You Have Got to Ride the Tiger

The Jefferson Airplane had crashed after Woodstock, or at least the band mates had made a rough landing.  Splinter projects shot out from the damaged fuselage.  First came Hot Tuna (because RCA records wouldn’t let you put Hot Shit on a record jacket), then followed the Jefferson Starship. Whereas Hot Tuna was Jorma and Jack’s side blues thing, the Starship was Paul Kantner’s baby start to finish. 

Jefferson Starship the concept released its Blows Against the Empire LP in 1970.  Paul Kantner in this side project was writing anthems, anti-government songs at his full powers.  Blows was a loosely told story about escaping this world. The journey required hijacking a Starship and moving on to what better places might be out there in the universe.  Blows Against the Empire was the ultimate hippie dream, people moving onward and outward carrying with them the highest ideals, love, free sex, community and good drugs. 

As a fifteen year old I loved Blows Against the Empire.  Blows was a battle plan for my life.  Sex, drugs and rock and roll, what could have been better I ask you?  A little good Columbian weed and the album got trippier and trippier.  All over the disc were weird electronic noises.  Laying on your back staring at the phosphorescent stars on the ceiling in you room, if you had smoked enough pot, and you were truly on that stolen starship.

Over the next four years the Jefferson Starship, nominally a side project of the Jefferson Airplane languished.  The Airplane put out a couple of mediocre albums and there was infighting among the band.  But in 1974 out came Dragonfly by the Jefferson Starship.  The music on Dragonfly was pretty amazing stuff.  From all appearances the Airplane had crashed and burned for the last time and Paul Kantner was picking up with his space/futurist fantasies with a couple of new folks on bass and lead guitar.  Dragonfly rocked and rocked hard.

In the summer before I headed off for my freshman year at university Dragonfly was constantly on my turntable.  With the Nixon era winding down during the summer of 1974 I found myself working at an ice cream stand on the boardwalk by the magnificent Atlantic Ocean. Over the course of that summer I would drink a bunch of beer, smoke a bunch of joints and often end up at the end of the island in the sand dunes making out with a fellow Jefferson Starship fan humming the tune from All Fly Away.

Summer ended.  Off to university I went. I think in other tales I have detailed the culture shock of being in Michigan being a native New Jersey-ian.  But I had made it through two terms as they were called, Michigan State Universe was on a quarter not a semester system, and most way through a third when I got a wild hair. 

In the spring term of 1975 the Jefferson Starship appeared and played at Munn Ice Arena on the campus of Michigan State University.  I had bought two tickets to the show in the hope that I might find a date.  No luck.  I was going to have to sell them.  After I called my friend Larry that all changed.  Larry was a Drexel co-op student working in New York.  Larry had worked at the ice cream stand with me in the summer of 74. We talked on the phone from time to time back then. One night I told him about my dilemma with the ticket. Bad Larry told me to hold onto both tickets.  He was going to call me back.

Larry called me back.  He had purchased an airline ticket to East Lansing and was going to come out for the show.  I was stoked.  Fucking A as they would say back in that day.  Larry arrived midday the day of the show.  In a true showing of Michigander hospitality my hall mate Darvon had made up some brownies for the show out of some primo Columbian. A few beers later and Larry and I along with Darvon had each consumed about a quarter of a pan of magic brownies.  Off we went to the show and to universes far beyond our own.

By the time we got to the show Larry and I were as they say nowadays tripping balls.  We were so fucked up we could barely function.  The Starship had an opening act.  There was a bit of punk singer out of Detroit at the time who was a woman.  Her name was Suzi Quatro.  We didn’t get Suzi.  We got her brother Michael.  Michael came out wearing a black Druid like robe with a large metal canister around his next.  As the band played bombastic Styx like riffs Michael took the canister from and began to swing it around and around.  Eventually he aimed it right for the floor and …

FLASH, BANG BLINDING LIGHT, screams and moans from unsuspecting very, very high concert goers.

When that canister hit the stage about 6 flash pots ignited and seemed to explode.  I can’t remember anything else from that performance except that my ears were ringing and my retinas were singed.  Mercifully the set while bombastic was relatively short. 

Minds completely blown away, unhinged even, Larry and I were able to focus on the platform as the Jefferson Starship took the stage.  Paul Kantner led the band in the big hit (well #83 on the Billboard charts) Caroline.  Marty Balin was there and the vocals were perfect.  Marty, Grace Slick and Paul just rocked the joint.  Volunteers, Mexico and Have you Seen the Saucers it was one wonderful song to my youthful ears after another. 

And then the concert was done and Larry and I were still flying. We were in a lower orbit but we were still above the atmosphere.

And I wanted to see my girlfriend of sorts.  Her name was Nan and she lived in Philadelphia600 miles to the east.  With regulated airfares the cost of a single round trip ticket to Philadelphia was about $72 bucks that day.  LP records cost $2.99 each. To make this happen I would have to simply give up on buying about 24 albums over the next six months.  24 albums in 1974 could have been the entire catalog of music that changed rock and roll.  However the balance between the chance of getting laid as the result of a grand gesture versus 24 albums, no brainer.  Still raging high we headed out to the airport and caught the first plane we could ride to Philadelphia. 

Once we got to the airport I think we took a cab to a train.  From there we took the Paoli local up to East Lansdowne.  Luckily although I don’t remember doing it we had called Nan at some point.  Her plans had been to slip away for the weekend. But just about back to normal we found her at home when we knocked.  I believe the greeting was “What the fuck are you two knuckleheads doing here?” We then explained the synchronicity of being blasted away at a Jefferson Starship concert with the wonder of her soul touching us both and how the only result was our cosmic road trip to her door.

I don’t remember much about the time we actually spent there.  We ate we hung out we were the three amigos from the summer before again.  I really couldn’t tell you if I got laid.  Really, I just don’t remember. But it was all good.

And then there was the flight back.  It was a direct from Philly into East Lansing.  I think we might have stopped in Flint.  As we flew there were maybe 10 people on the flight and there was a meal.  The stewardess as we approached came up to me and gave me about 8 fried chicken meals on melmac wrapped in Saran Wrap to go  She told me this was the end of the route for the night and they would be throwing them out.  It might have been because I weighed 135 pounds at the time.

But anyhow I called up the dorm rats and they came out to pick me up.  Five guys showed up in a big old boat of a car, I think it was an old Impala.  When I got in everyone got a chicken dinner and I got handed a beer and a joint for the ride back to the dorm. 

 

I shared this with my friend and he remembered one little nuanced part of it.  According to Bad Larry the plan in the wee hours of the morning had been to go to the Kentucky Derby but morphed into the flight to Philadelphia.  My guess is there was a direct flight east and back in those days it took a bit of planning to get to Louisville.