Rating: 
Summary: A 25-Year Backstage Pass
Review: A massive assignment, this book. Perhaps second only to the superhuman effort of Dennis McNally on JA(S)'s Bay-area colleagues The Grateful Dead. You feel like an accepted insider from the musicians' earliest days through the ups, downs, ins and outs. The writing is respectful but certainly not glossed over by fawning. The only reservation I would offer anyone is not to pick this book up about 10 p.m. because you'll be awake all night reading it.
Rating:
Summary: A Crowning Creation
Review: A text that will satisfy both the neophyte and the longtime fan, this book is the long overdue history of one of the premier bands of the 60's. Not content to merely recycle often seen promo pictures of the band, Jeff Tamarkin has included many previously unseen photos, including some submitted by the members of the fan list, 2400 Fulton. Being a member of that list myself, and in communication with some of the people who submitted material to the author, I can state that they are impressed with the attention to detail and accuracy of the finished product.
Beyond the technical aspects, it's a very readable book, communicating a lot of information in a succinct and frequently amusing manner. Even edited, as it is, from a much longer text, you don't get a feeling that anything was left out or glossed over. That most of the principals are still with us and made themselves available for interviews adds a texture of intimacy to the material. That Jeff Tamarkin is such a skilled writer makes this a most worthwhile addition to your library.
Rating:
Summary: PLEASE FASTEN YOUR SEATBELTS!!
Review: After long anticipation,this book does not disappoint.On the contrary,it goes into great detail without bias and reveals an amazing journey of a group of musicians who just wanted to make some noise.You get the feeling of being there at the Fillmore,Woodstock,Altamont and lots of other 'happenings'. Besides being a very in depth view,it's also an accurate snap shot of an era in music and American pop culture.I wish I could have been there but for now,this will do very nicely.
Rating:
Summary: A good history lesson for those who weren't there
Review: Because I was too young to be aware of them during the 60s, my first memory of this group was thru the songs Miracles and Runaway during the 70s and it's Starship period. Although I have certain fondness for these songs, many older fans view this era as lacking compared to their Airplane material. Even more fans find their 80s stuff less appealing...a sentiment with which I happen to agree. (We Built This City has to be one of the more excruciating songs of the 80s.)Learning about the Airplane thru articles and Behind the Music episodes, I was not impressed. All the members struck me as extremely self involved, childish, drama prone and spoiled. There seemed to be a lingering bitterness especially in regards to Marty Balin's feelings toward Grace Slick. But since the 60s are a continuing source of fascination for me, I picked up this book. Reading the book, I'm still not impressed with the individuals in the band as people. (No one comes off as particularly pleasant) But I did come away with an appreciation for their desire to push the envelope with their music. Even Grace Slick who has often appeared to take a blase attitude toward her music and life in general is shown as a relatively strong composer and musician. Tamarkin is effective at capturing the environment and atmosphere of San Francisco in the 60s and 70s. He also gives a fuller if not complete picture of peripheral band members such as Papa John Creach, Signe Anderson (the original female singer of Airplane) and others. We also learn of the band's failed business dealings and contract disputes. Overall it's a good history of the culture of the 60s and all it's craziness. I'd recommend that one read Joel Selvin's Summer of Love as a companion to this book. Those not familiar with the history will receive a fuller picture as a result.
Rating:
Summary: A book to treasure.
Review: Fans of the Airplane know that there's not much out there regarding the band; this book fills that void nicely. It is a fast moving yet detailed journey through the times of one of America's greatest bands. The author knows the band members and they all participated in this effort. Despite this, it is not by any means an "authorized" bio, gladly, it's a warts and all book that pulls no punches. It includes two long sections of photographs, many previously unseen, from the band members and others personal collections along with links to critical websites and a discography. The author has written liner notes for many of the bands albums over the years and knows his subject like no other. If your a fan of the Airplane or of music in general this is a no-brainer. You will not be dissapointed.
Rating:
Summary: Must read
Review: For any fan of the Airplane, this is a must-read. Very well written and readable; I couldn't put it down. I kept wanting to get to the next part about the recordings I know and love. Great job.
Rating:
Summary: Not For Fans Only
Review: For anyone interested in the history of pop music and/or culture during the last half of the 20th century, the story of Jefferson Airplane is a great one to be familiar with... With its roots in the early 60's and a hitmaking career that lasts into the 90's, to follow Airplane's storied career is to take a tour of decades of popular music eras that they themselves helped to define. Many band biographies are merely chronologically arranged trivia books, with an appeal that ultimately does not extend far outside of a circle of hardcore fans. Tamarkin's extraordinarily well-researched book rises above this by painting a richly textured picture of the culture that Airplane (and its various offshoots) sprang from and contributed to. Tamarkin also succeeds in bringing strong insights into the music with his critical assessments. Here, even the most casual reader can glean why the author would try to iron out such a sprawling, Wagnerian epic... The people who made such music MUST have a fascinating story to tell. They do, and Tamarkin conveys it brilliantly -- setting the bar a little bit higher for music journalism in the process.
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Summary: Jefferson Airplane Biography Takes Off!
Review: I have been looking forward to the publication of an authoritative book on Jefferson Airplane for a long time! Ten years ago (in my review of 'Jefferson Airplane Loves You' in Holding Together #16 in fact), I urged Jeff Tamarkin to use the wealth of inteview material he had amassed in researching the Box booklet as the basis for a full-length biography of Jefferson Airplane. If I'd had the time and the contacts, it's a project I would love to have undertaken myself. Tamarkin did have those opportunities - and it would appear that he's made the best of them, for at long last the book that he's written is out in the world. It runs to over 400 pages, including 16 pages of black and white photographs, some of which have not been published before. It has a foreword by Jan Wenner and an introduction by Paul Kantner. Tamarkin then proceeds, over the course of thirty five chapters, to tell the tale of the turbulent flight of the mighty airmachine - essentially from its inception in1965 until the Airplane re-union of 1989. In order to do this, he has interviewed most all of the (surviving) key participants in the turbulent tale - not only all the band members from the various incarnations of JA (and HT/JS) but many of the managers, producers, back-room staff and friends of the bands as well - and some of these he's interviewed more than once. (In fact, excerpts from some of the early interviews did appear in Relix magazine a few years ago.) He's taken all that information, some of it conflicting - as people's recollections and opinions inevitably differ - and has tried to make sense of it, forging it into a readable narrative of shape and substance. But after all the hard work on Tamarkin's part and the eager awaiting on ours, what you want to know is: is it a good book (in terms of style, content, veracity and explication)? The short answer is yes - at least on three and a half out of four counts; (I personally would have liked to read way much more analysis and interpretation - "the why of making music," as Kantner terms it in his introduction). What Tamarkin has produced is in fact a very good book. It's a highly readable account of the life and times of the band. The story is built up chronologically by introducing the key players one at a time, in each case supplying enough background to explain how they got to the point where they founded/joined Jefferson Airplane and in some cases how they came to exit it as well. For anyone previously unfamiliar with the detailed history of JA's inception and early days, this will make fascinating reading. Coverage of the remaining five years of Jefferson Airplane gets a slightly less comprehensive treatment and the life and times of Hot Tuna, Jefferson Starship (then SVT, Vital Parts and so on) even less so - though Tamarkin obviously does hit the key events and seismic shifts in some detail. What they did and what happened to them is entertainingly and faithfully narrated (the Matthew Katz legacy, the sexual pairings, the drug busts, the troubled relationship with RCA, the changes in personnel, the escalating craziness, the gradual emergence of Hot Tuna, Grace's alcohol intake, Marty's uncomfortable role in Jefferson Starship, the collapse of JS to Starship et cetera) and this is tied to the cultural and political events of the years as well (the rise of Hippie, the death of Hippie, assassinations, anti-war activities, the increasing polarisation of American society through the sixties, the long shadow of Republicanism, MTV and the rise of the global media jukebox). On the level of what happened it works well and there are many instances where Tamarkin is very insightful in relating external developments to what what was going down within Jefferson Airplane. He also provides many interesting details along the way: I did not know that Balin's submitted artwork for 'Surrealistic Pillow' was blue, not pink; that "Fat Angel" was inspired by Mama Cass Elliot; that Jorma was strung out on heroin during the Airplane reunion; who the inspiration was for Paul's song "Revolutionary Upstairs Maid." This is fascinating stuff. It also has a lot of very funny stories - Hot Tuna's Jamaican escapade and Reality D. Blipcrotch's vision for the 'One' album to name but two which actually had me laughing out loud. Naturally, there's also a wealth of great quotes; and generally these have been blocked out from the text for emphasis. Of course, much of what is written will not be new to hardcore Airplane fans and obsessives; nonetheless it is very valuable to have the whole story laid out end-to-end like this and to read verbatim Paul's or Marty's or Jorma's or whoever's comment on a certain event or individual. I enjoyed it and I'm sure that for anyone less steeped in knowledge of Jefferson Airplane /Hot Tuna/ Starship, 'Got A Revolution' will be compulsive and enlightening reading. Tamarkin rounds the whole saga out with a 'where are they now' section which is quite fascinating as it brings us up to date with what happened to over forty of the key and minor characters subsequent to 1989 (for the core crew) or whatever point they ceased to be directly involved in the flow. He then provides some useful reference sections at the end: a bibliography, a discography and a list of online sources/resources and an index. Everyone who loves the music of JA will want to read it and will come away with a better understanding of how it all happened. So thank you, Jeff Tamarkin, for your devotion to your subject, for your love of Jefferson Airplane and for your perseverance in bringing this book to life. For too long there has existed a hole on the musical bookshelf between The Jam and Elton John - this book handsomely fills that gap. I'm off to read it for a second time. I'll write a fuller review in the Airplane/Starship fanzine Holding Together.
Rating:
Summary: The First and Definitive Tribute to Jefferson Airplane
Review: I have in my treasure-trove of personal memorabilia a letter from a friend, postmarked from San Francisco in September 1965, where he describes hanging out with a newly formed band with the strange name of "Jefferson Airplane" and auditioning to be their lead singer. He didn't make the band; thus, when their debut album, Jefferson Airplane Takes Off, was released in mid-1966, he was not on it. My local record store didn't carry it, and no one who worked there had ever heard of them. How things would change within less than a year, when a song called "Somebody to Love" was all over the radio and Jefferson Airplane was all over television. Jefferson Airplane was a swirling mass of contradictions. Their fan club slogan, "Jefferson Airplane Loves You," was perfect for the Summer of Love, yet the band was split into two, sometimes three, contentious camps. Their politics were extreme radical left; they made no bones about embracing Red China, yet if they had ever appeared in that country, they would have undoubtedly wound up underneath some tanktread. They also embraced, and utilized, the capitalist system in their business dealings to the hilt. And while espousing an idealistic communal style that publicly eschewed materiality, they were poster child limousine liberals. Their music was by turns brilliant and crap, with some of it standing up after hundreds of listenings over three and one-half decades, while others were unlistenable from Day One. Yet their influence on the culture for several mad, insane years was undeniable. Jeff Tamarkin chronicles the entire process from the beginning to the present in GOT A REVOLUTION!, which is a history of Jefferson Airplane (and its offshoots) collectively and its members individually. It is an amazing work on a number of levels. Tamarkin was able to obtain the cooperation of almost all of the individuals directly or indirectly involved, and he deals with conflicting versions of events colored by time, perspective, and drug-induced illusion. He is an unabashed fan of the band --- to even contemplate a work of this scope and complexity, one would have to really love, or really hate, them --- yet his account of the band, if not the times in which they lived, is surprisingly objective. Grace Slick and Paul Kantner come off the worst, in terms of their wild and destructive behavior, and yet even they possessed some redemptive qualities, outside of whatever musical talent they were blessed with. Tamarkin additionally does an excellent job of tracing the history of each member of the group, the events surrounding them, and the band members' individual and collective discography. I was constantly and continuously impressed with Tamarkin's accuracy with respect to events involving the band. Though not directly in any of the events that he describes, I was a bystander at several of them (the infamous Akron Rubber Bowl concert of 1972 being but one) and his ability to put the reader into the setting while getting it right is incredible. While he occasionally lets his worldview color secondary events (the Black Panthers were, alas, not the innocent victims he infers them to be, and Ronald Reagan's presidency couldn't have ignored AIDS for several years before declaring the condition a national emergency in 1981 because he wasn't elected until 1981), he does get everything about the Airplane right while including, well, damn near everything, from Grace Slick's notorious appearance in blackface on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, to the infamous record jacket cupcake tracing, to Marty Balin, valiantly but in vain, single-handedly taking on a contingent of Hell's Angels while the band played on. A history of Jefferson Airplane was overdue; that the first one should also be the definitive one is a tribute to Tamarkin and his work. It is impossible to read GOT A REVOLUTION! without going to the record collection and pulling out records with titles like Surrealistic Pillow, Crown of a Creation, Volunteers, and After Bathing at Baxters, and listening to them over and over again. If they are not a soundtrack to a life, they are at least the theme of it. And GOT A REVOLUTION! is the story of it. Highly recommended. --- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
Rating:
Summary: An Absolute 'MUST' for any Rock n Roll Book Collection
Review: I see now that the tasty morsels served up by Jeff on the CD reissuses were merely appetizers. Now, he's delivering the full-course gourmet spread and what a feast it is !!! After receiving this book, I missed 2 meals because I could not put it down. Thankfully, I was on vacation from work or I would have had to call in sick! Thanks for a tremendous labour of love and work of art, Jeff, and to the Airplane members who also influenced my own musical direction!
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