Fly Jefferson Airplane

In the late fifties and early Sixties, California was the Mecca of the American Dream. It was the Golden Land of endless summers and surf-pounded beaches; and the city of Los Angeles stood for everything that was modern and go-ahead. By the late Sixties, however, the hippest city in California was undoubtedly San Francisco. This change in emphasis marked a definite shift in rock music. Popular music was part of established business in LA; but San Francisco represented something else - rock as counter-culture, as a lifestyle, and as music outside the corporate business structure. [1]

Jefferson Airplane was an American rock band from San Francisco, a pioneer of the

psychedelic rock movement.The Airplane was the 'flagship' act for the burgeoning psychedelic rock scene that developed in San Francisco in the mid-1960s.
In terms of music and lifestyle, the Jefferson Airplane epitomized the San Francisco scene of the mid-to-late Sixties. Their heady psychedelia, combustible group dynamic and adventuresome live shows made them one of the defining bands of the era. Much like their contemporaries on the San Francisco scene - Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service, and Big Brother and the Holding Company principal among them – the Airplane evolved from roots in folk and blues to become a psychedelic powerhouse and a cornerstone of the San Francisco sound. [3]

Band Members [2]

GRACE SLICK: Grace Slick, to the public mind, is synonymous with Jefferson Airplane and Jefferson Starship in the way that Mick Jagger is synonymous with the Rolling Stones.White Rabbit, which she wrote, helped define not only Jefferson Airplane but also the acid rock era. Her unconventional vocals on Somebody to Love gave the Airplane its biggest hit. As one of the first female rock stars (as opposed to pop singers), Grace helped redefine women's role in modern music as more than just a sex symbol backed by a band. Of course, with her statuesque beauty and icy blue eyes, Grace had the sex symbol bit down pat as well.
During one rainy outdoors concert, she performed topless rather than getting her blouse wet.

Listen to an excerpt from 'White Rabbit' here :

MARTY BALIN: Marty Balin was the lead singer and founder of Jefferson Airplane. Marty's very distinctive, soulful voice became one of the hallmarks of the Airplane's sound, and he composed many of the band's most memorable songs, including Volunteers, It's No Secret, Coming Back to Me and Today.

PAUL KANTNER: Although he never wrote or sang lead on a hit single, Paul Kantner had the greatest impact on Jefferson Airplane/Starship of any member. He holds the record for the longest, unbroken membership (19 years), and he has been at times the only original member of the band present. His interest in science fiction helped transform Jefferson Airplane into Jefferson Starship, and, throughout it all, he presided over the band's loose and sometimes messy democracy. If Marty Balin was the soul of the band, and Grace Slick its public persona, then Paul Kantner could be considered its brain.

JORMA KAUKONEN: Jorma Kaukonen is one of the most important guitarists of our time with a body of work lasting over three decades. His brilliant finger-picked fretwork and songwriting, a compelling blend of rock, blues, folk and country influences, has distinguished Jefferson Airplane and its equally legendary (and still active) spinoff band Hot Tuna.

JACK CASADY: After a lifelong journey in music, from his first professional gigs with the Jefferson Airplane from 1965-1972 to his ongoing collaborations with longtime partner Jorma Kaukonen in Hot Tuna, bassist Jack Casady feels extremely pleased with where he is at right now. While Casady has distinguished himself in a career that spans four decades, he remains excited about entering his fifth decade as a working musician.

SPENCER DRYDEN: Spencer Dryden played drums with Jefferson Airplane during its peak years, 1966-70. Spencer's varied background in jazz and rock contributed greatly to the Airplane's sound, as evidenced by his bolero-style beat on White Rabbit.

Above : Grace with Balloons and Grace with Janis Joplin




On August 15 1969, 500,000 music lovers descended on a rural community in upstate New York for three days of love, peace, respect, drugs, mind expansion and the largest rock concert ever staged. Mixing anti-war sentiment with life changing music and drugs with free love, Woodstock was the place to be. The Jefferson Airplane gave an incredible performance that day, taking everyone to a different heights altogether. Watch the performance of ' Saturday Afternoon / won't you try' below :





Finally, one of the dreamscape sleepy infectious airplane song ' Comin' back to me' . A song you would love to wind up to, and one which will make you come back and listen to it again n again .. listen to an excerpt from the song from below. The lyrics are posted below.


The summer had inhaled
And held its breath too long.
The winter looked the same,
As if it had never gone,
And through an open window,
Where no curtain hung,
I saw you, I saw you,
Coming back to me.

One begins to read between
The pages of a look.
The sound of sleepy music,
And suddenly, you're hooked.
I saw you, I saw you,
Coming back to me.

You came to stay and live my way,
Scatter my love like leaves in the wind.
You always say that you won't go away,
But I know what it always has been,
It always has been.

A transparent dream
Beneath an occasional sigh
Most of the time,I just let it go by.
Now I wish it hadn't begun.
I saw you, I saw you,
Coming back to me.

Strolling the hill,
Overlooking the shore,
I realize I've been here before.
The shadow in the mist
Could have been anyone
I saw you, I saw you,
Coming back to me.
Small things like reasons
Are put in a jar.
Whatever happened to wishes,
Wished on a star?
Was it just something
That I made up for fun?
I saw you, I saw you,
Coming back to me.

Check out excerpts of other Airplane classics from the playlist below:

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The Grateful Dead Legend

THE GRATEFUL DEAD

Grateful Dead was an American rock band formed in 1965 in San Francisco, California.

The Grateful Dead wrought a psychedelic revolution upon the cultural landscape of the Sixties. They also kept the spirit of the Sixties alive in the decades that followed, building a massive, supportive network of fans known as “Deadheads.” The Dead and their peers on the San Francisco scene helped steer the adventurous rock audience of the mid-Sixties toward a brave new world of sound in which albums supplanted singles and concerts became improvisational marathons. [1]

The Grateful Dead are well-known for constantly touring throughout their long career. They promoted a sense of community among their fans, who became known as Deadheads, many of whom followed their tours for months or years on end. In their early career, the band also dedicated their time and talents to their community, the Haight-Ashbury area of San Francisco, making available free food, lodging, music and health care to all comers; they were the "first among equals in giving unselfishly of themselves to hippie culture, performing 'more free concerts than any band in the history of music'.

The Grateful Dead allowed their fans to tape their shows like several other bands during the time. For many years the tapers set up their microphones wherever they could. The eventual forest of microphones became a problem for the official sound crew. Eventually this was solved by having a dedicated taping section located behind the soundboard, which required a special "tapers" ticket. The band allowed sharing of tapes of their shows, as long as no profits were made on the sale of their show tapes.

Former Members

Jerry Garcia

Bob Weir

Phil Lesh

Bill Kreutzmann

Ron "Pigpen" McKernan

Mickey Hart

Tom Constanten

Keith Godchaux

Donna Godchaux

Now that you know a little about this great band, listen to one of their great instrumental track 'Dark Star' in very high quality below, and take a trip to the realms of the unknown..

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Other Dead Classics:

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ASTRONOMY DOMINE OF SYD BARRETT

The Psychedelic Story of Syd Barrett ( 1946 - 2006 )

This is the story of the man who died twice.
Read on along with the pictures which tell a lot of the story.


1965 , three architecture students in London , Nick Mason , Richard Wright and Roger Waters after spending most of their grant money on instruments and musical equipments formed a succession of bands, with various other artists. The line ups changed on a regular basis, as did the names. Some of these were strange sounding, fanciful names like: - Sigma 6; T-Set; the Meggadeaths; The Architectural Abdabs; The Screaming Abdabs. The band brokeup with only the above three and another guitarist named Bob Close remaining. But they lacked direction and success.

And that direction came in the form of Syd Barrett first.

And the whole London underground was stunned by what hit them next.



Suddenly their music relentlessly tinkered with electronics and all manner of special effects to push pop formats to their outer limits.
under the guiding light of Syd barrett, the band embarked upon a phase of experimentation and improvisation stretching out songs with wild instrumental freak-out passages incorporating feedback, electronic screeches, and unusual, eerie sounds created by loud amplification, reverb, and such tricks as sliding ball bearings up and down guitar strings.



Barrett gave the band their unique name, which always sounded incredibly psychedelic, by simply taking the names of two obscure bluesmen (Floyd Council and Pink Anderson) and putting them together thus forming 'The Pink Floyd Sound' later shortened to 'Pink Floyd'.
In between , the Blues oriented Bob close left the band.




From Left .. Richard Wright , Roger Waters , Syd Barrett , Nick mason

After developing a very experimental style with songs like 'Interstellar Overdrive' and 'Astronomy Domine', which attracted a very underground audience ,they began to pick up a following in the London underground; onstage, they began to incorporate light shows to add to the psychedelic effect , the most famous ones being the use of moving liquid slides projected over the audience and the band.
In essence , Barrett created the ultimate Space rock / cosmic rock / psychedelic rock band .









Most importantly, Syd Barrett began to compose pop-psychedelic gems that combined unusual psychedelic arrangements (particularly in the haunting guitar and celestial organ licks) with catchy melodies and incisive lyrics that viewed the world with a sense of poetic, child-like wonder.





Syd Barrett was born ' Roger Keith Barrett ' on January 6, 1946 ,
Cambridge, England.








He was an innovative guitarist, exploring the musical and sonic possibilities of dissonance, distortion, feedback, and the echo machine.
One of Barrett's trademarks was playing his Fender Esquire guitar by sliding a Zippo lighter up and down the fret-board through an old echo box to create the mysterious, otherworldly sounds that became associated with the group.









The pink Floyd's debut album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn , released in 1967, may have been the greatest British psychedelic album other than Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club by Beatles. The record was not only like no other at the time; it was like no other that Pink Floyd would make, colored as it was by a vision that was far more humorous, pop-friendly, and light-hearted than those of their subsequent epics. The reason Pink Floyd never made a similar album was that Piper was the only one to be recorded under Barrett's leadership.





But along with the musical improvisation , Barrett became involved in another type of experimentation.. those with drugs .









As the band began to attract a large fanbase, the pressures placed on Barrett contributed to his behavior becoming increasingly unpredictable, partly as a consequence of frequent experimentation with psychedelic drugs such as LSD. Many report seeing him on stage with the group, strumming on one chord through the entire concert, or not playing at all.





Before a performance in late 1967, Barrett apparently crushed Mandrax and an entire tube of Brylcreem into his hair, which subsequently melted down his face under the heat of the stage lighting, making him look like "a guttered candle"





Following a disastrous abridged tour of the United States, David Gilmour (a school friend of Barrett's) , a skilled guitarist, was asked to join the band as a second guitarist in order to cover for Barrett as Barrett's erratic behavior prevented him from performing.

David Gilmour

For a handful of shows David played and sang while Barrett wandered around on stage, occasionally deigning to join in playing. The other band members soon tired of Barrett's antics, and in January 1968, on the way to a show at Southampton University, the band elected not to pick Barrett up.



They attempted to retain him in the group as a songwriter, but this proved untenable.
Of the songs he recorded with Pink Floyd after Piper, only one ("Jugband Blues") made it to the band's second album 'A Saucerful of Secrets' released in 1968. A harsh ,relentless juxtaposition of nightmare sounds, of pounding, monotonous,pulsating drones,of fragmented whisperings and half-familiar snatches of melody,the record triggers off psychological fears,too complex for easy assimilation and too full of wonder.
The album cover artwork shown below is redolent of its times. The superimpositional mix of many items was an attempt to represent the swirling dreamlike visions of various altered states of consciousness. such altered states were induced by religious experience, pharmaceutical additives, or Pink Floyd music. Or all three.




The lyrics penned by barrett seemed to be a kind of prelude to his impending disassociation with the band . Jugband Blues was also the last song performed by Syd barrett with Pink Floyd.


And the sea isn't green.. (lyrics)

And I love the queen...

And what exactly is a dream?

And what exactly is a joke?

Jugband Blues Lyrics - http://www.neptunepinkfloyd.co.uk/wiki/index.php/Jugband_Blues

After leaving Pink Floyd, Barrett distanced himself from the public eye. However, at the behest of EMI and Harvest Records, he did have a brief solo career, releasing two mercurial solo albums, 'The Madcap Laughs' and 'Barrett'.





Then Barrett left music altogether and faded from public view,reverting back to his original name Roger ,living in the cellar of his mother's house in Cambridge . And this is where the story gets depressing.










Meanwhile , Pink Floyd ,led by Roger Waters, took the band to an entirely new dimension , releasing one of the largest selling albums of all times , the 'Dark Side of the Moon' in 1973 , which propelled the band to super stardom. But Syd Barrett's sad exit continued to influence the imaginative and philosophical theme based songs Waters wrote which became their trademark.



Syd Barrett had one noted reunion with the members of Pink Floyd, in 1975 during the recording sessions for 'Wish You Were Here'. Barrett attended the Abbey Road session unannounced and watched the band record "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" — coincidentally, a song about him. At that time, Barrett had gained a lot of weight and had shaved off all of his hair, including his eyebrows, and his ex-bandmates did not at first recognize him.



In an interview for the BBC documentary The Pink Floyd and Syd Barrett Story, Rick Wright spoke about the session, saying: "One thing that really stands out in my mind, that I'll never forget; I was going in to the Shine On sessions. I went in the studio and I saw this guy sitting at the back of the studio, he was only as far away as you are from me. And I didn't recognise him. I said, 'Who's that guy behind you?' 'That's Syd.' And I just cracked up, I couldn't believe it... he had shaven all his hair off... I mean, his eyebrows, everything... he was jumping up and down brushing his teeth, it was awful. And, uh, I was in, I mean Roger was in tears, I think I was; we were both in tears. It was very shocking... seven years of no contact and then to walk in while we're actually doing that particular track. I don't know – coincidence, karma, fate, who knows? But it was very, very, very powerful"





Many artists have acknowledged Barrett's influence on their work. Paul McCartney and Pete Townshend were early fans; Jimmy Page, David Bowie, Brian Eno, and The Damned all expressed interest in working with him at some point during the 1970s.

Although Barrett had not appeared or spoken in public since the mid-1970s, time did little to diminish interest in his life and work; reporters and fans still traveled to Cambridge to seek him out, despite his attempts to live a quiet life, and many photos from the 1980s to his passing in 2006 of Barrett being annoyed by paparazzi when walking or biking to the store had been published in various places.

In 2001 , newspapers reported the sighting of Syd Barrett with the headline.. 'Return of the lost Pink floyd Legend'.

Apparently, Barrett was not happy being reminded about his past as a musician and the other members of Pink Floyd had no direct contact with him. However, he did go to his sister's house in 2002 to watch the BBC Omnibus documentary made about him – reportedly he found some of it "too noisy", though he's said to have enjoyed hearing "See Emily Play" again.





SYD Barrett, founder of pop super-group Pink Floyd, was laid to rest at a family funeral in Cambridge on Monday, 17 July , 2006 , with around a dozen members of his family joining his closest friends.





Although Syd came to be known as a recluse , mad genius , his siser rosemary vehemently opposes these tags placed on him.
she said "when people called him a recluse they were really only projecting their own disappointment. He knew what they wanted but he wasn’t willing to give it to them.
Roger (Syd's original name) was unique; they didn’t have the vocabulary to describe him and so they pigeonholed him.
He did have leisure interests. He took up photography, and sometimes we went to the seaside together. Quite often he took the train on his own to London to look at the major art collections — and he loved flowers. He made regular trips to the Botanic Gardens and to the dahlias at Anglesey Abbey, near Lode. But of course, his passion was his painting.

Roger worked in a variety of styles — though he admired no one after the impressionists — and you could say he came up with his own type of conceptual art. He would photograph a particular flower and paint a large canvas from the photograph. Then he would make a photographic record of the picture before destroying the canvas. In a way, that was very typical of his approach to life. Once something was over, it was over. He felt no need to revisit it. "



THE LEGEND SHINES ON..

Even though the Pink Floyd diversified into an entirely different dimension after the exit of Syd Barrett , the band has always been synonymous with the initial barrett era mystique and the psychedelic connections.
If Syd had been present , the band might have taken a different dimension , but a nonetheless stunning and bizarre one.
As Gilmour once said .. " There has always been an element of mystique around us.. in that we have never been able to diassociate ourself, not that we tried, from the Syd Barrett era psychedelic hippie era startout".

From the cradle..



To youth..



to isolation...


to the grave..


Its been both a happy and sad journey for Syd Barrett..
The Crazy Diamond , the Astral Piper now truly shines on... leaving a still deeper void in space.