Blows Against the Empire [Expanded Edition]

Performer: Jefferson Starship
Artist: David Crosby; Graham Nash; Jerry Garcia
Engineer: Phil Sawyer
Producer: Paul Kantner; Paul Kantner; Bob Irwin (Reissue)
Distributor: BMG (distributor)

Notes: 35th Anniversary Edition, contains bonus tracks. Jefferson Starship: Paul Kantner; Jorma Kaukonen (guitar); Grace Slick (keyboards); Jack Casady (bass instrument). Personnel: Paul Kantner (vocals, guitar, banjo); Crosby, David & Graham Nash (vocals, guitar); Grace Slick (vocals, piano); Jerry Garcia (guitar, banjo); Peter Kaukonen (guitar); Joey Covington (drums, congas); Bill Kreutzmann (drums); Graham Nash (congas); Mickey Hart (percussion). Additional personnel: David Crosby (guitar, background vocals); Harvey Brooks (bass instrument); Mickey Hart (drums); Graham Nash (percussion, background vocals); Joey Covington (percussion); David Freiberg (background vocals); Jerry Garcia, Peter Kaukonen, Bill Kreutzmann. Liner Note Authors: Paul Kantner; Jud Cost. Recording information: Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA (??/??/1970/09/14/1970); Wally Heider Recording Studio, Hollywood, CA (??/??/1970/09/14/1970). Photographer: Robert Altman. Jefferson Airplane guitarist Paul Kantner's first solo album is also credited to Jefferson Starship. Though the Jefferson Airplane was still active and popular in 1971, Kanter presaged the band's transformation into the Starship by four years. Members of the Airplane do appear, but the group here is more a loose aggregate of friends including David Crosby and Graham Nash, members of the Grateful Dead and Quicksilver Messenger Service, and assorted others. A sci-fi fan, Kantner had the idea of constructing an album around the idea of a group of radicals hijacking a spaceship and taking off to colonize the galaxy. Though the concept is fleshed out only loosely, the album was a success critically and commercially. Highlights include the slower acoustic melodies such as "A Child Is Coming" and "Have You Seen The Stars Tonite." Musically interesting and noteworthy for the collaborative energy from some of the San Francisco scene's leading musical lights, BLOW AGAINST THE EMPIRE is an intriguing, overlooked early-'70s treasure. As concept albums go from the classic rock era, Blows Against the Empire by Paul Kantner and his new construction Jefferson Starship -- an amalgam more than a band at the time -- put together a true curiosity piece, loosely centered around the theme of young people leaving a dead planet. With the birth of Grace Slick's and Kantner's child on the way to add the flavor of "newness" into the mix, Blows is certainly an oddity. Kantner and Slick formed the core of the band with help from Jerry Garcia, Bill Kreutzman and Mickey Hart (from the Grateful Dead), David Crosby and Graham Nash from CS&N, and alternating bassists Jack Casady (Jefferson Airplane) and Harvey Brooks. Kantner and Slick wrote the majority of the songs here, but folkie Rosalie Sorrels contributed "The Baby Tree." Crosby and the rest also wrote some of the tunes, making the entire thing seem like a raw, impromptu communal effort -- which, in a sense, it was. Entirely at odd angles with itself, some of the Airplane's more modal melodies haunt songs like "Mau Mau (Amerikon)," and "Hijack," while Slick, Crosby, and Kantner's "A Child Is Coming" is simply a beautiful, slightly surreal ballad, while odd, textured sounds come from the ether -- mainly courtesy of Garcia's otherworldly pedal steel. A record like this could only have come from San Francisco. It was actually nominated for a Hugo award, a prize normally reserved for literary science-fiction novels. The Legacy Edition contains four bonus tracks including an alternate of "Let's Go Together," with different lyrics, Slick's acoustic demo of "Sunrise," an acoustic demo of "Hijack" by Kantner, an elongated live version of "Starship," from the Fillmore in 1970, and a throwaway piece entitled "SFX" by Garcia and Hart. The sound has been remastered and the CD packaging contains a replica of the original booklet that accompanied the original set. While Blows eventually went gold, it's hard to surmise at this juncture whether this reissue will find an audience, because of its dated sounds, songs, and concepts Still, it is a singular if shambolic work of ambition and vision. ~ Thom Jurek

Dirty Linen (p.90) - "[I]t wears well musically, and contains some memorable lyrical images."

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