After hitting it big with Surrealistic Pillow, Jefferson Airplane were eager to show off their chops as a live band. That’s how Bless Its Pointed Little Head came to be.
The band’s live sound was fuller, edgier, and rocked harder than their previous studio albums.
I’ve always dug the dissolute feeling of the front and back covers. Bassist Jack Casady worked hard, so he was entitled to tie one on.
Here’s a scan of a beat-up back cover:
Looks like the Airplane had a long night, y’all.
Here’s the whole damn album with additional tracks via Spotify:
Did Tommy T suggest this one?
I’ve always thought Jack Casady was brilliant, one of the top five bassists in rock. He’s the lead instrument in “White Rabbit,” among many other tracks (check out the seldom heard single “Mexico”). He’s twice as loud as anybody else throughout Crown of Creation, where the liner notes credit him with “Yggdrasil bass.”
The real revelation on this album was drummer Spencer Dryden, who was always deliberately under-mixed on the studio albums– I suppose because the suits still thought of the band as a day-glo Peter Paul & Mary. But his intro to “3/5 of a Mile in 10 Seconds”– man, he’s channeling Keith Moon (who he later, at Woodstock, had the unenviable task of following at dawn)!
Nope. Jack is one of my hometown heroes.
Jack is fabulous on this album, but I always thought the cover photo showed him passed out before he even got the bottle open.
Grace had a very limited vocal range but its high volume worked fine for rock and roll. The other distinctive thing about her singing is her perfect diction. You can always understand every word. I’ve listened to some rock songs for 50 years and still don’t know the words
Jack is THE greatest bassist in rock history, not one of. On stage, he also had incredible charisma, with his eyebrows popping up and down in time to the music. And Spencer? He was brilliant on Baxter’s & Crown, but, yeah, he could have been mixed higher. I listened for him on record because he was so impressive live. In fact, so key was Spencer to the sound of the Airplane that when he left, I left. I have none of the albums with Covington.