Paul Kantner's "Blows Against The Empire"

[Batchman]

Spencer Dryden was one of rock's better drummers. It was JA's misfortune losing him, and the New Riders gained a superb timekeeper.

Hard to believe it's the same guy, though. After all the creative drumming with JA, to hear nothing but straight 4/4 with NRPS - not that they needed anything more than that, but also compare with the Grateful Dead's drummers.

One tribute after his death ends with: "Lather was 30 years old today, they took away all of his toys." – Grace Slick (January 13, 2005)

Ah yes, the only song I know of to feature a nose solo.

[spellbound]

NRPS had a few good jams, although this one is more of a showcase for Buddy Cage than for Spencer.

[Trane]

1974



1980

[spellbound]

Today would have been Paul's 83rd birthday.

[kid_runningfox]

Count me in as a huge fan of Blows Against the Empire, in fact of all three of the pre-Jefferson Starship Kantner-Slick albums, with my favourite probably being Baron von Tollbooth. They were certainly a step above the rather insipid albums release by the Airplane post-Volunteers. I'm also a big fan of the mid-70s Jefferson Starship releases, too, and really see them as a natural progression from K-S trio of albums, though with an added stadium rock dimension that reflected changing musical tastes in the 70s. The only one of 74-79 series of albums that really strikes me as poor is Earth, which in my opinion suffered from an excess of outside writers and a consequent lack of cohesiveness. The albums up to then, and Freedom at Point Zero that followed are great, imho, and I actually rather like the fact that they're so musically diverse.

[Trane]

Count me in as a huge fan of Blows Against the Empire, in fact of all three of the pre-Jefferson Starship Kantner-Slick albums, with my favourite probably being Baron von Tollbooth. They were certainly a step above the rather insipid albums release by the Airplane post-Volunteers. I'm also a big fan of the mid-70s Jefferson Starship releases, too, and really see them as a natural progression from K-S trio of albums, though with an added stadium rock dimension that reflected changing musical tastes in the 70s. The only one of 74-79 series of albums that really strikes me as poor is Earth, which in my opinion suffered from an excess of outside writers and a consequent lack of cohesiveness. The albums up to then, and Freedom at Point Zero that followed are great, imho, and I actually rather like the fact that they're so musically diverse.

I do think Sunfighter would've deserved a better (read more Sci-Fi) artwork that it merited, but I do think those three "solo/duo/trio" albums are
very great, as is even more Grace's Manhole (easily topping them, IMHO). (see post a couple just above)

Indeed, all 4 are much better than Bark & LJS, as if Paul & Grace saved their better ideas for their side-projects. Of course, too many songwriters in the Airplane must've not been easy to deal with.

However, I'm really not a JS fan, and each new album slid down one or two notches from the previous one.

[Batchman]

Count me in as a huge fan of Blows Against the Empire, in fact of all three of the pre-Jefferson Starship Kantner-Slick albums, with my favourite probably being Baron von Tollbooth. They were certainly a step above the rather insipid albums release by the Airplane post-Volunteers. I'm also a big fan of the mid-70s Jefferson Starship releases, too, and really see them as a natural progression from K-S trio of albums, though with an added stadium rock dimension that reflected changing musical tastes in the 70s. The only one of 74-79 series of albums that really strikes me as poor is Earth, which in my opinion suffered from an excess of outside writers and a consequent lack of cohesiveness. The albums up to then, and Freedom at Point Zero that followed are great, imho, and I actually rather like the fact that they're so musically diverse.

i agree about the first three Slick/Kantner albums being better than Bark or LJS. Disagree about the JS 70's albums Dragonfly and Red Octopus, which I found excessively slick (no pun intended) and musically bland.