JEFFERSON AIRPLANE

(Excerpted from an SFGate review of Jeff Tamarkin's "Got A Revolution" - without permission)

One day in 1965, Marty Balin, an up-and-coming local singer who'd recently co-founded a band called Jefferson Airplane (and who would later become famous for leaping off the stage at Altamont, attacking a Hells Angel who was beating a fan, and being immediately knocked out himself), took acid for the first time. He and roommate Bill Thompson, who would go on to become the Airplane's manager, decided to go for a stroll in the Haight, whereupon, Thompson says in "Got a Revolution!": "A guy comes up and takes a knife out and goes 'Hey, man, give me your money.' Marty looks at me and goes, 'Is this part of the trip?' "
Balin recalls, "I'm looking at this guy and he's sparkling. I'm going, 'Man, you are beautiful.' And then I put my arm around the guy. Finally the guy gave up and said to Thompson, 'Hey, man, you better take this guy to a hospital.' "

The combination of shining innocence, glorious vision and potentially catastrophic cluelessness encapsulated in this moment propagates fractal-like through "Got a Revolution!: The Turbulent Flight of Jefferson Airplane," in which author Jeff Tamarkin traces the band's history from the childhood of its members to the present.

Born from the explosive convergence of youth culture, psychedelics, rock 'n' roll and outrage over the Vietnam War, the Airplane was, for the late '60s and early '70s, at the forefront not only of "The San Francisco Sound" but also of a movement that saw saving the world from government intrusion and societal repression as not merely possible but mandatory. "Now it's time for you and me/ Got a revolution!" Balin would exhort the crowd in his extraordinary voice.

When band members Paul Kantner and Grace Slick were expecting their baby, Kantner's song "A Child Is Coming" suggested not registering births to keep one's children free of authoritarian clutches. (The baby in question, Tamarkin reports, is now a sober Christian living in Southern California.)

The Airplane sold millions of records, influenced hordes of bands and galvanized audiences around the world. Meanwhile, their music was often eclipsed by their offstage antics. They embraced their role as poster children for the transformative properties of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll, and rarely lost an opportunity to outrage conventional sensibilities -- as Kantner wrote in one lyric: "We are forces of chaos and anarchy/ Everything they say we are, we are/ And we are very/ Proud of ourselves."

(Sadly, the Airplane morphed into the less-interesting Jefferson Starship - who then morphed into the gawdawful Starship with Mickey Thomas and Craig Chaquico, who once unabashedly admitted that Journey and Styx were his favorite bands)

Official Site
Allmusic: Jefferson Airplane
Jefferson Airplaine Wiki

Essential Listening

2400 Fulton Street

Essential Reading

Got A Revolution by Jeff Tamarkin

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