by redrabid on Mon Aug 22, 2011 3:13 pm
Oh god, I wish that I hadn't found this one:
Jefferson Airplane - Wooden Ships (Fillmore East)
It was always rumored that the Fillmore filmed their shows. Well, here is one from 1970.
Don't listen to it. It is absolutely terrible. This is bad, very, very bad. It is the worst performance of JA I have ever seen on the net, even worse than the 1970 Rotterdam Kralingen show. The vocals are ridiculous. At first I thought it was a parody by an unknown group maskerading as JA. But no, it is JA. Marty shows that he had already left the group, his vocals in the beginning are mocking Grace's. Marty (a deadringer for Charles Manson here, with his full beard) has obviously no respect anymore for his former friends. His performance and body language are telling. He is obnoxiously ridiculing JA. Grace seems to have lost her voice, she is trying to cope with the melody and she is failing disastrously. She is unrecognizable as the glorious singer from before 1969. Paul, never a strong singer, is gasping for air (yup, cocaine), he has lost any ability to sing.
The other musicians are locked up in their own world. If you want to see what speed does for music, watch Casady and Kaukonen here, very untogether, plodding on in turtle-like tempo's, insenstitive to the song's emotions. Kaukonen should be highly embarrassed by his playing, he is a lousy guitarist here. Covington is trying to hammer some coherence into the song. To no avail, he just shows that his playing doesn't match the others'. Sacking Spencer Dryden was a big mistake.
If you want to know why Jefferson Airplane is despised by so many critics, here is the answer.
I find it painful to watch this video. Sad, so very sad.
Spencer was sacked partly because he was nagging too much (criticizing the others for their negligence, their over-indulgent attitude while playing), Marty left because of his disgust for the cocained music the others were into.
Spencer and Marty were both right.
After 1969 the Airplane was dead.