Jefferson Airplane - Bless Its Pointed Little Head

Japanese pressing. Limited edition reissue of the 1969 original release will include the bonus tracks 'Today', 'Watch Her Ride' & 'Won't You Try'. Comes packaged in a paper sleeve. RCA. 2005. Album Description

bless them for getting this down on tape

We are transported back in time to the old Fillmore Auditorium. The big room is filled with the hipsters of the day and we're all looking up at the giant screen above the stage where the old black and white film classic KING KONG is being screened. The final moments of the movie come assuring us all that it was not the airplanes that killed the beast and thank goodness for that because another airplane is just about ready to take off.
Spencer dips into '3/5 of a mile in 10 seconds' followed piece by piece by Paul's rhythm guitar, Jorma's lead and Jack's bass, layering one atop the other and then the 3-part vocals of Paul, Marty and Grace. Marty just ripping through his vocals. Grace complementing at every turn. Jack scorching his bass. Spencer...c o o k i n g on his kit. I have to really take a moment here to praise Spencer's drumming. From the very beginning of '3/5'ths with his alternate light-as-a-feather/sharp as a jack hammer combination I was truly impressed listening to him all through this album. But, it's all there, the whole band. The Jefferson Airplane sound, complete. This has to be the best song on this album, I'm thinking.
"....some of them chords...." Grace concludes aloud at song's end.
But just when you think it's the best track 'somebody to love' sets in next. And it's another intricate weaving together of each intrument piece by piece, building till everyone is finally up and running. At first, unrecognizable from the well-known single version. Grace's altered melody definately takes you by surprise. Marty's fast and hard tambourine spanking christens the song with the unmistakeable Airplane signature. "....garden flowers are dead....." . damn what a great version! wow. I've only heard the first two tracks and I'm ratin' this album VERY high!
Fat Angel begins...again, the slow build-up with each intrument weaving in one by one but with a twist this time. Jack has switched to rhythm guitar chopping out a foundation under which Marty drops in a bass line. Drums building..Jorma's lead bending around. Paul's Donovan vocal-"Ffffly trans-love airways-gets you there on.............time". Excellent black light music. slow and hypnotic. Paul's guitar drone effects. Now I'm thinking this is the albums centerpiece.
"Captain High at your service".
Side one of the original Lp concludes with a bit of a change of pace. A slow blues showcase for Jorma. In case you didn't know, not only did Grace, Marty and Paul share lead vocals, Jorma makes his mark with a very versatile vocal performance on 'Rock me baby'. But this song is a two guitar/bass/drums grinder over the length of which.......bass-just....f l y i n g.
Side two opens with 'other side/of this life'....again, building piece upon piece. Marty's tambourine and integral beat establishment. And here, the return of the 3 part Paul,Grace,Marty vocals. They really loved this Fred Neil song. "would you like to know a secret, just between you and me/i don't know where i'm goin next/i don't know who i'm gonna be. well my whole world is in an uproar/now my whole world's upside down. i don't know where i'm goin next and i'm always runnin around. i don't know what i'm doin half the time/i don't know where i'm goin. i think i'll get me a sail boat-sail the gulf of mexico"
It's No Secret-only one that starts all together. Little song c o o k s.
Plastic Fantastic Lover-damn that's some hot bass and guitar! Marty ripping through his vocals--yet again.
After a brief 'turn out the lights' Paul introduces Bear Melt, the final song on the album-all eleven minutes of it, and, the albums 2nd and final centerpiece. "we'll leave you with this. feel free to sing along if you'd like". Grace quickly zings back a "thank you" for this song will be her showcase as well. this mini-epic is Bless's 'the end'.
"why not keep the little animals alive". more....just more great 4 piece ensemble playing and when Grace comes back in at the very end....wow. beautiful.
It took me a l o n g time to discover this album. I'm glad I finally did. great great great.
March 8, 2008

Dud

For collectors only, this is not a very good album. The mix is muddy & the material presented was hardly worth the effort. Save your cabbage & pick up one of JA's studio efforts.

For a similar recording you could record some drunken garage band with a radio shack tape recorder & end up with something of the same quality. January 23, 2008

Their Live Best

The favourite album of each member of the Airplane, Bless Its Pointed Little Head captures the band at the height of their powers in their most natural setting, live in front of an audience at familiar halls. This album was recorded at Bill Graham's two venues; mostly at Fillmore West in their native San Francisco in October 1968, a month after their legendary performance at London's Roundhouse, which I was lucky enough to attend, but a couple of tracks from New York's Fillmore East the following month, though the recordings have been mixed together to represent an abbreviated concert, and presented as was, without any post-gig sweetening or overdubs, and including the daringly improvised combined pieces Turn Out The Lights/Bear Melt from New York.

Although their album Crown Of Creation had just reached the shops, nothing from that album is included, perhaps because those new songs had yet to find their evolved forms in live performance. The live versions of former singles It's No Secret, Somebody To Love and Plastic Fantastic Lover (the B-side of White Rabbit) show that these had been utterly transformed on stage. They are therefore not merely live souvenirs of well-known material, but reinventions, valuable documentations of what the Airplane were all about as a live band. Apart from a startlingly fresh and extendedly transcendental performance of former album track 3/5's Of A Mile In 10 Seconds, the rest of the album features material not available in studio form.

Fat Angel, written by Donovan, was an obvious choice for the band to cover as it includes the line, "Fly Jefferson Airplane, gets you there on time", interpreted at a metaphysical level and accompanied by some fittingly spacey musical exploration. Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady were the Airplane's blues aficionados and led the band through an extended extemporization of Rock Me Blues, probably learned from BB King but a traditional blues developed through earlier recordings by Arthur Crudup, Lil' Son Jackson, Muddy Waters, Big Bill Broonzy and others. The band's folksier origins are represented by Paul Kantner taking the lead on Fred Neil's Other Side Of This Life, an established stage favourite otherwise unrecorded by the band.

Therefore, there was little to deter owners of the Airplane's four albums released to date from acquiring this, their first and best live album, and on release in January 1969 it reached number 17 in the US album charts in a 20-week chart run, remaining a consistent favourite with buyers ever since, having been re-issued on CD several times.

This edition from 2004 has been remastered from the original tapes by Bob Irwin and also includes three previously unreleased live bonus tracks: Today (originally from Surrealistic Pillow), Watch Her Ride and Won't You Try/Saturday Afternoon (all from After Bathing At Baxter's). The notes indicate that these were intended for the album but left off due to time constraints. It's noticeable, though, that all three come from a slightly later night at the Fillmore West, namely November 5th, and have a markedly different live sound balance to those on the album, though they are fine versions. This is presumably due to the band's live psychedelic sound man Owsley Stanley III, who also worked with the Grateful Dead, rather than the album's balance engineer Richie Schmitt.

In the CD and DVD-Audio era it would be good to have some of these memorable concerts made available in full, as the Grateful Dead have done with their Dick's Picks and other series. In the meantime, this edition is clearly the one to choose in preference to earlier editions, to enjoy a prime West Coast band at their peak. January 14, 2008

jack casady is the man

This album shows what was the real force behind the band. Can anyone think of a rock group before them to build its sound around the bass? Jack's playing on this record is extremely strong. Its no accident that this record was mixed with his instrument making up half the volume, the rest of the band the other half. His playing defined the group, and gave it a foundation which they could swirl around. When I first heard this record, Balin and Slick's voices seemed to me to be shaped to resemble dueling Yardbirds-like guitars, and they still do. The whole group is tight on this record, and very attentive to each other. You just don't hear this kind of work on other SF groups from the period-a mix of well-rehearsed instrumentation and improv. They rocked much harder than the Dead or other outfits.
I just wish that Jorma's guitar work were more consistant here, my only real complaint.
October 21, 2007

DOES JEFFERSON AIRPLAIN NEED ANY INTRODUCTION

GOT IT FOR THE SONG ROCK ME BABY. HOT AS HELL...GREAT MUSIC FOR A DATE NITE. August 31, 2007

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