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After Bathing at Baxter's[edit]

Background[edit]

Jefferson Airplane's second album Surrealistic Pillow, issued in February 1967, was hugely successful and influential upon release. Bolstered by the singles "Somebody to Love" and "White Rabbit", it became a defining work of the Psychedelic era and the counterculture of the time.[1][2] As a result, the band's popularity grew immensely and they were viewed as the leading San Francisco group of the year's Summer of Love.[3][4]

Recording[edit]

The band accurately predicted the album's recording would be a lengthy process.[5] Taking advantage of RCA's backing, they rented a mansion in Beverly Hills for $5,000 (equivalent to $46,000 in 2023) per month.[6][nb 1] Recording began on May 22, 1967, with "The Ballad of You & Me & Pooneil".[7] The second song attempted was "Young Girl Sunday Blues", but after multiple unsatisfactory takes, the band instead decided to use a live recording of the song from a concert at the Fillmore Auditorium with a re-recorded lead vocal from Balin.[8] By the time they performed at the Monterey International Pop Festival on June 17, they had also made a basic recording of "Martha".[9] At the end of that month, they finished work on "Pooneil" and recorded "Two Heads". These songs would be the A- and B-sides of the album's lead single.[10]

From July 31 to August 5, the band performed a series of shows with the Grateful Dead at the O'Keefe Centre in Toronto.[11] Later that month, they also performed at the Eastman Theatre in Rochester, New York.[12] Upon returning to the studio in late August, they continued work on "Martha", recording an instrumental version, and Kaukonen made a demo of "The Last Wall of the Castle".[13] "Watch Her Ride" and "Wild Tyme (H)" were recorded in early September, and the sessions immediately after yielded "rejoyce".[14]

Throughout the autumn, the band continued alternating between recording and performing.[15] During this time, the medley "Won't You Try / Saturday Afternoon" was completed.[16] On October 31, Kaukonen, Casady, and Dryden recorded a 24-minute jam that was edited down to 9 minutes and added to the album as "Spare Chaynge".[17]

Recording and production[edit]

Studio atmosphere and sounds[edit]

The success of Pillow allowed

Baxter's was one of the first American albums recorded using 8-track equipment.[18]

Band dynamics[edit]

Baxter's saw Kantner come forward as the band's primary songwriter.[18] Balin, who had written the bulk of Jefferson Airplane Takes Off and several songs for Surrealistic Pillow, subsequently fell into a writer's block and only contributed one song to Baxter's, "Young Girl Sunday Blues",[19] which he co-wrote with Kantner.[18] Balin's creative disengagement was furthered by Kaukonen and Casady criticizing his love songs as "trite", as well as his disdain for the band's growing use of hard drugs.[19] He later said: "[They were] so stoned I couldn't even talk to them. Everybody was in their little shell."[20]

Composition[edit]

The album's eleven songs are arranged into five suites, titled "Streetmasse", "The War Is Over", "Hymn to an Older Generation", "How Suite It Is", and "Shizoforest Love Suite".[21] Among biographers and commentators, some view the suites as purposely unconnected,[22] while others describe them as connected, albeit loosely.[23][24] Author Mike Segretto deems them "little more than a gimmick to give the record a conceptual whiff".[25]

Title and artwork[edit]

The album's title was derived from a poem written by the band's friend Gary Blackman. Kantner explained that the title translates to "After Taking LSD", "Baxter" being the group's code word for the drug.[26]

The cover art was designed by Ron Cobb, then a political cartoonist for the Los Angeles Free Press.[26] The front cover depicts the band as a World War I-era triplane with the body of a San Francisco townhouse.[27][28] Cannabis plants are shown growing out of the house's flower boxes.[28][29] The artwork is framed with a red bar on the bottom and a blue bar with white stars on the top, signifying the United States flag.[27] The plane, painted in full color, dispenses confetti[29] while flying over a black and white landscape – suggesting the white of the flag – with billboards reading messages such as "CONSUME!" and "DRINK IT",[27] parodying American consumerism.[30] The illustration continues onto the back cover, revealing an scrapheap followed by a pile of empty beverage cans. A banner attached to the plane displays the album's title.[27] In 2008, Cobb's original painting sold at auction for $24,000.[31]

The gatefold artwork consists of a handwritten track listing and photographs taken by Alan Pappé of each band member.[32] Author Ken Bielen writes the lack of a group portrait highlights the members' individuality.[27] The inner sleeve features Blackman's poem and drawings by the band and their friends, one of which was almost rejected by RCA on fear it would be misinterpreted as a vagina.[33][nb 2]

Release and commercial performance[edit]

After Bathing at Baxter's was released on November 27, 1967.[35] By this time, the "Pooneil" single had peaked at number 42 on the Billboard Hot 100[36] and number 24 on the Cash Box Top 100.[37] The album entered the Billboard Top LPs on December 23 and spent a total of 23 weeks on the chart, peaking at number 17 on January 28, 1968.[38] A second single, "Watch Her Ride" backed with "Martha", reached number 61 on Billboard[36] and number 37 on Cash Box in December 1967.[39]

The album was viewed as a commercial failure compared to Surrealistic Pillow.[40] Earl Leaf of Teen magazine named it one of the "three most unexpected musical flops" of the year, along with Their Satanic Majesties Request by the Rolling Stones and Smiley Smile by the Beach Boys.[41] According to Tamarkin, "For most American record buyers, even those who took 'White Rabbit' and its druggy imagery to heart, Baxter's was too much too soon."[42] This increased tensions between the band and Thompson as he further pressured them to make a more accessible album,[40] which they did with Crown of Creation.[43]

Critical reception[edit]

Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[24]
The Daily VaultA−[44]
The Encyclopedia of Popular Music[45]
The Great Rock Discography7/10[46]
Music Story[47]
MusicHound Rock2/5[48]
Record Mirror[49]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide[50]

Despite its commercial shortcomings, After Bathing at Baxter's received high praise from a number of critics.[42] One of its most positive reviews came from Jann Wenner in the newly founded Rolling Stone magazine, proclaiming that Jefferson Airplane "could be the best rock and roll band in America today" and that the album was "probably the best, considering all the criteria and the exceptions, rock and roll album so far produced by an American group."[51][42] A review in Hit Parader called the album "excellent" and "a good follow-up to Surrealistic Pillow."[52] In a later interview with the same magazine, the Moody Blues' keyboardist Mike Pinder named it one of his favorite albums, along with Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by the Beatles, Younger Than Yesterday by the Byrds, and Bookends by Simon & Garfunkel.[53] Conversely, Paul Nelson gave a negative review in Hullabaloo magazine, writing: "The Jefferson Airplane never even get off the ground with After Bathing at Baxter's. How a great group like this can go down in flames after two fine albums is a real puzzle."[54] The review prompted a reader to send a letter to the magazine saying that the album was "more important than Mr. Nelson thinks it is" and that it "must be graded on a curve, just as Sgt. Pepper was."[55]

After Bathing at Baxter's did not chart in the United Kingdom,[56] but it nevertheless received attention from several British music journals. Chris Welch of Melody Maker praised the instrumental and vocal work and deemed it the "most consistent album yet" from one of the "most mature of America's West Coast groups".[57] Writing for Beat Instrumental, John Ford felt it was a "slight disappointment" compared to the band's earlier material, although he praised the production and "feel" of the album and concluded, "Airplane have good ideas which will flourish, eventually."[58] Norman Jopling and Peter Jones wrote in Record Mirror that the album was "pretentious" and failed to match "Somebody to Love" and "White Rabbit" or contemporary albums by the Byrds and Country Joe and the Fish.[49]

Retrospectively, Paul Evans wrote in The New Rolling Stone Album Guide that the album's experimentalism was "of a kind baffling to all but the trippiest of the Airplane's fans" and that "such inside jokes as 'A Small Package of Value Will Come to You, Shortly' and an overall air of maniacal weirdness made for strange, adventurous music more admirable than likable—and more than a little forbidding."[59] Sam Backer of the Red Bull Music Academy called the album "a record of many flaws", but felt that its problems made it "a thrilling listen".[4]

Jefferson Airplane[edit]

The band auditioned for Phil Spector in September 1965, but left the meeting early after being put off by his eccentric behavior.[60]

Spencer Dryden had been a member of the Los Angeles folk rock group the Ashes, later to become the Peanut Butter Conspiracy.[61]

References[edit]

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ The mansion was previously rented by the Beatles.[6]
  2. ^ Tamarkin and Butterworth write the drawing in question was what resembled an exclamation point with an eye at the bottom,[33] while Slick said it was a tracing Kantner made of the bottom of a cupcake.[34]

Sources[edit]

Citations[edit]

  1. ^ Bogdanov, Woodstra & Erlewine 2002, p. 583.
  2. ^ Sacher, Andrew (6 August 2022). "With 'After Bathing At Baxter's,' Jefferson Airplane left pop behind and got weird". BrooklynVegan. Retrieved 9 December 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  3. ^ Butterworth 2021, p. 43; Bogdanov, Woodstra & Erlewine 2002, p. 583.
  4. ^ a b Backer, Sam (12 July 2017). "The Weird One: Jefferson Airplane's "After Bathing At Baxter's"". Red Bull Music Academy. Retrieved 14 December 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  5. ^ Tamarkin 2003, p. 134.
  6. ^ a b Butterworth 2021, p. 47; Tamarkin 2003, p. 134.
  7. ^ Tamarkin 2003, p. 133.
  8. ^ Tamarkin 2003, pp. 135, 144; Butterworth 2021, p. 50.
  9. ^ Tamarkin 2003, pp. 140, 144.
  10. ^ Tamarkin 2003, pp. 144–145.
  11. ^ Fenton 2006, p. 122; Tamarkin 2003, p. 146.
  12. ^ Tamarkin 2003, p. 123.
  13. ^ Fenton 2006, pp. 123–124; Tamarkin 2003, p. 147
  14. ^ Tamarkin 2003, pp. 152–153.
  15. ^ Tamarkin 2003, p. 153.
  16. ^ Tamarkin 2003, pp. 153–154.
  17. ^ Fenton 2006, p. 128; Tamarkin 2003, p. 154.
  18. ^ a b c Butterworth 2021, p. 47.
  19. ^ a b Tamarkin 2003, p. 135.
  20. ^ Butterworth 2021, p. 46; Tamarkin 2003, p. 135.
  21. ^ Thompson & Tamarkin 2003, pp. 7, 10.
  22. ^ Rowes 1980, pp. 115–116; Butterworth 2021, p. 47.
  23. ^ Thompson & Tamarkin 2003, p. 7; Segretto 2022, p. 137.
  24. ^ a b Eder, Bruce. "After Bathing at Baxter's Review". AllMusic. Archived from the original on 7 December 2022. Retrieved 8 December 2022.
  25. ^ Segretto 2022, p. 137.
  26. ^ a b Tamarkin 2003, p. 155.
  27. ^ a b c d e Bielen 2021, p. 91.
  28. ^ a b Wimpfheimer, Seth (September 2022). "Unsung | The Book of Seth | Jefferson Airplane - After Bathing At Baxter's". Head Heritage. Archived from the original on 3 October 2022. Retrieved 10 December 2022.
  29. ^ a b Kesler, Jenell (21 August 2018). "From The Vault: Jefferson Airplane - "After Bathing At Baxter's" (1967)". It's Psychedelic Baby! Magazine. Archived from the original on 10 November 2022. Retrieved 10 December 2022.
  30. ^ Butterworth 2021, p. 48; Bielen 2021, pp. 90–91; Tamarkin 2003, p. 155.
  31. ^ "A Jefferson Airplane original painting created by artist Ron Cobb for their album jacket "After Bathing at Baxter's," 1967". Bonhams. 16 June 2008. Archived from the original on 18 May 2022. Retrieved 10 December 2022.
  32. ^ Bielen 2021, p. 91; Tamarkin 2003, p. 155.
  33. ^ a b Tamarkin 2003, p. 155; Butterworth 2021, p. 48.
  34. ^ Fong-Torres, Ben (12 November 1970). "Grace Slick With Paul Kantner: The Rolling Stone Interview – Page 2". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on 11 December 2022. Retrieved 11 December 2022.
  35. ^ Tamarkin 2003, p. 155; Rowes 1980, p. 115.
  36. ^ a b "Chart History: Jefferson Airplane (Billboard Hot 100)". Billboard. Archived from the original on 14 December 2022. Retrieved 14 December 2022.
  37. ^ "Cash Box Top 100 9/30/67". Cashbox. Archived from the original on 12 November 2019. Retrieved 14 December 2022.
  38. ^ "Chart History: Jefferson Airplane (Billboard 200)". Billboard. Archived from the original on 3 July 2022. Retrieved 13 December 2022.
  39. ^ "Cash Box Top 100 12/30/67". Cashbox. Archived from the original on 29 June 2022. Retrieved 14 December 2022.
  40. ^ a b Tamarkin 2003, pp. 156; Rowes 1980, pp. 116.
  41. ^ Leaf 1968, p. 95.
  42. ^ a b c Tamarkin 2003, p. 156.
  43. ^ Tamarkin 2003, p. 171; Strong 2004, p. 780; Evans 2004, p. 427.
  44. ^ Clutterbuck, Jeff (23 August 2009). "After Bathing At Baxter's". The Daily Vault. Archived from the original on 23 May 2022. Retrieved 8 December 2022.
  45. ^ Larkin 2006, p. 604.
  46. ^ Strong 2004, p. 780.
  47. ^ "After Bathing At Baxter's". Music Story. Archived from the original on 7 December 2009. Retrieved 8 December 2022.
  48. ^ Selvin 1999, p. 599.
  49. ^ a b Jopling & Jones 1968, p. 8.
  50. ^ Evans 2004, p. 426.
  51. ^ Wenner, Jann (20 January 1968). "After Bathing At Baxter's". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on 25 November 2022. Retrieved 14 December 2022.
  52. ^ Masulli, Delehant & Paulsen 1968, p. 60.
  53. ^ Pinder 1969, p. 58.
  54. ^ Nelson 1968, p. 37.
  55. ^ Magnussen 1968, p. 14.
  56. ^ Butterworth 2021, p. 48.
  57. ^ Welch 1968, p. 12.
  58. ^ Ford 1968, p. 40.
  59. ^ Evans 2004, pp. 426–427.
  60. ^ Tamarkin, Jeff (January 17, 2021). "When Jefferson Airplane Auditioned for Phil Spector: 'Man, Let's Get Out of Here!'". Best Classic Bands. Archived from the original on 13 January 2023. Retrieved 1 June 2023.
  61. ^ Tamarkin 2003, pp. 71–72.
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