Do You Remember? #2

The Jefferson Airplane was a band with many problems.

There were substance abuse problems. There were problems with excess and self-indulgence and extremes. There was Grace Slick, who famously claimed to have dated every member of the band resulting in jealousies and distrust. And finally there were the problems caused by having too much talent in one band.

Every member of The Airplane was a more than capable songwriter. Paul Kantner, Grace Slick, and Marty Balin were the primary contributors and yet, stylistically, they were vastly different. Balin had a romantic’s heart and inclined to ballads reflecting such notions. Kantner and Slick embodied the counter culture and all the ideals associated with The Summer of Love. Their compositions explored hippie values and the awareness that could be achieved through chemical inducement. Additionally they were more politically conscious. Guitarist Jorma Kaukonen and bass player Jack Cassidy had a harder edge to their playing than their politics. They were more interested in delivering The Airplane from their early folk rock sound than volunteering for a revolution. It was their music that was revolutionary.

After Bathing At Baxter’s is the result of an epic struggle of all of these competing interests. This is the album that clearly defined the factions in the band and set The Airplane’s course for the rest of the sixties.

On their first album, Takes Off, the band presented a folk rock sound that laid the foundation for where they were heading. Surrealistic Pillow, the Airplane’s next release had a more commercial sound producing two radio hits: ‘Somebody to Love’ and ‘White Rabbit’. After Bathing at Baxter’s, released approximately nine months later was The Airplane psychedelic rock record. This is the album where the band took its greatest risks. The sound was new and perfectly suited to the turbulent sixties. From the audio assault of feedback and swirling guitars on the Baxter’s first track ‘The Ballad of You & Me & Pooneil’ to the dreamy confusion created by the creepy piano and crashing cymbals of ‘Two Heads’, this was a new soundscape.

Vocally there were differences too. The harmonies created by Kantner, Slick, and Balin were no longer about blending. Rather Slicks contralto challenged and wrestled with Balin’s tenor. The sounds were almost at war, a perfect representation of the turmoil and change The Airplane was singing about. Slick wailed and chanted unrestrained against Balin’s smooth delivery. Yet when she sang lead she utilized a controlled rage earning her the nick name Ice Queen. Finally, where Marty Balin had writing credit on eight of the tracks on the band’s debut album and four songs on Surrealistic Pillow, he only had one such credit on Baxter’s. The Airplane was clearly heading in a new direction.

You owe it to yourselves to hear After Bathing at Baxter’s in the long playing record form the first time. My first experience with this recording was on vinyl, frequently checking the record out from my local library at a time when The Cult and The Rain Parade were trying to bring the psychedelic sixties back in sound and attitude. Part of Baxter’s arty uniqueness was having an album arranged into five distinct musical “suites”. The sheer genius of this will be lost on you if you don’t hear it on vinyl. Each “suite” contains two or three songs and functions as a distinct musical episode, not unlike the chapters or episodes found in James Joyce’s Ulysses. This is why Baxter’s contains what is perhaps Grace Slick’s greatest writing achievement, ‘Rejoyce’..

The Airplane was a band of many movements. They will always be inexorably tied to The Summer of Love and the San Francisco counterculture that summer spawned. Similarly the band wanted to expand minds and awareness through acid trips. Allegedly the group wanted to call this album After Taking LSD but RCA would not allow it. Baxter’s most experimental tracks reflect this inclination. ‘A Small Package of Great Value Will Come to You, Shortly’ is sort of like being really out of it at a party and hearing snippets of conversation around you but still not quite catching on to what you are hearing. Then there is the extended instrumental ‘Spare Chaynge’ clocking in at just under ten minutes. This song is the foundation of acid rock.

And although their songs of protest would be perfected on subsequent albums like Volunteers, the early murmurings of political speech and anti war sentiment can be heard on this record with lines like, “War's good business so give your son and I'd rather have my country die for me.” Elsewhere Slick wades into gender wars on both compositions credited to her; a subject she more comfortably addresses on the band’s follow up, Crown of Creation, with the track ‘Greasy Heart’.

After Bathing at Baxter’s represented the next step for The Jefferson Airplane. They rounded up the followers gained with Surrealistic Pillow and with After Bathing At Baxter’s the band delivered marching orders. And yet, acknowledging the movement’s youth, the band sings on ‘Wild Tyme’ that “I'm doing things that haven't got a name yet.” Baxter’s served notice that the world was changing and once again youth culture would be leading the charge while scaring the pants off their parents.

After Bathing at Baxter’s still represents what is perhaps the last innocent moment in that movement. This album occurred before news magazine articles over-exposed San Francisco and before Haight-Ashbury choked on commercialism. This was before the somewhat pure ethos of the counter culture’s message of love and awareness was co-opted by the disenfranchised and perverted by the truly dangerous. This moment of pure hope is beautifully encapsulated on the album’s final track. ‘Wont You Try/Saturday Afternoon’ was reportedly written about the famous “happening”: the “be-in” at Golden Gate Park.

Find a way to need someone and the sunshine will set you free.
Won't you try?
With love before we’re gone….
Acid incense and balloons.
Saturday afternoon.
People dancing everywhere, loudly shouting I don't care.
It’s a time for growing and a time for knowing.”

Such sentiments may make the album dated, but it is also The Airplane’s greatest achievement. And, if you missed it, you really should give it a listen. It is guaranteed to take you another time where you can float peacefully through a perfect past without chemical assistance.