Album: Thirty Seconds Over Winterland (re-issue) / Band: Jefferson Airplane / 12 Tracks / Rock
Reviewed by Mark Pedigo
The
fans already know the story. In the summer of 1965, in San Francisco,
vocalist Marty Balin and guitarist Paul Kantner started what was intended to
be the house band at Balin’s club, The Matrix. Their first appearance
as Jefferson Airplane occurred August 13, 1965 at that club. After
raising their reputation in the San Francisco area, they released their
first album
Jefferson Airplane Takes Off!
Lead singer Signe Toly Anderson retired
from the band when she had a baby and was replaced by the inimitable Grace
Slick. Jefferson Airplane’s reputation was further enhanced when Newsweek
took notice of them and featured them in an article on the booming
San Francisco
hippie music scene.
The group found international fame with their
second album, Surrealistic Pillow, which featured the now iconic
songs “White Rabbit,” and “Don’t You Need Somebody to Love.” In August 1969
the group played at
Woodstock, and in December they played at the Altamont Free Concert, making
them the only band to have played in all three of the 1960s iconic rock
concerts (Monterey Pop being the other). Jefferson Airplane eventually
split into competing cliques, with
Kantner and Slick in one faction and guitarist Jorma Kaukonen and Jack
Casady in the other. Due to this friction, and also due to adopting a
healthier lifestyle after the death of Janis Joplin, founder Marty Balin
left the band in March of 1971. In 1972, the band toured for their latest
album, Long John Silver. Although it was never announced, this turned
out to be the group’s last tour.
Thirty Seconds Over Winterland was recorded at Winterland in San Francisco and the Auditorium Theatre in Chicago during that last tour. This recording has now been rereleased by Iconoclassic records in an expanded and re-mastered form on CD. At this point, the band consisted of Grace Slick (vocals), Paul Kantner (vocals and guitar), Jorma Kaukonen (vocals and lead guitar), Jack Casady (bass) and Papa John Creach (violin), David Freiberg (vocals) and Johnny Barbata (drums).
The album starts with “Have You Seen The Saucers,” an environmental statement couched in a science fictional setting which modern ears might find jarring (“Have you seen the saucers?/ Star children on the black road to salvation /…Come and join us on the other side of the sun”). However, to be fair, this isn’t a CD that one listens to for the lyrics. Its strongest moments come during the soloing. “Feel So Good,” is a fine eleven and a half minute example of a rock ‘n roll jam session. Continuing with this theme, “Milk Train” serves as a showpiece for violinist Papa John Creach.
In addition to the original seven songs, five more songs (“Wooden Ships,” “Long John Silver,” “Come Back Baby,” “Lawman” and “Diana/Volunteers”), recorded during the final Winterland performances, have been added to this reissue.
Paul Kantner has remarked (as quoted in the liner notes), “The nature of those times was to experiment, and the nature of experiments is that most of them fail. In that sense, most of the music that we put on record was an abject failure to us as artists, as musicians. The recording was a pale two-dimensional photograph of a three-dimensional reality. From our point of view, it was a very awkward, ungainly form of what we were trying to do.” Although casual fans might be well-advised to keep looking, this is a good CD for die-hard Jefferson Airplane fans, rock aficionados and those pining for the late 60s and early 70s.
Reviewed August 2009
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