LONG JOHN SILVER

With young Joey Covington having flown from the nest (he would later reappear in Hot Tuna), the Airplane had to resort to a real outsider in the name of John Barbata as a new drummer. By the time this album came out in July 72, it was clear that the Airplane's best days had gone and it was only a matter of time before it would be grounded indefinitely if not permanently. But the Airplane was not about to go out without a bang, and it came in the form of their gimmick artwork sleeve: It could be folded out and turned into a cigar-box while the inner sleeve represented the aligned cigars layer. But once it was pulled out, you could see the bottom of the box depicting a stash of weed (Jamaican Lamb's Bread just in case you ask me ;-). Yet another way to rile up the establishment, but this kind of provocation was only possible because of their Grunt record label.

The Opening title track is a relatively strong start with Jorma pulling a scorching solo while Jack is soaring like he had not since COC (in terms of volume), especially with the follow-up Areie (aptly sub-titled Gang Of Eagles) is another superb (as usual) Slick track, where Papa John and Jorma trade licks over the hood of Grace's piano. But unfortunately the rest of the tracks will not be up to par, even in the potentially explosive (lyrically anyway) Son Of Jesus.

Likewise the second side contains two excellent tracks like the typical Slick-track Easter (although it sounds like a remake of Aerie) and the Hot Tuna-like Trial By Fire is a very catchy (and Jack .is superb) The intended funny Alexander The Medium track falls a bit flat on its face, while their ultimate send-off (Eat Starch, Mom) is rather average. Again for the proghead, the harvest for gems is rather meagre, but remains another good rock album that many of their compadres would love to call their own.

Again for long-time frequent flyers, this album was slightly deceiving, but it remained qualitatively on the height of Volunteers and Bark. But sales were dwindling (a good deal of the fans were disappointed at Balin not coming back), the world was changing and it was some three years since the Airplane had lost their front rank in terms of groundbreaking music and political rebellion, and the Golden 60's hangover was simply tenacious.