Sunfighter

[purpleoctopus]

Anyone know if this is going to be re-released or reissued. I want to get it but I really don't want to pay $50 used...thanks!

[plasticfantastic]

I don't know of any coming reissues, but I'm sure you'll be able to find it. I found my copy on vinyl for 6$ at a thrift store last year, so I know they aren't all obscenely expensive. Good luck finding it though... it's a fantastic album, I think.

[oldblue]

I don't know of any coming reissues, but I'm sure you'll be able to find it. I found my copy on vinyl for 6$ at a thrift store last year, so I know they aren't all obscenely expensive. Good luck finding it though... it's a fantastic album, I think.

especially in its veneration and deification of absolutely clueless demagogues such as diana oughton who had gone completely over the edge.

"On March 6, 1970, during preparations for the bombing of a Non-Commissioned Officers’ (NCO) dance at the Fort Dix U.S. Army base and for Butler Library at Columbia University, there was an explosion in a Greenwich Village safe house when the nail bomb being constructed prematurely detonated for unknown reasons. WUO members Diana Oughton, Ted Gold, and Terry Robbins died in the explosion."

i've said it before and i'll say it again radical politics and cocaine killed the airplane. this is where the dead were smarter than the airplane because they never let it be about anything other than the music. none of that abbie hoffman (aka the world's biggest media whore) crap.

sunfighter's stiffness and woodenness is directly attributable to cocaine.

[PrayForPlagues]

I have never understood the tribute to Diana either, really. It's a beautiful song, but I don't see how she was an honorable person.

[oldblue]

I have never understood the tribute to Diana either, really. It's a beautiful song, but I don't see how she was an honorable person.

she did a lot of good things in her life before she crossed the line into ideological insanity and got a taste for violence. her ending deserves no veneration. the war twisted a lot of things but she made her own decisions.

why does ideology always seem to make people nuts

[CookOfTheHouse]

Yeah, that's all Kantner's fault... He was the most dispensable member... actually the only one. Grace's contributions were rocky and crazy and fun, Marty's subject was always romantic, Jorma had some great tunes like come back baby and star track, spencer dryden was really into details, Joey covington was heavier, louder and Jack Casady is Jack Casady. Kantner wasn't the best guitar player, wasn't the leader, wasn't the best vocalist and his songwriting skills aren't the best material, except the Pooneils, of course, which are great. All his politic things sort of messed things up for the airplane and he's actually promoting really heavy stuff when writing a song like Diana, that's a song dedicated to a terrorist, come on, there are limits and he sure crossed that line!!

[plasticfantastic]

Very true. I feel this conversation could very easily veer into a rather different topic, but nevertheless a very interesting one: What was it about Kantner that made him good? CookoftheHouse is correct, I feel. Paul was not the greatest guitarist, nor the greatest vocalist, nor the greatest songwriter (although, I really love a lot of his songs, not just the Pooneils), so why are we all drawn to him? We must be, or else why would we be on a Jefferson Airplane forum?

With Diana, one is forced to look past what it means. Without knowledge of the real Diana, it's a very interesting, beautiful, rather mysterious song. Grace sounds rather sublime on the recording, and it's easy for me to get lost in her vocal, and barely notice the lyrics.

[Susan Butcher]

Paul had the spirit to keep going when the Airplane itself was in a horrible slump. I think at that time he and Grace were far from "dispensable".

[CookOfTheHouse]

I never said Grace was dispensable! And I actually like the airplane's last two albums, even though I'm a Marty fan, I like the fact that we get to enjoy more songs featuring Gracie on lead vocals...
And back to Kantner and Sunfighter, I agree with plasticfantastic, I really like Diana, It's an amazing song with good vocal arrangements.
And yes, Kantner has writen some intresting songs but check each album, his songs are never the ones you want to listen to (at least in my case). For instance, on Sunfighter, the songs I like the most are Silver Spoon and China, both writen by Grace. There's the song Sunfighter which is nice and Diana, but then he comes with songs like "Holding Together" and I just want to shoot myself on the head... really, I went to psychotherapy for months, I lost the will to live 'cause I couldn't believe someone could write such a boring song... yeah, those were really hard times back then... Hahahaha... nah, just kidding.

Have a nice day everybody!

[redrabid]

Am I really listening to the same song? Is "Diana" a veneration of terrorism? I hadn't heard the song in a long time, so I wasn't sure. So now I am listening to it (CD), while reading the lyrics in the booklet of the original LP.
No, it does not:

" How do you feel to shoot down your brother now
& bury us in cages of cement and steel
What do you see when you look at one another now
Who do you see tell me how do you feel"

It does not venerate Diana or her actions. The song is a lament. A lament for somebody, who, misguided by romantic political ideas, crossed a line to reach her goals. It asks the question:"Why did you do it, what made you do it?. That is a very important issue, then and now. Moral indignation is not enough.

Paul Kantner the most dispensable?
The man who is responsible for those never equalled, never surpassed threeway harmonies, that gave JA a still unique vocal identity? The man who wrote songs like "Ballad", "Watch Her Ride", "Crown", "House", "We Can Be Together", "Volunteers". "Saucers", when Marty Balin, unable to handle success and the competition for the spotlight with Grace, developed a well maintained writer's block?
Also Kantner was a fine rhythm guitarist (Listen to the Woodstock recordings!), whose sound was very important to Jefferson Airplane. His contributions and those of Spencer Dryden made JA a more adventurous group than the more "plain", blues orientated Hot Tuna, that relied on Kaukonen and Casady only.
Without Kantner no Airpane.
But without JA no Kantner too.
'Holding Together" is an unbearably boring "song".

[PrayForPlagues]

redrabid could be very right.
It asks the question:"Why did you do it, what made you do it?. That is a very important issue, then and now. Moral indignation is not enough.


I too enjoy the last 2 Airplane albums- and I do think Paul was an excellent songwriter. His songs are always indeed ones I want to listen to. His way with words... just inspiring to me.

[CookOfTheHouse]

Yeah, I never realised it could be a mourning song... that sure gives it a spin!
But I still have to say Kantner is the most dispensable one, redrabit, if we are talking about harmonies, John Phillips of the Mamas & The Papas did a far greater job, and i can still mention others, like Spanky And Our Gang or Sweetwater. They did better vocal arrangements, more harmonic. My favourite harmonies are still the airplane's, Marty and Grace each trying to shout louder than the octherone is something I'd never trade, they are by far my favourites but that's not thanks to Kantner, it's, as you mentioned, because of the spotlight competition, which was a friendly competition and it was fun to listen to. And Volunteers was written mainly by Balin, not Kantner, he just contributed. And I agree, both Pooneil songs are among my favourite songs ever! maybe you could help me out with this one, I don't know why but I always thought House At Pooneil Corners was actually writen by Balin not Kantner but now I can't remember where I got that from, was I right??

[PrayForPlagues]

I believe House was mostly written by Marty.
In an interview found here http://music-illuminati.com/interview-paul-kantner/ Paul says:

"I gave that to Marty to write, and he made it a sour, end-of-the-world kind of song."

[redrabid]

Kantner wrote the music for Volunteers, just as he did for "House", Marty wrote (part of) the lyrics.

[Susan Butcher]

Don't forget "Martha''! That's my favourite Paul song, even if I don't much like the album it's on. I love the atmospheric sloppiness of "Holding Together", and feel that "Watch Her Ride" is somwhat corny sounding. No accounting for taste, is there?