Jefferson Starship

For several years, the nucleus of the Airplane/Starship has been struggling to hold together
a concept that didn't seem workable in the first place. The performing personalities of
Slick and Kantner have long seemed much too cold-hearted to deal convincingly with
humanistic themes. Their icy remoteness has combined with Kantner's pedantry and Slick's
sarcasm to turn the pair into unknowing self-parodists. But this is better: Dragon ... More >

The key cut here is Grace Slick's gnomic "Hyperdrive," in which supertechnology (spirit-powered, perhaps?) cuts through "corners in time." If in 1973 you'd been responsible for Baron von Tollbooth and the Chrome Nun (Jefferson Jitney), Thirty Seconds Over Winterland (dead live), and Bodacious D.F. (Marty's party), you'd want to think you'd turned a corner in 1974 yourself. But though this does achieve a slick modernization of their polyvocal sound (Barbata-powered, definitely), with Papa John Creach's fiddle and Craig Chaquico's guitar synthesizing past and future for purposes of metaphor and stage presentation as Marty Balin's cameo contribution links them audibly to their own history, it also proves that you can't get along forever on generalized imprecations against the powerful and invidious oriental-occidental comparisons. (Grade: C+)