Local Web business mans online cockpit for Jefferson Airplane
2004-11-29
By Jim Phillips
Athens NEWS Senior Writer, Photo by Ed Venrick
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Many local music fans know that Jorma Kaukonen, guitar player for the legendary '60s rock group Jefferson Airplane, lives in nearby Meigs County.

Perhaps fewer people are aware that the official Web site for not only the Airplane, but also a number of bands in the JA "family," are now under the loving management of a local Web entrepreneur.

Roman Warmke's connection with Kaukonen and his wife Vanessa dates back to 1998, when he started working at their Fur Peace Ranch guitar camp as a bass-guitar instructor. This led to a marketing slot with Fur Peace and related businesses, and soon, Warmke was learning the ropes of Web site production hands-on.

"I got to use Jorma as a guinea pig," he joked Wednesday. "How many people get to experiment with somebody who gets immediate attention?"

As he learned and branched out, Warmke recalled, he got the itch to start his own company -- which he eventually did, with the blessings of his former employers. He remains grateful for his apprenticeship at Fur Peace, which, he said, got him ready to launch Eden Marketing.

"It really gave Eden the crutch it needed to get up on its feet," he said.

Until recently, the official Web site for the Jefferson Airplane was run by an outfit called Visible Theory, which beat out other bidders (including Warmke's company) for the job some three years ago.

After a while, however, according to Vanessa Kaukonen, it became obvious that the site just wasn't drawing many hits, and that people who visited weren't coming back.

"It was very mechanical, and there was no feeling at all," she said Sunday. In talking to Airplane manager Bill Thompson of San Francisco, she recalled, she told him, "I've got this guy who does a lot of work for me. He's going to give you an honest, fair price, and you're going to get top quality, and you're going to get love... and you're going to get everything that the Airplane is about."

Thompson was persuaded, and in September, the new and improved jeffersonairplane.com had its takeoff under Eden's management.

Warmke said he approached the site design as a sensory buffet.

He also wanted to make sure that the site drew visitors in from the moment it opened up in their browsers.

"I wrote it down in terms of senses," he said. "I wanted to hear, see and feel."

Thus, the site opens to the chiming, dreamy guitar meditation of Airplane's "Embryonic Journey," written and played by Jorma Kaukonen.

"It really puts you in the mood," Warmke suggested.

From the front page, the Airplane fanatic can choose from a menu of links, to check on the latest JA-related news, read articles, listen to musical clips from Airplane albums, watch vintage video footage of the band, check out bios of the group and each of its members, trace a chronology of its performances from 1965 to 1973, and order JA merchandise.

There's also a forum feature, in which Airplane fans old and new can get online to trade opinions, voice enthusiasms, and share minutiae about the band. On Saturday, for example, one frequent poster to the forum got online to send out a Happy 62nd Birthday to the late Jimi Hendrix, and ask whether anyone had photos to share of Hendrix playing with Airplane bassist Jack Casady or other band members.

In addition to the standard band paraphernalia of T-shirts, CDs and so on, Warmke said, the official Airplane site will offer some items not readily available elsewhere. For example, you can order herbal teas, named for the JA albums "Surrealistic Pillow" and "Volunteers," or a poster signed by Kaukonen and Casady. One item being peddled on the site at the moment is a DVD documentary about the band, "Fly Jefferson Airplane." And in the near future, Warmke plans to offer full-size replicas of original artwork by JA singer Grace Slick.

Warmke said the response to the site suggests it's beginning to draw in new visitors, and bring back some old ones who may have been less than enchanted with the previous official site. While many visitors, predictably, are '60s Summer of Love veterans, he said the band seems to be picking up more than its fair share of younger fans, too.

"You know what I have found, surprisingly enough, is a lot of teenagers," he said. "I would say 40 percent of the people sampling the site are under 20 years old. A lot of people are finding Airplane for the first time."

Vanessa Kaukonen said she has never had reason to regret pushing Warmke for the job. "The site is doing fabulous," she reported.

While he deeply respects Jorma Kaukonen and the Airplane for what they accomplished, Warmke said, he's not a huge JA fan himself. "I'd look to call myself more of a Van Halen era guy," he notes. However, he said, not feeling the kind of intense adulation that some Airplane followers profess has probably helped him do a better job running the site.

"I don't get caught up in a lot of the goo-goo ga-ga," he said. "In fact, Vanessa once said to me, 'I'm so glad you're not a big fan.'"

She is, however, a fan of the work of Warmke, and his Eden collaborators Jef Shilt, Bryan Dumm and Lindsay Eyink. Eden handles not only Jefferson Airplane's official site, but also sites for related bands Hot Tuna and Jefferson Starship, as well as sites for Jorma, Jack Casady, original JA member Marty Balin, and Fur Peace Ranch. (As an added bonus, the JA site links to breakdownway.com, where you can take online guitar lessons from Kaukonen.)

"We have something really great here in Athens," Vanessa Kaukonen said.

Related Links:
- Jefferson Airplane.com
- Break Down Way.com
- Fur Peace Ranch Guitar Camp
- The Athens NEWS