Grace and the Great Society

In doing work for a feature on the current clutch of Bay Area garage acts, John Dwyer, of the inimitable Thee Oh Sees, hipped me to something. After asking him about a battle between the Grateful Dead and the Jefferson Airplane and which he’d prefer to sit down and listen to, he choose neither.

Instead, his reply was something about the Great Society. And without too much explanation moved on to another topic. What’s interesting, though, is the fact that the Great Society was the breeding ground for the Airplane as it sported Grace Slick just a few years prior to international stardom performing alongside her husband on drums and brother in law Darby on guitar. Despite the clamor that would surround the singer a few years on, this particular group wasn’t able to do too much beyond release a few posthumous live discs and an album of demos and outtakes.

The trajectory of the group is surprising for a few reasons.

Grace Slick, even here, possesses a damn strong voice. It still might not be to everyone’s liking, but there aren’t too many vocalists that’d be able to match her note for note. And in taking a listen to “Free Advice,” even as Grace doesn’t take on the duties of lead vocalist, the yelps that she contributes are oddly appropriate. Elsewhere, this particular effort’s been referred to as raga-rock. And while the term might be as laughable as latter work from the Airplane, the one chord that the song’s built on might actually be properly explained in that bizarre, one word explanation.

Unfortunately for the collection dubbed Born to Be Burned, “Free Advice” is the lone highlight. There’s nothing embarrassing, but the majority of the tracks here are average – if not below average – ‘60s styled hippie rock.

The two versions of “That’s How It Is” are the only other tracks that get close to being worthy of repeat listens. However, the cleaner first version is pretty saccharine and pedestrian even as the dual vocals – split between Grace and David Miner – come off pretty well. The second take of the song finds the pace ratcheted up a bit and the drums becoming more pronounced. It isn’t quite a garagey rendition, but pretty close.

With the explosion of Bay Area rock groups from roughly the same period, it’s not too surprising that the Great Society was lost in the shuffle. Even the more cowboy tinged efforts – “Where” for example – had stronger proponents in the likes of Los Angles based the Rising Sons, which sported a young Taj Mahal.

So while Dyer is unquestionably entranced by the stronger cuts here – and on the Great Society’s other disc Collector’s Item – there seems to be more middle of the road stuff than memorable moments. The group is really just for Grace Slick fans and fanatics or even psych enthusiasts with too much time and money on their hands. That being said, these collections are probably sitting around in some used bin with reasonable prices affixed to each.