The Jefferson Airplane What IF Game

[redrabid]

Hot Tuna? No, it's "The Two Thrown Shoes" or "The Smelly Feet Marching Band".

[EmbryonicRabbit68]

Thats an embarrasing thought, our Gods and Godesses viewing our posts .Now im wondering those random guests without accounts coming and going are them!Lets just hope they have seen Spinal Tap...if not, God help them.Anyway, too late.And you want offensive album names?Oh...i got offensive album names, oh yeah.. ...nah maybe too offensive

[Ensign]

I think we can rest assured that J and J both have a good sense of humor. Just look at the album titles: First Pull Up Then Pull Down, Burgers, Hoppkorv, Pair A Dice Found, etc. Heck, the very name, Hot Tuna, is humorous, IMHO.
And I really doubt they look at this forum... just guessing here.
But... WHAT IF Jefferson Airplane members DO look at this forum????

[redrabid]

The answer to that question is obvious. They could just post their own "Jefferson Airplane What If" album. Would be very interesting.

[jimmie ray]

I think we can rest assured that J and J both have a good sense of humor. Just look at the album titles

So, if Jorma had stopped by the karate studio and seen Mickey Hart catch a misguided kick to the nads, "Quah" would have then instead been named "Ooooowwwwiiiieeee,mommie,mommie,mommiiieeee"?

[EmbryonicRabbit68]

If he did walk in on such an incident happening to Mickey Hart, then yes, jimmie ray, yes, it might have been called that.All in a magical land i like to call, "Erkadia"(c).But then, Barbeque King might have been called "Wok Duke", or "Slow-Cook Premier".And yes, the name Hot Tuna is a bit funny.Actually at first when i read the name, i though "Why Hot Tuna?", until i heard what they were about and how Jorma chose the name, and it all sank in.So yes we can rest assured they wont be alienated reading this, lets just hope they read the whole thread, one random post might be harmful.By the way, does anyone know where Hoppkorv came from??Ive thought it over a bit and cannot find out what it is or means.Slang?Jumbled word?

[plasticfantastic]

I was JUST reading about this!

What happened was, Jorma (and Jack maybe?) was in Sweden on a speed skating trip. He saw another skater drop a piece of sausage on his white sweater, and yelled "hopp korv!", which is apparently Swedish for "Jumping sausage!" He found it funny (no kidding!), and ended up suggesting it as the album title.

[redrabid]

Only, as so many stories in Airplane/Tuna mythology, this isn't true. Jorma may have thought he heard this, but it makes no sense in Swedish and it certainly doesn't mean what he thought it meant.

[EmbryonicRabbit68]

Well, i know Korv is Swedish for Sausage...or some type of food, and Hopp im sure is Jumping, because ive heard Hopp mentioned as Jump before, and Hopp is similar to Hop, or Hopping, it just makes sense.But i dont know Swedish, or necessarily like Sweden...so i could be comepletely wrong.

My next JA What If album.I used the title Sunfighter because its a good album titled, and i couldnt really some up with a new album title...

Sunfighter(1971)
Recorded: 20th July - 11th September 1971
Released: 16th November 1971
Label: Grunt Records

Side One-
1.Silver Spoon(Slick) - 5:40
2.Ode for Billy Dean(Kaukonen) - 4:49
3.Look at the Wood(Slick/Kantner) - 2:08
4.Good Folks(Balin/Talbot) - 7:30
5.China(Slick) - 3:17

Side Two-
1.Twilight Double Leader(Kantner) - 4:42
2.When I Was A Boy I Watched the Wolves(Kantner/Slick) - 4:59
3.Second Hand Information(Balin/Hickox) - 4:53
4.Been So Long(Kaukonen) - 3:42
5.Sunfighter(Kantner) - 3:50
6.Hesitation Blues(Kaukonen) - 5:05

Alot of it is Sunfighter, and with the same album name its very close.But, i did what i did, trying to make it more realistic this time.The previous ones i had which i hadnt posted yet were out there, double-LP concept albums that didnt go anywhere.By the way, Good Folks is becoming one of my new favourite songs.I really like the Bodacious DF album, its very "of its time", and has a lot of soul, but still rocks out here and there.I would listen to it over any JS album any day.Except Dragon Fly, i like it more as i listen to it.It may be just because compared to Red Octopus and everything afterwards its alot better, though.

[redrabid]

The re-creation of my "JA What If" album "A TALE OF LOST CHARTS" proved to be a difficult task. I just couldn't remember very well which songs I used the first time. Except the songs from "Burgers", which is my all time favorite Hot Tuna album: True Religion, Watersong and Seachild. But I don't like "LJS" much and I detest "Tolbooth". "LJS" has just a few acceptable songs, "Trial by Fire" is the best. But the playing is excellent. Just listen to "Alexander the Medium": A lousy song but they play it so very well together. The "most furious muzak around" one critic (Lester Bangs?) called it. The recording of the vocals on "LJS" is atrocious. On "Eat Starch Mom" Grace sounds as if she is singing through a tin can in the next room. But also, Grace doesn't sing with that full voice with those angelic lows and steely highs. Her singing sounds strained and shrill."Buffy St. Marie on strychnine" someone called her singing like this.
"Tollbooth" has no good songs and no inspired playing. Despite great names among the studiomusicians the playing is workmanlike. It lacks the spark that the playing on "LJS" does have. And then, David Freiberg as a replacement for Marty? Now Marty was a very good singer with his own charisma and hard to replace as such. But David Freiberg? The man just can't sing very well. He is often out of tune, very out of tune. What were Grace and Paul thinking? Choosing him was an insult to Marty. I replaced "True Religion" by "Roberta". This album needed another song by Marty. Maybe its chartposition could have been higher than # 17.

JEFFERSON AIRPLANE
A TALE OF LOST CHARTS

1973
Highest chartposition: # 17.

Twilight Double Leader
Trial by Fire
Ballad of the Chrome Nun
Aerie (Gang of Eagles)
Roberta

Sketches of China
Water Song
Emergency
Seachild
Eat Starch Mom

[redrabid]

The last of the lost ones. Here is my third (and last) re-creation of my erased "JA What If" albums: "Enemy of the State: Caught by Strings".
It was a mixed joy, listening to all those albums released by the fragmented Airplane in the 70s.
Dutifully, being an ardent fan, I bought all those records and listened to them for a couple of weeks. I was very disappointed by most of them and stored them away forever. Only Hot Tuna albums escaped that fate. And now, all those records have made their rounds again on my turntable (I didn't have them on CD). Some of them I still consider awful ("Tollbooth", "Red Octopus"), others have at least a few decent songs ("Sunfighter", "Dragonfly"), but there was one big surprise for me :"Bodacious DF"! What an excellent album. Why didn't I like it back then ? I really don't know. The man I was is a stranger to me now. I am going to plunder "Bodacious DF" for this game. By the way, you can hear on this album that those soulman-mannerisms Marty adopted in his singing were already affecting that powerful clear tenor.
"Dragonfly" isn't as bad as I thought. It has a few good songs, though the production is already very MOR. I listen to Manhole only for two songs: "Theme" of course and "Epic # 38". For this album I edtited the first song down to 7-8 minutes. I just hope that in this "What If" world, they orchestrated this song a bit more adventurously.
Jorma was in 1973/74 not only the most prolific but also the best songwriter of them all. But I find it pleasing to see that, after the split up of JA, at least some ex-members were venturing into the same musical direction. Jorma too was experimenting with orchestration! And he felt, just as Grace, cornered.

ENEMY OF THE STATE: CAUGHT BY STRINGS
JEFFERSON AIRPLANE
1974
Highest chartposition: # 5.

I See the Light
Drifting
Ride the Tiger
the Witcher
Easy Now

Corners Without Exits
Epic # 38
Caroline
Hyperdrive
Theme from the Movie "Manhole"

All songs on side 2 are orchestrated.

[EmbryonicRabbit68]

Yeah those are how the original posts were as i remmember.I like how the second side to Enemy of the State is orchestrated.I feel that if the Airplane really did stay together, they would have done a concept album of sorts.I put together a double-concept album called The Son of Jesus re-arranging Sunfighter, LJS and Burgers, but it needed alot of work.I also completely agree on Baron von Tollbooth.The playing on Baron is very stale.I like White Boy and Your Mind has Left Your Body, but if they were done by the classic Airplane line-up they would have been amazing.And i used to think LJS was just acceptable, but nothing more.Ive listened to it more lately, im really liking it.Same with Bark.And i recently heard Bodacious DF, and im loving that album too, my favourites being Good Folks and Drifting.Its better than Baron in every way, and better than Manhole and Dragon Fly because its good all the way through, where Manhole and Dragon Fly have great songs(i have yet to get over Ride the Tiger), but have the same amount or more of not great songs.

Anyway, here is my 1972 JA What If Album.Let me remind you i have artwork for most of these, and when someone figures out how to upload pictures from your computer, im all ears.

The Son of Jesus(1972)
Recorded: 4th May - 21st July 1972
Released: 15th September 1972
Label: Grunt Records

Side One-
1.Long John Silver(Slick/Casady) - 4:22
2.Sea Child(Kaukonen) - 5:00
3.Aerie(Gang of Eagles)(Slick) - 3:53
4.The Witcher(Balin) - 6:26
5.The Son of Jesus(Kantner) - 5:27

Side Two-
1.Milk Train(Slick/Creach/Spotts) - 3:18
2.Trial By Fire(Kaukonen) - 4:31
3.Roberta(Balin) - 4:25
4.Alexander The Medium(Kantner) - 6:38
5.Eat Starch Mom(Slick/Kaukonen) - 4:34

[plasticfantastic]

Nice job! I'm really liking that album.

And by the way, I agree with you. I really love both Bark and LJS-- VERY underrated.

[Susan Butcher]

Stuff the technique, the first side of "Tollbooth" is my third favourite 20 minutes from Paul and Grace. What's wrong with sloppy playing anyway? "Holding Together" is wreckage and I love it! This is rock music we're talking about, not armchair jazz.

[redrabid]

Right, we are talking rockmusic: impulsive, technically mabe imperfect, but short, sharp, to the point. Not armchair jazz: meandering, all-over-the-place improvisation played by gifted but bored musicians. Why do I think that the latter description fits "Holding Together" so well?