Moby Grape

Moby Grape was an American roots rock and psychedelic rock group of the 1960s that was known for having all five members contribute to singing and songwriting, and who collectively merged elements of jazz, country, and blues together with rock. Due to the strength of their debut album, several critics consider Moby Grape to be the best rock band to emerge from the San Francisco music scene in the late sixties.

History

The group was formed in late 1966 in San Francisco. (Although the origin of the name seems to be undisclosed, it is likely from the punch line of a "grape joke" circulating at roughly that same time: "What's big and purple and lives in the ocean?") Frontman and rhythm guitarist Skip Spence (the original drummer for Jefferson Airplane), lead guitarist Jerry Miller and drummer Don Stevenson (both formerly of the Frantics), rhythm guitarist (and son of actress Loretta Young) Peter Lewis (of the Cornells), and bassist Bob Mosley all wrote songs for their debut album Moby Grape (1967). In a marketing stunt Columbia Records immediately released five singles at once, and the band was perceived as being over-hyped. This was during a period in which mainstream record labels were giving unheard of levels of promotion to what was then considered counter-cultural music genres. Nonetheless, the record was critically acclaimed, and fairly successful commercially, with The Move covering its sardonic ode to hippiedom, "Hey Grandma". Spence's "Omaha" reached the lower rungs of the American singles charts in 1967, and Miller-Stevenson's "8:05" became a country rock standard (covered by The Grateful Dead, Robert Plant, Guy Burlage, and others). Moby Grape has today achieved the status of a highly respected rock album.[1]

In addition to the marketing backlash, band members found themselves in legal trouble for charges (later dropped) of consorting with underage females, and the band's relationship with their manager rapidly deteriorated. The second album, Wow, was a critical and commercial failure, partially due to the double-album format (and price). The 2nd LP was one of loose and mostly directionless jams, and this detracted from the stronger tunes on the 1st LP such as the room-shaking shuffle "Can't Be So Bad". Their basic sound remained consistent from the first album, featuring tight harmonies, multiple guitars, imaginative songwriting and a generally stronger level of musicianship than what was found coming out of the Bay Area at the time with the exception of the seminal Steve Miller Band.

During its recording, Spence, who was supposedly never the same after ingesting large quantities of LSD (see also the biographies of Peter Green and Syd Barrett), started to go through the hotel room door of Stevenson and Miller using a fire axe, intending to murder them; In the words of Miller: "Skippy changed radically when we were in New York. There were some people there that were into harder drugs and a harder lifestyle, and some very weird shit. And so he kind of flew off with those people. They were really strange, almost Nazi-ish. Skippy kind of disappeared for a little while. Next time we saw him he had cut off his beard, and he had a black leather jacket on, with his chest hanging out, with some chains and just sweating like a son of a gun. I don't know what the hell he got a hold of, man, but it just whacked him. And the next thing I know, he axed my door down in the Albert Hotel. They said at the reception area that this crazy guy had held an axe to the doorman's head." Spence was committed to New York's Bellevue Hospital; on the day of his release he drove a motorcycle dressed in only his pajamas directly to Nashville to record his only solo album, Oar. The original lineup released an album in 1971, 20 Granite Creek. The remainder soldiered on for a few years, but save for a reunion or two, essentially joining Jerry Miller's band in Santa Cruz, the group never returned to the level of excellence and popularity they enjoyed in the early Avalon Ballroom/Fillmore Auditorium days.

Moby Grape was an example of a talented band who, through a combination of mismanagement and inexperience, never fully realized their potential. Along with the Flamin' Groovies, they were somewhat of an anomaly in the San Francisco rock scene; their concision and their strong roots in country music and early rock and roll seemed to work against them. In addition, perhaps because they were so versatile, their image was somewhat nebulous; as writer Robert Christgau put it, "All they really lacked was a boss, and what could be more American than that?"

Jerry Miller carries on today (2006) as the Jerry Miller Band, playing blues and the occasional Grape song. Homeless for years and suffering from long-term mental illness and a multitude of health ailments, the mercurial and brilliant Skip Spence died in Santa Cruz, CA in 1999. In 2006, after three decades of court battles, the band finally won back their name from the much-hated (in the music industry) former manager Matthew Katz and in celebration announced a reunion show with all of its living members, bolstered by drummer Ainsley Dunbar (Mayall, Zappa, Journey) and keyboardist Pete Sears (Jefferson Starship), to be performed in January 2007 at San Francisco's The Fillmore. However, the reunion show did not take place and nothing has been announced about future plans.

The 1993 Vintage: The Very Best of Moby Grape includes their first album in its entirety, as well as selected tracks from 1967 to 1969.

Moby Grape (album)

Moby Grape is Moby Grape's eponymous 1967 debut album. The Grape–coming off the San Franciscan Scene but otherwise apparently appearing out of nowhere–were almost as manufactured as The Monkees but without the television contract, and they could play their instruments as well as sing. Skip Spence, ex-drummer of Jefferson Airplane, traded his drum kit for guitar and between the five Grapes thirteen songs of exceptional staying power emerged. Psychedelic and rocking at the same time, Moby Grape was able sustain for a short time the energy of the Frisco scene and the power of good old rock'n'roll. As managed by Matthew Katz and produced by David Rubinson they managed to focus their energies (unlike so many of the SF psychedelic bands) into their debut.

Alas, their label (Columbia) chose to release ten of the thirteen songs as singles ("Fall on You"/"Changes", "Sitting By the Window"/"Indifference", "8:05"/"Mister Blues", "Omaha"/"Someday" and "Hey Grandma"/Come in the Morning") which may have diluted the power of the entire album. By the time of their 1968 follow-up (titled "Wow"), the group had virtually completed their disintegration.

Nevertheless, as Gene Sculatti and Davin Seay write in their book San Francisco Nights (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1985 and out of print), Moby Grape "remains one of the very few psychedelic masterpieces ever recorded," while the 1983 Rolling Stone Record Guide said their "debut LP is as fresh and exhilarating today as it was when it exploded out of San Francisco during 1967's summer of love." In 2003, the album was ranked number 121 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

On the cover from the UK Edsel/Demon Records re-issue, Don Stevenson is flipping the bird on the washboard. It was airbrushed out on the original cover.

"Omaha" was covered by The Golden Palominos in 1985 on their Visions of Excess, with Michael Stipe on lead vocal. The song has also occasionally been performed live in concert by Bruce Springsteen.

Skip Spence

Alexander Lee "Skip" Spence (born April 18, 1946 in Windsor, Ontario - died April 16, 1999 in Santa Cruz, California) was a musician and singer-songwriter. He was a guitarist in an early line-up of Quicksilver Messenger Service before Marty Balin got him to be the drummer for Jefferson Airplane. After one album with Jefferson Airplane, their debut Jefferson Airplane Takes Off, he left to co-found Moby Grape, once again as a guitarist.

Suffering from schizophrenia, during the 1968 recording of the group's second album, Wow, Spence allegedly attempted to break down a bandmate's hotel room door with a fire axe while on LSD, and was committed for six months to the criminal ward at New York's Bellevue Hospital.Upon his release, he recorded his only solo album, the now-classic psychedelic/folk album Oar (1969, Columbia Records). However, mental illness and alcoholism prevented him from sustaining a career in the music industry, and he lived much of his later life as a homeless person in Santa Cruz. When it finally seemed that he might have been overcoming those afflictions, lung cancer claimed him.

Spence continued to have minor involvement in later Moby Grape projects and reunions, as well as helping the Doobie Brothers get signed to Warner Bros. Records (the Doobies idolized Spence and the Grape). More recently, Spence's "Land of the Sun," one of the only post-Grape recordings he ever completed, was nearly placed on the X-Files soundtrack.

More Oar: A Tribute to Alexander "Skip" Spence, featuring contributions from R.E.M., Robert Plant, Tom Waits, Beck, and many others, was released a few weeks after his death.

Jerry Miller

Jerry Miller (born July 10, 1943 in Tacoma, Washington) is an American musician, a guitarist and vocalist who was a member of the 1960s San Francisco band Moby Grape. Before joining the group, Miller and bandmate Don Stevenson were members of The Frantics, a Pacific Northwest bar band.

He is #68 on Rolling Stone's list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time. He currently fronts The Jerry Miller Band, which plays primarily in Tacoma and Ruston, Washington.

INDIFFERENCE come! thy torpid juices shed On my keen sense: plunge deep my wounded heart, In thickest apathy, till it congeal, Or mix with thee incorp'rate. Come, thou foe To sharp sensation, in thy cold embrace A death-like slumber shall a respite give To my long restless soul, tost on extreme, From bliss to pointed woe. Oh, gentle Pow'r, Dear substitute of Patience! thou canst ease The Soldier's toil, the gloomy Captive's chain, 10
The Lover's anguish, and the Miser's fear.

Proud Beauty will not own thee! Her loud boast Is VlRTUE--while thy chilling breath alone Blows o'er her soul. bidding her passions sleep.

Mistaken Cause, the frozen Fair denies Thy saving influence. VIRTUE never lives, But in the bosom, struggling with its wound: There she supports the conflict, there augments The pang of hopeless Love, the senseless stab Of gaudy Ign'rance, and more deeply drives 20
The poison'd dart, hurl'd by the long-lov'd friend; Then pants with painful victory. Bear me hence, Thou antidote to pain! thy real worth Mortal can never know. What's the vain boast Of Sensibility but to be wretched? In her best transports lives a latent sting, Which wounds as they expire. On her high heights Our souls can never sit; the point so nice, We quick fly off--secure, but in descent.

To SENSIBILITY, what is not bliss 30
Is woe. No placid medium's ever held Beneath her torrid line, when straining high The fibres of the soul. Of Pain, or Joy, She gives too large a share; but thou, more kind, Wrapp'st up the heart from both, and bidd'st it rest In ever-wish'd-for ease. By all the pow'rs Which move within the mind for diff'rent ends, I'd rather lose myself with thee and share Thine happy indolence, for one short hour, 40
Than live of Sensibility the tool For endless ages. Oh! her points have pierc'd My soul, till, like a sponge, it drinks up woe.


Then leave me, Sensibility! be gone, Thou chequer'd angel! Seek the soul refin'd: I hate thee! and thy long progressive brood Of joys and mis'ries. Soft Indiff'rence, come! In this low cottage thou shalt be my guest, Till Death shuts out the hour: here down I'll sink With thee upon my couch of homely rush, 50
Which fading forms of Friendship, Love, or Hope, Must ne'er approach. Ah!--quickly hide, thou pow'r, Those dead intruding images! Oh, seal The lids of mental sight, lest I abjure My freezing supplication.--AII is still.

Idea, smother'd, leaves my mind a waste, Where SENSIBILITY must lose her prey.