SURREALISTIC PILLOW

'Surrealistic Pillow' may be the defining album of the entire West Coast Haight-Ashbury / Summer of Love experience. No doubt there are millions of aging baby boomers who have fond memories of key events from their formative years where songs from this album served as background music. Personally I was a bit too young then but didn't have any trouble connecting with this album a decade later during my own period of discovery.

As far as the band goes, the lineup had changed slightly since their debut the year before, but the impact of those changes are incalculable. Signe Toly Anderson was gone to raise a family, and the mercurial Skip Spence had been shown the door and gone off to form his own band Moby Grape, replaced by Spencer Dryden, a drummer who had the advantage of actual experience on his resume. And Grace Slick was no stranger to the band having served at the helm of The Great Society during their brief gig as a recurring opening act for the Airplane. Slick and Dryden clicked both with the band and between the sheets, embarking on a famously 'secret' affair that began during the period this album was recorded.

The opening track of 'Surrealistic Pillow' is deceptively tame compared to some of the more heavily acid-tinged psych that would come on this and subsequent records. "She Has Funny Cars" has been suggested to be a protest song of sorts, mostly referring to materialism. The song features fuzz guitar rather prominently but on bass rather than six- string, and set to a rhythmic beat and fairly simple chord progressions. Not a song that would be considered innovative today, but quite a departure in the fast-moving music scene of 1966.

Grace Slick makes her debut on the second track "Somebody to Love", a song written by her then brother-in-law for The Great Society but which became the highest charting single ever for Jefferson Airplane. The Airplane combines a driving beat with over-amped electric guitar and bass of a style that would characterize much psychedelic music for the next several years. Slick's sensuous and powerful vocals dominate except for the distinctive extended acid guitar solo by Jorma Kaukonen that brings the short but memorable track to a close.

Listeners are reminded of the fledgling state of psychedelic music with the comparatively simple "My Best Friend", a song written by Skip Spence but not recorded by the band until after his departure. The three-part harmonies hearken back to 1965, which given the nature of most of the rest of the record seems like ancient history. This was the third single from the album and probably the least well-known.

Marty Balin and Paul Kantner co-authored several folk-rock tracks on the band's first album, but the laconic "Today" is the only such song on this record. Jerry Garcia, who was active in many aspects of this album's recording plays rhythm guitar. The band wouldn't record or perform many more folk-rock songs in their remaining career, and this one, along with Balin's "Comin' Back to Me" almost sound like requiems to a sound that by 1966 was already falling out of popular favor. The latter tune also has the distinction of being the longest track on the album thanks to the meandering nature of Balin's vocals and disjointed guitar delivery. Balin seemed to be grasping at times for inspiration as evidenced by "Comin' Back to Me" and "3/5 of a Mile in 10 Seconds", neither of which were based on very weighty subjects. No matter, as '3/5' has a strong acid-rock delivery and fits the mood of the second half of the album quite well. "D.C.B.A. -25" comes across in similar fashion and also sounds like a Balin tune despite the liner credits to Kantner.

Kaukonen didn't write much for the band but his brief instrumental "Embryonic Journey" would become something of a signature live piece, and one that has been played by scores of folk, psych and acid bands in the ensuing years. The alternating fingering/strumming chord style give the tune a mellow feel and make the following "White Rabbit" stand apart even more.

And speaking of "White Rabbit", one has to wonder how many post-rock musicians took inspiration from the simple building crescendo established by the rhythm section and enhanced by Kaukonen's acid lead guitar work. The tension in the song gives it a range and volume that belies the fact that the song is less than three minutes long but can seem to last an eternity, especially when enhanced by mental stimulants which is both how it was recorded and presumably intended to be heard. Along with "Somebody to Love" this quickly became both an instantly identifiable part of the band's legacy, and one of the most referred-to and copied songs by generations of acid, folk and psychedelic rockers who followed. As the second single for the band it also gave the band two simultaneously charting singles and helped launch their international fame at a time when they had only briefly appeared live outside the Bay area.

The album ends on another Balin tune, the acid anthem "Plastic Fantastic Lover" which again seems tame today but whose prurient lyrics (considering the era) were not automatic candidates to escape the censor's red pens. Balin's spoken-sung vocals and Kaukonen's raw guitar chords are in the finest garage band style, and similar sounds would resurface a decade later on scores of punk albums.

The various reissues of this album have included stereo versions of several songs and outtake materials including the sappy Kantner tune "Go to Her" and version of the blues standard "Come Back Baby" that was presumably scrapped because Aretha Franklin also had a recorded version ready to release at the same time. Having heard both versions it's clear the band made the right call.

This album is not necessarily a masterpiece, and in fact there are little snippets of studio sloppiness here and there that aren't surprising given the likely free-flowing of drugs in a studio filled with the famously indulgent Airplane members not to mention prodigious partaker Jerry Garcia. But considering the radical departure the band had made from standard blues, beat and folk-rock fare of 1966 and the staying power of "White Rabbit", "Somebody to Love" and even "Embryonic Journey" it has to be considered at least a seminal and groundbreaking psychedelic album released at a time when musical styles were changing more quickly than the weather. Anyone who is a serious fan or student of modern music should have 'Surrealistic Pillow' in their collection, and it deserves a solid four (of five) star rating for that reason. Highly recommended if you haven't heard it already.

peace