Jefferson Airplane — After Bathing at Baxter’s
Released just nine months after “Surrealistic Pillow” in 1967, “After Bathing at Baxter’s” didn’t produce any followup single hits and thus didn’t do nearly so well on the charts as its predecessor. But it’s great. Some of these songs were live show staples, and maybe they’re more successful that way – “The Ballad of You & Me & Pooneil” being one example, and the combination of “Won’t You Try” and “Saturday Afternoon” being another. Those are such fantastic settings for the improvisation and experimentation that the band was so good at live that it can be a little hard to hear them cut down to almost-single length for an album, having heard the more elaborate versions for years.
In fact, I didn’t own a vinyl copy of “Baxter’s” until just a few years ago, and that was the very reason: I loved the versions of some of these songs that appeared on “Bless Its Pointed Little Head” and some live bootlegs that were out there, and later on the Monterey and Woodstock collections; I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear the studio versions.
How many times in this blog am I going to have to say I was wrong? (With regard to the Airplane, or at least two of its members, there’s going to be a big “I was wrong” coming up when I get back to Hot Tuna.) I was wrong. This album is excellent. Even the little audio verité nonsense of “A Small Package of Value Will Come To You, Shortly” is somehow enjoyable (and I quote the title constantly when shipping things to people). There’s a nine-minute instrumental (“Spare Chaynge”) that never outstays its welcome. “Young Girl Sunday Blues” manages to stretch out and capture that Jefferson Airplane energy in a studio recording.
Even though I paid an amount for this ($18 – it’s pretty pristine), I haven’t given this enough play, at least in part because it keeps getting overshadowed by my love for certain other Airplane records.
One of my favorite albums of all time and their most brilliant album start to finish. The feel of the world they create in this continuous sequence of tracks–was this the first “concept album”?–is unique and deeply evocative. I wish someone would remaster this entire recording to the sound quality of contemporary work. When they rock here, a remastered version would be incredibly powerful. There’s a studio version of Young Girl Sunday Blues without vocals, impossible to find on Spotify, that demonstrates the precision and complexity of the arrangement of that particular song. It lacks the energy and power but sounds as pristine and perfect as chamber music. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-d039fUstI When you see or hear their live recordings you get a better sense of how hard they could rock: 3/10ths of a Mile in Ten Seconds at Woodstock, a good example. The studio work doesn’t convey it. This album never gets old. Much of the rest of their catalog I just don’t listen to now.
Agreed on their live music – they were sensational live. Both the Woodstock and Monterey sets are fantastic, and “Bless Its Pointed Little Head” remains perhaps my favorite live album of all time.