Blows Against the Empire is his concept album recorded and released in 1970, credited to Paul Kantner and Jefferson Starship.
The result derives from a period of cross-collaboration during late 1969 through 1971 by a collection of musicians from various San Francisco bands including Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead, and Quicksilver Messenger Service, along with Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young recording at the time in the city.
[5] Stylistically, the songs range from the light folk of "The Baby Tree", the musique concrète passages of "Home" and "XM", and proto-grunge in "Mau-Mau (Amerikon)".
Mostly, however, the songs are delivered in the kind of improvised, free-form rock & roll representative of the Bay Area bands of the day.
They've had enough of the military, domestic and abroad, and make one of the earliest references to Ronald Reagan in popular music in the line, "You unleash the dogs of a grade-B movie star Governor's war...so drop your fuckin' bombs, burn your demon babies, I will live again!"
The scene develops over the remaining album side, in "Let's Go Together" and "A Child Is Coming", that a couple is among the gathering in a park outside Chicago the night before the hijacking, tripping on acid as dawn approaches.
She reveals that she's pregnant, and predictably they resolve to free their child from the government's "files and their numbers game" by joining the hijackers.
By Kantner's admission, the underlying premise of the narrative was derived in part from the works of science fiction author Robert A. Heinlein.
At this point the main character of the novel, Lazarus Long says "Push the button, pull the switch, cut the beam, make it march."
Most of the tracks add standard rock instrumentation to her piano, including electric and acoustic guitars, drums and bass.
The acoustic parts throughout the second side are centered on Kantner's detuned 12-string guitar,[10] using a tuning consisting of octaves and fifths of open C, which David Crosby has likened to the droning tones of bagpipes.
During the hijack scene, an audio excerpt from the 1953 George Pal film version of War of the Worlds is used: a woman is heard to call out "Let me through!"
Kantner said he enjoyed stealing the art from Russia because many Jefferson Airplane albums were bootlegged on the Russian black market.
The back cover painting depicts a partially opened parcel revealing a room inside with Jerry Garcia peeking out.
Inside the gatefold is more artwork with track listings and credits, done in silver ink on black background and featuring a Paul Kantner caricature with a head of marijuana-leaf hair rising over a mountainous planetscape and inkblot pair of marijuana leaves in the lower fold.
Original pressings included a full-color booklet as well, with lyrics, poetry and drawings mostly done by Slick during the recording sessions and collected daily by Kantner.
Finally, the remaster includes bonus tracks of alternate takes, demos and a live recording of Starship with radio promos appended.