Abbie, I'm an old guy, but I have to say that Surrealistic Pillow was my first true love of San Francisco music for me. I attended Woodstock with my older cousins (I was 12 years, and they were in their late teens, one of them was headed for Vietnam after the festival). I was a huge fan of Jefferson Airplane, Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady are my favourite members of the band. When I heard they were going to be at the Festival I begged my cousins to take me, I even bought a ticket for all three days (it was destroyed in the mud). The Airplane were off the hook at the show, perfection even though they hit the stage in the morning, they rocked like it was midnight. That was also when I first saw the Grateful Dead, which converted me into a true tie-dyed Deadhead. Thank you for featuring this iconic album!
Standing on the corner of a quiet side street on a breezy sunny day in the spring of 1967, a white Cadillac convertible with a red interior suddenly flew around the corner at totally illegal speed with "Somebody to Love" blasting out of the radio at the volume nature intended and I'd never heard anything like it before and had no idea what I'd heard but I'll never forget the feeling that nothing would ever be the same as I watched the sound disappear into the distance...
@@abigaildevoe The quiet Chicago neighborhood was a long way from San Francisco but the Airplane came to us at that moment... I cannot visualize the driver, it's like I saw the sound flying by...
Surrealistic Pillow is one of those albums that I love so much that I've never really bothered to listen to much of any other of their albums. It's just so perfect; so fun, touching, ghost-haunted and atmospheric. Whenever I hear "Comin' Back To Me", I'm back in my bedroom in a long-ago Vermont, 16 years old again and relishing my solitary reverie.
I've listened to the others, they have some good songs but don't come close in my opinion. Their others albums are less unique for the time, they're more bluesy, and to me surrealistic pillow's best moments are folky, and has this difficult to describe nocturnal vibe.
All of their albums from the sixties are as good or even better than Surrealistic Pillow. Jefferson Airplane are my favorite band ever, so don´t misunderstand me. Checking out Volonteers, Crown of Creation and Takes Off is definately worth doing.
I'm sure I know the grateful dead better than most on this channel. They eat the underground music scene and turn you into them. Didn't they quit again for the 10th time and Bobby booked another huge tour under a different name before the lat one even ended.
I always loved the song “Today”, especially the version in the “Monterey Pop” movie. Love the fact that, even though Marty is singing the lead, the camera is focused on Grace (mostly in silhouette) throughout the song. I think I fell a little in love with Grace watching that clip.
The chemistry between Paul and Grace on D.C.B.A.-25 is a beautiful, palpable thing. Kind of like watching a movie performance between two actors you sense will pair up offscreen..
Excellent breakdown as usual. Such an iconic and legendary album and as you say represents the summer of 1967 SanFran so much and so well. Though as much as I love Surrealistic Pillow I like After Bathing At Baxters and Crown Of Creation more. They are more psych rock and less folk rock. Somebody To Love is such a huge song and if I could name one song that represented the 60's it would probably be that. I can definitely relate to feeling of wanting to experience that time. Ever since I watched the Woodstock movie when I was a kid I longed for that sense of freedom and community but hey I live vicariously through my records and a haze of smoke ;)
Spent countless hours as a 13 yr old listening and singing along to this album. Wound up years later going to Hot Tuna concerts in all manner of venues....great times...
When Paul McCartney visited The Haight in 1967 he hung out with Members of The Jefferson Airplane and Jack Cassidy asked him what the music scene was like in England and Paul told him there was this left hand guitar player (Jimi Hendrix) who was taking Britain by storm.The funny thing is that Jack and Jimi would become friends when Jimi was in the states.
The Airplane was and will always be fan-fucking-tastic, and Surrealistic Pillow is fabulous. AND your earrings are surrealistically cool as well. As for faves: Axis is close to the top, then there's Monkees Headquarters, The Doors, and Smiley Smile. But then there are a slew of great songs like White Bicycle, White Shade of Pale, Incense and Peppermints, How Can I be Sure, For What its Worth... my RUclips Bestsongs list has a lot of these.
D C B A are the four chords that make up the song. ('25' added because LSD25) There's a bonus track called In The Morning (also on a collection called Early Flight) that has Garcia on guitar
OMG Abi, you outfits are always the best, and today is certainly no different. Thanks for the stroll back in time, it's always a welcome highlight of the week.
At age eleven, visiting my older sister at her first apartment in 1967, I saw her copy of Surrealistic Pillow sitting, pink and kind of charming, near her record player. I had to find a copy. For me, it still encapsulates the mood and spirit of the Bay Area at that time better than any other music of the period and you have done an amazing job of conveying a sense of that, somehow. I still live in San Francisco and there are times when walking in certain areas of the city when a Surrealistic Pillow track will come to mind, even when passing the wonderful house on Delmar (still listed on the back cover of the album) of the Jefferson Airplane Fan Club ! Anyway, I have far too much to say about the album to burden you with here. I'll just say that as much as I enjoy Grace and Paul's contributions, I still wish Marty had been able to retain a little more control of the band that he started than he ended up with. I think it would have been better for the band artistically. Love your enthusiasm, Abby! I enjoy what you do on your channel very much. Cheers !
@Abigail Devoe Hi😊 Fun stroll through Surrealistic Pillow. You basically skipped over arguably the Airplane's greatest song "Comin' Back To Me". What's truly amazing is that it was almost completely improvised. A buzzed Marty wrote it late one night and rushed down to the studio, where he found only Grace and Jerry Garcia (possibly Jack, as well). Jerry played guitar on the track. Fun fact: Spencer Dryden's uncle is Charlie Chaplin! (yes, The Little Tramp)
This is one of the few albums that I prefer the mono over stereo. The mono just has clearer vocals and instruments, worth picking up both for such an amazing album.
I have to say that "Surrealistic Pillow" and "Volunteers" are the strongest albums, I just find many of Airplane's other records to be very hit and miss. Loved the review, Abigail.
If anyone loves this album do yourself a favor and get the mono pressing. Its SO much better since the stereo has too much reverb. The mofi is the best but really expensive, and a 1st pressing is awesome itself. Listening to the mono is like hearing it for the first time its incredible.
Surprised “Comin Back” didn’t get more love in this review. I mean,yeah,it’s got a prominent recorder part,but just a devastatingly moving tune. It’s used to particularly good effect in the 1990 Dennis Hopper/Keifer Sutherland flick “Flashback”. Don’t know if you’ve ever seen that,but it’s worth checking out. Peace Abby✌️☮️
There it is!! Thank you for the Upload!! One of my Top 3 All-Time-Favourites Like, there are always one or two songs on every album that i don't like, but this is in my opinion a perfect Record. Every Single Song is just awesome. Embryonic Journey and Comin' Back to Me are i think my Secret Favourites on this :).
A fantastic album , but i love the version of Today they did at the Monterey Pop Festival even more than the studio version. They had two wonderful vocalists in Grace and Marty.❤
I offend large groups of Marty fans since I just plain don't really like it, or a least as 60s Air Plane. Maybe it's the order in which you heard em, since of their stuff I mostly heard Jefferson Starship first, where it seems to fit better with his voice. I come for Grace of course, plus kinda won't ever forgive em for the first album only having one Signe track. He's not as horrible as Dino Valenti but I don't warm to The Club Matrix Guy until total-70s fare like Light The Sky on Fire, Count On Me and Miracles
Jorma Kaukonen is a fantastic guitarist/ musician. One of my favourite guitarists of all time. Randy California too, even moreso. This is a great appraisal of a groundbreaking & brilliant record , which really does capture the flowery zaney open & liberating essence of San Francisco in 1967. I was barely born at the time & like you Abbey, albeit it a few decades earlier, I found my way to & immersed myself in late 60s psychadelia masterpieces. It formed me somehow & I felt like I was really there. I actually used to have these reoccuring dreams of hitch hiking in that area at that time, & a VW microbus stopped to give me a lift, & inside were all the members of Jefferson Airplane. Had that very vivid dream so often in my late teens that I figured I must have actually really been there at the time in another life, or was it merely (merely?) the effect of the powerful pungent spells that many of these songs are ?
Although I enjoyed your mini series of more modern releases, it’s these reviews of the classics from the 60’s/70’s I really like. To see your enthusiasm for these recordings is pure joy.
Such a great album, it's hard to pick favorite songs. I was listening to it the other day at work and while Embryonic Journey was playing my coworker, who had never heard the album before, got very interested. I love albums that have an instrumental interlude (The Wall is like half interludes). And, Abby is not alone in having some FOMO for the summer of love. I don' think any era of human history would be more fun to be in; and, its legacy certainly drove me to move to San Francisco over a decade ago. I am always delighted when I see a show at the Fillmore and they have a trough of apples at the top of the stairs.
Surrealistic Pillow is my favorite all time number 1 album. My buddies and I were 15 years old when it came out and with Jimi Hendrix started our psych , Or Underground music as we called, journey. Enjoyed the show.
🐰Don't fear the white rabbit🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇 it encourages us to reach for more from our imagination. The band had good musicians, Grace was perfect for the part. From 1967...jump 18 years to 1985 Grace sang "We Built This City", her voice is powerful and enthusiastic...She's still with us at age 83...
The late Victorian era history of San Francisco and its carnivalesque anything-is-possible atmosphere had a powerful influence on this record and the SF psychedelic scene overall. The gorgeous 1800s-1900s houses of the Haight Ashbury, thrift stores filled with what were then just decades-old Victorian and Edwardian fashions, the seedy echoes of the decadent Playland At The Beach, and infamous Chutes, just a few blocks from the 1904 mansion at the corner of Fulton and Willard that the band bought with the sudden income from Surrealistic Pillow. You can still feel all the vibrations of the kaleidoscopic past walking through the streets and the park today.
Be still my heart! White Rabbit was one of the first songs I ever got to know, as a kid. Love the Airplane and all the splinter groups that came out of it. Hot Tuna is still touring! Thanks Abby. (Also, great outfit, Alice!) ETA - I can't source it, but I've heard that Jerry was essentially the real hands-on producer of the album. He also helped them arrange some of the songs.
Another album that I knew from the beginning. Probably my favorite Summer of love effort. Side one was the last album I played on many a night. It was a come down from the highs into gentle relaxation. But melancholy calm. A friend played the song at night in some of his darkest hours in Vietnam. The album was one of the first albums I heard on a REALLY GOOD stereo. When the album was released you had to go to the fledgling rock press for details, and usually chose not to because I needed no one to tell what was good and what I should like. My friends sister did a great job singing Grace's two showpieces. Very few people could do those songs. But the other Airplane albums were inconsistent. At least for me. There were some good songs, but not whole sides of whole albums. The press labeled artists and albums. Psyche was not all bombast. Coming Back to me is the mood of the 60s. It wasn't just the summer of love. It was race hatred and Vietnam and the roots of the various liberation movements. The mood of Coming Back to Me captures the reality of the whole 60s. The world we actually had to live in. I do thing the nagative side put us toward the light.
Fun fact: Sherry Snow, of the underrated folk duo, Blackburn & Snow, was briefly considered as a replacement for Signe before Jack brought Grace along. Snow, who performed with her musical (and romantic) partner, Jeff Blackburn, at folk/rock venues around the Bay Area (including the Matrix) gratefully declined the offer to remain with Blackburn.
Excellent review Abigail. Surrealistic Pillow was a groundbreaking piece of folk-rock-based psychedelia, and it hit like a shot heard round the world; where the later efforts from bands like the Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service, and especially, the Charlatans, were initially not too much more than cult successes, Surrealistic Pillow rode the pop charts for most of 1967, soaring into that rarefied Top Five region occupied by the likes of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and so on, to which few American rock acts apart from the Byrds had been able to lay claim since 1964. And decades later the album still comes off as strong as any of those artists' best work. From the Top Ten singles "White Rabbit" and "Somebody to Love" to the sublime "Embryonic Journey," the sensibilities are fierce, the material manages to be both melodic and complex (and it rocks, too), and the performances, sparked by new member Grace Slick on most of the lead vocals, are inspired, helped along by Jerry Garcia (serving as spiritual and musical advisor and sometimes guitarist). Every song is a perfectly cut diamond, too perfect in the eyes of the bandmembers, who felt that following the direction of producer Rick Jarrard and working within three- and four-minute running times, and delivering carefully sung accompaniments and succinct solos, resulted in a record that didn't represent their real sound. Regardless, they did wonderful things with the music within that framework, and the only pity is that RCA didn't record for official release any of the group's shows from the same era, when this material made up the bulk of their repertory. That way the live versions, with the band's creativity unrestricted, could be compared and contrasted with the record. The songwriting was spread around between Marty Balin, Slick, Paul Kantner, and Jorma Kaukonen, and Slick and Balin (who never had a prettier song than "Today," which he'd actually written for Tony Bennett) shared the vocals; the whole album was resplendent in a happy balance of all of these creative elements.
There's an odd sorta tenderness about this album. Odd because of how radical they became VERY quickly. I suppose it's because of the then-current transition between them going from a folk almost-purist band into a folk rock-cum-psychedelic band. No matter, it's stunning, and if White Rabbit doesn't give you chills, TURN IT UP Because Grace entered the picture like a tsunami, Signe never gets enough credit for her work on Takes Off, but because of her Portland connection, Northwesterners will always have a soft spot for her
Excellent video as always, and I love the thumbnail. I've had this LP since high school, but unlike most of my "vintage" albums, I didn't buy it new, so it's not in pristine condition. In fact, maybe the reason I never really got into this band is that I've never done drugs, and part of the reason for that is that I picked up so many garage sale LPs from the '60s and early 70's that were slightly before my time and saw how they looked like they'd been used as ashtrays at a pot party. I never wanted to be so high that I would handle a record like a stoned monkey. So being drug-free, I liked Grace Slick's voice, but not most of Airplane's music. I did like some of the later Jefferson Starship songs I played when I was an AC radio DJ. Except for one (We Built This City on Rock and Roll) that, by coincidence, just popped up a couple of days ago. It's now on a commercial for a new service that uses video chat to walk people through making their home repairs. After the woman fixes her toilet, she bursts into a big production number of "I fixed this toilet!...I fixed this toilet on vid-eeee-oh!" I said, "Finally, the perfect use for that song!"
That's hard to say. Sgt. Pepper because I first heard it in 1987 for the 20th year anniversary when they released it to CD. Radio stations were doing specials on it. They'd also do summer of love stuff too like the Byrds, Jefferson Airplane, Donovan, Strawberry Alarm Clock, and other cool stuff.
Great review, Abby! First time viewer, loved it so much I’ve subscribed. As a hard- core Airplane and Hot Tuna fan, there was little information here I hadn’t already heard- but I love your take and presentation of this iconic album. Plus, your “Alice” outfit is pretty cool…
This band's story is sort of unbelievable. Some version of the band that made White Rabbit also make Find Your Way Back and eventually We Built This City.
Great channel for long ago music... The 1990s was probably the best time to collect all these old albums as everyone was getting rid of their LPs in order to buy CDs! LPs were cheap back then also. Good luck and have fun collecting!
oh man that must've been a great time to be a collector! it's harder now that people know what they have and what it's worth but hey, it makes the grails all the more of wins
Your stunningly beautiful review brings me to tears -- simply because it IS so spot on, in every detail. It is everything you say it is -- especially a monument, an anchor, a road map of a very special era. You miss it for not being there. I miss it because I was, and the feeling this resurrects is palpable. GREAT job reviewing! Ditto for Are You Experienced. KEEP ON DOING! Be well, P.S. -- there are some who have described Grace's voice as actually being another "instrument" for the band. And the vocal chemistry between Marty and Grace, not just sound but also feeling, is just so hand-and-glove. I once visited my son in SF. Towards the end of the trip he asked me if there was anything special I wanted to do. I thought about it a bit, but got this sudden strong feeling and half-joking said, I'd like to see the Pooneil House that JA once lived in. Since it was within walking distance of where he lived, and through GG Park, we set off and found it (2400 Fulton St.). I kinda stared at it a while, walked around out front, and got a bit nostalgic. I later learned that Paul Kantner died that day, and so did Signe. Ouch.... Maybe that's why The Ballad of You and me and Pooneil is one of my favorite JA songs.
I bought this album when it came out, I was 13, and the Summer Of Love vibe was intoxicating to my teen self. Living in the suburbs of NYC, the ‘Frisco scene, as portrayed in the media, seemed so exotic, the exploratory drug culture so daring! I’d begun my music life with The Beatles, but the call of wild guitars and “acid rock” took over my attention…which is a little ironic, because this album has so much songwriting chops and vocal beauty…the Airplane morphed into an even more psychedelic band by their next album. Jorma and Jack Casady became heroes of mine, and I’ve followed them all the way to their Hot Tuna 50th Anniversary Tour in ‘19, and beyond. Surrealistic Pillow is a beautiful album, at the same time the band is just starting to show their teeth. I think Crown Of Creation is an equally good representation of where JA was at the time of it’s release, as well. Great job Abby, thank you! 👍
Hi Abigail! Love your channel. The first show I saw was Jefferson Airplane and Quicksilver Messenger Service at the original Fillmore Auditorium on Fillmore Street (that's in San Francisco, lol) in 1967. I was 12, taken by my 18 year Old Sister, Sue. (yes, of course she was known as Suzie Creamcheese!) Even though I followed them forever I agree with you that Surrealistic Pillow is the "High Water Mark"
there was a brief mention of legacy , with the undeniable statement that the grateful dead came out ahead on that calculation. The Dead never stumbled into anything as odorous as the Jefferson Starship singing" we built this city "
Do not know how I rant into this channel, But it has been awesome. Is sixties and seventies are by far my favorite music. This album along with a few others got me into trouble. This kind of music Definitely it's looked down upon in some pockets down here. Is keep up the amazing work Abigail
My favorite American band in all its various incarnations. They were fantastic, sloppy, graceful, controversial, political, and stunning. The musical chops are first rate both instrumentally and vocally. They were a wildly mercurial live act as attested to by all the various live material they released officially or what can be found on bootleg. This is a band that soars. The version of Somebody To Love on Bless Its Pointed Little Head(live album) is a band rocking on all cylinders with all members unique talents contributing to a stunning performance. This album and Sgt. Pepper are my favorite summer of love albums.
I remeber I had to special order this album at a record store in the 1970s. It was a pivotal album that got lost in the release by others. I bought it after the release of The Worth of the Jefferson Airplane as I recall because the best tracks on that album were in it.
Absolutely love this album! And one of my fave tracks is "Coming Back To Me"... sublime! But as much as I love this album, I enjoy Bathing At Baxter's and Crown Of Creation more... hope you take a look at those two at some point soon! Cheers!
Thank you Abby to consider the album"Surrealistic Pillow by Jefferson Airplane, It bring's me nostalgia.I was twelve year's old when it was release in 1967.There are three essentials album's on the summer of love in 1967.The album "Surrealistic Pillow" by Jefferson Airplane;the debut album by the Door's ,and the classic album "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Band by the Beatles.Three Classic album's From 1967.
Since they've been brought up on the series before, I think it would be cool if you did a vinyl Monday episode on a tally hall album Also: 3/5 of a mile is definitely underrated. It's probably my favorite from this album
i've considered doing a tally hall video on the series. i now own both marvin's and good & evil, and now that i think of it i should have a preorder of hawaii part 2 coming soon... if joe hawley joe hawley ever gets a vinyl run, god help us all (and my wallet)
Compliments to the " Spiritual Advisor " Jerry Garcia & love the 2 Marty tracks that close Side 1 " Today " & " Comin Back To Me ". Paul Simon complained that there was to much echo on the record yet listen to " The Boxer " .. One of my favorite records of the 60's. Spectacular.
The mono version has less echo. Or verb... You never know... Stereo is still kind of fresh back at this time, and sometimes stereo receivers and turn tables had a habit of phase cancelling... Which would cause things that were in mono to disappear. And things that were and stereo to be enhanced... For instance, in a song that has vocals in the center and then music instruments off to the left or right, and also a stereo reverb, this would cause the vocals to get quieter, And the reverb to get louder...
He's right, at least as far as the stereo mix goes. The mono is fine. All the echo on "The Boxer" works there. It's not a matter of a standard amount of echo for anything...it's, like everything which goes into a recording, whatever serves the music best that you do.
You absolutely must get the MoFi 45 RPM release of this album… it sounds absolutely phenomenal. I feel like I can actually HEAR the music and all of its intricacies for the very first time, as if I’m listening to the master tapes directly.
@@abigaildevoeBoth of those are good; I think you’d be happy with either, but if you were to hear the MoFi, you’d instantly be blown away when compared to those other two options. The MoFi is obviously pretty expensive but it’s absolutely worth it! Ultimately though, obviously these things are pretty personal decisions based on numerous factors so whatever works best for you! But if you one day find a friend who owns the MoFi, definitely have them spin it up for you so you can at least hear the stereo mix properly presented in all its glory. 😊
I'm a huge JA fan, even have their ultra rare uncensored takes off stereo. I have a whopping 7 pressings of Surrealistic Pillow and this is how I'd rate them....(BTW you said mofi was stereo but it's the mono mix, which is why it sounds so good. It's just got a great Soundstage where it's easy not to notice it's mono. The dcc is the only audiophile stereo pressing).... 1. Mofi mono 2. 1st US mono 3. 1st UK mono(different track list) 4. Sundazed mono 5. Dcc stereo 6. Japan stereo 7. 1st US stereo The mofi for me is the best pressing, however the original is extremely close. They're just different. The original has a more lively high end, more air between the instruments, while too bright at points. While the mofi has higher resolution, wider Soundstage, more detail, way more bass, and having white rabbit on one side without groove distortion at 45rpm is fricken amazing. The sundazed is extremely good too, but due to price hikes it's not worth it over an original for the same price, or a bit more for the mofi. If I could only pick one id pick the mofi, however if I didn't own a mono original I'd be more likely to get a 1st pressing, because the mofi does sound different and it's nice to have the historical artifact. Even though I prefer the mofi, I feel it's a tad bit overrated due to most never having heard the mono before owning it. Like it's still an improvement, but not as vast as some may state. However it'd completely blow away anyone who only owns the stereo. For example, on a site that compares dynamics, the original had a slightly better dynamic high. But the mofi makes it more balanced with alot more bass so it feels more dynamic and is alot clearer. The best this album sounds is by far in mono due to not having all that reverb. Any version is good to have. Considering the mofi is so expensive, if you're not a huge fan, I'd probably get an original because it's still an amazing experience. However, if you love the album I'd definitely get the mofi, or atleast backorder at music direct for $60.There are rumors that it may go out of print soon, so the next time it gets repressed may be the last. On musicdirect it's worth placing a backorder since it doesn't charge until shipped. Also don't get the colored one(MOV) over an OG. It's stereo and not nearly as good as the mono. Its decent for a stereo pressing though, but not much better than the 1st stereo and may even be worse. It's expensive purely due to the color vinyl gimmick. The 2017 "we are vinyl" pressing uses the same plates, so has the same sound, and is only like $20 shipped. So don't waste on the pink one, go with the 1st if not the mofi. Also the volunteers mofi is awesome as well. It's quite an improvement on the original as well. It's an extremely underrated album amongst today due to having no singles due to its political content. It has some of their best songs. We can be together is amazing and aged extremely well where it'd message is still very impactful. Wooden ships is also beautiful, along with the amazing good Shephard. Its a shame its lost alot of recognition over time along with their other non pillow albums. Anyway, JA and surrealistic pillow are awesome, and even with MOFI's hit or miss nature and the DSD scandal, their JA albums are the best they've ever sounded and we'll worth backordering for $60.
so glad to see you review this album. a crux of my own listening history. a special note on the day Paul Kantner died it was a strong story across the wire and rock stations everywhere. sad note, signe died the same day. that broke me more than the news of paul. she had moved back to her home state to raise her child and stayed in the music industry locally. her voice is, like you said, a precursor to grace's ability to fill those incredible shoes. keep up the good work kiddo.
Wow Abby wow, that’s great, one of your best! Here’s a memory for you.. I saw an Airplane show in Toronto. It was the pre-digital era, yeah.. so the accompanying light show was an old school overhead projector: a few drops of water, and different coloured drops of food colouring were placed on the surface. Then a transparent sheet of plastic was set on to it, and wiggled around while the band played. The wiggly blotches of coloured water projected on the wall behind the band was the light show. We thought it was almost as good as the music!!
I don't have a vinyl copy of this album, but I remember the 1970-71 2nd or 3rd pressing if "Volunteers" was horrible sounding - all flat mud! As a vinyl enthusiast like you, one of the rare times I can say I'm thankful for the later re- mastering to digital for that album and Todd Rundgren's long LP 'S like A Wizard A True Star and Initiation. Also Surrealistic Pillow on CD sounds fine!
Nicely done, as usual, Abby. I remember checking out "Surrealistic Pillow" on vinyl decades ago from a local library when I was in college, but I can't remember if I listened to the whole thing. Love the three tracks I remember hearing from that album: "Embryonic Journey," "Somebody to Love" and "White Rabbit." Shawn R., Mo-Mutt Music/Sacred & Secular
I'm fairly new to your channel and really enjoying your videos. I like these deep dives into these albums, they're very well done. I keep learning new things about albums I've been listening to for years. And I especially love that you use Circle Sky for your transitions!
Well Alice, you have gone and done another Yeoman’s effort on reviewing a favourite album I remember buying as soon as it came out. Still have the original in superb condition. I remember when the Airplane and the Dead came to Toronto for a 6 night stint at the O’Keefe Centre downtown from 31 July to 5 August 1967. Bill Graham promoted this and even though I believe he was generally averse to free shows, one was nevertheless given at Nathan Phillip’s Square where the new City Hall is located. I remember well skipping classes and attending this show on the 23rd of July 1967. Toronto’s Haight Ashbury was called Yorkville and was only a few subway stops away from there, so most every one from Yorkville attended this show. When I googled to find the exact date, some information leads one to believe that there were actually two free concerts (news to me). One on 23 July, and one on 4 August. On the day I attended the venue was packed. I would have guessed 25,000 people or so, but the reviews vary from 10,000 to 50,000. Bill Graham had taken a liking to one of the bands from Yorkville, called “Luke and the Apostles” who opened the free concert for The Airplane. [The Dead didn’t play the free Gig (or gigs) as I think he was mainly pushing the Airplane, on what was a big selling album (#3) with two big singles. The dead had only recently signed a record deal and their first album was only released 4 months previously, never charting higher than 73] What I remember was, that the Apostles’ performance was so exceptional that the Airplane’s was anticlimactic. Blown out of the water. Paul Rothschild, of Doors fame, had signed them to Elektra in late 1965, took them to New York in February 1966 to record a single, but before it was released, Rothchild was arrested for possession of grass. The single was put on hold while he served a year in prison. In 1967 they were being courted by both Albert Grossman and Bill Graham and performing frequently in NYC and Toronto. The band fell apart through major disagreements as to the path forward and disbanded without ever releasing anything other than the one single that wasn’t even emblematic of their real music. Their actual genre was hard rocking classic blues based rock ‘n’ roll. They reunite off and on from time to time, and still sound great even in their dotterage. So many good psychedelic albums of that year. Two I very much like, which are often overlooked, are: “Winds of Change” released October 1967 and “ The Twain Shall Meet” recorded December 1967, released May 1968. Both by Eric Burdon and the Animals. Cheers Abigale.
man i wouldn't have had a clue about frank and the apostles, thanks for tipping me off to them. their story sounds like so many other groups at the time. between love, the doors, and the 5, i'm inclined to think elektra records was cursed! the airplane were still figuring out their live chemistry at the time of your show, so i don't doubt your claim of the airplane being anticlimactic
@@abigaildevoe Yes, and it’s still that way. Seems like every city or town of any size had one or more local act of substance, who for a sundry of possible reasons, were but a talented big fish in a small town/pond. Many here, and many throughout the states. It’s fun when someone turns you onto to one. Unfortunately these guys never issued an album or singles of what they could do. Their lead guitarist, Mike McKenna, subsequently joined another local band of merit for awhile, called “The Ugly Ducklings” ( not the rappers of the same name) but that band had previously only released one album called “Somewhere Outside” in 1966. Very good blues based garage rock with one or two songs verging on psychedelia. Only a small number were pressed, befitting a regionally popular band. All in all, one of my most favourite albums. One powerful single from it was called “Nothing”. Over the years it became a massive collectors item with garage/psych collectors and copies became outrageously expensive, and “Then Came The Dawn”. Oh sorry that was a prunes’ lyric slip. I meant to say, and then came the counterfeiters from all around. Eventually legitimate releases have occurred around the world, including by “Sundazed” in New York. Back in the day I actually liked the “Ducklings” a little more than “ Luke and The Apostles”. McKenna and Garcia apparently really hit it off, and there are some stories there. You probably know this already but my prunes slip above is quoted from an extremely massive psychedelic hit in 1966 by, “The Electric Prunes”, entitled “I Had Too Much to Dream Last Night”. Probably my most favourite psych song ever. By the way, may you keep doing what you do, because you do it very well.
A few random thoughts: This week's outfit is on point! 1960s stereo mixes were a total mess where the instruments were panned randomly, I guess it took a while for producers to figure out what stereo was? I will never forgive the early Jimi Hendrix stereo mixes. "Feed your head" is such an iconic statement and moment in pop culture. I'm not a big fan of the album tbh. It's a mess to me, and the sound is off-putting. If you think guitarists are bad for your health, try drummers lol. My favorite thing about Surrealistic Pillow is all the bands it inspired, sort of like how the Velvet Underground & Nico inspired a generation of musicians. Can we get a "Blue" Monday? Joni Mitchell is woefully under represented in the 60s and 70s conversations. Thanks for another great video and recommendation! Glad you covered it
the OG stereo mixes of hendrix albums were well and truly all over the place. they did the best they could with ladyland! but oh man did i get ragged on for preferring mono are you experienced over stereo lol i have big far future plans for blue on vinyl monday :)
Bless it's Pointy Little Head, w a drunk Jack Cassidy on the cover was their live album - needed mentioning. Has my vote as their second best record. Airplane, like so many bands (and authors) had one really good first project, but could never match it again.
That was an amazing, trippy album when it came out and I think you nailed it as the best album of the summer of love, capturing the feel so great. I like Baxters even better. The music on that one really soared.
surrealistic pillow captured san fran in 67 SO well. the beatles nailed the feeling in britain with sgt. pepper's, and the doors captured laurel canyon that year on self-titled
Jefferson Airplane is so great, so much remarkable history before, during and after it. I couldn't help to notice your Alice outfit which couldn't be more appropriate for reviewing an album with White Rabbit.
@@abigaildevoe Indeed it was. Another perfect excuse would be on a Southern Accents by Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers review, but I don't know if 80's music is also your thing.
bear with me while i’m figuring out mic placement! what’s your favorite summer of love album? comment below!
The Doors
Sgt. Pepper -- No! Piper at the Gates of -- No! Are You Experienced -- um . . . what day of the week is it?
@@troubadour723 it’s SO hard to choose, 67 was a stacked year
So weird, Mazzy just made a video that included this lp also:
ruclips.net/video/I2de3TUqFRg/видео.html
@@jetnova3788 yep 🤠
Abbie, I'm an old guy, but I have to say that Surrealistic Pillow was my first true love of San Francisco music for me. I attended Woodstock with my older cousins (I was 12 years, and they were in their late teens, one of them was headed for Vietnam after the festival). I was a huge fan of Jefferson Airplane, Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady are my favourite members of the band. When I heard they were going to be at the Festival I begged my cousins to take me, I even bought a ticket for all three days (it was destroyed in the mud). The Airplane were off the hook at the show, perfection even though they hit the stage in the morning, they rocked like it was midnight. That was also when I first saw the Grateful Dead, which converted me into a true tie-dyed Deadhead. Thank you for featuring this iconic album!
Standing on the corner of a quiet side street on a breezy sunny day in the spring of 1967, a white Cadillac convertible with a red interior suddenly flew around the corner at totally illegal speed with "Somebody to Love" blasting out of the radio at the volume nature intended and I'd never heard anything like it before and had no idea what I'd heard but I'll never forget the feeling that nothing would ever be the same as I watched the sound disappear into the distance...
that's magical! are you sure it wasn't a member of the airplane driving? they were known to drag race through san fran
@@abigaildevoe The quiet Chicago neighborhood was a long way from San Francisco but the Airplane came to us at that moment... I cannot visualize the driver, it's like I saw the sound flying by...
Congratulations to Surrealistic Pillow for being preserved forever in the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress as of today!!!
Surrealistic Pillow is one of those albums that I love so much that I've never really bothered to listen to much of any other of their albums. It's just so perfect; so fun, touching, ghost-haunted and atmospheric. Whenever I hear "Comin' Back To Me", I'm back in my bedroom in a long-ago Vermont, 16 years old again and relishing my solitary reverie.
I've listened to the others, they have some good songs but don't come close in my opinion. Their others albums are less unique for the time, they're more bluesy, and to me surrealistic pillow's best moments are folky, and has this difficult to describe nocturnal vibe.
All of their albums from the sixties are as good or even better than Surrealistic Pillow. Jefferson Airplane are my favorite band ever, so don´t misunderstand me. Checking out Volonteers, Crown of Creation and Takes Off is definately worth doing.
Still think American Beauty by Grateful Dead is worth a vlog.
One of the greatest albums ever!
I like you.
Workingman's Dead too
We heard enough about the grateful dead
@@Dave__f Never!!! THE GREATEST AMERICAN ROCK AND ROLL BAND EVER... DON'T LIKE IT, KEEP SCROLLING!
I'm sure I know the grateful dead better than most on this channel. They eat the underground music scene and turn you into them.
Didn't they quit again for the 10th time and Bobby booked another huge tour under a different name before the lat one even ended.
I always loved the song “Today”, especially the version in the “Monterey Pop” movie. Love the fact that, even though Marty is singing the lead, the camera is focused on Grace (mostly in silhouette) throughout the song. I think I fell a little in love with Grace watching that clip.
The chemistry between Paul and Grace on D.C.B.A.-25 is a beautiful, palpable thing. Kind of like watching a movie performance between two actors you sense will pair up offscreen..
Excellent breakdown as usual. Such an iconic and legendary album and as you say represents the summer of 1967 SanFran so much and so well. Though as much as I love Surrealistic Pillow I like After Bathing At Baxters and Crown Of Creation more. They are more psych rock and less folk rock. Somebody To Love is such a huge song and if I could name one song that represented the 60's it would probably be that. I can definitely relate to feeling of wanting to experience that time. Ever since I watched the Woodstock movie when I was a kid I longed for that sense of freedom and community but hey I live vicariously through my records and a haze of smoke ;)
Spent countless hours as a 13 yr old listening and singing along to this album. Wound up years later going to Hot Tuna concerts in all manner of venues....great times...
When Paul McCartney visited The Haight in 1967 he hung out with Members of The Jefferson Airplane and Jack Cassidy asked him what the music scene was like in England and Paul told him there was this left hand guitar player (Jimi Hendrix) who was taking Britain by storm.The funny thing is that Jack and Jimi would become friends when Jimi was in the states.
The Airplane was and will always be fan-fucking-tastic, and Surrealistic Pillow is fabulous.
AND your earrings are surrealistically cool as well.
As for faves: Axis is close to the top, then there's Monkees Headquarters, The Doors, and Smiley Smile. But then there are a slew of great songs like White Bicycle, White Shade of Pale, Incense and Peppermints, How Can I be Sure, For What its Worth... my RUclips Bestsongs list has a lot of these.
yes i LOVE seeing love for the monkees and strawberry alarm clock! and thanks!
D C B A are the four chords that make up the song. ('25' added because LSD25)
There's a bonus track called In The Morning (also on a collection called Early Flight) that has Garcia on guitar
OMG Abi, you outfits are always the best, and today is certainly no different. Thanks for the stroll back in time, it's always a welcome highlight of the week.
thanks so much! it's not every day i get to break out the alice dress
At age eleven, visiting my older sister at her first apartment in 1967, I saw her copy of Surrealistic Pillow sitting, pink and kind of charming, near her record player. I had to find a copy. For me, it still encapsulates the mood and spirit of the Bay Area at that time better than any other music of the period and you have done an amazing job of conveying a sense of that, somehow. I still live in San Francisco and there are times when walking in certain areas of the city when a Surrealistic Pillow track will come to mind, even when passing the wonderful house on Delmar (still listed on the back cover of the album) of the Jefferson Airplane Fan Club ! Anyway, I have far too much to say about the album to burden you with here. I'll just say that as much as I enjoy Grace and Paul's contributions, I still wish Marty had been able to retain a little more control of the band that he started than he ended up with. I think it would have been better for the band artistically. Love your enthusiasm, Abby! I enjoy what you do on your channel very much. Cheers !
This is refreshing, good on ya for the last month, but, tbh, good to have you back.
thanks, it's good to be back
Love White Rabbit, Somebody To Love and Embryonic Journey is so good.🙂 Another fine video Abby.
@Abigail Devoe Hi😊 Fun stroll through Surrealistic Pillow. You basically skipped over arguably the Airplane's greatest song "Comin' Back To Me". What's truly amazing is that it was almost completely improvised. A buzzed Marty wrote it late one night and rushed down to the studio, where he found only Grace and Jerry Garcia (possibly Jack, as well). Jerry played guitar on the track. Fun fact: Spencer Dryden's uncle is Charlie Chaplin! (yes, The Little Tramp)
This is one of the few albums that I prefer the mono over stereo. The mono just has clearer vocals and instruments, worth picking up both for such an amazing album.
agreed. my stereo mix of this album is muddy, like someone put a wet towel over all the songs
The drum sound is much better on the mono mix. I always liked She Has Funny Cars but the mono mix made me LOVE it.
It's far better in mono. A lot of rock, then current pop, R&B, etc. music in the 1960's was mixed better in mono.
ruclips.net/video/YxRXH2IjpVk/видео.html
I have to say that "Surrealistic Pillow" and "Volunteers" are the strongest albums, I just find many of Airplane's other records to be very hit and miss. Loved the review, Abigail.
Yea! Surrealistic Pillow was the first album I ever bought, saved up from my paper route. It holds up well after all these years 🥰
If anyone loves this album do yourself a favor and get the mono pressing. Its SO much better since the stereo has too much reverb. The mofi is the best but really expensive, and a 1st pressing is awesome itself. Listening to the mono is like hearing it for the first time its incredible.
💯
Surprised “Comin Back” didn’t get more love in this review. I mean,yeah,it’s got a prominent recorder part,but just a devastatingly moving tune. It’s used to particularly good effect in the 1990 Dennis Hopper/Keifer Sutherland flick “Flashback”. Don’t know if you’ve ever seen that,but it’s worth checking out. Peace Abby✌️☮️
i really wish i could talk about every song here in-depth, but if i did, the video would be longer than the album itself!
Agreed. Comin' Back is the real MVP song on this album, and my favorite along with Today.
There it is!! Thank you for the Upload!!
One of my Top 3 All-Time-Favourites
Like, there are always one or two songs on every album that i don't like, but this is in my opinion a perfect Record. Every Single Song is just awesome.
Embryonic Journey and Comin' Back to Me are i think my Secret Favourites on this :).
It's No Secret now.
A fantastic album , but i love the version of Today they did at the Monterey Pop Festival even more than the studio version.
They had two wonderful vocalists in Grace and Marty.❤
I offend large groups of Marty fans since I just plain don't really like it, or a least as 60s Air Plane. Maybe it's the order in which you heard em, since of their stuff I mostly heard Jefferson Starship first, where it seems to fit better with his voice. I come for Grace of course, plus kinda won't ever forgive em for the first album only having one Signe track. He's not as horrible as Dino Valenti but I don't warm to The Club Matrix Guy until total-70s fare like Light The Sky on Fire, Count On Me and Miracles
Great Psychedelic Masterpiece!!!!🍄🍄🌸🌸🌿🌿
Crown Of Creation was my first JA album and is probably a favorite followed by Volunteers. Always enjoy your reviews. Look forward to Mondays now !
Jorma Kaukonen is a fantastic guitarist/ musician. One of my favourite guitarists of all time. Randy California too, even moreso.
This is a great appraisal of a groundbreaking & brilliant record , which really does capture the flowery zaney open & liberating essence of San Francisco in 1967. I was barely born at the time & like you Abbey, albeit it a few decades earlier, I found my way to & immersed myself in late 60s psychadelia masterpieces. It formed me somehow & I felt like I was really there.
I actually used to have these reoccuring dreams of hitch hiking in that area at that time, & a VW microbus stopped to give me a lift, & inside were all the members of Jefferson Airplane.
Had that very vivid dream so often in my late teens that I figured I must have actually really been there at the time in another life, or was it merely (merely?) the effect of the powerful pungent spells that many of these songs are ?
Saw them live back in another orbit doing acid. Great show, and White Rabbit was exquisite.❤️🎶
Although I enjoyed your mini series of more modern releases, it’s these reviews of the classics from the 60’s/70’s I really like. To see your enthusiasm for these recordings is pure joy.
it's good to be back to this stuff!
One of my fave albums, I was listening to White Rabbit today and it’s interesting how songs can apply to current times, especially like right now
This is my favourite album of this kind of music
Such a great album, it's hard to pick favorite songs. I was listening to it the other day at work and while Embryonic Journey was playing my coworker, who had never heard the album before, got very interested. I love albums that have an instrumental interlude (The Wall is like half interludes). And, Abby is not alone in having some FOMO for the summer of love. I don' think any era of human history would be more fun to be in; and, its legacy certainly drove me to move to San Francisco over a decade ago. I am always delighted when I see a show at the Fillmore and they have a trough of apples at the top of the stairs.
The album that blew my mind open, and helped me realize there was more to music!
Surrealistic Pillow is my favorite all time number 1 album. My buddies and I were 15 years old when it came out and with Jimi Hendrix started our psych , Or Underground music as we called, journey. Enjoyed the show.
this album and jimi hendrix started out my psych journey too!
Always enjoy Vinyl Monday, even when the album was not among my favorites.
I love Oar.
🐰Don't fear the white rabbit🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇 it encourages us to reach for more
from our imagination. The band had good musicians, Grace was perfect for the part.
From 1967...jump 18 years to 1985 Grace sang "We Built This City", her voice is powerful and enthusiastic...She's still with us at age 83...
Embryonic Journey was the song I chose for my wife to walk out to at our wedding.
aw that’s so sweet!
The late Victorian era history of San Francisco and its carnivalesque anything-is-possible atmosphere had a powerful influence on this record and the SF psychedelic scene overall. The gorgeous 1800s-1900s houses of the Haight Ashbury, thrift stores filled with what were then just decades-old Victorian and Edwardian fashions, the seedy echoes of the decadent Playland At The Beach, and infamous Chutes, just a few blocks from the 1904 mansion at the corner of Fulton and Willard that the band bought with the sudden income from Surrealistic Pillow. You can still feel all the vibrations of the kaleidoscopic past walking through the streets and the park today.
Great job again. Your analysis of SP by JA and your understanding of 60’s music is phenomenal.
Be still my heart! White Rabbit was one of the first songs I ever got to know, as a kid. Love the Airplane and all the splinter groups that came out of it. Hot Tuna is still touring! Thanks Abby. (Also, great outfit, Alice!) ETA - I can't source it, but I've heard that Jerry was essentially the real hands-on producer of the album. He also helped them arrange some of the songs.
Another album that I knew from the beginning. Probably my favorite Summer of love effort.
Side one was the last album I played on many a night. It was a come down from the highs into gentle relaxation. But melancholy calm. A friend played the song at night in some of his darkest hours in Vietnam. The album was one of the first albums I heard on a REALLY GOOD stereo. When the album was released you had to go to the fledgling rock press for details, and usually chose not to because I needed no one to tell what was good and what I should like. My friends sister did a great job singing Grace's two showpieces. Very few people could do those songs.
But the other Airplane albums were inconsistent. At least for me. There were some good songs, but not whole sides of whole albums. The press labeled artists and albums.
Psyche was not all bombast. Coming Back to me is the mood of the 60s. It wasn't just the summer of love. It was race hatred and Vietnam and the roots of the various liberation movements. The mood of Coming Back to Me captures the reality of the whole 60s. The world we actually had to live in. I do thing the nagative side put us toward the light.
Abigail, well done ----------------as a teen from the 60's not much more can I add other that that album was a must have! thanks
Fun fact: Sherry Snow, of the underrated folk duo, Blackburn & Snow, was briefly considered as a replacement for Signe before Jack brought Grace along. Snow, who performed with her musical (and romantic) partner, Jeff Blackburn, at folk/rock venues around the Bay Area (including the Matrix) gratefully declined the offer to remain with Blackburn.
Excellent review Abigail. Surrealistic Pillow was a groundbreaking piece of folk-rock-based psychedelia, and it hit like a shot heard round the world; where the later efforts from bands like the Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service, and especially, the Charlatans, were initially not too much more than cult successes, Surrealistic Pillow rode the pop charts for most of 1967, soaring into that rarefied Top Five region occupied by the likes of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and so on, to which few American rock acts apart from the Byrds had been able to lay claim since 1964. And decades later the album still comes off as strong as any of those artists' best work. From the Top Ten singles "White Rabbit" and "Somebody to Love" to the sublime "Embryonic Journey," the sensibilities are fierce, the material manages to be both melodic and complex (and it rocks, too), and the performances, sparked by new member Grace Slick on most of the lead vocals, are inspired, helped along by Jerry Garcia (serving as spiritual and musical advisor and sometimes guitarist). Every song is a perfectly cut diamond, too perfect in the eyes of the bandmembers, who felt that following the direction of producer Rick Jarrard and working within three- and four-minute running times, and delivering carefully sung accompaniments and succinct solos, resulted in a record that didn't represent their real sound. Regardless, they did wonderful things with the music within that framework, and the only pity is that RCA didn't record for official release any of the group's shows from the same era, when this material made up the bulk of their repertory. That way the live versions, with the band's creativity unrestricted, could be compared and contrasted with the record. The songwriting was spread around between Marty Balin, Slick, Paul Kantner, and Jorma Kaukonen, and Slick and Balin (who never had a prettier song than "Today," which he'd actually written for Tony Bennett) shared the vocals; the whole album was resplendent in a happy balance of all of these creative elements.
Excellent episode! Definitely a Top 5 '60s album for me.
There's an odd sorta tenderness about this album. Odd because of how radical they became VERY quickly. I suppose it's because of the then-current transition between them going from a folk almost-purist band into a folk rock-cum-psychedelic band. No matter, it's stunning, and if White Rabbit doesn't give you chills, TURN IT UP
Because Grace entered the picture like a tsunami, Signe never gets enough credit for her work on Takes Off, but because of her Portland connection, Northwesterners will always have a soft spot for her
60s again, yay, I can bust out my bong again
Excellent video as always, and I love the thumbnail. I've had this LP since high school, but unlike most of my "vintage" albums, I didn't buy it new, so it's not in pristine condition. In fact, maybe the reason I never really got into this band is that I've never done drugs, and part of the reason for that is that I picked up so many garage sale LPs from the '60s and early 70's that were slightly before my time and saw how they looked like they'd been used as ashtrays at a pot party. I never wanted to be so high that I would handle a record like a stoned monkey.
So being drug-free, I liked Grace Slick's voice, but not most of Airplane's music. I did like some of the later Jefferson Starship songs I played when I was an AC radio DJ. Except for one (We Built This City on Rock and Roll) that, by coincidence, just popped up a couple of days ago. It's now on a commercial for a new service that uses video chat to walk people through making their home repairs. After the woman fixes her toilet, she bursts into a big production number of "I fixed this toilet!...I fixed this toilet on vid-eeee-oh!" I said, "Finally, the perfect use for that song!"
That's hard to say. Sgt. Pepper because I first heard it in 1987 for the 20th year anniversary when they released it to CD. Radio stations were doing specials on it. They'd also do summer of love stuff too like the Byrds, Jefferson Airplane, Donovan, Strawberry Alarm Clock, and other cool stuff.
Great review, Abby! First time viewer, loved it so much I’ve subscribed. As a hard- core Airplane and Hot Tuna fan, there was little information here I hadn’t already heard- but I love your take and presentation of this iconic album. Plus, your “Alice” outfit is pretty cool…
This band's story is sort of unbelievable. Some version of the band that made White Rabbit also make Find Your Way Back and eventually We Built This City.
Great channel for long ago music... The 1990s was probably the best time to collect all these old albums as everyone was getting rid of their LPs in order to buy CDs! LPs were cheap back then also.
Good luck and have fun collecting!
oh man that must've been a great time to be a collector! it's harder now that people know what they have and what it's worth but hey, it makes the grails all the more of wins
Just got to watch last week's epsiode now, and it is a superb epsiode. Thank you very much Abby.
Great episode Abby! Love it when you ride dragonflies across a garden! Ha Ha!
This has been my Favorite Album !! ❤️❤️🥰
Bought it for White Rabbit and Somebody to Love, remember it for Today and D.C.B.A. - 25 👍
Yes , Surrealistic Pillow !! I got mine in 1967
Wow, you really took me back on this one to a time I don’t think about much these days. Thank you.
Your stunningly beautiful review brings me to tears -- simply because it IS so spot on, in every detail. It is everything you say it is -- especially a monument, an anchor, a road map of a very special era. You miss it for not being there. I miss it because I was, and the feeling this resurrects is palpable. GREAT job reviewing! Ditto for Are You Experienced. KEEP ON DOING! Be well,
P.S. -- there are some who have described Grace's voice as actually being another "instrument" for the band. And the vocal chemistry between Marty and Grace, not just sound but also feeling, is just so hand-and-glove.
I once visited my son in SF. Towards the end of the trip he asked me if there was anything special I wanted to do. I thought about it a bit, but got this sudden strong feeling and half-joking said, I'd like to see the Pooneil House that JA once lived in. Since it was within walking distance of where he lived, and through GG Park, we set off and found it (2400 Fulton St.). I kinda stared at it a while, walked around out front, and got a bit nostalgic. I later learned that Paul Kantner died that day, and so did Signe. Ouch.... Maybe that's why The Ballad of You and me and Pooneil is one of my favorite JA songs.
Early casualties of the Year the Music Died 2016. Hard to believe, but it looks like the musical death tally of 2023 is even greater.
3/5 is phenomenal! Glad to hear another person to say what I have always loved hearing
Yay! Geezer music is back!
I bought this album when it came out, I was 13, and the Summer Of Love vibe was intoxicating to my teen self. Living in the suburbs of NYC, the ‘Frisco scene, as portrayed in the media, seemed so exotic, the exploratory drug culture so daring! I’d begun my music life with The Beatles, but the call of wild guitars and “acid rock” took over my attention…which is a little ironic, because this album has so much songwriting chops and vocal beauty…the Airplane morphed into an even more psychedelic band by their next album. Jorma and Jack Casady became heroes of mine, and I’ve followed them all the way to their Hot Tuna 50th Anniversary Tour in ‘19, and beyond. Surrealistic Pillow is a beautiful album, at the same time the band is just starting to show their teeth. I think Crown Of Creation is an equally good representation of where JA was at the time of it’s release, as well. Great job Abby, thank you! 👍
Hi Abigail! Love your channel. The first show I saw was Jefferson Airplane and Quicksilver Messenger Service at the original Fillmore Auditorium on Fillmore Street (that's in San Francisco, lol) in 1967. I was 12, taken by my 18 year Old Sister, Sue. (yes, of course she was known as Suzie Creamcheese!) Even though I followed them forever I agree with you that Surrealistic Pillow is the "High Water Mark"
What an excellent commentary and analysis of a fantastic album. I really enjoyed watching this video.
there was a brief mention of legacy , with the undeniable statement that the grateful dead came out ahead on that calculation. The Dead never stumbled into anything as odorous as the Jefferson Starship singing" we built this city "
Do not know how I rant into this channel, But it has been awesome. Is sixties and seventies are by far my favorite music.
This album along with a few others got me into trouble. This kind of music Definitely it's looked down upon in some pockets down here. Is keep up the amazing work Abigail
Around 1968 came my neighbour visit me with the LP Surrealistic Pillow. And smoke we did! ... Thank you Abigail!! (greetings from Amsterdam)
Excellent video! My faves are DCBA-25, Today, Comin’ Back To Me, Embryonic Journey, but all of it, really!
Dig the earrings, Owsley would have as well....Nice take on JA....Aloha
My favorite American band in all its various incarnations. They were fantastic, sloppy, graceful, controversial, political, and stunning. The musical chops are first rate both instrumentally and vocally. They were a wildly mercurial live act as attested to by all the various live material they released officially or what can be found on bootleg. This is a band that soars. The version of Somebody To Love on Bless Its Pointed Little Head(live album) is a band rocking on all cylinders with all members unique talents contributing to a stunning performance. This album and Sgt. Pepper are my favorite summer of love albums.
I remeber I had to special order this album at a record store in the 1970s. It was a pivotal album that got lost in the release by others. I bought it after the release of The Worth of the Jefferson Airplane as I recall because the best tracks on that album were in it.
Fun Fact: for whatever reason, the producers of that infamous nineties sitcom Friends chose Embryonic Journey to close out their finale.
a perfect example of “i don’t understand this choice but i do respect it”
Absolutely love this album! And one of my fave tracks is "Coming Back To Me"... sublime! But as much as I love this album, I enjoy Bathing At Baxter's and Crown Of Creation more... hope you take a look at those two at some point soon! Cheers!
Thank you Abby to consider the album"Surrealistic Pillow by Jefferson Airplane, It bring's me nostalgia.I was twelve year's old when it was release in 1967.There are three essentials album's on the summer of love in 1967.The album "Surrealistic Pillow" by Jefferson Airplane;the debut album by the Door's ,and the classic album "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Band by the Beatles.Three Classic album's From 1967.
Since they've been brought up on the series before, I think it would be cool if you did a vinyl Monday episode on a tally hall album
Also: 3/5 of a mile is definitely underrated. It's probably my favorite from this album
i've considered doing a tally hall video on the series. i now own both marvin's and good & evil, and now that i think of it i should have a preorder of hawaii part 2 coming soon...
if joe hawley joe hawley ever gets a vinyl run, god help us all (and my wallet)
❤Thanks😢You got it
Compliments to the " Spiritual Advisor " Jerry Garcia & love the 2 Marty tracks that close Side 1 " Today " & " Comin Back To Me ". Paul Simon complained that there was to much echo on the record yet listen to " The Boxer " .. One of my favorite records of the 60's. Spectacular.
The mono version has less echo. Or verb... You never know... Stereo is still kind of fresh back at this time, and sometimes stereo receivers and turn tables had a habit of phase cancelling... Which would cause things that were in mono to disappear. And things that were and stereo to be enhanced... For instance, in a song that has vocals in the center and then music instruments off to the left or right, and also a stereo reverb, this would cause the vocals to get quieter, And the reverb to get louder...
He's right, at least as far as the stereo mix goes. The mono is fine.
All the echo on "The Boxer" works there. It's not a matter of a standard amount of echo for anything...it's, like everything which goes into a recording, whatever serves the music best that you do.
Hi , J .A . were my mate's fav band , thanks !
You absolutely must get the MoFi 45 RPM release of this album… it sounds absolutely phenomenal. I feel like I can actually HEAR the music and all of its intricacies for the very first time, as if I’m listening to the master tapes directly.
i've been eyeing either the OG mono rockaway press or the pink vinyl reissue from 2015. maybe both!
I have the sundazed mono reissue and it’s very good.
@@abigaildevoeBoth of those are good; I think you’d be happy with either, but if you were to hear the MoFi, you’d instantly be blown away when compared to those other two options. The MoFi is obviously pretty expensive but it’s absolutely worth it! Ultimately though, obviously these things are pretty personal decisions based on numerous factors so whatever works best for you! But if you one day find a friend who owns the MoFi, definitely have them spin it up for you so you can at least hear the stereo mix properly presented in all its glory. 😊
I'm a huge JA fan, even have their ultra rare uncensored takes off stereo. I have a whopping 7 pressings of Surrealistic Pillow and this is how I'd rate them....(BTW you said mofi was stereo but it's the mono mix, which is why it sounds so good. It's just got a great Soundstage where it's easy not to notice it's mono. The dcc is the only audiophile stereo pressing)....
1. Mofi mono
2. 1st US mono
3. 1st UK mono(different track list)
4. Sundazed mono
5. Dcc stereo
6. Japan stereo
7. 1st US stereo
The mofi for me is the best pressing, however the original is extremely close. They're just different. The original has a more lively high end, more air between the instruments, while too bright at points. While the mofi has higher resolution, wider Soundstage, more detail, way more bass, and having white rabbit on one side without groove distortion at 45rpm is fricken amazing.
The sundazed is extremely good too, but due to price hikes it's not worth it over an original for the same price, or a bit more for the mofi.
If I could only pick one id pick the mofi, however if I didn't own a mono original I'd be more likely to get a 1st pressing, because the mofi does sound different and it's nice to have the historical artifact. Even though I prefer the mofi, I feel it's a tad bit overrated due to most never having heard the mono before owning it. Like it's still an improvement, but not as vast as some may state. However it'd completely blow away anyone who only owns the stereo. For example, on a site that compares dynamics, the original had a slightly better dynamic high. But the mofi makes it more balanced with alot more bass so it feels more dynamic and is alot clearer.
The best this album sounds is by far in mono due to not having all that reverb. Any version is good to have. Considering the mofi is so expensive, if you're not a huge fan, I'd probably get an original because it's still an amazing experience. However, if you love the album I'd definitely get the mofi, or atleast backorder at music direct for $60.There are rumors that it may go out of print soon, so the next time it gets repressed may be the last. On musicdirect it's worth placing a backorder since it doesn't charge until shipped.
Also don't get the colored one(MOV) over an OG. It's stereo and not nearly as good as the mono. Its decent for a stereo pressing though, but not much better than the 1st stereo and may even be worse. It's expensive purely due to the color vinyl gimmick. The 2017 "we are vinyl" pressing uses the same plates, so has the same sound, and is only like $20 shipped. So don't waste on the pink one, go with the 1st if not the mofi.
Also the volunteers mofi is awesome as well. It's quite an improvement on the original as well. It's an extremely underrated album amongst today due to having no singles due to its political content. It has some of their best songs. We can be together is amazing and aged extremely well where it'd message is still very impactful. Wooden ships is also beautiful, along with the amazing good Shephard. Its a shame its lost alot of recognition over time along with their other non pillow albums. Anyway, JA and surrealistic pillow are awesome, and even with MOFI's hit or miss nature and the DSD scandal, their JA albums are the best they've ever sounded and we'll worth backordering for $60.
so glad to see you review this album. a crux of my own listening history. a special note on the day Paul Kantner died it was a strong story across the wire and rock stations everywhere. sad note, signe died the same day. that broke me more than the news of paul. she had moved back to her home state to raise her child and stayed in the music industry locally. her voice is, like you said, a precursor to grace's ability to fill those incredible shoes. keep up the good work kiddo.
Wow Abby wow, that’s great, one of your best! Here’s a memory for you.. I saw an Airplane show in Toronto. It was the pre-digital era, yeah.. so the accompanying light show was an old school overhead projector: a few drops of water, and different coloured drops of food colouring were placed on the surface. Then a transparent sheet of plastic was set on to it, and wiggled around while the band played. The wiggly blotches of coloured water projected on the wall behind the band was the light show. We thought it was almost as good as the music!!
I don't have a vinyl copy of this album, but I remember the 1970-71 2nd or 3rd pressing if "Volunteers" was horrible sounding - all flat mud! As a vinyl enthusiast like you, one of the rare times I can say I'm thankful for the later re- mastering to digital for that album and Todd Rundgren's long LP 'S like A Wizard A True Star and Initiation. Also Surrealistic Pillow on CD sounds fine!
Nicely done, as usual, Abby. I remember checking out "Surrealistic Pillow" on vinyl decades ago from a local library when I was in college, but I can't remember if I listened to the whole thing. Love the three tracks I remember hearing from that album: "Embryonic Journey," "Somebody to Love" and "White Rabbit." Shawn R., Mo-Mutt Music/Sacred & Secular
I'm fairly new to your channel and really enjoying your videos. I like these deep dives into these albums, they're very well done. I keep learning new things about albums I've been listening to for years. And I especially love that you use Circle Sky for your transitions!
Well Alice, you have gone and done another Yeoman’s effort on reviewing a favourite album I remember buying as soon as it came out. Still have the original in superb condition. I remember when the Airplane and the Dead came to Toronto for a 6 night stint at the O’Keefe Centre downtown from 31 July to 5 August 1967. Bill Graham promoted this and even though I believe he was generally averse to free shows, one was nevertheless given at Nathan Phillip’s Square where the new City Hall is located. I remember well skipping classes and attending this show on the 23rd of July 1967. Toronto’s Haight Ashbury was called Yorkville and was only a few subway stops away from there, so most every one from Yorkville attended this show. When I googled to find the exact date, some information leads one to believe that there were actually two free concerts (news to me). One on 23 July, and one on 4 August. On the day I attended the venue was packed. I would have guessed 25,000 people or so, but the reviews vary from 10,000 to 50,000. Bill Graham had taken a liking to one of the bands from Yorkville, called “Luke and the Apostles” who opened the free concert for The Airplane. [The Dead didn’t play the free Gig (or gigs) as I think he was mainly pushing the Airplane, on what was a big selling album (#3) with two big singles. The dead had only recently signed a record deal and their first album was only released 4 months previously, never charting higher than 73] What I remember was, that the Apostles’ performance was so exceptional that the Airplane’s was anticlimactic. Blown out of the water. Paul Rothschild, of Doors fame, had signed them to Elektra in late 1965, took them to New York in February 1966 to record a single, but before it was released, Rothchild was arrested for possession of grass. The single was put on hold while he served a year in prison. In 1967 they were being courted by both Albert Grossman and Bill Graham and performing frequently in NYC and Toronto. The band fell apart through major disagreements as to the path forward and disbanded without ever releasing anything other than the one single that wasn’t even emblematic of their real music. Their actual genre was hard rocking classic blues based rock ‘n’ roll. They reunite off and on from time to time, and still sound great even in their dotterage. So many good psychedelic albums of that year. Two I very much like, which are often overlooked, are: “Winds of Change” released October 1967 and “ The Twain Shall Meet” recorded December 1967, released May 1968. Both by Eric Burdon and the Animals. Cheers Abigale.
man i wouldn't have had a clue about frank and the apostles, thanks for tipping me off to them. their story sounds like so many other groups at the time. between love, the doors, and the 5, i'm inclined to think elektra records was cursed! the airplane were still figuring out their live chemistry at the time of your show, so i don't doubt your claim of the airplane being anticlimactic
@@abigaildevoe Yes, and it’s still that way. Seems like every city or town of any size had one or more local act of substance, who for a sundry of possible reasons, were but a talented big fish in a small town/pond. Many here, and many throughout the states. It’s fun when someone turns you onto to one. Unfortunately these guys never issued an album or singles of what they could do. Their lead guitarist, Mike McKenna, subsequently joined another local band of merit for awhile, called “The Ugly Ducklings” ( not the rappers of the same name) but that band had previously only released one album called “Somewhere Outside” in 1966. Very good blues based garage rock with one or two songs verging on psychedelia. Only a small number were pressed, befitting a regionally popular band. All in all, one of my most favourite albums. One powerful single from it was called “Nothing”. Over the years it became a massive collectors item with garage/psych collectors and copies became outrageously expensive, and “Then Came The Dawn”. Oh sorry that was a prunes’ lyric slip. I meant to say, and then came the counterfeiters from all around. Eventually legitimate releases have occurred around the world, including by “Sundazed” in New York. Back in the day I actually liked the “Ducklings” a little more than “ Luke and The Apostles”. McKenna and Garcia apparently really hit it off, and there are some stories there. You probably know this already but my prunes slip above is quoted from an extremely massive psychedelic hit in 1966 by, “The Electric Prunes”, entitled “I Had Too Much to Dream Last Night”. Probably my most favourite psych song ever. By the way, may you keep doing what you do, because you do it very well.
Great album I own a mono reissue of this album the first time I heard while rabbit 🐇 I heard when I was watching the sopranos keep it up abby
Great review, thanks!
Really loved this
Possibly my favorite album EVER!
Congrats on the excellent OG 'Takes Off'! That's really awesome.
A few random thoughts: This week's outfit is on point! 1960s stereo mixes were a total mess where the instruments were panned randomly, I guess it took a while for producers to figure out what stereo was? I will never forgive the early Jimi Hendrix stereo mixes. "Feed your head" is such an iconic statement and moment in pop culture. I'm not a big fan of the album tbh. It's a mess to me, and the sound is off-putting. If you think guitarists are bad for your health, try drummers lol. My favorite thing about Surrealistic Pillow is all the bands it inspired, sort of like how the Velvet Underground & Nico inspired a generation of musicians. Can we get a "Blue" Monday? Joni Mitchell is woefully under represented in the 60s and 70s conversations.
Thanks for another great video and recommendation! Glad you covered it
the OG stereo mixes of hendrix albums were well and truly all over the place. they did the best they could with ladyland! but oh man did i get ragged on for preferring mono are you experienced over stereo lol
i have big far future plans for blue on vinyl monday :)
@@abigaildevoe Who ragged on you for preferring mono?? That's such a random thing to rag on someone for lol. Glad to hear you've got plans for Blue
Bless it's Pointy Little Head, w a drunk Jack Cassidy on the cover was their live album - needed mentioning. Has my vote as their second best record. Airplane, like so many bands (and authors) had one really good first project, but could never match it again.
That was an amazing, trippy album when it came out and I think you nailed it as the best album of the summer of love, capturing the feel so great. I like Baxters even better. The music on that one really soared.
surrealistic pillow captured san fran in 67 SO well. the beatles nailed the feeling in britain with sgt. pepper's, and the doors captured laurel canyon that year on self-titled
@@abigaildevoe True. Sgt. Peppers was truly revolutionary. Amazing album!
Abby/Alice goes follows the White Rabbit down the rabbit hole. And we are right with her!
Your research is impeccable
I absolutely love this record, my favorite hippie album
Jefferson Airplane is so great, so much remarkable history before, during and after it. I couldn't help to notice your Alice outfit which couldn't be more appropriate for reviewing an album with White Rabbit.
it's not every day i get to break out the alice outfit, this episode was the perfect excuse
@@abigaildevoe Indeed it was. Another perfect excuse would be on a Southern Accents by Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers review, but I don't know if 80's music is also your thing.
thank you. you're wonderful