Jefferson Airplane

Posts Tagged ‘Jefferson Airplane’

Monday, November 2nd, 2009

The Popdose Interview: Eric Johnson, President and C.O.O. of Wolfgang’s Vault

by Ken Shane

Wolfgang’s Vault is one of the Internet’s greatest treasures for music lovers. The site hosts thousands of concerts that are available for free streaming, as well as vintage memorabilia that includes t-shirts, posters, photographs, tickets, and other items of interest. Thus far, only a limited number of the shows in the Concert Vault have been available for download. That’s about to change tomorrow. Last week, I had a chance to speak with Wolfgang’s Vault President and Chief Operating Officer Eric Johnson from his office in San Francisco.

Let’s start with a bit of the history of Wolfgang’s Vault. How did it come into being?

Wolfgang’s Vault began in 2003 with the acquisition of the Bill Graham archives. Bill’s real name was Wolfgang Grajonca. That’s how the site got its name. Our founder, Bill Sagan, originally acquired these assets from Clear Channel as they were spinning off Live Nation. The Bill Graham archives contained the collection of what he had amassed over his 30-year career in the music business, and then ten years after he died. Bill Graham was one of the early inventors of the rock concert, and in this archive was posters, tickets, handbills, you name it, from classic shows and classic venues like the Fillmore East, the Fillmore West, Winterland, Graham’s Day on the Green shows. There were also audio and video recordings of some of these legendary bands like the Grateful Dead, Santana, Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane, Creedence, the Who. It was just a who’s who list of what was out there.

Bill Graham was one of the first to present certain artists. On the site you can get Elton John playing his first show on the west coast. It’s just an amazing, awesome raw show. In addition to that, we’ve acquired another dozen or so archives that include different collections of both memorabilia, vintage posters and photography, and recordings. So we have the recordings of the King Biscuit Flower Hour, Silver Eagle Cross Country, which is the country version of King Biscuit, the Ash Grove, which was a club that was open in L.A. from 1958-1973 with just amazing early folk and delta blues performers, and the Newport Festivals. It’s just a huge array of music spanning 50-plus years, and about 20 different genres of music. (more…)

Tags: Ash Grove, Bill Graham, Bill Sagan, Daytrotter, Delta Spirit, Eric Johnson, Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane, Ken Shane, Lee Conklin, Newport Folk Festival, Newport Jazz Festival, Popdose Interview, Rick Griffin, Wes Wilson, Wolfgang's Vault
Posted in Music, Popdose Interviews | Comments

Friday, August 28th, 2009

CD Review: Jefferson Airplane, “Thirty Seconds Over Winterland” (reissue)

by Ken Shane

To quote Richard M. Nixon (it seems appropriate for the era), “let me make one thing perfectly clear” — There is no Jefferson Airplane without singer Marty Balin, anymore than there’s a Beach Boys without Dennis and Carl Wilson. It’s not that any of them were the the whole show, but they were all critical parts of the ensemble. In Balin’s case, it was his wild and free vocals that provided some of the Airplane’s best moments.

In late 1969, Balin was beaten up by Hell’s Angels when he leaped into the crowd to come to the aid of an audience member who the Angels had fallen upon. It was an early omen of things to come later that day at Altamont. A little more than a year later, he left the Airplane. By then Paul Kantner’s burgeoning interest in sci-fi had changed the creative direction of the band, and Balin’s brooding love songs were being pushed aside. Kantner’s solo album Blows Against the Empire was released in 1970, laying the groundwork for the Jefferson Starship. Another factor in Balin’s departure was the death of his friend Janis Joplin. When the Janis died, Balin became determined to pursue a healthier lifestyle, while the rest of the band continued drugging and drinking as if nothing had changed, which resulted in his isolation from the other members. By then, original drummer Spencer Dryden had left the band as well. (more…)

Tags: Altamont, David Freiberg, Grace Slick, Hell's Angels, Jack Casady, Jefferson Airplane, Jorman Kaukonen, Marty Balin, Papa John Creach, Paul Kantner, Spencer Dryden
Posted in CD Reviews, Music | Comments

Friday, August 14th, 2009

Happy 40th, Woodstock!

by Popdose Staff

In the early morning hours of Sunday, August 17, 1969, forty years ago this Sunday, the Jefferson Airplane took the stage at Woodstock. As the first band booked to play the festival, they were supposed to have played a headline slot on Saturday night, but like so many other artists, their set was interminably delayed. The Airplane had the unenviable task of following the Who, but they were at the peak of their powers, with their original lineup still intact, and the great piano player Nicky Hopkins sitting in.

The Airplane’s latest album, Volunteers, would not be released until November of that year, but that didn’t stop the band from previewing several songs from the album that morning, including the rousing title track, and a riveting, previously unreleased 21 minute performance of the Crosby/Stills/Kantner song “Wooden Ships.” In addition to “Wooden Ships,” the live portion of Jefferson Airplane: The Woodstock Experience (RCA/Legacy) includes four other previously unreleased songs (plus Grace’s introduction) from the band’s Woodstock set.

Grace Slick called it “Morning maniac music” in her introduction before howling “Good morning people!” to kick off the Airplane set with a screaming version of Fred Neil’s “The Other Side of This Life.” If that didn’t wake up the Sunday morning crowd, nothing could have. They didn’t ignore the hits either. There were powerful live renditions of their two biggest songs, both of which came from their classic Surrealistic Pillow album. “Somebody to Love,” sported a dramatically different reading which featured drummer Spencer Dryden, and of course the psych classic “White Rabbit.”

“Sorry about those that got the green. We got a whole lot of orange, and it was fun. It still is fun. Everybody’s vibrating,” intones Grace midway through the set, just before the Airplane launch into an incendiary version of “Plastic Fantastic Lover” that features a great lead vocal from Marty Balin. (more…)

Tags: Crown of Creation, Family Stone, Grace Slick, Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane, Jorma Kaukonen, Spencer Dryden, Woodstock Experience
Posted in Featured, Featured - Frontpage, Music, Woodstock | Comments

Friday, June 19th, 2009

DVD Review: “Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace and Music Director’s Cut”

by Ken Shane

There’s a well-known saying that if you think Woodstock was great, you weren’t there. The point is that the mud, drugs, lack of food and water, and often bad music made the whole thing a disaster for those who were there. I don’t know about where you live, but where I’m from in New Jersey, everyone of a certain age claims to have been there. I’ve even made that claim a couple of times. At least I was at the great, but now forgotten, Atlantic City Pop Festival two weeks earlier. If everyone who says they were there was actually there, there would have been millions of people rolling around in the mud, instead of the hundreds of thousands who were actually there.

Jeff Giles reviewed the Blu-ray version of the new 40th Anniversary Edition Director’s Cut of the Woodstock film a couple of weeks ago. I haven’t read Jeff’s review because I make it a point not to read any reviews of something that I’m working on until after I’ve finished my review. So this may end up being a point-counterpoint, or maybe we’ll agree on everything.

I first saw Michael Wadleigh’s film in a theater in New York City when it was released in 1970. It was the same night as the Knicks seventh game victory over the Lakers (the game where a hobbled Willis Reed provided one of the most inspirational performances in sports history), and since there were no vcr’s, and certainly no dvr’s yet, I missed the game. The things we do for love. I may have seen the film once in the years since then. The biggest surprise for me after all these years is that the film, so fondly remembered for the bands, is not about the music at all. It’s about people. The people who organized the whole thing. The people who went and lived to tell the tale. The townspeople who were massively inconvenienced that weekend. The man who cleaned the Port-O-Sans. (more…)

Tags: Artie Kornfeld, Atlantic City Pop Festival, Canned Heat, Country Joe McDonald, Creedence, DVD Review, Eddie Kramer, Jeff Giles, Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix, Joan Baez, Joe Cocker, Joel Rosenman, John Roberts, Johnny Winter, Ken Shane, Max Yasgur, Michael Lang, Michael Wadleigh, Mountain, Paul Butterfield, Quill, Richie Havens, Santana, Sly & the Family Stone, Woodstock
Posted in DVD Reviews, Film, Music | Comments