Reviewing Jefferson Airplane's new album Volunteers (Columbia deleted the words of Amerika ), for example, Phil Primack discussed the Airplane's relation to the traditional politics of rock, attacking those who ooh'ed and aah'ed over Woodstock as "the start of the revolution."

The original purpose of The Phoenix makes it much the same as the Village Voice. Tarter commented. "But not in a marketing sense." he quickly added. "The Village Voice makes a lot of money, but making money is not a reason to start a paper."

"We want a place where what we write won't get fucked over, a place where we have some control over what we write," Tarter said. This was the reason a group of writers got together to start the Village Voice. The same reason brought the writers on The Phoenix together.

But the results are different. For one thing, The Phoenix is "more visual," he said. The paper does feature some fine photography and has used some startling layouts, although it often falls back on rather dull designs. Some of the paper's visual problems stem from its present printing facilities. The paper is printed in a small shop, with little range in typeface. When the paper begins using IBM equipment it will have a great deal more flexibility in the use of different types.

The paper also differs from the Voice in the length of its articles. "We're committed to a good deal of short pieces." Tarter said, reflecting dispatched with tear gas and billy clubs." The article later noted the significance of the month of November for another group of demonstrators. "The Industrial Workers of the World had a motto. 'In November We Remember,' because it was in November that their best organizers always seemed to get lynched or shot or maimed."

"We don't see the world as black and white," Tarter said. "We see the that he may have been prejudiced by his experience as a reporter for Time. Most of the paper's articles do not extend to more than a page. (The paper also runs a column of "Short Takes" in each issue, little bits of news handled in a fashion similar to the "Film Clips").

WHAT is really unusual about The Phoenix is that it does convey a unified image of the world it is covering. No editor or ideology dictates what position the writers take in their articles. No single individual mind lies behind the paper, controlling the range of its coverage. Yet, one writer's work connects with another's, as if their articles revolved around a common theme.

The writers find America in its present state not to their liking, and this is evident in the paper. But they also communicate a vision of the freer, more honest society they would like to see.

While Tarter told me that one of the staff's strongest beliefs is "You shouldn't tell people what to think," the paper does seem to have a message. The message is not conveyed directly, but through the paper's whole style. The editors once admitted that, without conscious plan, their articles say "a great deal about the way this country is turning itself into a rather bleak, violent kind of place-in the name of a better world."

But despite their pessimism, they have a hope that, like the phoenix of legend which consumed itself in fire, this country, too, can rise again from its own ashes.