Grace Slick and Michelle Mangione – Sitting On The Edge Of Madness Much like the main character in Lewis Carroll’s ‘Alice In Wonderland’ it can be said that Grace Slick has been down the rabbit hole, through the looking glass, and back again. As one of the most instantly recognizable figures in rock history, the former Jefferson Airplane/Starship vocalist was the embodiment of “sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll” in the sixties and early seventies, easily outdoing the excesses of her male counterparts in what was largely a male-dominated industry. Her controversial lyrics and outspoken nature, both onstage and off, soon landed her a spot on the FBI’s watch list and a guaranteed pass into the history books as one of the most outrageous rock stars of all time. Perhaps her most notorious run-in with the law occurred when she was invited to then-president Richard Nixon’s White House for a tea party back in 1969. Nixon’s daughter Tricia was attending the same finishing school that Grace had attended ten years earlier, so she received the invitation as an alumnus under her maiden name, Grace Wing, apparently evading the feds’ attention. A chronic shit-disturber and provocative smart-ass, Grace invited 60’s radical Abbie Hoffman, a member of the Chicago 8, as her escort to the affair. She also brought along a “lot of powdered LSD” which she had planned to slip into Nixon’s tea, in an effort to get the embattled president out of office. As Slick recalls: “So Abbie and I went as husband and wife. One of the security guards recognized me as Grace Slick, so I couldn’t go in because I was on the FBI list. They didn’t even come up to Abbie. He was standing on soapboxes screaming about how shitty the government was, and they didn’t say anything to him. Apparently, they didn’t recognize him.”Coincidentally, Jefferson Airplane had recently released a single called “Mexico”, which criticized Nixon’s policies in the war on drugs. “Even when they turned us away, I still thought it was amusing that they’d invited us to the White House”, she laughs.Now 72, Grace makes a living as a music publisher and artist, painting images of musicians such as Jimi Hendrix, Jerry Garcia, Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison. She also paints several “white rabbit” themed paintings, based, of course, on the success of her 1967 song, ‘White Rabbit‘. Her paintings have fetched upwards of $25,000 and kept her busy touring the country doing appearances at art galleries. Although her days of onstage melees, acid binges and booze-fueled car accidents are but a hazy memory, Slick is certainly showing no signs of slowing down. In fact, she informs us at the start of our phone interview that she appreciates the call because it gives her a break from rehab.Wait…rehab?“I broke my arm in about three places, so they’ve got me doing exercises at home that are very painful. I’m glad you called so I get to stop”, she explains. “I’m a klutz. I was walking into an art store, and I just tripped over my own foot and fell down, and slammed my left arm into a metal frame. It’s a spiral fracture.”As it turns out, Grace’s misfortune triggered a chain of events that would ultimately become a blessing for strangers thousands of miles away. With her arm in a cast, she was unable to continue painting, so she did what still comes naturally; stick it to the man, and with any luck, help out some people in need. Those people, namely, were the residents of New Orleans, who, while still trying to rebuild from the horrors of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 (which caused $150 billion in damages), were dealt another blow with the disastrous BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill in April of this year. “Well, this is a habit of mine, going back to Jefferson Airplane“, she explains. “When I get pissed off at something, instead of going to a therapist and paying them to listen to me, I write whatever I’m pissed off about, in lyrics, and have people pay me to listen to me talk. In this case, the money isn’t going to me, it’s going to the people in the Gulf Of Mexico. Louisiana, and New Orleans, in particular, have just been hammered by everything.”With her iPad in hand, Grace began writing the lyrics to what would ultimately become a song called ‘The Edge of Madness‘. Although she has long since abandoned the music world as a performer, saying in interviews that ‘old people shouldn’t be on a rock n’ roll stage…myself included‘, Grace decided to tap the talents of her good friend and musical collaborator, Michelle Mangione.Mangione, a Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter/multi-instrumentalist knew right away that Slick was onto something with ‘The Edge Of Madness‘.“Grace called me one day and said ‘I’m sending you some lyrics, because I’m so pissed off and I’m so sad about what’s happened to Louisiana, between Hurricane Katrina and then the BP spill.’ We were just going to put it on YouTube, just to raise awareness. But then I got a bug up my butt to go and call a bunch of other musicians to see if they would support it or sing on it and we could actually reach more people that way. It started with just one phone call and they just all started saying ‘yes!’. I think there’s about 30 musicians and singers that donated their part to the song. So it just started happening and coming in and we just started getting all this support.”As a veteran of the California music scene, Michelle had made some friends in high places. Among the musicians who donated their talents to the track are Bill Medley (Righteous Brothers), Tom Dumont (No Doubt), Billy Zoom (X), Martha Davis (The Motels), Kid Ramos (The Fabulous Thunderbirds), Larry Hanson (Alabama), Terri Nunn (Berlin), and Steven Hodges (Tom Waits, Smashing Pumpkins). Michelle was surprised at the overwhelming support that began pouring in from the music community all over the world, including one young drummer from the Netherlands, who she discovered on YouTube. “Their enthusiasm was absolute”, says Michelle of the young drummer and his parents, who agreed to let their son contribute to the project. “They just kept coming back with ‘what else can we do?’ ”While most musicians can only dream of having a co-writer of Slick’s legendary status, Michelle points out that the song presented a few challenges:“Grace didn’t want the song to be angry. There were some lyrics that were more of a protest, and named names. She’s pissed off, but we wanted to reach people, so she asked if we can make the music happy because the message is sad. She asked me to give it a Louisiana style. Being that I grew up on rock n’ roll, I pretty much had to do some research, and talk to musicians, and get professional help.”Michelle’s homework paid off. While the traditional ‘benefit song‘ genre is arguably the antithesis of rock, ‘The Edge Of Madness’ is a rollicking, spicy Cajun/Zydeco/rock jambalaya featuring horns, acoustic and overdriven guitars, violins, and a kickass ‘second drum’ section that truly captures the sound and spirit New Orleans. With heart-wrenching lyrics (“who will hear our story/who will see this hell/who will bring us justice/tell me, who will?”). delivered over a ridiculously fun, catchy and upbeat rhythm, the song represents, perhaps, the enduring heart of a city that continues to dance in the face of tragedy. ‘The Edge Of Madness’ was debuted at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles on July 24. Grace was in LA to do a live ‘intimate and interactive’ art show and interview with KLOS DJ Jim Ladd at the Museum‘s theater, so Michelle approached the Museum and asked for their support:“It’s hard to give away money without being taxed for it”, says Michelle. “So we had to go through someone who could actually put the download up and collect the money and disperse it, so that we wouldn’t be taxed or anything. So, they did that for us, and it’s with them exclusively.”While Grace is truly thrilled at the response and support that the song has received, the bureaucracy of tax laws and the ineffectiveness of government clearly drive her up the wall. “They gotta put a stop to this bureaucracy that drags everything down. You can’t get anything done, because there are so many middle men. I don’t have an answer for everything, but I do think we oughta take care of own people rather than going out and killing other people. Instead of just paying a bunch of soldiers to go and conquer a country that has never been conquered, that would be Afghanistan, we oughta be bringing these guys back, sending them to Louisiana, and having them help with the cleanup. Bring ‘em home. You gotta take care of your own country. Nobody’s taking care of Louisiana. It doesn’t impress me much what BP is half doing, or what the government is half doing.“I feel sorry for Obama. He walked into this stew pot everywhere: climate, wars, disasters, economy, you name it. He walked into this mess and he can’t get anything done. He’ll propose something, and then Congress shoots it down. So people say ‘why isn’t he doing anything?’. He’s trying, but he keeps getting shot down. “I think he has good ideas but he can’t seem to get them through because of the way our political arena is set up. So he’ll try something and the Republicans will say he’s a Muslim or some dopey stuff . Sure, his parents are Muslim, but I come from Republicans, and I’m about as far left as you can get. Just because your parents are Republican doesn’t mean you have to be one. You have to think for yourself.”Despite massive advancements in communication technology and the power of social networking via the internet, Slick believes that the effectiveness of protest is vastly different today than it was in the sixties:“Twittering, you’re just bitching about stuff. You can do all that stuff on a computer, but you’re not doing anything. You’re just yapping. I think it’s harder now. There’s too many problems, too much information. Where do we start? What do we do? In the 60’s it was more trackable. It was easier to point out areas that needed help. Now it’s just a stunning mess…and that’s not just this country, that’s worldwide.“The planet can’t do anything about us. We’re the most destructive animal ever. You know, the air, the water, the land, everything. We just don’t pay attention to being a part of stuff. We’ve always thought we’re the be all end all. We’re not.”Michelle adds: “When there’s a disaster, we tend to forget quickly if they’re not in the public eye. I don’t know if we forgot about the oil spill, but the economy is so bad right now that everybody’s struggling. We’re all trying to keep our heads above water. We’re all just kinda struggling and focusing on survival. It’s easy to forget when it’s not in the media and being presented right in front of us.”Although the oil has stopped pouring into the Gulf, the long-term economic and health effects won’t be fully realized for years to come. Nearly 5 million barrels of oil leaked into the Gulf during the spill.“The Edge Of Madness” is available for download exclusively at the Grammy Museum website for $1.49. The funds are being distributed to the Greater New Orleans Foundation Gulf Coast Oil Spill Fund (http://www.gnof.org) to assist New Orleans families affected by Hurricane Katrina and the oil spill. A portion of the proceeds are also going to the MusiCares Foundation (http://www2.grammy.com/Musicares/) to assist affected musicians in the area. Michelle informs us that there have been a few fraudulent websites out there offering the download, then stealing credit card numbers. The song is only officially available at http://www.grammymuseum.orgInterview by: April Savoie Written by: Shon Troelstrup
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