Jefferson Airplane “Long John Silver”

This is one of those records that, if you find it in a secondhand store, it will only be in its inner sleeve—no album cover—because the original cover was one of the dumbest gimmicks since New Coke. There are perforations, die-cuts, and instructions to fold it into a fake cigar box where you can hide your weed (making it a “stash box”)—effectively fooling mothers… nowhere. Assuming your mother is okay with you smoking cigars (weirdly, mine was) absolutely none are going to be fooled by the “Long John Silver Humidor Pack”—in the wrong proportions, flimsily built—any more than they’ll confuse the odor of either weed, or effect on the smoker. Well, good luck finding it, anyway, which is why you’ll see, in the used records, this album in its excellent inner sleeve (heavy paper, at least) with a life-size depiction of nine cigars (well, I hope no actual cigar is that big) each with a band sporting the letters “JA” (Junior Achievement?)—I suppose the nine representing the members of the band, the producer, and their tobacconist. As luck would have it, I did eventually find a second copy of the LP with a nearly pristine original cover—which I’m not going to turn into a stash box. I might, however, turn one of the discs into an ashtray. The most useless feature of the stash box is that, on the inside is printed a huge (nearly 12” square) photo of some very gnarly looking marijuana. I’m not sure how it makes any sense to store your actual product on top of a photo of it—perhaps it’s just for dreamers. I wonder if there’s some kind of “hack” to fold it this way and that, so your actual album cover is just a photo of “Mary Jane”—which would be kind of cool, actually.

I’m glad there’s so much to say about the cover because I don’t believe this is the Airplane’s finest—much of it sounds like tired hippie sludge. Okay, that’s too harsh—I’m still staring at the weed photo—just the image gives me a headache and makes my throat burn, and I can almost see those seeds popping. I really kind of love every minute of Jefferson Airplane, the highs and the lows, and the songs that do nothing at all—no one else sounds like them and vice versa. I think this was close to their last record, which came out in 1972—sadly I didn’t get ahold of it when I was twelve. Without consulting untrustworthy-net, I’m going to guess it was followed by Ivar’s Acres of Clams, and then a sabbatical for digestion. The lyrics, of course, are more or less worth the trouble to be printed in small capital letters on the back of the cigars. They do a thing I appreciate and close with nicely aggressive heavy-duty number, called “Eat Starch Mom”—it leaves a good taste in my mouth. My favorite on the record is hidden in the middle of the first side, called “Twilight Double Leader” which is about, I have no clue, but it sounds better than “Twi-night Doubleheader.” It’s kind of a killer, and the only song here that had me dancing, in spite of myself, and woefully lacking a streaming channel I can call home. Even that one, however, intoxicated by its own groove, ultimately peters out.

1.30.26