Filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard filmed Jefferson Airplane performing “The House at Pooneil Corners” on the roof of the Schuyler Hotel in New York City on Dec. 7, 1968.
“He took over from the specialists and operated the camera from the window of Leacock-Pennebaker’s office on West Forty-fifth street, shooting the band on the roof of the Schuyler Hotel across the street. (Pennebaker recalled him to be an amateurish cameraman who could not avoid the beginner’s pitfall of frequent zooming in and out.) The performance took place without a permit, at standard rock volume: as singer Grace Slick later wrote, “We did it, deciding that the cost of getting out of jail would be less than hiring a publicist . . .” (from Richard Brody’s Everything is Cinema: The Working Life of Jean-Luc Godard).
Godard was shooting footage for a film he intended to call One A.M. (One American Movie) but it was never released. Filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker released some of the footage in 1972 as One P.M.
On June 10 and 11, 1967, the Jefferson Airplane were one of the headliners at the Fantasy Fair and Magic Mountain Music Festival held at the 4,000-seat Sidney B. Cushing Memorial Amphitheatre on the south face of Mount Tamalpais in Marin County. The two-day event is considered the first rock festival and was held a week before the Monterey Pop Festival.
