William's Song a Day Blog - est. September 2007

From: Blows Against the Empire ; Year: 1970; Genre: Space Rock/Folk Rock Picking two today because I wanted to choose another track from this album: Have You Seen the Stars Tonight? However, the track the precedes it, Home is only 37 seconds long and is kind of a lead-in, so I thought it was a good idea. Anywho, both of these tracks are comprised of basically the who's who of the Bay Area music scene with members of The Grateful Dead, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, and, of course, Jefferson Airplane. Home has more of the expected science fiction music and sound effects, but Have You Seen the Stars Tonight? is more of a psychedelic space folk primarily with acoustic instruments and features Jerry Garcia's pedal steel work, which adds a lot of beauty to the song along with Grace Slick's piano playing.   Hear Home and Have You Seen the Stars Tonight? on YouTube.         My song pick 1 year ago today: Molly Hatchet - Backstabber     My song pick 2 y...

From: Blows Against the Empire ; Year: 1970; Genre: Psychedelic Rock/Space Rock Been decompressing from being on the road out of town and am definitely using things like this blog to help get back to homeostasis you could say. Anyway, I have had this concept record by Paul Kantner and company on my mind off and on over the last bit and decided now would be a good time to choose another track from it. This is the "grand finale" of the "space opera" concept, which features a big group of who's who from the folk rock scene at the time contributing on this track and a few others. Starship features the lead guitar of the late-great Jerry Garcia, although you really wouldn't need to be told that because it is so obvious his sound and style. Also David Crosby and Graham Nash add some backing vocals, also Harvey Brooks on bass and other Jefferson Airplane alumni Grace Slick and David Freiberg as well. As you would guess, it's a rather big sounding progressive p...