The_Rambler_1971-10-15

              /tud^nt publication -y^i.oT.c. Qt /armmgdole
VOL 33 NO. 3 OCTOBER 15, 1971
Summer Music Review ^ S H
Here it is kids, the long (I bet) awaited second part
of my Summer Music Review (Yay!?). This first
section is written by a friend of the devil, and any .
friend of the devil is a friend of mine. Frank
Schaap at Gaelic Park with The Grateful Dead-
" T h e Grateful Dead are a
collaboration of musicians from
the San Francisco Bay Area.
They, along with the Jefferson
Airplane, could very well be
called the founders of the acid
rock scene f r om 'Frisco.
Their roots seem to stem from
country-western music, blues,
and rhythm - blues. Their founder
and lead guitarist Jerry Garcia
describes their music well by
simply saying it's "just the
Grateful D e a d . " The Dead were
originally called The Warlocks,
and they consisted of Jerry
Garcia (lead guitar), Phil Lesh
(bass), Ron McKernan (other-wise
known as Pigpen on vocals),
and Bill Kreutemann (drums).
When the band changed names,
they added Bob Weir to their
personnel and after their first
album, T o m Constanten and
Mickey Hart joined on organ and
drums respectively. Their first
and second albums consisted
mainly of rhythm and blues as
well as the traditional blues
material. On their third album,
" A o x o m o x o a , " you can hear the
start of their country and cosmic
stage. Garcia introduces us to the
pedal steel guitar on this album.
The style of the Dead now is a
blend of A M music and together
on stage they present an in-teresting
and exciting repetoire.
If you wish to be informed on '
Dead concerts; albums. New
Riders, acid, etc. contact: Dead
H e a d s - P . O . 1065-San R a f a e l,
California 94901."
I r e a l l y don't know what to say.
My friend was suppose to write a
r e v i ew of the Dead at Gaelic
Park for me, he obviously just
decided to use the space I o f f e r ed
him to push the group. Hey
Schaap this is my turf, do what ya
suppose to or else. From what I
remember the day after the
concert the Dead were fantastic
and all that at Gaelic Park. They
played close to four hours and did
St. Stephen and all kinds of other
songs. Good job Frank, real good
job.
lllllllllllllillllllllllllllllillHIIIHIIIIIIIimilllHIIIIIIIIIIII
The J e f f e r w n Airplane has
been a long t'ime institution in
rock since 1966, back in the early
days of San Francisco. Along
with bands such as The Dead,
Quicksilver, and Steve Miller
they became representative of
what has become known as " T he
San Francisco Sound."
The Airplane flew into Gaelic
P a r k this summer ... and
crashed. Singer Marty Balin, who
was with the Airf^ane f r om their
birth, had left the group several
months before. That meant
c l a s s i c songs like " P l a s t ic
Fantastic L o v e r , " "3/5 Of A Mile
In Ten Seconds," "Other Side Of
This L i f e , " as well as many
others had to be dropped im-mediately
f r om their act.
The Airplane released their
first album in two years in mid
August, " B a r k . " During the two
year drought the members of the
Plane kept, themselves busy,
however. Lead guitarist Jorma
Kaukonen and bassist Jack
Casady released two records with
another band, acoustic and
electric Hot Tuna. Paul Kantner,
rhythm guitarist, and lead singer
Grace Slick wrote a bunch of
songs, invited a lot of friends to
play them and called themselves
Jefferson Starship. Both Starship
and Hot Tuna's albums are ex-cellent,
but they're not The
Jefferson Airplane.
" B a r k " is a v e r y good album,
although the vocals featuring the
Slick-Kantner team will remind
you of Starship and the presence
of Hot Tuna's Papa John Creach
on electric violin gives it a Tuna
flavor as well. In essence what
you have is not Jefferson Air-plane,
what you have is The
Jefferson Tunaship.
At Gaelic, the Airplane ( ? ) did
a set consisting of songs from
" B a r k " with "Volunteers" and
ONE OF THE BEST,
JACK CASADY
"Somebody To L o v e " thrown in
for better measure. They played
horribly, and I don't think there is
anyone who went who would
dispute that fact. They weren't
together, at* all. Papa John
played on most of the numbers. I
love Hot Tuna, but Tuna is Tuna
and Airplane is Airplane and the
twain are not meant to meet, not
at least under the title Jefferson
A i r p l a n e . Onstage Paul and
G r a c e were soaring in the
Starship while Papa John, Jor-ma,
and Jack were playing some
fishv music. Meanwhile poor
Covington had to keep a beat to it
all. It was so sad, I mean really
sad, like the end of an era.
Emerson, Lake, and Palmer
a r e responsible f o r ' t h e most
p h e n o m i n a l l y unique music
played on a stage today. I didn't
say rock music played today
because ... well, you can't really
c a t e g o r i z e them that easily
( e v e r y t h i n g ' s got to be
categorized, right?). Emerson is
Keith Emerson formerly of "a
very distinguished group from
England, The N i c e ."
The Nice were a three piece
band featuring organ, bass, and
drums. I can't say something as
simple as Keith Emerson plays
organ. The man is an i n c r ^ b le
musician, by far out classl(i{$
anyone in the rock field. The Nice
played alot of things never heard
on a rock stage before. They
would combine classical with the
c o n t e m p o r a r y and beyond
contemporary. A Tschaikovsky
symphony would be played over
the loudspeaker system with a
tape recorder and The Nice
would " j a m " with it. The Nice
were never criticized musicly,
just vocally, otherwise known as
Lee Jackson's voice. A live
album of theirs, " E v e r y t h i n g As
Nice As Mother Makes I t " (buy it
quick, Immediate Records is out
of business and there a r e not v e ry
many copies around) features
some of the most incredible
organ technique I ' v e ever heard
recorded (yes, I know there's a
Virgil Fox). The Nice made no
less than five albums before
disbanding as well as releasing
one after their break up. Why
they broke up I don't know, all I
know is that while they were in
existance they played some in-credibly
fine music and made a
tremendous impact on rock as a
whole.
About a year and a half ago
Keith Emerson teamed up with
bassist Greg Lake f r om another
really good, defunct group. King
Crimson. They searched for a
drummer for almost a year. They
found one in the f o rm of Palmer
of Atomic Rooster.
Both Lake and Palmer are
outstanding instrumentalists.
The experience Lake had with
King Crimson, production wise,
came in real handy as you can
tell by listening to E, L & P (cool
abbreviation ... sorry).
Emerson, Lake & Palmer take
up where The Nice left o f f , but go
f a r far beyond. Within the
grooves of their two albums,
"Emerson, Lake, & P a l m e r " and
" T a r k u s " may be heard some of
the most imaginative, creative,
and o t h e r w i s e mind blowing
music ever conceived. Since
l e a v i n g The Nice Emerson
picked himself up a new toy in the
f o rm of a Moog synthesizer. The
man set out to become expert. He
succeeded. When you combine
organ, synthesizer piano, drums,
g u i t a r , and bass (not all
necessarily on the same song)
you should be able to come up
with some pretty nifty numbers.
That they did indeed.
The song " T a r k u s , " title song
of their second album, Keith
Emerson displays an almost
immeasurable amount of ver-satility.
In concert Keith Emerson is on
his feet the whole time. He is
surrounded by an organ, piano,
and the s y n t h e s i z e r . P a l m er
prossesses one of the largest
drum kits known to man as well
as a gong or two. It would be
enough if E,L & P simply
( s i m p l y ? ) played their music in
concert, but that isn't enough for
Keith Emerson, not at all.
I forgot to mention that Keith
Emerson is a madman. Well all
• geniuses are mad anyway. For
followers of The Nice, his per-formance
is really nothing new,
but for those who came to see
" m e r e l y " played, the occurences
on stage must have been quite
surprising. Emerson ... well he ...
he stabs the organ with knives,
that's what he does. Not only that
(ain't that enough? no, guess
not), but he also jumps on top of
t l iw vt^Mtay livriAa^ v^ini"
knives, of course, the particular
keys that he wants the sounds
from. After that's done he rips
the wires out of the back of the
organ, and knows just which
wires to rip out to get the sounds
that he wants.
Why he does all that is really
beyond me. He's such a superior
musician that he doesn't need a
s t a g e act at all. Almost
everything they have on record
they can duplicate on stage. They
are a phenominal group and I am
looking forward to their next
tour. As I mentioned earlier
Electric Hot Tuna is an offshoot
of Jefferson Airplane. It features
Jorma Kaukonen on lead guitar.
Jack Casady on bass, Papa John
Creach on electric violin, and
Sammy Piazza on drums. One of
the finest shows I saw all summer
was the night that I cought them
at Gaslight Au Go Go.
Fortunately for me the concert
wasn!t m-f'
didn't get too crushed waiting on
line on the steps leading down to
the Gaslight. Oh, by the way, I
highly recommend the Gaslight
as being one of the finest
showcases for any group that
might be playing there. The place
holds like 300 people and has a
friendly atmosphere. I was lucky
enough to be sitting up against
the stage, as you can tell by the
picture on the cover, it was a true
treat. Hot Tuna plays a majority
of songs in their set, including the
classic " R o c k Me B a b y . " Several
songs sounded very Airplainish
and were quite incredible. Papa
John's high soring violin added
just the country blues flavor the
group needed to make some of
the easiest flowing music around.
They just got through playing
Town Hall, a show that I un-fortunately
missed. Where and
when they're playing in the
future I don't know, but go see
them.
So there you have it, reviews of
the best concerts in and around
the city of New York during this
past summer. If you've been
following concert ads for con-certs
that are scheduled for the
next several months, most of the
?Jtl9ws argjfijtucutf
( M o t h e r s , Jethro Tull, Deep
Purple, Fleetwood Mac, T r a f f i c,
and Pink Floyd among them).
H o p e f u l l y those groups and
others will relieve us f r om our
relative drought of good music
during the summer.
Of course there a r e always new
up and coming groups here to
bring us a "new and different
sound." Long Beach rock giants
the likes of Jack "Superfingers"
Starr will soon be captured on
vinyl ready and quite willing to
destroy your stereo's speakers at
the touch of an on-off switch.
Oh, I forgot to mention ... If you
want to see a great British
g u i t a r i s t , drop in at The
Academy of Music November 5th
or 6th. I ' v e forgotten his name at
the moment, but he's the guy who
used to play guitar in Rod
Stewart's group a number of
years ago. Gee ... I wish I could
remember his name.
FROM SAN FRANCISCO,
PLEASE WELCOME . . .