Recording sessions for the album began in 1970 following the commercial failure of Grace Slick's "Mexico", a single that railed against the Nixon administration's anti-marijuana Operation Intercept initiative.

[1][2][3] A tour of the United States in support of the band's first greatest hits album (The Worst of Jefferson Airplane) continued through the autumn of 1970, with Creach (a veteran jazz musician who appeared with Nat King Cole in Fritz Lang's The Blue Gardenia before meeting Covington at a hiring hall in the late 1960s) joining the band and Hot Tuna on the day of Janis Joplin's death.

"[5] Although "The Man" was recorded with Little Richard on piano (much to the consternation of Casady, who felt that his presence was stylistically inappropriate) during this period, new songs were ultimately composed by Kantner, Slick, Kaukonen and Covington in lieu of retaining the 1970-era material.

[6]) The recording sessions finally concluded at the beginning of July 1971, with the resulting album featuring the core five-member band augmented by Creach on three tracks.

The band played several dates in August in support of the new album (including two concerts in the New York metropolitan area and a show apiece in Detroit and Philadelphia) but no tour was planned.

Only one date (a private party for Grunt Records at San Francisco's Friends and Relations Hall) was played after the album's release in September.

Inside the bag itself was a cardboard cover for storing the record, that featured a fish with human false teeth wrapped in paper and tied with string.

And the zingy rush that Jorma's and Jack's reps rest on streams as strongly as ever just a bit below the surface of the music with a motion seconded in places by the always judicious application of Papa John's sweet gypsy-blue fiddle.