Airplane releases its second studio album: Surrealistic Pillow . Although it were the two songs that female vocalist Grace Slick brought along to her new band that launched this album to great success, Marty Balin was the principal songwriter on this breaktrough album. He founded the band two years before by gathering some talented fellow folk musicians around him, but here on Baxter’s there’s only one song of his signature left: the beautiful ‘Young Girl Sunday Blues’. Echoes of Pillow still can be heard on this song, as it might remind of ‘3/5 of a Mile in 10 Seconds’. Interesting about this track is the combination of the totally laid-back lyrics (‘I walk beside you laughing and I’m high, don’t try to touch me with words’) with another great uptempo guitar performance by Kaukonen. Balin is vocally backed by Kantner here, while Slick is left out. Again, this song builds up to a liberating conclusion: Ah! Come into my mind, let yourself wander free and easy.

The dwindling role of Balin within the group indicates a new trail the band started to follow after Pillow, with Paul Kantner impersonating this definite conversion from the bands folk roots to harder and pure psychedelic rock. Of course this evolution was caused by some developments in the music scene, as Hendrix turned the world upside down with his blasting debut album in May while a growing number of people were travelling to San Francisco to plunge themselves into the psychedelic subculture and the proclaimed ‘Summer of Love’. This summer reaches its peak at June 16th(two weeks after The Beatles introduce Sgt. Pepper’s to the world from over the ocean), when the three day Monterey Pop Festival kicks off.

Airplane performs as headliner on the second day, and closes its set with ‘The Ballad of You and Me and Pooneil’, one of Kantner songs and the opener of Baxter’s. The title refers to two sources of inspiration for Kantner, that is A.A. Milne’s books of Winnie the Pooh and folk artist Fred Neil. Some of the lyrics are borrowed from Milne’s poetry, whose childhood images are mixed with delicate questions like ‘Will the moon still hang in the sky when I’m high, when I die?’. This results in an anthem where the fabulous harmonies (from Paul, Marty, Grace and Jorma) are once more combined with a catchy guitar riff, even adding a bass solo here. It directly flows over (the album is classified into five suites but is in fact one big psychedelic medley) to  ‘A Small Package of Value Will Come to You, Shortly’, a track from drummer Spencer Dryden. It’s some kind of audio collage that reminds of Frank Zappa’s work and it shows that it’s possible to limit such collections of sounds to exactly 100 seconds, contrary to what John Lennon would do one year later.

Three more songs from Kantner are to be found on this album. First there’s ‘Martha’, which is definitely  my personal favorite. It’s a ballad with combined acoustic and electric guitars, on which Kantner himself takes the lead vocals. The soothing way in which he does this, makes this song being the closest to the bands original folk roots. The song was written about a girl named Martha Wax, who must have been a teenage runaway/groupie of the band in those days. The instrumentals are less pronounced than other tracks, moving the spotlight to Kantner’s poetic excesses like: ‘Martha she keeps her heart in a broken clock and it’s waiting there for me’, supported by Slick on backing vocals. Second there’s ‘Watch Her Ride’, perhaps his least on this album. The lyrics never reach the level of ‘Martha’ and also musically this song is not that great, despite the, again, nice harmonies. So it’s kind of strange that this track was chosen as the first single of the album (without much success), although it shows at the same time that the group had turned into an album band now.

So what about Grace Slick’s songs, couldn’t she deliver another hit single like she did with ‘White Rabbit’ earlier? Not really, although ‘Two Heads’ will stick in your ears the  longest when listening the album the first couple of times. Her voice reaches the same level as on those earlier hit singles, while some kind of mystical atmosphere is added this time by eastern sounds. The lyrics make use of stream of consciousness image-forming, just like her other song here. This one’s her best on the album and is called ‘rejoyce’. Did she honour Lewis Caroll earlier, now it’s time for an ode to James Joyce’s Ulysses, making use of her strong and enchanting voice again. While Jack Casady outshines here with a fast moving bass line (also noticed by Hendrix, asking him to play bass on ‘Voodoo Chile’ the following year), Slick questions societal norms in her typical prosaic way.

Unfortunately, those songs might be considered the endpoint of this trend within the band, that continued to search for louder songs on latter albums. This direction is already announced on Baxter’s with ‘The Last Wall of the Castle’, a Kaukonen song on which he takes the lead vocals for the first time. Although the lyrics are not that elevated, this is a real showcase for Kaukonen on the electric guitar. We ended up in August meanwhile, and the influence of Cream (playing at San Francisco’s Fillmore West at that time, releasing Disraeli Gears later that year) clearly can be heard on this track. Kaukonen also co-wrote ‘Spare Chaynge’ with Cassady and Dryden, a long instrumental that somehow was heralding what was going to happen with this tremendous band as Kantner, Balin and Slick are totally absent here.

It’s November 1967. The Summer of Love is officially declared over one month earlier with the ‘Death of the Hippie’ ceremony in Haight-Ashbury. After Bathing at Baxter’s is now released by Jefferson Airplane as the musical chronicle of this memorable year. Just like the peace and love-generation, the band started to disintegrate slowly after 1967. Kaukonen and Casady proceeded with their blues rock project Hot Tuna, Balin became dissatisfied with the direction the band was evolving and Dryden ended up burned out by acid and disillusioned by the events of Altamont. The band would however deliver two more good albums, Crown of Creation and Volunteers, before totally disintegrating in many dubious spin-offs.

Let’s end like the album does, as there’s still one song undiscussed here: ‘Won’t You Try/Saturday Afternoon’. During this closing duo track, Paul Kantner looks back at the day when it all started, with the Human Be-In in January. Being a serene song, the stage is offered to the enchanting harmonies one last time. We enter the plane and return to the Golden Gate Park to conclude our flight:

Saturday afternoon,
Yellow clouds rising in the lune; acid incense and balloons
Saturday afternoon
People dancing everywhere; love is shouting I don’t care

Top Tracks:

1. Martha
2. Young Girl Sunday Blues
3. Wild Tyme (H)

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“Move over, Rover and let Jimi take over”: Are You Experienced (The Jimi Hendrix Experience)

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Year: 1967

Genre: Psychedelic Rock, Hard Rock

Preceded by: –

Followed by: Axis: Bold as Love (1967)

Related to: Led Zeppelin – Led Zeppelin, Blue Cheer – Vincebus Eruptum

 

 

Let’s have another walk through the treasure chamber of 1967. Pete Townshend and Jeff Beck were turning guitar players into absolute stars and Clapton was God. But suddenly a black American lands in the UK and asks the white rock scene: Are You Experienced ?

As you know, 1967 can not be seen apart from the uprising of psychedelic rock. Existing blues and folk rock bands began to use new techniques and effects which would later cause the establishment of prog and hard rock. Jimi Hendrix himself can be seen as one of the most important pioneers of this latter genre. Originally being a blues rocker, he incorporated those psychedelic elements to transform his original style to pure hard rock. That’s exactly what makes Are You Experienced such an incredible debut album, containing not only Hendrix’ blues roots, but also psychedelic effects he mastered perfectly thanks to his extreme talent as a guitar player, and the origins of hard rock.

Hendrix (as a guitarist) supported some acts like Little Richard during the mid sixties in the USA, before former Animals bass player Chas Chandler heard Hendrix perform the classic American song ‘Hey Joe’. Chandler soon became his manager and brought him to the UK, for Hendrix being the promised land as it was the native country of The Yardbirds, a band Hendrix greatly admired. Together with Hendrix, the different members of this band would later define the new genre of hard rock, as they were soon to form pioneer bands like Cream (Eric Clapton), The Jeff Beck Group (Jeff Beck) and Led Zeppelin (Jimmy Page). So Chandler would arrange a so-called ‘power trio’ (just like Cream) for Hendrix, which formed in October 1966 and consisted besides Hendrix of former jazz drummer Mitch Mitchell and  former guitarist Noel Redding, who would from now on play the bass, obviously.

In June 1969 the band would already break up again, after growing tensions between Hendrix and Redding. But during those three years the band released a magnificent trilogy of albums, being Are You Experienced (1967) – Axis: Bold as Love (1967) – Electric Ladyland (1968), all three of them ranked within the top 100 of ‘Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time’. A little more tragic thing about the band is that they were all found dead in their homes or some hotel room. For Hendrix of course this already happened in 1970, Redding was found dead in 2003 and Mitchell was the last man standing after passing away in 2008.

Back to 1967, when their debut was released after already launching three singles: besides ‘Hey Joe’, these were ‘Purple Haze’ and ‘The Wind Cries Mary’. This must have contributed to the success of the album (with the singles excluded, opposite to the US version, where some original album tracks like ‘Red House’ were replaced by the singles instead), reaching #2 in the UK behind Sgt. Pepper’s and staying there for 8 months. Let’s have a look at the 11 original tracks.

Like I said there’s blues rock, psychedelic rock and hard rock on this album. Far out the most bluesy song is ‘Red House’, which sounds like the early blues of Robert Johnson, intensified by Hendrix’ guitar. The song was already written by Hendrix before he joined The Experience, and has this typical blues theme of the singer which is left alone by his woman. The same goes in fact for the track ‘Remember’, the other blues rock song on the  album.

Best represented is psychedelic rock, making this the most psychedelic Hendrix album. First there are the shorter ‘3 minutes’ songs, with ‘Can You See Me’ (with a noteworthy role for drummer Mitch Mitchell), ‘May This Be Love’ (sounding a little bit like Cream, with a very dreamy voice of Hendrix) and ‘Love or Confusion’. This last one is a personal favorite, with the Airplane-like distorted sounds and the delicious guitar licks and powerful voice of Hendrix. Towards the end of the album are two longer psychedelic masterpieces. ‘Third Stone from the Sun’ (the title referring to earth) is mostly an instrumental one with lots of guitar effects and Hendrix talking like some character from Star Trek. If you play this track on the LP at single speed (45 RPM), you can actually hear what’s been said. The last track on the album, also the title track, is probably my favorite. Supported by his screaming guitar, Jimi invites us on a journey, making this song a true hippie-anthem (with lyrical similarities to The Doors’ ‘Break on Through’, from their own debut album of 1967).

What’s left are those riff-based, real hard rock songs that really turned the music scene upside down. First of all the opening track, the well-known ‘Foxy Lady’. Drifted by the catchy guitar riff and the pounding drum and bass section, this is a perfect start for an album. It’s still covered now and then during live gigs by Paul McCartney, who was a big fan of Hendrix. It’s followed by ‘Manic Depression’, another very Cream-like song with a couple of nice drum solos. Alltogether, this sounds like a stormy kind of waltz, and is supposed to be ‘about a cat wishing he could make love to music’, awesome song. ‘I Don’t Live Today’ is another sweet riff-based song, referring to the chaotic life of Hendrix.

The last song left is ‘Fire’, which really shows the capacity of the total band, not Hendrix alone. For me, the label ‘power trio’ is justified best on this song: it begins with a mighty drumintro and a minimal guitar riff, before exploding into an uptempo hard rock classic, propelled by a schizophrenic drum beat and a very catchy bass line from Redding. No surprise the group often opened their live gigs with this song. It’s a pity we won’t be able to witness those powertrips anymore, but you can make up for it by having this album in your record collection.

Top Tracks:
1. Are You Experienced?
2. Fire
3. Love or Confusion

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“Feed your head”: Surrealistic Pillow (Jefferson Airplane)

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Year: 1967

Genre: Psychedelic Rock

Preceded by: Jefferson Airplane Takes Off (1966)

Followed by: After Bathing At Baxter’s (1967)

Related to: not available yet

 

 

It must have been like eight years ago or something that I heard the thrilling intro of ‘White Rabbit’ for the first time, on some New Year’s Eve. Some seconds later the enchanting voice of Grace Slick kicked in and I knew I had to get the album this was on. ‘White Rabbit’ remained one of my all time rock favorites year after year till now, and year by year my appreciation for the other songs on the album grew. Our next great album from the magical year 1967 is Jefferson Airplane’s  Surrealistic Pillow.

Jefferson Airplane was the only band that played on all three of the notorious hippie festivals in the late sixties. This was not only because of the good looks of Grace Slick on stage, but above all because the band was a true pioneer of psychedelic rock. This genre at his turn played a key role in the evolution of rock history. Before the emerging of psychedelic rock, most rock bands were folk and blues orientated. With it’s new techniques and effects it completely turned the rock scene upside down in the late sixties, paving the way for progressive and hard rock bands. Psychedelic rock derived from a psychedelic subculture, with people like Allen Ginsberg, Timothy Leary and Aldous Huxley preaching the expansion of consciousness and popularising the use of psychedelic drugs. It found its way into music first through The Byrds in the US and reached its peak in 1967, when it reigned the music scene all over the world. In the UK, The Beatles released Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and Magical Mystery Tour, Pink Floyd had there album debut with Piper At The Gates Of Dawn and Cream showed the world Disraeli Gears. Meanwhile, Surrealistic Pillow was the defining album in the US.

The band had its roots in the flourishing San Francisco music scene of the mid sixties, where vocalist Marty Balin met fellow folk musicians and guitar players Paul Kantner and Jorma Kaukonen. Influenced by The Beatles and The Byrds, they transformed to a folk rock band with some other temporary band members. Performing in this music scene, they were often supported by fellow folk rock band The Great Society, which featured the female lead singer Grace Slick. Airplane, after releasing their folk rock debut album, was at that very moment transforming into a psychedelic rock band, and Grace Slick’s voice was just the ingredient they needed to make this transformation a big success. This big success was Surrealistic Pillow.

Talked enough, let’s see what’s on it. First of all those two monster hits, ‘White Rabbit’ and ‘Somebody To Love’, two songs Grace Slick brought with her. The first one was written by herself, the second by her brother in law and they are both absolute rock classics. ‘White Rabbit’ starts with an awesome bassline, closely followed by the marching drums. Then Grace slides in with the most psychedelic rock prayer ever, taking you to the fantasy world of Lewis Caroll. This is a landmark in its genre, but also one of those true classics that will NEVER bore me. ‘Somebody To Love’ is a much more catchier song, also supporting on the great voice of Slick, especially during the verses.

You can also still hear the roots of this band on several songs, which are a mixture of folk rock and British Invasion influences. A real folk rock gem for example is ‘Today’, a ballad with a very ‘foggy’ intro. But the beauty of the song is the combination of the vocal harmonies between Balin & Slick and the sweet guitar riff that was actually played by Jerry Garcia. The song basically fades into ‘Comin’ Back to Me’, which intro somehow reminds me of ‘Stairway to Heaven’. Another beauty is ‘D.C.B.A.-25’, with a typical Byrds sound (listen to that typical lead guitar and tambourines) and a fantastic canon between Balin and Slick. The British Invasion sounds can be heard on ‘My Best Friend’ (with some Westcoast breeze) and ‘How Do You Feel’, which could actually be The Moody Blues when you leave the tambourine out.

The real psychedelic rock sound is to be found for example on opening track ‘She Has Funny Cars’. It has a delicious jazzy drum intro, followed by a variation of vocal harmonies (verses) and dialogue (chorus), and that typical distorted guitar sound. Also in this categorie are ‘Plastic Fantastic Lover’ (sounding like their psychedelic colleagues of 13th Floor Elevators, nice solo in the end) and ‘3/5 of a Mile in 10 seconds’. This one has bouncing guitars from the start and the combination with the fast drums make this the loudest song on the album and a personal favorite. Talking about favorites, there’s one song that doesn’t fit in any of the previous categories: ‘Embryonic Journey’. Waking up never felt better since I set this song as my alarm clock tone, they should play this instrumental acoustic one in every elevator.

Airplane would release some more psychedelic rock albums in the years following, till the genre died in the early seventies. Pink Floyd’s Syd Barett had gone crazy, Brian Wilson got depressed, The Beatles and Cream broke up and Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix died. Luckily for us, the music is still there and this album is a perfect starting point for discovering psychedelic rock. It’s the variation between psychedelic shots like ‘3/5 of a Mile in 10 seconds’ and fascinating ballads like ‘Today’: this album launches you eight miles high before letting you land peacefully again, right on your surrealistic pillow.

Top Tracks:
1. White Rabbit
2. 3/5 of a mile in 10 seconds
3. D.C.B.A.-25

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“Mother…I want to f*ck you!”: The Doors (The Doors)

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Year: 1967

Genre: Acid Rock

Preceded by: –

Followed by: Strange Days (1967)

Related to: not available yet

 

 

1967 was a crucial year in pop music history, looking at all the highly acclaimed albums released in this year. 1967 was also a crucial year for American rock band The Doors, as they released their first two albums. Both of them were a big success, but let’s have a closer look on their debut here: The Doors.

When you say Doors, you say Jim Morrison. Although Morrison might have been the face of the band, rather accentuated by the album cover, this album got his strength from the synergy of all four Doors. That’s prolly why all credits go to the band as a whole, although Morrison and guitarist Robbie Krieger were the primary writers.

The beauty of this album in my opinion is created by the way the Doors were looking to develop their own distinct sound, and doing so they were blending different styles together on one album. For example, you’ve got the uptempo songs like ‘Break on Trough’, a call to the new generation of that time, and the ultimate hitsingle ‘Light My Fire’. This was originally an unfinished song by Krieger as an ode to sexual desire, later on expanded with its epic organ and guitar solos. It became world famous thanks to the intro of keyboard player Ray Manzarek.

The album also contains some covers, ‘Backdoor Man’ and ‘Alabama Song’, but they were given such a typical Doors sound that they sound like original songs. And there are the darker songs like ‘The Crystal Ship’ and ‘The End’. With the first one, considered as a love song to Morrison’s first love (Mary Werbelow), Morrison shows his abilities as crooner (being a big fan of Frank Sinatra).

‘The End’ to the contrary, was originally about Morrison breaking up with this Miss Werbelow. However, thanks to the mystic instrumental parts and Morrison’s narrative vocals, the song became a theatrical masterpiece about lust and death. When the group performed this song live for the first time at the Whiskey A Go Go, they were thrown out because Morrison screamed the original line “Mother…I want to fuck you!” during the climax of the song… Enjoy one of the best debut albums of all time.

Top Tracks:
1. The End
2. The Crystal Ship
3. I Looked At You