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Starship set for
By Burl Burlingame
landing at the Shell
Star-BulletinLet's dispense with even trying to prepare a capsule history of Jefferson Airplane/Jefferson Starship. We'd need a flow chart big as a highway. Suffice to say that a couple of guys named Marty Balin and Paul Kantner put together a band in 1965 that's still around today.
And they're baa-aack, playing at 6 p.m. Saturday at the Waikiki Shell. Expect a largely acoustic set with a tribute to the "Volunteers" album.
Jefferson alumni include Grace Slick, Papa John Creach, Jorma Kaukonen and practically every San Francisco musician who owned his own instrument.
"Oh, I LOVE touring!" rumbled Paul Kantner. "Not an eight-month bus tour of the Midwest, mind you. Places like Japan. We'll play some obscure song in Japan and they'll go into paroxysms of excitement."
Kantner describes himself as a "comfortable but working musician, it's not like I own a dot.com or a Porsche dealership," who continues to work because he enjoys it so much. And his offspring China Kantner sometimes performs with the band.
Balin, who has had an on-and-off again relationship with the Jefferson fellows, is currently on board. Kantner says Balin's songwriting skills strike a nice balance with his own.
"Marty writes the most beautiful love songs -- straight and simple and pure from the heart. I write horribly complicated, complex epics. Marty helps me scale it down. The original version of 'America' was 20 music pages long, and Marty got it down to four."
So many songs, so long a time. After all these years, it adds up. Kantner discovered he needs to keep notes on a music stand these days. "Just reminders; I know it's there if I have to look something up."
Kantner first played the Shell in the '60s, giving a free concert in the park. "I love the Shell," he said. "I love playing outdoors."
The Jefferson's current singer, Diana Mangano, had not even been born then.
"We were playing someplace in San Francisco and this girl in the audience handed our stage manager a cassette tape. He gave it to me, and I listened to it in the car on the way home. It was Diana singing some of our songs a capella, and I thought, 'Whoa! Sounds good!'
"Called her up when I got home and said, 'C'mon down tomorrow night and sing a few with us.' She turned out to be this nervous kid. Now she's like the prow of a ship!"
After a third of a century, how's the Starship holding together?
"Oh, you never make plans in rock 'n' roll," laughed Kantner. "Try it, and they'll fall apart. The most you can do is create a bridge across a period of time, and do your best to get across in one piece.
"It all works on stage. You get into a place when you're playing with the same guys for so long that you zone-focus.
"Your attention is on an area 4 or 5 feet in front of you, and you communicate with the rest of the band in unspoken terms. You don't even have to look at them to communicate a shift or a change. You're all in the beat together, in the moment.
"Like they say, there are only three rules to creating a great rock band. Unfortunately, I can't remember what they are."
On stage
Who: Jefferson Starship, featuring Paul Kantner and Marty Balin
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