Jefferson Starship: Mick's Picks Volume 4 Review
Live Album Release from Legendary San Francisco Acid Rockers
Dec 8, 2008
Along the lines of their San Franciscan contemporaries' long-running 'Dick's Picks' series, Jefferson Starship's manager Michael Gaiman has been curating a series of archival concert recordings. Hence the wittily-titled Mick's Picks: full-length concert CDS taken from soundboard recordings from all eras of the band's long and complex existence.
Mick's Picks Vol.4 (released through www.voiceprint.co.uk) is one of the more recent Starship items, culled from a show at BB King's Blues Club in New York City, circa September 2007. It's a lavishly-packaged, 3-CD box featuring amusing liner notes from founder member Paul Kantner and the recording quality is never less than adequate, sounding like a superior bootleg throughout.
Jeffrson Starship Flying High for a New Generation?
With 36 tracks spread across the three CDS, quantity is never an issue, but whether the 'Mick's Picks' series will be able to introduce the band's acid-tinged Californian sound to a new generation of fans is more debatable. From their original 1960s incarnation as Jefferson Airplane, only singer/ guitarist Paul Kantner and vocalist Marty Balin remain, although youthful Grace Slick replacement Diana Mangano has a vigorously athletic voice and the quartet behind them thunder away as though they're still touring Europe with The Doors circa 1968.
Mick's Picks Live Album Features Confirmed Classics
The fireworks are mostly confined to CD1 and the latter segment of CD3. Sensibly, the first CD concentrates on the confirmed Airplane classics, with a gutsy Somebody To Love and a punky and expressive Plastic Fantastic Lover contrasting nicely with Balin's wistful Today. Even better is the anti-trip White Rabbit, which has survived four decades with its' sinister, baroque intent largely intact. A likeably informal atmosphere prevails, too, with the band enjoying the small club setting and apparently dictating the set list as they proceed.
Jefferson Starship in the 21st Century
The majority of the second CD is extremely flabby, though. Too much time is dedicated to Balin's MOR crooning and songs like the tedious Hearts and the nostalgic Summer Of Love sound embarrassingly schmaltzy in the cold light of the 21st Century. There again, Kantner fares little better with the overwrought Million and even the confirmed fan will struggle to condone the overblown version of While My Guitar Gently Weeps they deem it necessary to include.
Conclusion
They keep some steel in reserve for the final strait, with a viciously loud Jane and a storming Ride The Tiger instilling some necessary FM rock drive and their vintage protest anthem Volunteers bringing their history full circle. It supplies a thrilling conclusion to a decidedly mixed bag which will satisfy long-term fans and completists but leave more casual observers scratching their heads and wondering what all the fuss was about.
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