Fables of the Reconstruction: Low-Hanging Fruit Pt. 4 - Gatefolds

If you really want to get into the spirit of Record Store Day, squeeze through the used aisles and pick up a few gatefolds. These oversized works of mass-produced art are the quintessential vinyl experience. They say you can’t roll a joint on a digital download. But you can eat an entire midnight munchies meal off of an open gatefold. And many of them are cheap cheap cheap. Some of my favorites were a mere $2.99. Like the three Carole King albums I own, Tapestry, Music, and Rhymes & Reasons. All together they cost me less than the price of a good sandwich, and they’re classic specimens, especially the latter two: great big pictures of Carole at a grand piano with her husky at her side and sunlight warming through the window; soft close-ups of her smiling and lost in thought. They’ve got a matte finish with a linen texture that feels nice on your fingers. It’s intimate, like you’re in Carole’s house and sipping tea as she sings to you. And I’m not ashamed to say I love Carole King, gatefold or no. I was a little kid when her music was everywhere and it couldn’t help but shape my mind and soul. “So Far Away” gets me every time, even when Johnny Rivers sings it, which he does quite well on Home Grown, his best, in my opinion. Here the guy who sang “Secret Agent Man” goes on a jag through sunny early 70s commune-esque spirituality. This record also comes in a gatefold. Another matte finish, faux linen, but with lots of pictures of Johnny with a bushy beard, smiling, in meadows full of tall grass and flowers. He sings the hell out of some of the best songs of that era – “Our Lady of the Well,” “Rock Me On the Water,” “Fire and Rain.” Just a gorgeous record.

            Some classic gatefolds don’t qualify as low-hanging fruit because they’re expensive, such as the Rolling Stones’ Their Satanic Majesties Request, arguably the greatest album cover of all time, at least for people who have taken a lot of acid. A 3D photo of the band in wizard costumes is not easily topped. Inside is a maze and a crazy collage. I got my copy for 70 bucks in Atlanta – the exact same pressing of the one I got for Christmas my junior year in high school, brand new in the shrink-wrap. Probably cost $10 back then. No, what we’re interested in here is art for the poor man: Santana’s Caravanserai – big orange sun over a dark blue sky and desert and camels, inside a gloriously blurry sunset over the ocean; Allman Brothers’ Eat A Peach – peaches and melons the size of truck beds on the front and back, opens to a vast panorama of Magic Mushroom Land; Mahavishnu Orchestra’s Visions of the Emerald Beyond – mirrored pyramids that rise lengthwise, up and down, one to sunrise, the other to night; Gentle Giant’s Acquiring the Taste looks like a tongue licking an ass until you open and see it’s just a delicious peach; and all those Yes covers by Roger Dean, especially Close To the Edge, which is their best musically, too (even if you hate Yes you should own a Yes/Roger Dean gatefold, it’s an obligation of the hobby). There are so many.

            And if a gatefold isn’t enough, there are double gatefolds, too, and gatefolds with inserts, booklets, and records that aren’t even gatefolds, they just have odd shapes, like The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys and Shoot Out at the Fantasy Factory by Traffic, which have two corners cut out and the art is an optical illusion of a 3D box that looks very real if you stare at it long enough. This kind of super packaging is generally the domain of superstars like Elton John, Jefferson Airplane, Harry Nilsson, Joni Mitchell, artists with big budgets and a fondness for excess. After Nilsson Schmilsson, Nilsson was all gatefold for the rest of the 70s. Pussy Cats and Duit On Mon Dei are both triple folds with lyrics on one spread and on the other, collages of snapshots taken during the making of the album, both of which appear to have been outrageous parties. Mitchell uses the double gatefold for her underrated tour de force Mingus to give it more of an art book feel, with her paintings of Charles in fields of white with delicate lines of text here and there. But few can top Elton and the Airplane (and still qualify as low-hanging fruit). Their more elaborately packaged albums are like mixed-media happenings you can hold in your very hands. Elton’s albums have a Hollywood flair. Tumbleweed Connection comes with a twelve-page sepia-tone booklet full of 19^th Century old West etchings - trains and riverboats and guns, shots of Elton and his band and lyricist brooding dramatically. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road folds out three ways like one of those reflective things people used to hold up across their chests to get a darker tan. All the lyrics are splayed across in all different colors and each one has its own little illustration, like those old time movie posters with drawings of the actors and the most dramatic scenes. And the whole concept of Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only the Piano Player is a night at the picture show. The cover shows a couple buying tickets at a theater with album’s title across the marquee. Inside, on the left panel, the song titles and album credits are laid out just like a movie poster, and on the right is a big picture of Elton holding his hand out like a stop sign. It’s all colorized and cool looking, and so are all the other photos in the booklet it opens up to. Page after page of groovy cool-colored pictures. It’s just a wonderful artifact. I think mine cost $4. And Jefferson Airplane. Volunteers and Bark: two of the best covers ever made, and both relatively inexpensive. Bark comes in a paper bag with JA printed on the front, just like the old A&P logo. Open it up and on the other side are freak-comic portraits of the band in thick-black ink. The bag is folded over a standard record cover with picture of a dead fish wrapped in paper and tied in string with a bow. And inside is a fold-open lyric sheet printed in red and black, and on the back is a list of things you can do with the bag. A long list and, as you might imagine, some of the suggestions are quite unusual. I love this record, even though it’s not the record I reach for when I want to really listen to the Jefferson Airplane (I play it when I want to hear early, very well done hard rock). When I want the Airplane in its fullest revolutionary glory, it’s gotta be Volunteers, a Woodstock-era masterpiece with the freakiest and coolest mega-gatefold of all times. It’s done up like a newspaper published in Mescaline Land, with phony stories and lots of pictures. It has so much going on, you can stare it for hours. And that’s really what the gatefold is all about – sitting and staring and listening, slowing down, paying attention, making an event out of a collection of music. And isn’t that precisely what we celebrate when we celebrate RSD?

Several Species Of Small Furry Thoughts- Fly Translove Airways

For their second installment of vintage live recordings, Collector’s Choice Live has unearthed four tremendous Jefferson Airplane concerts from four very different and pivotal periods in their career. Kicking off with original singer Signe Anderson’s final performance with the band, the October 15th, 1966 show at The Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco was the biggest surprise to me. I assumed that it would be the least interesting since I know the least about Anderson and there is so little stuff out there about her. Well the show is an emotional powerhouse as the band, the audience and even famously curmudgeon-like promoter Bill Graham all take turns making their feelings known to this singer. The little speech Marty Balin makes saying goodbye and her reaction that she is going to be a mother is a classic bit of 60’s nostalgia not to be missed. The band is tighter than expected and their repertoire is classic ballroom fare. The second release in the series comes the very next night as new singer Grace Slick doesn’t waste a minute in making her presence known. They perform a largely different set that shows Grace unafraid to get her feet wet with new material and comfortable singing with three other male lead singers. It bodes well that over the course of two sets you can hear her become more confident and the band responds by becoming more excited.

The third set skips ahead a month to two shows at the Fillmore that bring us a fully engaged Grace and a band that is really feeling their oats. Two full shows loaded with classics from the first two albums as well as a bonus couple of songs that were played at a late night photo session. The version of “The Other Side Of This Life” from the late session clocks in a almost 10 minutes and presents the Airplane in full flight. The final release is from February 1, 1968 and is a very special show the band was asked to play at the their old stomping grounds The Matrix. The Airplane had become much bigger than The Matrix (a small club) would indicate, but they good-naturedly loaded in to the club they used to own and proceed to tear the place down! The set now boasts material from the third album After Bathing At Baxter’s and even a couple of the not yet released Crown Of Creation songs and the presence of LSD is quite evident in their music as lead guitarist Jorma Kaukonen lights up one solo after another with high-octane rocket fuel. The band is now a live musical beast on a par with their contemporaries The Grateful Dead and Quicksilver Messenger Service. The Airplane were always the best songwriters and singers but now their musical muscle is bursting Hulk-like out of their Bruce Banner sized clothes and it is something to hear. All four of these sets are fantastic recordings, and far surpass some of the dicier live Airplane releases of the last few years. The packages are beautifully illustrated with vintage photos of the band and informative liner notes. This is a great series.

The Jefferson Airplane Flies Again

There are two tremendous new releases of live Jefferson Airplane material that warrant your attention. They are both on the Charly label out of Europe. The first is At The Family Dog Ballroom. Recorded in September of 1969 in San Francisco, this recording showcases the band during what I consider their best period - following their landmark Volunteers album and before the rancor that split them up fully took hold. The band is unbelievably tight and the musical side of things just shine with Jorma and Jack at the height of their improv powers, and Grace, Paul and Marty singing their hearts out. The material is heavy on Volunteers including some rarely played songs like “The Farm” and “Good Shepherd” and a powerful “Wooden Ships.” For collectors the most interesting thing might be the 20 minute freeform jam that ends the CD and features Jerry Garcia wailing away with the band. The sound is crisp and the packaging is really nice with great liner notes. This is essential.

Slightly less essential, but still quite a nice addition for Airplane fanatics is Last Flight which captures the bands final concert at San Francisco’s Winterland on September 22, 1972. Taken from the same source material as the bands great 30 Seconds Over Winterland album, this 2 CD set includes the entire show featuring the post-Balin band with Papa John Creach on fiddle and a ton of material from their final albums. A very interesting setlist showcases some very strong playing by the entire band and great versions of “When The Earth Moves Again,” “Trial By Fire,” “Feels So Good” and many other never-heard songs. The Airplane remain one of the most sophisticated and politically charged bands of the 1960’s and their mystique seems to just grow with the years.