I am deeply ashamed to admit that back in the 1980's into about 1991, one of my favorite bands was the post-Marty Balin era of Jefferson Starship, and its successor, Starship. Their Nuclear Furniture album, which I bought on 10/23/90, has two distinctions: first, it was the first CD I ever bought, and was my very first credit card purchase. And when Tana reads this entry, she is going to have a conniption over the fact that I remember this date.
In 1991, after they broke up, there was a greatest hits album that had two songs that were previously unreleased, "Don't Lose Any Sleep" and "Good Heart". I bought "Good Heart" on cassingle (which dates me horribly), but there was no way that I was going to buy an entire CD for two songs.
I was poking around online last night, and I discovered that the folks at Sony/BMG have decided to dump the entire Jefferson Starship catalog onto iTunes. I downloaded those the two songs I mentioned, but it got me thinking. Their "Modern Times" album was never released in this country on CD, so on 11/17/00 (this date I looked up), I spent a small fortune on an import copy on Amazon; the copy I had prior to that was on cassette. If iTunes had existed back in 2000, I could have saved a good bit of money.
But this is why I like iTunes. Like I mentioned recently with Gordon Lightfoot, these albums have been out of print for a zillion years, the record company didn't have to spend any time or money manufacturing or distributing records; they just convert them into a series of ones and zeros, and now this music is accessible to anyone who wants it.
I know the origin of the green chair (it's on the cover of Nuclear Furniture, where this song came from). And I guess they had to find a way to cram all seven members of the band into the video, so they had Donny Baldwin lifting weights in bed and Grace Slick in a weird costume. But I am completely at sea as to the rest.
And even more frightening? This video is twenty-five years old.
Eric Out.
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