Tuesday’s Tune: House at Pooneil Corners

One of the earliest known example of a “guerrilla gig” was in November 1968 with Jefferson Airplane. Made possible by the suggestion of Swiss-French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard, best known for his film, Breathless, who had begun work on a political semi-documentary he called One A.M. (One American Movie).

Godard, who felt that Jefferson Airplane best represented the youth revolution of the day, had the musicians set up their equipment, sans permit, on a hotel rooftop in midtown Manhattan at the peak of the working day. New Yorkers below scanned the sky above the hotel and were able to hear Jefferson Airplane complete one song; a version of “House At Pooneil Corners”. The performance ended with the New York City Police shutting down the unexpected performance with threats of arrest due to the noise disturbance.

Jefferson Airplane co-founder Paul Kantner said in a interview, “Just for a while there, maybe for about 25 minutes in 1967, everything was perfect.” But in these seven minutes in November 1968, from the shouting of the residents in apartments below to Grace Slick’s arresting vocals, the streets of New York were anything but dull.

The Godard film was never released, but a recount of this performance can be seen on the “Fly Jefferson Airplane” documentary DVD released in 2004.