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Jefferson Airplane - Bark CD (album) cover

BARK

Jefferson Airplane

 

Proto-Prog

2.77 | 56 ratings

From Progarchives.com, the ultimate progressive rock music website

Sean Trane
Special Collaborator
Prog Folk
3 stars With both Balin and Dryden out of the picture, and a record label of their own, the Airplane spent the start of the new decade regrouping and touring. While Marty Balin was not directly replaced (even his role had diminished, at least the group respected him enough not to find a substitute for him), they brought in this teenage kid that they had accepted in their Fulton Mansion, and he had learned to drum often replacing Dryden in Hot Tuna or in-house jams. So JA went from an older drummer, to a much younger one. But the line-up would actually see another change. In a complete surprise move, the group enlisted the 50 years old Papa John Creach: a Black blues violinist that was already connected to the group via the lengthy Hot Tuna jams.

By the time Bark had been released, almost two years had passed since Volunteers (well there was a typically JA-styled compilation actually called "The Worst of JA" released since), and the group had been busy getting the Grunt record label going and a few albums had been released and Hot Tuna was gaining more momentum. So it was not liked they did anything. But with the newcomers in the fold, the feeling had changed quite a bit and the album would actually be a bit of a disappointment for fans, but this writer does not think that Bark is any better or worse than Volunteers (which is definitely not been up to par to their previous album), just different. At first glance, it is easy to see that the group once again opted for more concise and tighter song, with none exceeding the 4¾-mark. Actually the first side of the album was of a rather high calibre with a trilogy of excellent songs from Feel So Good to Pretty As You Feel running through Crazy Miranda. All three of these tracks are definitely worthy of their earlier masterpieces: the Kaukonen-penned FSG Tuna (I know, but I could not help it ;-) is Hot (eeehmm!!! Toooo easy ;-), while Grace's Miranda track show again her songwriting and piano skills. PAYF is one of the tracks where Papa John gets in his violin lines beautifully Jorma's guitar.

Unfortunately, the second side will not really follow suit and it has a real blunder in that stupidly-titled Never Argue With A German track, which would cause them harm. One of the things that the average Airplane flyers can complain about is that Casady's bass is again slightly under-mixed, because musically speaking the man is still at the top of his game, but less audible. Part of was made the Airplane special (the Balin-Slick duel/duets) and Dryden's crazy electronics doodlings was now history and for progheads, this was not good news.

As it turns out, the group had just waited too long between the over-rated but high-profile Volunteers and this much lower-keyed affair not as well distributed or promoted. Two years was simply too long a break and their dropping out of the public eyesight allowed others to step in the gap and get their share of sunshine exposure.

Sean Trane | 3/5 |

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