No, this isn’t another Starship Album. A blast from the past,
this was recorded in 1970 when part of the players in the band had
left, and Paul Kantner and Grace Slick hooked up with a lot of the Bay
Area royalty (David Crosby, Mickey Hart and Jerry Garcia to name a few)
and created this space-rock opera. The liner notes say that this
is Kantner’s best work and I find that a bit scary, because I actually
liked these guys at one point in time.
Production values are spot on for the end of the 60’s; lots of midrange
and ping-pong stereo effects. This was the self indulgent kind of
thing was exactly what planted the seeds for punk music years later, I
can see why we all got tired of this kind of thing. All this talk of
aliens and starships just doesn’t do it for me. According to the
liner notes, this almost won a Hugo award and that’s even more scary.
It’s a hippy, trippy party for sure. If you are a die-hard
collector and need this piece of 60’s memorabilia, carry on. If
not, go buy the Death Cab For Cutie CD and have some fun.
Tracks: Mau Mau, Baby Tree, Let’s Go Together, Child Is Coming,
Sunrise, Hijack, Home, Have You Seen the Stars Tonite, X-M, Starship,
Let’s Go Together (alternate lyrics), alternate tracks of six of above
plus sound effects track.
– Jeff Dorgay
