| Supergirl | 62% | |
| Spider-Man | 60% | |
| Superman | 55% | |
| Robin | 52% | |
| Green Lantern | 50% | |
| Wonder Woman | 47% | |
| Hulk | 45% | |
| Iron Man | 45% | |
| The Flash | 40% | |
| Catwoman | 30% | |
| Batman | 25% |
What is the Journal of Trionic Physics?
Site Index --- Photos --- Links --- JA FAQ --- Recordings --- Performance --- Books --- Interviews --- Various Trips --- Resources
Mirrored over at LiveJournal if you'd like to comment.
5 September 2007: Outta Sight!Here's a great bit of jive 60's DJ speak from the close of the 31 October 1969 LA forum show.
1 September 2007: Hoody Hoo!
I've updated the Knights of the Dinner Table story index at the KenzerCo website. Andy Miller and I had updated Jason Zavoda's original index about this time last year, from issue 84 through 116. The latest update is complete up to the current issue, number 130.
Andy Miller is currently writing summaries for the major KODT story arcs. It's a valuable resource for KODT fans -- But skip it if you haven't read the strips yet!
13 August 2007: Happy 42th
My favorite Jefferson Airplane song is probably Young Girl Sunday Blues. Marty Balin's only contribution to "After Bathing at Baxter's" this song represents a pivotal moment: Marty's withdrawal from the creative center of what had been his band. A major cause was probably Jack and Jorma's desire to play in a Cream-style hard rock / blues band, and their open hostility to Marty's romantic pop predilections. Another factor was the ascendance of Grace as the focal point of the band, at least as far as the general public was concerned. Have you ever seen the video of a glowering Marty, standing in the background as the band lip-syncs White Rabbit and Somebody to Love on American Bandstand?
I've never found a truly satisfying version of Young Girl Sunday Blues, but here's a pretty good version (5.3 MB mp3) from the 31 October 1969 show at the Forum in Los Angeles, California.
If only Marty had been more strident, maybe we'd have more live versions of Today and Young Girl Sunday Blues and fewer versions of Uncle Sam Blues (of which, "none" would be enough.)
7 August 2007: Sweeping up the Spotlight ( Sony/BMG/RCA/Legacy)
I haven't been keeping up with the latest Jefferson Airplane news, and didn't notice this CD when it was released a few months back. It's a selection from the 28-29 November 1969 shows at the Fillmore East.
There are some good performances here, but not any great ones. The Airplane had finished transforming themselves from an experimental folk-pop-blues collective to a rock band, and were not as interesting as they used to be. The highlight of the disc is Jack Casady's solo during "The Ballad of You, Me and Pooneil".
The best reason to buy and listen to this CD is the quality of the recording. Crystal clear, with an extraordinary mix; Paul Kantner and Jorma Kaukonen's guitars are evenly and cleanly separated. Jack's bass is mixed a little too far back, but that's a minor quibble -- it might sound better on your stereo. Most of the credit probably belongs to Bill Irwin, who produced and mastered the record.
Grace Slick fans beware: her only solo turn is on "White Rabbit", and her voice was not in top form that night.
13 May 2007: Doesn't mean shit to a tree ...
By request, Eskimo Blue Day, from a 3 June 2000 performance at The Bottom Line, NYC.
This was the tour they played the entire "Volunteers" album. The initial shows of this tour were advertised as "Jefferson Airplane's Volunteers", which led to Jack Casady quitting Jefferson Starship (so far, for good), and to Paul Kantner suing himself.
I don't think Jefferson Airplane played this one live much. Scott Abbot's JABase could confirm this, but I've lost the link for the latest revision. Anybody know where it is?
13 September 2006: Not that there's anything wrong with that...
Sure, Internet quizzes are dumb. But this one looked like fun: "Which Superhero are you?"
OK, lemme try it ... Look! It's a bird, it's a plane, it's ...
You are: Supergirl
Lean, muscular and feminine.
Honest and a defender of the innocent.
|
|
Click here to take the Superhero Personality Test
21 August 2006: Happy Belated 41st
Here's what I consider the High Water mark of Jefferson Starship: St. Charles (7.8 MB mp3). This particular version is from a 7 July 1976 show in New York's Central Park.
For me, the last good recording was Dragon Fly. After that, the only Jefferson Anything album I can listen to is Paul Kantner's Planet Earth Rock and Roll Orchestra (1984).
After Spitfire(1) came the horrendous Earth, and then the lamentable Mickey Thomas era. But here's a little bit of the old spirit: the Kantner / Balin collaboration, the glorious three part harmonies, Paul's signature melding of ancient mythology and science fiction -- and a great bass part by Pete Sears that evokes memories of Jack Casady.
You can put a marker here: 11 years after the founding of Jefferson Airplane, 30 years ago before today -- the end of Jefferson Starship.
Notes
(1) There's a illustration on the back cover of the LP that suggests that St. Charles
might have been considered as the name for this album.
5 July 2006: In an alternate reality...
... there I am, up on stage with Jimmy Durante, singing an hellacious harmony on "When Irish Eyes are Smiling". Boy, I sound great! And I remember all the words, even for the second verse. Of course we bring the house down!We had a terrible storm whip through last night. It really looked like the big maple out front was going to come down. The power's off, and I don't expect it to come on 'til tomorrow. But jeez, after a dream like that, how could I not wake up feeling like a million bucks?
9 May 2006: The Magic Christian Rides Again ...
... or, Why I Like to Use Credit Cards
One of the urinals in the Men's Room at work has been leaking for a couple of months now. I don't know if it's the drain that's leaking, but there's always a puddle on the floor underneath, and a foul, ammonia-like (1) smell in the air.
Today there was a well-soaked twenty dollar bill lying in the puddle. Should I pick up the dough? Of course not, how repellent! (2)
The next time I went in for a leak the twenty was gone.
Notes
(1) It smells like PISS of course. Can you say that on the Internet?
(2) I gotta keep a pair of rubber gloves in my desk.
28 April 2006: It ain't what you want, it's what you need: Here's "Sketches of China" (7.1 MB mp3) live at The Spectrum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on 5 April 1974. This is Jefferson Starship's first tour; Paul and Grace having finally gotten tired of waiting for Jack and Jorma to put their skates down. It's near the end of that extraordinary period of creativity for the Kanter/Slick partnership, stretching from Blows Against the Empire through Dragon Fly. This tour highlighted material from Manhole and Baron Von Tollbooth and the Chrome Nun. David Frieberg is back on board, Peter "Kangaroo" Kaukonen is on bass, and the new guy is Craig Chaquico.
There was another tour at the end of that year, featuring material from Dragon Fly, with Pete Sears replacing Peter Kaukonen. Marty re-joined at the last show of that tour, when he sang "Caroline" at Winterland. That for me marks the real end of Jefferson Airplane -- there were occasional, frustrating flashes of the old brilliance -- "There Will Be Love" and "St. Charles" -- but the music that followed is something that I really don't listen to much.
25 March 2006: Banned in China!: While doing a bit of egosurfing, I stumbled across a paper by a couple of eggheads at Harvard Law School that lists trionic.org as a site blocked by Internet censors in China.
Why? Is "Thunk" Hu Jintao's favorite song?
Most likely we're blocked because of the Chinese policy to block URLs that redirect to another site. There is not an IP address corresponding to trionic.org; instead, requests for trionic.org are forwarded by your local DNS to the physical location of this site at verizon.net
Another study by the same authors listing sites censored by Saudi Arabia doesn't include trionic.org.
So, have you heard the one about Jesus, Mohammed, and the donkey?
22 February 2006: Come Back Baby : ... in this case, Come Back Spencer! Here's "Come Back Baby" (7.4 Mb mp3) from a 14 Sep 1970 show at the Fillmore West. It's about six months after Jack and Jorma got their fondest wish, driving out Spencer Dryden for the more muscular Joey Covington. Joey's strengths are best displayed in the virtuoso pounding he lays out on "Plastic Fantastic Lover" on the Fly Jefferson Airplane DVD, but Spencer's sound was irreplaceable. Jefferson Airplane was a pale shadow ever after.
14 Feb 2006: World's Best JA/JS/HT reference source: I stumbled across this great resource for Jefferson Airplane fans -- Guido Reyskens' Jefferson Airplane / Starship / Hot Tuna magazine collection. There are more than one thousand print references here!
24 November 2005: Jon Anderson: At Marlizinha's urging, we went to the Jon Anderson show on 10 Nov 2005 at the fabulous Birchmere. Marlizinha is a fan of his 1994 album Deseo, and I was a moderate Yes fan back in the day. I only went to one show ( 15 Aug 1977) , and I remember it as a great performance. The highlight was Steve Howe, Chris Squire and Rick Wakeman all playing the same extended part on "Close to the Edge." And I guess I wasn't hallucinating, Squire really did play a three-necked guitar.Back to the Future: It seemed much the same crowd at the Birchmere as was at that 1977 show: a little greyer, a bit thicker around the middle. Yeah, I got to thinking that back in 1977 this night was something I could have imagined as a science fiction scenario: A room full of old people, but everybody didn't have the same haircut, and nobody was wearing an ugly polyester shirt (And, like that new movie Star Wars, they were all white people.) Yup, here I was watching a hale and hearty 50-something geezer (Wow, that 21st century medicine must be awesome!) performing in front of a screen with images generated by computer (You could make a movie from those images! And call it TRON!) And the beer! Sure, you could still order Budweiser, but I had this fabulous stuff called (get this!) Dogfish Head Pale Ale! Har!
Back to 2005: Anderson was performing solo, mostly accompanying himself on guitar, with the aid of some pedal-driven electronic wizardry. His guitar work was a bit amateurish, but the arrangements were quite good. He's got an engaging stage presence that burnishes that wonderfully idiosyncratic voice. We both enjoyed the show tremendously.
In between songs, Anderson told quite a few stories -- about his adventures, his collaborators, how songs were inspired, what he's doing now -- a delightful storyteller, with a seemingly genuine manner and a wonderful Irish accent. He apologized for rambling on, but I would have been happy to listen to a few more stories!
An added bonus: Given his high register, the necessary reworking of Yes songs for a solo acoustic performance, and the unfamiliarity of his non-Yes catalog to many people, there wasn't much of that annoying fan sing-along.
One negative: "Owner of a Lonely Heart" in the solo acoustic arrangement is still a lousy song.
Probably my Twenty-First Century Science Fiction scenario didn't have Rock Superstar Jon Anderson signing autographs in the lobby after the show, but as my Dad always said, "Truth is stranger than fiction."
A great show, highly recommended.
24 September 2005: High priced, pre-cleaned, real fine nicotine: This version of "3/5 of a Mile in 10 Seconds" (7.0 Mb mp3) is from the end of September, beginning of October 1966. From the fragmentary evidence in Scott Abbot's JABase I'd wager that this might be one of the earliest, if not the earliest existing recording of a live performance of new material from Surrealistic Pillow (the show commonly circulated as 22 Jul 1966 is almost certainly from a much later date.) An especially interesting version because this show was before Signe's exit, and the backing vocal features Paul only.
8 September 2005: Before the Hair Bands...
... there was Deep Purple, featuring original Shredmeister Ritchie Blackmore, and a bunch of guys named Ian.
For all you kids out there: if you really want to know what it was like for your parents back in the day, light up a doobie, suck down a six-pack of Miller, the Champagne of Bottled Beer, and listen to "Child in Time" from Made in Japan.
Caution: Don't play it on eight-track in a 1968 Camaro. Display such an arrogant disregard for the integrity of the space-time continuum and you might find yourself caught in a timewarp and thrown back to 1974, facing the onslaught of Disco armed only with a fringed suede jacket and a bad haircut.
19 August 2005: Happy Belated 40th: Picked up a CD (through the good folks at JeffersonFamilyTrading) with a collation of various Jefferson Airplane performances from 1965-67, as presented by Bill Graham on KSAN radio at some time in the distant past. It includes three songs from the famous 6 Nov 1965 Mime Troupe Benefit, and the sophistication of that performance belies the legend that the early Airplane were a ragged bunch on stage.
For those of you with a broadband connection, here's a sample from a little later on, probably pretty early in Grace's term, Go To Her (archived). Turn up the gain and you can hear her read through the lyrics in her Boris and Natasha voice. 19 March 2005: Young Girl Sunday Blues: I'm celebrating turning on the fire hose this weekend; that is, my new DSL connection. Oh yeah, beats the hell outta the ol' 300 baud acoustic modem, don't it?This unimaginably great site has a ton of recent Jefferson Starship video. Check out a scorching version (18 Feb 2005) of my favorite Jefferson Airplane song (this week, anyway) Young Girl Sunday Blues. Wow! Almost enough for me to quit my post Jack Casady boycott and start going to shows again.
11 Mar 2005: Oh, yeah: The famous trek of Jefferson Airplane to Iowa for the Grinnell College 1966 Homecoming Dance (one of Grace Slick's first shows) is previewed in the 14 October 1966 Scarlet & Black. 20 Feb 2005: Sing, O muse! the glory of the Chronic: Finally watched (on DVD) last year's great Stoner movie, Harold and Kumar go to White Castle. It's spectacularly hilarious, with plenty of gut-busting laughs. Slows down a little in the second half, but it still kicks the snot out of any comedy I've seen in a long while.I loved it, even though I probably missed plenty of the jokes, old fart that I am. I mean, an aged child star snorting coke off a stripper's ass while hanging out of the moon roof of a speeding Toyota is funny, but I imagine it would resonate a bit more with someone who watched Doogie Howser at an impressionable age.
You kids today don't know how great you have it! Christ, when we were your age, all we had were Cheech and Chong movies. Ever see one of those? Excruciating; just collections of barely funny drug references stretched out into ten minute sketches. Oh sure, we thought it was funny. Must have been all that New York White we were smoking.
Really, really a great movie. You might want to avoid it if scatological humor offends you, or if the least bit of non-politically correct humor charges you with outrage. You could instead recreate the experience (in a strictly non-judgmental, multi-culturally sensitive fashion) by heading out to Whole Foods. Just stick your hands into the free samples and comment loudly, to no one in particular, how you have a terrific case of the munchies.
14 Feb 2005: Reality Shift: When did it happen? I've just realized that I've been transported to a parallel universe. The tipoff: Y'all spell the word "Vacumn" as "Vacuum" here.
26 Nov 2004: Mars Crossing: Just finished Mars Crossing, by Geoffrey Landis. It was sitting on my shelf for a while, but I avoided it due to "Mars Burnout" contracted after slogging through Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy.
In this novel, the Third Martian Expedition tries to accomplish what the first two expeditions to Mars couldn't -- survival. It's a galloping, well-written adventure story, if somewhat melodramatic. The story is driven by flashbacks illuminating the crew's pasts, and by the intrigues that develop among them as the action unfolds.
Landis, who is a NASA scientist, is probably as much as an authority on blue sky extra-terrestrial planetary hardware as you'll find. I'm willing to believe that much of what he's described here is within the realm of possibility (though sadly, not probability) for thirty years down the road. He's also a fine writer who reveals that although Mars might appear at first glance a barren, monochrome landscape, it is actually a place of great beauty and wonder.
28 Oct 2004: Sox Win!: Big whoop. I'm a native New Englander, but not much of a sports fan, and never a Sox (1) fan.
I left Rhode Island about the time of the Bucky "Fucking" Dent incident, which was the real start of the Curse. But the "Curse of the Bambino" makes for a great story, and the narrative would have been much better if the Red Sox had lost to the Cards in seven, after some suitable ignominious incident (2).
Oh well. I hoist a Ballantine Ale, and salute those legions of New England fans who went to the grave unfulfilled, even with all those Celtics championships, and the occasional Super Bowl triumph.
Notes
(1) Pronounced as a nasal Socks in Providence, not the
Sawx you hear as you get closer to the Hub of the Universe.
(2) My Dad had Enos "Country Boy" Slaughter as a PE instructor when he was in the Army Air Force during WWII. If the officers weren't looking, good ol' Enos (probably good ol' hung over Enos) would lead calisthenics with "Alright boys, finger exercises. Index fingers ready! And one, two, three, four ... "
14 Oct 2004: Henry Adams, on Samuel Langley: "Like so many great observers, Langley was not a mathematician, and like most physicists, he believed in physics. Rigidly denying himself the amusement of philosophy, which consists chiefly in suggesting unintelligible answers to insoluble problems, he still knew the problems, and liked to wander past them in a courteous temper, even bowing to them distantly as though recognizing their existence, while doubting their respectibility." 13 Sep 2004: Kill Bill, Vol. 1: A truly awful film. Picture a comic book drawn by a not-particularly-precocious 12 year old. The 5,6,7,8's were cool, though. 1 July 2004: Jorge Ben Jor: Tuesday night, at the fabulous Birchmere in Arlington, Va. A good show, with Jorge fronting a stellar eight piece band that he generously gave a lot of space. My only quibble: the middle of the show was stuck in the same groove, as Jorge charged through several songs in a somewhat monotonous fashion. But in his defense, he does have a colossal list of hits spanning a forty year career, and in a two hour show he was still forced to leave out plenty. And WTF, he is the master of the groove.And master of the rhythm guitar, who's not beyond throwing in a nice little solo now and then. Tuesday night's highlight was a great feedback drenched rave-up at the end of Filho Maravilha.
Speaking of drenched, with that non-stop two hour groove it was pretty near impossible to avoid dancing through the entire show. Yup, standing out there in front of the horns, screaming "Moro num pais tropical!" I'll bet nobody suspected I was just another mook from Providence.
24 June 2004: Blood and Thunder: Just finished "The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian", an anthology featuring the early tales of Robert E. Howard's famous character. The editor claims this is the first volume of Conan stories "published as Howard wrote them, in the order that he wrote them, in a uniform collection." Here for the first time, he says, is a Conan collection undiluted by bad editing, rewriting, or posthumous 'collaboration.' I had never read anything by Howard, but I have read plenty of genre fiction, Leiber's Nehwon and Moorcock's Elric stories being among my favorites. Howard turns out to be a very good writer, and suffers not at all in translation to the present day. Although these stories are all pretty lightweight stuff, there's a dark edge to all of them, impressive when considering the constraints of 1930's pulp fiction. Yes, Conan always triumphs over impossible odds, often rescuing the damsel in distress from eldritch horrors and ravening ghouls, but only after he and the people around him suffer through terrible evil. To Howard's credit, the mundane evil of their world, familiar enough to our own, makes the supernatural horrors pale considerably. If you enjoy genre fiction, you'll appreciate this volume, representing as it does a prime source of all that has followed. The Robert E. Howard United Press Association Heroes of Dark Fantasy 9 May 2004: Salad Dressing Necromancers -- That's gotta be about the best Subject line of any EMail I've ever received ... Spam, of course. 25 Jan 2004: A welcome Sunday visitor to our aging silver maple, a Pileated Woodpecker (Dryocopus pileatus.) We also saw a Downy Woodpecker (Picoides pubescens) and a Red-bellied Woodpecker (Melanerpes carolinus) today, outriders, perhaps, for a snow storm heading our way. 16 Dec 2003: I don't really enjoy the Broadway Show genre, so it was with some trepidation that I went to Washington's National Theatre last week to see Mamma Mia . Surprise! I enjoyed the show -- quite a bit I guess, since I've been wearing out Marlizinha's copy of ABBA's Greatest Hits ever since. And there's the rub: Onto the eye-rolling silliness of the cliched Broadway Musical are grafted some of Pop Music's greatest tunes. E Street is not the Great White Way, so the quality of this production wasn't top-notch. The male leads were a little weak, and there were only a couple of real dancers in the ensemble. But the gals in the cast were great, and the show was great fun. If you like ABBA, you'll love it. 12 Nov 2003: I've been listening to the Swimmimg Pool Q's spectacular new recording, The Royal Academy of Reality . Run out right now and get this one! Somewhat misleadingly labelled a SPQs release, as it's mostly Jeff Calder, well supported by Phil Hadaway. Although the recording is keyboard/electronic heavy, there's still plently of great guitar by Bob Elsey. Anne Richmond Boston is limited to backing vocals, usually far back in the mix. But she's gloriously out front in the highlight track "The Radio in Memphis." 16 Oct 2003: A big, fat, hairy hunk o' Hippie Music -- "Light is Faster Than Sound" on the 1998 release Live at Winterlamd '68 from Big Brother and the Holding Company, although probably filed under Janis Joplin at your local record store (Columbia/Legacy CK 64869.) Wow! Worth the price of purchase. 10 Oct 2003: On the squawkbox today: Mecca, the 1996 release by the Memphis Pilgrims. A great collection of songs by Michael Falzarano on a well produced recording featuring fantastic performances by the Pilgrims and a bunch of friends and fellow travelers. For more details, check out my review, which they were nice enough to put on their website. Highly recommended.30 Sep 2003: Groovin' on "Adivinha O Que?" from Lulu Santos' 1998 De Leve (Globo 2108-2). Y'all can buy it at somlivre.globo.com. He's got a webpage at www.lulusantos.com.br, but you need a Flash plug-in and muito patience to download Megabits... I have neither, so I don't know what's there.
17 Sep 2003: Isabel is coming! ... 39N, 77W ... Wish me luck ... 8 July 2003: Four spacecraft are now sailing through the deep, bound for the Red Planet. Where are they now? Click on this link for an awe-inspiring look at an historic event. For more info on each mission: NASA:
Spirit
and Opportunity
Japan:
Nozomi
ESA:
Mars Express (with the Beagle 2 lander.)
24 June 2003 -- I'm well into "Got a Revolution", and enjoying it. I'd unreservedly recommend it for any JA fan. You can order a copy by going to Jeff Tamarkin's website. Here's a quote from Spencer Dryden: "We all -- Paul, Jorma, Grace and myself -- had guns. We weren't hippies. Hippies were the people that lived on the streets down in Haight-Ashbury. We were basically musicians and art school kids. We were into guns and machinery."
13 June 2003 -- I'm cleaning out my closet, and have some duplicate issues of magazines with Jefferson Airplane content. Check out the Memorabilia page if you've got something to trade.
5 June 2003 -- I've got Jeff Tamarkin's book in hand now, although I haven't started reading yet. Details at his promotional site gotarevolution.com, along with some bonus passages not included in the book.
