KANTER AND SLICK 88

 

Paul Kantner and Grace Slick perform together at the Campasina Benefit for Nicaragua.

01 Paul Intro
02 America
03 Volunteers
04 Wooden Ships
05 Mariel
06 Common Market Madrigal
07 Have You Seen The Stars Tonight
08 White Rabbit
09 Carlos Fonseca

Paul Kantner: Acoustic Guitar and Vocals, Grace Slick: Piano and Vocals.

PIRATE OF THE AIRPLANE PERSUASION

A rare song writing credit for Jack Casady... in tune with Grace

Long John Silver Words and Music Grace Slick and Jack Casady

Long John Silver, ring in his ear,
He's the hero, make that clear.
Does the same thing his father did,
Sailing around the Caribbean,
Robbing kings with his talking parrot,
This time I think he's on the high side.

Scabs are forming, scraped his knee.
Guards are warning, a bad man is free.
He's like electric clock that needs no winding,
Keeps the time without your hands.
Western feet need no binding,
Take a barefoot run through old Japan.

He's seen a thousand countries,
They're all the same.
Some men are crazy,
Some of them sane.
But all men are ruled by a flag or a game,
And he knows nobody's got you if you don't sign your name.

Long John Silver serves no king.
No land holds him, that's why he feels like singing.
Every country now and then,
Roars like Irish, drunk and singing.
Every monk will now and then call his men to hear the wenches,
Night bells ringing.

10-4

One to immortalize Grace's frequent confrontations with law and order's finest!

Law Man Words and Music Grace Slick

Law man--I'm afraid you just walked in here at the wrong time
My old man's gun has never been fired
But there's a first time & this could be
this could be the first time

Law man
You know you look to be a lot younger than me and
I'd hate to shoot a baby
You've got a long way to go before you're old & slow
And it could be
It could be a good time if you change your mind
Well I'm tired and sweet from making love
And it's just too late
You'll have to wait
Bring your business around here in the morning

Well I've heard your line
& you've heard mine
& I'm just too tired to take a side
Bring your business around here in the morning
Don't you want to be easy look there
Let some of the things you see go on by or
You can burn them into your brain go on home
Don't you see the children, they're just like you
They want everything to be fine but they let it slide
And the laughing lets you know that smiling breaks the rules

Law breaker you know it could be me
& if you had your way we'd all be down
Under the face of a clock that's just too old to be wound
& you can see now the old hands won't move around
One way or the other,
Fool card brother this could be,
This could be, the first time.

GRACE'S RABBIT

White Rabbit" is a song from Jefferson Airplane's 1967 album Surrealistic Pillow. It was released as a single and became the band's second top ten success, peaking at #8
It was written by Grace Slick, who based the lyrics on Lewis Carroll's book Alice In Wonderland. Like many young musicians in San Francisco, Slick did a lot of drugs. She saw lots of drug references in Carroll's book, including the pills, the smoking caterpillar, the mushroom, and lots of other images that are generally trippy. She noticed that lots of children's' stories involve a substance of some kind that alters reality, and felt it was time to write a song about it.
Slick got the idea for this after taking LSD and spending hours listening to the Miles Davis album Sketches Of Spain. The Spanish beat she came up with was also influenced by Ravel's "Bolero."
Slick wrote and performed this when she was in a band called The Great Society. She brought it with her, along with "Somebody To Love," when she joined Jefferson Airplane in 1966. On an original recording by The Great Society, the song is barely recognizable due to Grace's higher voice before several throat operations to remove nodes that lowered her vocal range.

COME -TO-ME TATTOO

From the Crown LP, Grace gives another lyrically heavy outing. When Grace Slick writes a song, it is a very personal experience. So personal that the material is usually suited for only her voice. "Greasy Heart" is a good example. Written during the After Bathing at Baxter's period, and perhaps better suited to that album than Crown Of Creation, it is a perfect period piece that still comes alive today. The lyrics are a jumble of intelligent-sounding random thoughts and put-downs to a lover -- something that Slick was an expert at. It also makes social comments on everything from commercialism to drugs and sex. The music is classic Airplane, loud, fast, in and out, and all over the musical map. Song review from All Music files


GREASY HEART Words and Music Grace Slick

Lady, you keep asking why he likes you how come
Wonder why he wants more if he just had some
Boys, she's got more to play with in the way of toys
Ladies eyes go off and on with a finger full of glue
Lips are drawn upon her face in come-to-me tattoo
Creamy suntan color that fades when she bathes
Paper dresses catch on fire & you lose her in the haze

Don't ever change lady, he likes you that way because
He just had his hair done and he wants to use your wig
He's going off the drug thing cause his veins are getting big
He wants to sell his paintings but the market is slow
They're only paying him two grams now for a one-man abstract show

Don't ever change people even if you can
You are your own best toy to play with remote control hands
Made for each other made in Japan
Woman with a greasy heart automatic man

Don't ever change people even if you can
Don't ever change people your face will hit the fan

Don't ever change people even if you can
Don't change before the empire falls
You'll laugh so hard you'll crack the walls

ANOTHER TRIP DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE

Taken from the Baxter's LP. Grace's contribution to the LSD ridden sessions that transpired during the Airplane's third album effort. This was the B-side to "The Ballad of You and Me and Pooneil"

You want two heads on your body
And you've got two mirrors in your hand.
Priests are made of brick with gold crosses on a stick
and your nose is too small for this land.
Inside your head is your town
inside your room your jail
inside your mouth the elephants trunk and booze,
the only key to your bail

Coda:
Want two heads on your body
and you've got two mirrors in your hand

Two heads can be put together.
And you can fill both your feet with sand.
Noone will know you've gutted your mind
but what will you do with your bloody hands?
Your lions are fighting with chairs,
your arms are incredibly fat;
Your women are tired of dying alive
if you've had any women at that.

Wearing your comb like an ax in your head
Listening for signs of life;
Children are sucking on stone and lead
And chasing their hoops with a knife;
New breasts and jewels for the girl,
Keep them polished and shining;
Put a lock on her belly at night, sweet life,
For no child of mine. (Go to Coda)

TWO HEADS Words and Music Grace Slick

BEAR MELT

From the "Bless" LP a live jam with Grace at her most lascivious. She's on a tear here with a very direct statement about the sexual revolution and those that want to control it . She references sexual urges as little animals. Bear Melt is what you get when you place one of those little honey bear bottles in an extreme temperature range. And of course I ramble on and it may or may not be relevant.

There are always just a few pebbles
in the middle of a stream
when it's trying to be a flowing mother

Oh she blows she blows
Nobody knows
Oh there she goes
Nobody knows

Then along comes a little tiny
animal nipping a
few drops out of her side
just a few drops from her side

She can run
she could stay
but the days not right and so she's gonna move
Let me tell you gonna move
Let me tell you how I'm gonna move along
Out away

But ahhhh
There's a man come along with a jacket on
long gun in his hand
I said there was a man coming on
with a red jacket on
and a big long gun in his hand

Got a sledge hammer
All he needs is one head
Just one sledge hammer baby and all
all them animals is dead
Yeah dead

But why not keep the little animals alive?
Why not?
I say why not?

And don't you worry 'bout being sentimental honey
they're just an animal you want to keep alive
Keep alive

And give it to you what I have
Give it to me
Give to you yeah
And give it to me
Oh

You know how good it feels when somebody gives it to you
Yeah, it feels good when somebody gives it to you.
Gives it to you right here.

Tell me how it feels.
When somebody gives it to you good.

Oh you could listen
to a thousand different reasons
Why you can't go.

THREE

A song written by David Crosby( then of the Byrds) It seems that this one was a bit too "questionable"for them ,so David gave it to the Airplane and Grace took it as her own, The song appears on the Crown LP. The Byrds did record a version of it but it did not surface for some 20 years. The song's lyrics were largely inspired by the hedonism and sexual freedom enjoyed by the hippie culture during 1967. However, the song also features allusions to author Robert A. Heinlein's science fiction novel Stranger in a Strange Land, with references to "sister lovers" and "water brothers".

Triad

Words and Music by David Crosby

You want to know
How it will be
Me and him
Or you and me

You both stand there your long hair flowin'
Eyes alive your mind still growin'
Sayin' to me, "What can we do now that we both love you?"
I love you too
I don't really see why can't we go on as three

You are afraid
Embarrassed too
No one has ever said such a
Thing to you

Your mother's ghost stands at your shoulder
Face like ice a little bit colder

Sayin' to you, "You can not do that, it breaks all the rules
You learned in school"
I don't really see
Why can't we go on as three

We love each other
It's plain to see
There's just one answer
That comes to me

Sister lovers water brothers
And in time maybe others
So you see what we can do is to try something new
If you're crazy too
I don't really see
Why can't we go on as three

FOR SPENCER

In mid-1966 Dryden was recruited to replace Skip Spence as the drummer in leading San Francisco psychedelic band Jefferson Airplane. The former jazzer, together with bassist Jack Casady, created an exceptional rhythm section.[A feature of live Airplane sets at the time were free-form improvisational jams, with Dryden's licks complementing Casady's fluid style, examples of which can be heard on "Thing" and "Bear Melt" from Bless Its Pointed Little Head. During this time also, he had an affair with Grace Slick.

The song "Lather", appearing on the Airplane's Crown of Creation, is said to have been written by Grace Slick on the occasion of Dryden's 30th birthday. Its lyrics tell of a boy who stays as young as possible until one day when he is shattered by having to finally grow up.

Spencer died from colon cancer (intestinal cancer which spread to his liver) on January 11, 2005.He lived in relative obscurity, reportedly living in a small house with a few acres on rented property in Penngrove, California R.I.P. Spencer

BARON VON GRUNT AND PERRO

P.E.R.R.O. The Planet Earth Rock And Roll Orchestra (as dubbed by Paul Kantner) were a group of musicians that came together for a series of albums." Sunfighter" and "The Chrome Nun" were two of those LPs Credited to Paul Kantner, Grace Slick, and David Freiberg, Baron von Tollbooth & The Chrome Nun was the first album made by these erstwhile members of Jefferson Airplane since the breakup of that group. Like such other spin-off projects as Blows Against the Empire and Sunfighter, this one featured a supporting cast of San Francisco Bay Area musicians including present and former members of a variety of groups, such as The Grateful Dead (lead guitarist Jerry Garcia, percussionist Mickey Hart, and lyricist Robert Hunter, who wrote the words to "Harp Tree Lament"), Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (singer David Crosby), and The Flying Burrito Brothers (bassist Chris Ethridge), as well as other former members of The Airplane and future members of Jefferson Starship. The Pointer Sisters even guested on one track. Despite the co-billing, the album's guiding force was Slick, who sang on every track and wrote or co-wrote six of the ten songs, though there was still room for the unbilled Jack Traylor to write, play acoustic guitar, and sing lead vocals on the song "Flowers of the Night," a celebration of monarchial overthrows throughout history. Perhaps more outside songwriting should have been employed, since the compositions here were second-rate. The public was catching on, too: Kantner's Blows Against the Empire had reached the Top 20, but Baron von Tollbooth didn't come near the Top 100. The team would attempt one more splinter project, Slick's "solo" album Manhole, then re-organize as Jefferson Starship in 1974 with the notable return of singer/songwriter Marty Balin. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide

ALICE'S RABBITHOLE TO GRUNT'S MANHOLE

Manhole is Grace Slick's first solo album credited solely to her (she had previously recorded Sunfighter with Paul Kantner and Baron von Tollbooth and the Chrome Nun with Kantner and David Freiberg, both of whom co-produced Manhole). The album was recorded in 1973, when Jefferson Airplane had stopped touring, and Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady were making the Hot Tuna album, The Phosphorescent Rat. All the members who would form Jefferson Starship in 1974 performed on this album, except for Papa John Creach. The album was conceived as a soundtrack to a movie, (noted by the title of the second track, "Theme from the Movie Manhole"), although there was no such movie made. Grace drew all of the artwork for the album, and wrote on the cover "Child Type Odd Art by Grace." The album only reached #127 on the Billboard charts.