Jefferson Starship - Blows Against the Empire (06/10/19)

Tonight we're listening to Blows Against the Empire. If you're at all familiar with the complicated Jefferson [flying ship] history, this is the first mention of "Starship" but not actually the official band. It's various combinations of Jefferson Airplane, The Grateful Dead, Santana, and Crosby, Stills, & Nash all playing Paul Kantner's concept album about stealing a spaceship and getting the hell off this jerk of a planet.

Lyrically it's a multi-layered autobiographical science fiction metaphor about the band breaking up, paul and grace having a baby, and 60s/70s u.s. politics. Musically, it's a free form psychedelic folk-rock extravaganza that quite frankly makes radiohead's ok computer sound like fan art (there's either some definite influence or magical coincidence going on is all i'm saying).

The mash up of folk, blues, and noise rock is pretty enjoyable in my book and there is some really nice instrumental noodling scattered throughout. It's not obnoxious or cheesy like Starship eventually became in the 80s. Definitely check it out if you've never heard it before.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL94gOvpr5yt2iBQIPIEzdz00fEg5sHsZG

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