Paul Kantner

[Tracy Riddle]

An Eighties version of their 60s song "CIA Man"



"Kill for Peace" is from 1966; the video appears to be of the same vintage.

[Albert Doyle]

NPR's Howard Mandel posted my comment in his article on why Kantner didn't get much media attention over his death, and responded:

I believe you're right. My bias, unmentioned in the post, is that Kantner and the JA engaged with themes of love and politics much more substantially than the media cares to extoll, or perhaps my ge-ge-generation cares to remember or honor. It gets me when Bernie Sanders just Kantner's age speaks of revolution in electoral politics and I remember the Airplane, Stones, Beatles, Doors, Dylan not to forget Shepp, the Last Poets, etc. envisioning revolution in the streets. I thought in the late '60s we were on the correctly progressive path, though surely there would be snags. People like our rock stars especially the Americans Joplin, Hendrix, Morrison, Kantner, Garcia were flawed and hedonistic, but also grappling with complexities and pursuing imaginative resolutions. Now our culture lauds a British born performer who constructed an artful, chameleonlike image launched from the premise he was an alien (but one whose music to my ears appropriated or embodied popular tropes more than expanding or exploding them). Bowie always struck me as being about intriguing, attractive surfaces, Kantner about glimpsing an ideal and going for it.

[Lauren Johnson]

NPR's Howard Mandel posted my comment in his article on why Kantner didn't get much media attention over his death, and responded:

I believe you're right. My bias, unmentioned in the post, is that Kantner and the JA engaged with themes of love and politics much more substantially than the media cares to extoll, or perhaps my ge-ge-generation cares to remember or honor. It gets me when Bernie Sanders just Kantner's age speaks of revolution in electoral politics and I remember the Airplane, Stones, Beatles, Doors, Dylan not to forget Shepp, the Last Poets, etc. envisioning revolution in the streets. I thought in the late '60s we were on the correctly progressive path, though surely there would be snags. People like our rock stars especially the Americans Joplin, Hendrix, Morrison, Kantner, Garcia were flawed and hedonistic, but also grappling with complexities and pursuing imaginative resolutions. Now our culture lauds a British born performer who constructed an artful, chameleonlike image launched from the premise he was an alien (but one whose music to my ears appropriated or embodied popular tropes more than expanding or exploding them). Bowie always struck me as being about intriguing, attractive surfaces, Kantner about glimpsing an ideal and going for it.

In this era of group think, he discloses his bias noting that he could not post this publicly. Can['t blame him.

Nice thought tho.