Baron Von Tollbooth And The Chrome Nun
More Discoveries From The Cutout Bin
Today, you can go to your Google Answer Machine and find out about new releases and what your favourite artist does in his spare time in seconds. In the 70s, you had some music magazines, FM radio, and your friends to find new music.
We also spent hours flicking through albums at Bleecker Bob’s, Looney Tune Records, Record World or the limited selection found at some department stores. We talked as we put LPs under our arms. Decisions had to be made before we got to the register with our greenbacks.
I prefer the olden times. Today, there is just so much access to music that it is hard, for a glutton like me, to limit my listening pleasure. It’s like drinking from a firehose. How do you make something a classic if you only listen to it a handful of times before moving on? Yes, self-control is the only way—discovery of new versus the beauty of the old, a never-ending conundrum.
The Jefferson Airplane caught my ears when I was very young with White Rabbit. Finally, when I was about 12 years old, I discovered Surrealistic Pillow. Grace Slick, Jorma Kaukonen, Paul Kantner, Marty Balin, Spencer Dryden and Jack Casady made up the band. The 30 plus minutes of music on those tracks were released in 1967. I had heard Somebody To Love and White Rabbit on the radio but once I discovered that album it became one that was played over and over. Many a lysergic journey was launched with that album.
A comment to Marty by Jerry Garcia about the music being “as surrealistic as a pillow” inspired the album title
During the early 70s, I was lucky enough to see the Airplane perform a couple of live free concerts in Central Park. Saturday, the 3rd of May, I turned on WNEW-FM, the radio station that taught me a lot about rock and roll, and they announced that that afternoon, the Airplane were doing a free show at The Bandshell in the Park. There was no way I was going to miss this so I grabbed my friend Bobby and off we went to the City.
I was 12 years old at the time. There is no way my parents would have allowed me to make that trip so we took off for the day as we always did and made sure we were home for dinner! The world was a simpler place and no one worried about their kids being kidnapped or attacked by fascist ICE Agents. Back then we welcomed immigrants into America. Shit, times have changed for the worse.
In August of 1972, the Airplane did it again in Central Park, this time on The Great Lawn. Marty Balin had left the band by this time and this was the last Airplane Tour (until a reunion in 1989). Jack and Jorma were focused on Hot Tuna. This was still a marvellous Saturday In The Park.
The Airplane may have landed but they returned to San Francisco and Wally Heider Studios to do some recording. Kantner and Slick had conspired outside of the confines of the Airplane before (the horrendous Sunfighter album is to be avoided) and this was a trio with David Freiberg, the former lead singer of Quicksilver Messenger Service.
Here I was slipping through the cheap-o records again, looking for something to take home. I picked up Baron Von Tollbooth and The Chrome Nun because of the names on the cover and the science-fiction-inspired artwork. Paul Kantner and the San Francisco tribe of musicians had released Blows Against The Empire in 1970 and it was released under the name Paul Kantner and The Jefferson Starship. This was the first mention of Starship, and more was to come in the not-too-distant future.
Back to this release and besides Kantner/Slick, I was gripped by the people who were playing on the record:
Jerry Garcia, David Frieberg, Johnny Barbata, Chris Ethridge (Flying Burrito Brothers)-Craig Chaquico (16 years old at the time and then became the Starship lead guitarist later)-David Crosby-The, The Pointer Sisters, Papa John Creach, Jorma Kaukonen, Mickey Hart.
I scooped this record up and it has followed me around for 52 years. It’s a trippy, psychedelic rock and roll record. It seemed to make its way onto the turntable late at night. Most people had never heard it. It sank without a trace.
The psychedelic aura and glow of the Haight was fading.
“It ain’t what you want, it’s what you need’…..Sketches of China
The album’s title was taken from the nicknames David Crosby had given Paul Kantner and Grace Slick. As Slick later explained:
“The gag name for Paul was Baron von Tollboth, because of the World War One fighter Baron von Richtoven. Paul is very German. He stands up very straight and he likes organization. I’m the Chrome Nun. She’s modern, she’s shiny, she’s also very protective of herself--it’s like having a suit of armor on. Nuns don’t fool around.”
Coming Up Next….a bluesman born in the City of Brotherly Love and raised in Tarrytown, New York…..
