Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!cca!csin!cjh
From: cjh@csin.UUCP (Chip Hitchcock)
Newsgroups: net.music
Subject: Re re Beatles
Message-ID: <322@csin.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 25-Aug-83 21:40:43 EDT
Article-I.D.: csin.322
Posted: Thu Aug 25 21:40:43 1983
Date-Received: Fri, 26-Aug-83 12:49:50 EDT
Lines: 19

In response to your message of Wed Aug 24 13:59:04 1983:

   Normally I'd stay out of this, since my interests have been elsewhere for
over a decade (when they let you sing with the Boston Symphony Orchestra,
being a hack bass player is even less attractive) but I think you do some
of the San Francisco groups an injustice. My recollection is that "Surrealistic
Pillow" is roughly contemporary with Sgt. Pepper, but the Airplane had already
established a sound that was a long way from a cheap Beatles imitation. The
first cut on "Blues from an Airplane" was very clearly a different kind of
sound from the slick British and B-imitation (e.g., Loving Spoonful) sound
that was most popular then. To use a classical analogy, the Beatles were
moving towards Cage (how far can instruments be distorted/how uninstrumental
an object can you get and still make "music") while the Airplane was following
Schoenberg in altering the order and perception of the twelve tones in the
scale. I think it's also valid to say that the Airplane's best music came
when all of them were (in effect) \creating/ simultaneously---one or more of
the Beatles have said that the white album's biggest defect is the songs were
all John-and-the-band, Paul-and-the-band, etc., rather than 4 people working
together. Once the Airplane became "Kantner's band" it started dying.