Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in trionic's LiveJournal:

[ << Previous 20 ]

Saturday, April 11th, 2009
10:34 pm	Penn Radio to return? There's a great interview with Michael Goudeau up at the Conspiracy Skeptic Podcast. Goudeau was co-host, along with Penn Jillette (you know, the larger, louder half of Penn & Teller), of a one hour Radio Program that ran weekdays from January 2006 through February 2007. Most of those broadcasts are available on-line at PennFans.net I loved this show to death; it was funny, smart, irreverent, politically incorrect -- just what you would expect from a couple of libertarian atheist jugglers. But what I liked best was the fact that, seemingly alone in all media, these two Clowns (both bona fide graduates of Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey Greatest Show on Earth's Clown College) are fierce admirers and promoters of Science and the Scientific Method. Anyway, the exciting news from the interview is that Penn and Goudeau are keen to bring the show back, and have been in negotiation with various entities since the show left the air. Fingers crossed, I hope something works out. I had some fun participating in Penn Radio, writing jokes on the topic of the day and sending in them in via EMail. Goudeau and Penn read several of them of the air, excerpted below: 18 April 2006: After reporting that Johnny Weissmuller's chimpanzee companion Cheeta was still alive at age 73 (since debunked!), and was known to have been a smoker, I made this comment. 27 April 2006: In a discussion of the Draft, Penn couldn't remember if he had registered, as was required at the time. I'm just a year younger than Penn, and I sent in this story about why I remembered registering. 22 June 2006: The boys know that Anecdote != Science, so when a Media Outlet asked for stories about how you were witnessing the effects of Global Warming in your backyard, I asked Penn and Goudeau if they had seen any Woolly Mammoths lately. 11 October 2006: The topic this day was: "If you had One Million Dollars to donate to a charity, what charity would that be?" All of the calls were from smelly hippies who swore they'd send food, or water, or medicine, or Grateful Dead bootlegs to Africa. Sha, right! Just like they'd send money now, if only they had some change left over after buying that new iPhone. So I sent an EMail that said: "I'll send one million dollars worth of booze and strippers to Africa. Can I ride over on the airplane with the booze and strippers?" Unfortunately, Goudeau mangled my joke. 20 November 2006: There was a kerfuffle in the news about the troops in Iraq not having enough body armor. But Penn thought that topic might be too boring, and suggested that perhaps they discuss breast implants instead. I suggested combining the two topics. 9 January 2007: Must have been a slow news day, because the topic was "If a pill was developed to make gay people straight, should that pill be manufactured?" That topic didn't interest me, since I'm not an earnest high school sophomore. So I decided to twist it a bit. 19 January 2007: "What would you like as your epitaph?" I couldn't think of a good joke for an epitaph, but I thought up a funny one for somebody's last words. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, August 13th, 2008
12:01 am	Happy 43rd! As is apparent from the dearth of postings here, my interest in Jefferson Airplane has been flagging over the last several years. That's changed recently, since a bunch of Jefferson Airplane shows from 1967 have become available through the torrent tracker at dimeadozen.org. 1967 was a magical time for Jefferson Airplane, marking the beginning of their long, glorious creative peak. They became a national sensation as the most visible representatives of the San Francisco Sound, riding high at the crest of the Hippie Wave; a wave that would soon come crashing down during the Summer of Love. Still, for most of 1967 the tensions that would eventually tear the band apart hadn't come to the fore. And in the first half of 1967, it's still Marty's band, and he tears it up every night. There's little chatter from the stage, and no smart-ass remarks; only Marty's annoyance when nobody is dancing. Besides her turns on White Rabbit and Somebody to Love, Grace is conspicuously in the background. By the end of the Summer of 1967, that would all change, and the long, slow slide to 1972 would begin. As a glowing reminder of that brief Golden Age, there are a set of spectacular recordings from a three night stand at Winterland, 10-12 March 1967 . In celebration of the the 43rd anniversary of Jefferson Airplane, here's a thirteen minute slice from the 12 March 1967 show (15.1MBytes). For me, this jam is the Holy Grail of Airplane recordings, and perhaps a perfect definition of what psychedelic music actually was. A spacey jam leads into a screaming version of Leave You Alone, then ends in a Jack Casady bass solo. Happy Birthday! (Comment on this)
Wednesday, September 5th, 2007
10:15 pm	Outta Sight! Here's a great bit of jive 60's DJ speak from the close of the 31 October 1969 LA forum show. (Comment on this)
Saturday, September 1st, 2007
11:44 am	Hoody Hoo! I've updated the Knights of the Dinner Table story index at the KenzerCo website. Andy Miller and I had updated Jason Zavoda's original index about this time last year, from issue 84 through 116. The latest update is complete up to the current issue, number 130. Andy Miller is currently writing summaries for the major KODT story arcs. It's a valuable resource for KODT fans -- But skip it if you haven't read the strips yet! (Comment on this)
Monday, August 13th, 2007
12:26 am	Happy 42th My favorite Jefferson Airplane song is probably Young Girl Sunday Blues. Marty Balin's only contribution to "After Bathing at Baxter's" this song represents a pivotal moment: Marty's withdrawal from the creative center of what had been his band. A major cause was probably Jack and Jorma's desire to play in a Cream-style hard rock / blues band, and their open hostility to Marty's romantic pop predilections. Another factor was the ascendance of Grace as the focal point of the band, at least as far as the general public was concerned. Have you ever seen the video of a glowering Marty, standing in the background as the band lip-syncs White Rabbit and Somebody to Love on American Bandstand? I've never found a truly satisfying version of Young Girl Sunday Blues, but here's a pretty good version (5.3 MB mp3) from the 31 October 1969 show at the Forum in Los Angeles, California. If only Marty had been more strident, maybe we'd have more live versions of Today and Young Girl Sunday Blues and fewer versions of Uncle Sam Blues (of which, "none" would be enough.) (Comment on this)
Tuesday, August 7th, 2007
9:35 pm	Sweeping Up the Spotlight New Jefferson Airplane release on Sony/BMG/RCA/Legacy I haven't been keeping up with the latest Jefferson Airplane news, and didn't notice this CD when it was released a few months back. It's a selection from the 28-29 November 1969 shows at the Fillmore East. There are some good performances here, but not any great ones. The Airplane had finished transforming themselves from an experimental folk-pop-blues collective to a rock band, and were not as interesting as they used to be. The highlight of the disc is Jack Casady's solo during "The Ballad of You, Me and Pooneil". The best reason to buy and listen to this CD is the quality of the recording. Crystal clear, with an extraordinary mix; Paul Kantner and Jorma Kaukonen's guitars are evenly and cleanly separated. Jack's bass is mixed a little too far back, but that's a minor quibble -- it might sound better on your stereo. Most of the credit probably belongs to Bill Irwin, who produced and mastered the record. Grace Slick fans beware: her only solo turn is on "White Rabbit", and her voice was not in top form that night. (Comment on this)
Sunday, May 13th, 2007
10:31 am	Doesn't Mean Shit to a Tree ... By request, Eskimo Blue Day, from a 3 June 2000 performance at The Bottom Line, NYC. This was the tour they played the entire "Volunteers" album. The initial shows of this tour were advertised as "Jefferson Airplane's Volunteers", which led to Jack Casady quitting Jefferson Starship (so far, for good), and to Paul Kantner suing himself. I don't think Jefferson Airplane played this one live much. Scott Abbot's JABase could confirm this, but I've lost the link for the latest revision. Anybody know where it is? (Comment on this)
Wednesday, September 13th, 2006
10:42 pm	Not that there's anything wrong with that ... Sure, Internet quizzes are dumb. But this one looked like fun: "Which Superhero are you?" OK, lemme try it ... Look! It's a bird, it's a plane, it's ... You are: Supergirl Lean, muscular and feminine. Honest and a defender of the innocent. Supergirl 62% Spider-Man 60% Superman 55% Robin 52% Green Lantern 50% Wonder Woman 47% Hulk 45% Iron Man 45% The Flash 40% Catwoman 30% Batman 25% Click here to take the Superhero Personality Test (Comment on this)
Monday, August 21st, 2006
10:25 pm	Happy Belated 41st Here's what I consider the High Water mark of Jefferson Starship: St. Charles (7.8 MB mp3). This particular version is from a 7 July 1976 show in New York's Central Park. For me, the last good recording was Dragon Fly. After that, the only Jefferson Anything album I can listen to is Paul Kantner's Planet Earth Rock and Roll Orchestra (1984). After Spitfire(1) came the horrendous Earth, and then the lamentable Mickey Thomas era. But here's a little bit of the old spirit: the Kantner / Balin collaboration, the glorious three part harmonies, Paul's signature melding of ancient mythology and science fiction -- and a great bass part by Pete Sears that evokes memories of Jack Casady. You can put a marker here: 11 years after the founding of Jefferson Airplane, 30 years ago before today -- the end of Jefferson Starship. Notes (1) There's a illustration on the back cover of the LP that suggests that St. Charles might have been considered as the name for this album. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, July 5th, 2006
10:11 pm	In an alternate reality ... ... there I am, up on stage with Jimmy Durante, singing an hellacious harmony on "When Irish Eyes are Smiling". Boy, I sound great! And I remember all the words, even for the second verse. Of course we bring the house down! We had a terrible storm whip through last night. It really looked like the big maple out front was going to come down. The power's off, and I don't expect it to come on 'til tomorrow. But jeez, after a dream like that, how could I not wake up feeling like a million bucks? (Comment on this)
Tuesday, May 9th, 2006
9:35 pm	The Magic Christian Rides Again ... ... or, Why I Like to Use Credit Cards. One of the urinals in the Men's Room at work has been leaking for a couple of months now. I don't know if it's the drain that's leaking, but there's always a puddle on the floor underneath, and a foul, ammonia-like (1) smell in the air. Today, there was a well-soaked twenty dollar bill lying in the puddle. Should I pick up the dough? Of course not, how repellent! (2) The next time I went in for a leak the twenty was gone. Notes (1) It smells like PISS, of course. Can you say that on the Internet? (2) I gotta keep a pair of rubber gloves in my desk. (Comment on this)
Friday, April 28th, 2006
9:59 pm	It ain't what you want, it's what you need Here's "Sketches of China" (7.1 MB mp3) live at The Spectrum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on 5 April 1974. This is Jefferson Starship's first tour; Paul and Grace having finally gotten tired of waiting for Jack and Jorma to put their skates down. It's near the end of that extraordinary period of creativity for the Kanter/Slick partnership, stretching from Blows Against the Empire through Dragon Fly. This tour highlighted material from Manhole and Baron Von Tollbooth and the Chrome Nun. David Frieberg is back on board, Peter "Kangaroo" Kaukonen is on bass, and the new guy is Craig Chaquico. There was another tour at the end of that year, featuring material from Dragon Fly, with Pete Sears replacing Peter Kaukonen. Marty re-joined at the last show of that tour, when he sang "Caroline" at Winterland. That for me marks the real end of Jefferson Airplane -- there were occasional, frustrating flashes of the old brilliance -- "There Will Be Love" and "St. Charles" -- but the music that followed is something that I really don't listen to much. (Comment on this)
Saturday, March 25th, 2006
4:59 pm	Banned in China! While doing a bit of egosurfing, I stumbled across a paper by a couple of eggheads at Harvard Law School that lists trionic.org as a site blocked by Internet censors in China. Why? Is "Thunk" Hu Jintao's favorite song? Most likely we're blocked because of the Chinese policy to block URLs that redirect to another site. There is not an IP address corresponding to trionic.org; instead, requests for trionic.org are forwarded by your local DNS to the physical location of the site at verizon.net Another study by the same authors listing sites censored by Saudi Arabia doesn't include trionic.org. So, have you heard the one about Jesus, Mohammed, and the donkey? (Comment on this)
Wednesday, February 22nd, 2006
10:45 pm	Come Back Baby ... in this case, Come Back Spencer! Here's "Come Back Baby" (7.4 Mb mp3) from a 14 Sep 1970 show at the Fillmore West. It's about six months after Jack and Jorma got their fondest wish, driving out Spencer Dryden for the more muscular Joey Covington. Joey's strengths are best displayed in the virtuoso pounding he lays out on "Plastic Fantastic Lover" on the Fly Jefferson Airplane DVD, but Spencer's sound was irreplaceable. Jefferson Airplane was a pale shadow ever after. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, February 14th, 2006
9:07 pm	World's Best JA/JS/HT reference source I stumbled across this great resource for Jefferson Airplane fans -- Guido Reyskens' Jefferson Airplane / Starship / Hot Tuna magazine collection. There are more than one thousand print references here! (Comment on this)
Thursday, November 24th, 2005
4:58 pm	Jon Anderson at the Birchmere At Marlizinha's urging, we went to the Jon Anderson show on 10 Nov 2005 at the fabulous Birchmere. Marlizinha is a fan of his 1994 album Deseo, and I was a moderate Yes fan back in the day. I only went to one show (15 Aug 1977) , and I remember it as a great performance. The highlight was Steve Howe, Chris Squire and Rick Wakeman all playing the same extended part on "Close to the Edge." And I guess I wasn't hallucinating, Squire really did play a three-necked guitar. Back to the Future: It seemed much the same crowd at the Birchmere as was at that 1977 show: a little greyer, a bit thicker around the middle. Yeah, I got to thinking that back in 1977 this night was something I could have imagined as a science fiction scenario: A room full of old people, but everybody didn't have the same haircut, and nobody was wearing an ugly polyester shirt (And, like that new movie Star Wars, they were all white people.) Yup, here I was watching a hale and hearty 50-something geezer (Wow, that 21st century medicine must be awesome!) performing in front of a screen with images generated by computer (You could make a movie from those images! And call it TRON!) And the beer! Sure, you could still order Budweiser, but I had this fabulous stuff called (get this!) Dogfish Head Pale Ale! Har! Back to 2005: Anderson was performing solo, mostly accompanying himself on guitar, with the aid of some pedal-driven electronic wizardry. His guitar work was a bit amateurish, but the arrangements were quite good. He's got an engaging stage presence that burnishes that wonderfully idiosyncratic voice. We both enjoyed the show tremendously. In between songs, Anderson told quite a few stories -- about his adventures, his collaborators, how songs were inspired, what he's doing now -- a delightful storyteller, with a seemingly genuine manner and a wonderful Irish accent. He apologized for rambling on, but I would have been happy to listen to a few more stories! An added bonus: Given his high register, the necessary reworking of Yes songs for a solo acoustic performance, and the unfamiliarity of his non-Yes catalog to many people, there wasn't much of that annoying fan sing-along. One negative: "Owner of a Lonely Heart" in the solo acoustic arrangement is still a lousy song. Probably my Twenty-First Century Science Fiction scenario didn't have Rock Superstar Jon Anderson signing autographs in the lobby after the show, but as my Dad always said, "Truth is stranger than fiction." A great show, highly recommended. (Comment on this)
Saturday, September 24th, 2005
9:27 pm	High priced, pre-cleaned, real fine nicotine This version of "3/5 of a Mile in 10 Seconds" (7.0 Mb mp3) is from the end of September, beginning of October 1966. From the fragmentary evidence in Scott Abbot's JABase I'd wager that this might be one of the earliest, if not the earliest existing recording of a live performance of new material from Surrealistic Pillow (the show commonly circulated as 22 Jul 1966 is almost certainly from a much later date.) An especially interesting version because this show was before Signe's exit, and the backing vocal features Paul only. (Comment on this)
Thursday, September 8th, 2005
10:49 pm	Before the Hair Bands ... ... there was Deep Purple, featuring original Shredmeister Ritchie Blackmore, and a bunch of guys named Ian. For all you kids out there: if you really want to know what it was like for your parents back in the day, light up a doobie, suck down a six-pack of Miller, the Champagne of Bottled Beer, and listen to "Child in Time" from Made in Japan. Caution: Don't play it on eight-track in a 1968 Camaro. Display such an arrogant disregard for the integrity of the space-time continuum and you might find yourself caught in a time warp and thrown back to 1974, facing the onslaught of Disco armed only with a fringed suede jacket and a bad haircut. (Comment on this)
Friday, August 19th, 2005
9:30 pm	Happy Belated 40th Picked up a CD (through the good folks at JeffersonFamilyTrading) with a collation of various Jefferson Airplane performances from 1965-67, as presented by Bill Graham on KSAN radio at some time in the distant past. It includes three songs from the famous 6 Nov 1965 Mime Troupe Benefit, and the sophistication of that performance belies the legend that the early Airplane were a ragged bunch on stage. For those of you with a broadband connection, here's a sample from a little later on, probably pretty early in Grace's term, Go To Her (archived). Turn up the gain and you can hear her read through the lyrics in her Boris and Natasha voice. (Comment on this)
Saturday, March 19th, 2005
11:48 pm	Young Girl Sunday Blues I'm celebrating turning on the fire hose this weekend; that is, my new DSL connection. Oh yeah, beats the hell outta the ol' 300 baud acoustic modem, don't it? This unimaginably great site has a ton of recent Jefferson Starship video. Check out a scorching version (18 Feb 2005) of my favorite Jefferson Airplane song (this week, anyway) Young Girl Sunday Blues. Wow! Almost enough for me to quit my post Jack Casady boycott and start going to shows again. (Comment on this)