Paul Kantner

Jefferson Airplane's Paul Kantner recorded this oddity in 1970 with help from the Grateful Dead, Crosby, Stills and Nash and practically anyone else he could find. A concept album about enlightened hippies stealing a spaceship and restarting the human race on another planet, Blows… actually was nominated for a sci-fi Hugo award and sold a ton of copies.

The Jefferson Airplane has always been one of my very favorite rock bands of the
non-blues - playing, white, American variety, and it has always been my contention that
they were perhaps fated to advance what has come to be called rock into yet-unexplored
areas in much the same way as the Beatles and Cream have done. This unexplored region,
my reasoning went, would involve a kind of broad expansion of the notion of to... More >

Not counting friendly neighbors, there are only two changes from the usual Airplane lineup on this "solo" venture: Jerry Garcia replaces Jorma Kaukonen for reasons of interstellar propulsion, and Paul Kantner replaces Marty Balin for reasons of ego. As much Marty's ego as Paul's, probably--I wouldn't want my name on this thing either. Kantner's singing is as murky as his melodies (there's a connection there somewhere) and for all the record's sci-fi pretensions (does Philip K. Dick actually like this stuff?) it never even gets off the ground. (Grade - C+)