Jefferson Airplane on the Schuyler Hotel rooftop, Nov. 19, 1968
Every rock fan knows that the Beatles’ final live public performance was their famed rooftop concert at the Apple Records headquarters in London on Jan. 30, 1969. But as great as it was, the Brits were not the first major rock band to stage a guerrilla-style, impromptu, big-city performance for the day workers below. Jefferson Airplane beat them to it by several weeks.
It took place in New York City on Tuesday, Nov. 19, 1968. The Airplane had agreed to participate in a work-in-progress by the radical French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard, tentatively titled One A.M. (for One American Movie). His previous works had included Breathless, La Chinoise and Weekend and Godard had also made a film titled One Plus One (a.k.a. Sympathy for the Devil), featuring the Rolling Stones.
But for this new one he wanted an American group associated with the burgeoning radicalism mobilizing youth in the wake of the assassinations of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King, as well as the escalation of the Vietnam War. What he wanted was Jefferson Airplane.
Grace Sick on the rooftop
The band members were certainly agreeable but now the question was how to best represent them in the film, which included lengthy interviews with political revolutionaries such as Eldridge Cleaver and Tom Hayden. As they’d often staged free concerts in their hometown of San Francisco, as well as in New York, the Airplane and Godard decided to set up their equipment on the roof of the condemned, nine-story Schuyler Hotel, at 57 W. 45th Street in bustling Midtown near Times Square, and play for the folks below.
Godard called upon the documentarian D.A. Pennebaker (Monterey Pop) to help out with the filming and editing and on that chilly morning the Airplane—with the help of roadies Bill Laudner and Chick Casady and surrounded by various friends and hangers-on—ascended to the roof and plugged in. From the Leacock-Pennebaker company’s office directly across the street, Godard positioned one camera while others filmed the band from the rooftop. Needless to say, they didn’t bother securing a film permit.
Jack Casady, Spencer Dryden and Jorma Kaukonen (l. to r.) rockin’ on the rooftop, November ’68
Dressed in their winter finery, the Airplane launch into a particularly stomping version of “House at Pooneil Corners,” a post-apocalyptic song from their recently released fourth studio album, Crown of Creation. As seen and heard in the footage, the song, co-written by singer Marty Balin and rhythm guitarist/vocalist Paul Kantner as a sequel of sorts to the earlier “The Ballad of You and Me and Pooneil,” reveals the Airplane at their performing peak. Each of the singers—Grace Slick, Balin and Kantner—demonstrates both their comfort with improvisation and their special knack for close interaction. The instrumentalists—lead guitarist Jorma Kaukonen, bassist Jack Casady and drummer Spencer Dryden, with Kantner on rhythm guitar—are fierce and furious on this cold day, one of rock’s tightest and most progressively inclined units, slipping from one time signature to another like child’s play.
Related: Our obituary of Balin, who died on September 27, 2018
More so, perhaps, than any other live Airplane clip, even those from Monterey and Woodstock, the all-too-brief Schuyler surprise attack capsulizes what made Jefferson Airplane one of the most incendiary, creative and unique rock bands of the day.
Some hotel guests were pleased with the wakeup call
There are several highlights to look for, including the startled and, in some cases, befuddled looks on the faces of hotel employees and guests—and of course those on the street—when they are unexpectedly serenaded at 7:45 a.m. by one of the world’s most famous bands. From across the street, the camera alternately zooms and pans, at one point taking in the façade of the RCA building, home of the Airplane’s record label. We see their manager, Bill Thompson, and road crew member Chick Casady (brother of Jack) dancing to the music. Godard himself can also be seen, wearing shades and standing next to a camera, early in the video, waving to a cameraman filming him to stop doing so.
As the band finishes, curious to see whether they’ve gathered a crowd, they sprint over to the chain link fence at the edge of the roof. A couple of them climb it a few feet to peer to the ground. Grace Slick does a little jig.
Others not so much
And then came the cops. Of course, the cops. No free music, you hippies! “If they continue the music, lock ’em up!” says one. The camera pans to the street, where we see actor Rip Torn, a friend of the band, being loaded into a police car for harassing the officers. Balin smiles, pleased with the band’s early-morning rebellious act.
Filming was never completed by Godard on One A.M. but Pennebaker finished it himself, retitling it One P.M. (either One Perfect Movie or One Pennebaker Movie, depending who’s telling the tale), and it opened a year later, bombing instantly. The political rhetoric that comprised the bulk of the film today seems dated and pompous, even if some of the issues are very much still in the news.
This upload of Jefferson Airplane’s rooftop romp, however, has well over two million views on YouTube.
Watch it here
Jefferson Airplane’s recorded legacy is available in the U.S. here and in the U.K. here. Best Classic Bands’ editor Jeff Tamarkin’s definitive book on the band, Got a Revolution, is available here.
11 Comments so far
Jump into a conversationLoved the “Airplane” still do and still play them Progressive is an accurate description.Saw them many times , once with the cops between us. R.I.P. Paul , Spencer , Joey . Jorma & Jack still amaze.
And let’s not forget Papa John Creach!
No free music! Got to love it. No wonder the pigs were pigs. Love the Airplane. I remember this but had forgotten about it. Thanks for the reminder. Got to revolution!
I didn’t know about this, fantastic! One of the great, relatively unsung bands of the time, considering how remarkable they were. Where’s the Airplane movie? It’s not there’s not enough sex, drugs and drama to fill two or three!!
We agree! Let’s go, Hollywood!
Norman Spinrad’s 1975 novel Passing Through the Flame involves the meeting of Hollywood with the ’60s counterculture. There is a female singer and her group who were loosely based on Grace Slick and Jefferson Airplane.
Spinrad was a major writer in the New Wave of science fiction in the late ’60s and is known for his speculative fiction. Passing Through the Flame was his shot at mainstream fiction.
I bought it in ’75, read it, and loved it! I bought a few paperbacks and gave them to friends to read.
It’s a BIG novel with several convoluted plots running through the story. It would take an aggressive, devil-may-care screenwriter to prune it down to a movie but would probably make an interesting television series.
Passing Through the Flame sold zilch and original copies were hard to find as both a hardcover and a paperback until the internet made finding “rare” books and records much, much easier. A Kindle version is available..
A lengthy review of the novel can be found here:
https://glorioustrash.blogspot.com/2011/02/passing-through-flame.html
The entire rooftop performance can also be found in our performance compilation/documentary DVD “Fly Jefferson Airplane,” which is where this YouTube clip was ripped from.
Yes DVD is stunning. Play it for guests with a 60’s leaning . They usually search ebay for a copy!
‘‘Twas a nice attempt to awaken the sheeple trapped in the soul stealing rat race. Gotta love the 60s. I bet Rip Torn told the best stories in Hollywood. Keep UP the great work.
Hi, may I ask when was this article written? I am citing this for a master thesis and I have to quote and credi it.
January 16, 2018.