First Airplane Experience

[Dormouse]

What is your story about hearing Jefferson Airplane for the first time?

I remember mine. I was in my first year in high school, and my dad and I went to the public library. We were looking through their CDs when my dad pulled out Surrealistic Pillow, and said I needed to listen to it. The woman on the cover reminded me of one of my Sunday school teachers long ago, with the big smile and long black hair. When I got home, I inserted Surrealistic Pillow into my computer and listened to the entire album with my dad and my dog. The first song, She Has Funny Cars, was the first Airplane song I heard. The second Grace's voice came shooting through with her backing vocal, I instantly fell in love and my life changed forever. For me, the Airplane stand for something much more than their music, a movement of feeling and a set of ideals that I live by today.

Please share you first Airplane experience!

[Acid Wolf]

Um, about two or three years ago, my aunt had given me two new CDs; one was Queen's hits and another was a compilation of 60's hits. White Rabbit was on the latter, and I liked it. Then, said aunt told me that she had a copy of Worst Of, so I borrowed that from her and immediately fell in love with it. =]

EDIT: And...holy shit, people other than me and the bots are online. o_O

[psychhead]

I was in high school and we were having a coffee house spoof party. Someone put on Plastic Fantastic Lover and I wanted more....we all wanted more. The person who was putting on the records was a senior student and had that certain aura of knowing his good vibes. I asked him who the band was and ................the rest is history

[graceslick]

Well, I of course had always known about White Rabbit and Somebody to Love, but that's it. Beyond vaguely enjoying both songs, I had no idea. I was born in 78 so definitely missed the original boat in that regard.

My girlfriend has always liked the Airplane but I never had much interest. One day she bought this book from a second hand book store for like, $5, and it was Somebody to Love? by Grace, and I found it interesting and thought she sort of looked a bit like me and was into drugs, which I have always for no good reason found morbidly appealing, so I read it. I LOVED IT! I actually read it 3 times before even getting remotely into the music. I just thought she was a fantastic person.

So last year actually almost exactly to this day, my handbag/wallet/phone/MP3 player/keys were stolen. (well, ok, actually I left them on a table in a shopping centre and walked off. Took me an hour to realise! By the time I came back for them, they were long gone. *hitting self in the head*) So that sucked, and it was 2 days later when I was still feeling lost and vulnerable from having to change the locks on the house and replace all my stuff, that my girlfriend saw the CD Dreams in a music store, and bought it. Ah, that Grace Slick person, I thought with some interest.

She put it on, and I was in the other room on the computer. I heard Dreams, and thought OH MY GOD...WHAT IS THAT!? I came out and listened to the whole album, and was just completely entranced. And you know what's kinda creepy and sad? It's been an entire year, and I have barely listened to anything else! Dreams was literally ALL I listened to for about 6 months. Then I branched out to other Grace albums and the various combinations of Airplane members.

I LOVE IT!!!!!

[Lilla]

It's a great topic!

My first experience was in 2003. At the time I lived in Austria/Vienna and there was often a flea market near to my college.On a beautiful day in May I saw on this market a CD, it was a compilation of 60s songs.It was very cheep - about 2 EUR(4 dollars), so I bought it. There were a lot of good songs on that CD - Hendrix, Byrds etc - but as I heard "Let's Get Together" from the Airplane, I was sooo happy. It is a really nice song and I liked it. I never heard about JA before, so I thought I go into a music store and I look for more albums of this band. There were a lot of albums and I didn't know which I have to bought. So I bought a compilation called "JA journey the best of" .
I found these songs so good that I thought I buy all the albums from the band. Although I was a poor student girl at the time, I will never forget those days in Vienna, where I was very lonely in the college, but those fantastic albums were with me and they made me happy.

[psychhead]

I never heard about JA before, so I thought I go into a music store and I look for more albums of this band. There were a lot of albums and I didn't know which I have to bought. So I bought a compilation called "JA journey the best of" .

It must have been a pleasant enlightenment for you eh Lilla?!

[Lilla]

It must have been a pleasant enlightenment for you eh Lilla?!

Oh YES! I thought, 'THIS IS IT!!' It was a great feeling...and it's a great feeling now as well...

[Lilla]

In Europe the Jefferson Airplane is / was rare music.
Maybe people did see Jefferson Starship and not Jefferson Airplane ?

Yes, it's true. There are not so many people who know the band.
And I have to travel to Austria to buy the albums of JA because here you can't get the albums..

[psychhead]

Hell, that's s long way to go isn't it>???!

[JoeD80]

I was introduced to the Airplane through my parents. They lived in San Francisco in the 60's and my mom and her roommate were big into the music scene in the city before the Airplane or The Dead or anyone had signed to major labels. She was also a big fan of The Great! Society. My parents owned the early Airplane albums, and I expanded on that collection later!

[Lilla]

Yes, Chasin', I know that they were in Holland as well...you're lucky (or your parents?:) Did someone from your family see the concerts (JA or Doors) in 1968?

We had no chance between 1950 and 1990 to get LPs, books, newspaper or anything from the west countries. You could travel to a non-communist country only once in 5 years, and if you bought something you had to hide it on your car because it was totally illegal.We had no radios,television channels, nothing.So there are only a few people who know JA or other american bands.

Thanks for the tips. I don'tknow ebay or amazon exactly, so you say, that on ebay you can get a copy or a fake book? Is amazon better than ebay?
I would really buy those books.

Oh,Glam Rock isn't bad! There were a lot of cool bands who played glam rock. I like Bowie as well.

[penny plant]

I was 14 years old, my uncle, cousin and me were driving to buy something to eat (pizza ), he had a cassette and put it on, and the first song was "Lather" I really felt the earth moving I thought it was one of the greatest song I had ever heard. In those days I didn't listen all the music I do nowadays, but that was one of the moments that pushed me into it.
I started to search for music of that kind, and now I'm all about it (doors, byrds, grateful day, country joe, buffalo springfield, paul butterfield, canned heat, vanilla fudge, it's a beautiful day, and the list goes on and on...) I'm also a huge fan of progressive rock and metal...
Peace and greetings to you!!

[katoubob]

Hello everybody,

First, sorry for my frenchman english.

The first JA song i have ever listen to is "She has funny cars" in March 2007. I downloded it legally on a site called M6 Music. During the listenning, i thought that it must be a cool rockband has they love psyché stuff like me and i also thought that the voice of of the woman singing was very fun. Then i download "White rabbit"... Ho my god!!!!!!! Nowadays this is my favourite musicband.

Sorry again for my english.

Peace and love from France.

[V I C E]

well , unfortunatly i've never saw them live .. but , years ago while watching the movie '' forrest gump '' i felt in love with a song played during the vietnam scenes ( the song was '' fortunate son '' played by CREEDENCE CLEANWATER REVIVAL ) . but at the time i didn't know the nake of the song , and also the group was for me unknown . so , i have bought every soundtrack of films setted in vietnam ( and also the forrest gump ost ) .
well , after i bought all these cd's i started listening to them , and in one of these there was '' volounteers '' and from that poit , i started searching more information about JA , and buying their cd's ( love surrealistic pillow ) .

[nostalgia]

ok i remember the first time i heard a jefferson airplane song, it was only a few month ago, i was 17:
i was watching "Fear and loathing in Las Vegas" and i guess you guys remember the scene where Benitio Del Toro is in the tub.....(what a great scene by the way)
Well i immediately loved "White Rabbit" and then there was also the scene in the disco, where you can hear "Somebody to love"
I really felt like The Jefferson Airplane was THE best band to represent the whole 60's hippy generation (as you can see, i'm only 18, so i can't really know what i'm talking about can i, but it's just what i thought)
i fell in love whith the Jefferson Airplane right away and i was unbelievably happy the day i bought my first cd of them (a best of) when i was in paris (because in luxembourg, you won't find a cd shop that is good enough to have stuff like the Airplane to sell -.- )

i got addicted