The Americana and roots music authority
morning becomes reflective...the thing about music (and Moby Grape)
Sometimes when you set out to write something a particular way or about a specific subject you get taken away. Or at least I do, since most of my writing ideas come to me during my morning walks with the dog and the iPod, and it seems that what's clear one moment gets hazy the next, and then changes altogether. And such has been the case with Moby Grape, a band I've loved forever and one that I've often considered to be one of those "early Americana" types of bands I've written about here a time or two.
I have long wanted to do some sort of essay about this band but with the internet and all, if somebody is interested in their music or history you can simply Google and read away. So I've been looking for a hook or something different to focus on and from time to time I'd track down the band members as best I could and see what was going on. I probably missed my moment last year, when a sudden flood washed out guitarist's Jerry Miller's Tacoma home and folks there were trying to help him out. Or maybe it could have been the coming together of most of the band down at Omar Spence's (yeah...Skip's son) home studio for recording and practice of a Moby Grape 09 project. They also played a short set down at this year's SXSW billed as New Wine/Moby Grape and featuring Jerry and Don with Omar and others. And those tracks they cut..still rough and in Omar's possession.
For the past few weeks I've been posting something fairly regularly that I call the alphabet project, which is where I go through my digital library and write about some of the artists I like and occasionally stray to a book or otherwise go off topic. I try and keep away from the beaten track and help expose things you wouldn't ordinarily know about, but sometimes I also choose the popular. I've gone from A-G so far and it's been at the letter H that I've had a thought or an "ah ha" moment of sorts.
The music I listen to tends to roughly range from somewhere back in the thirties to stuff done last week. My collection is somewhat unique to me and my tastes, as yours is to you. When I hear a song (and I'll cop to this right here...I hardly ever or never play an album anymore, let alone choose a song. I hit shuffle and let it be.) it's like a living entity to me, regardless of when or where or who has done it. Be it an emotional reaction or if it kicks in some of my memory chips, the source is meaningless because it's only the response I get at the moment that really matters. And so it is that when I'm drawn into a conversation about whether this artist is better or more important that that one (or if this album is more creative than the other) I shut down. Because I think there is no answer to those questions, no truth we can actually see or witness. But I'm wandering off the path again. Sorry.
As I have been going through my music library, I have come to realize that many of the bands I think of as being in the here and now, are actually not...at least not in the physical or material way. And I'm not talking about those bands like Moby Grape from the sixties, I mean bands from this decade. You see, as it has become so easy and cost effective to put out music these days, more and more people do it. And for myself, since I like hearing what young people are creating and performing a bit more than the old folks (did you see Mick on Larry King last night?) it has come to me lately that I'm feeling a little sad when I find that after one or two releases, they break up and move on. I get that college kids go back to where they came from, some get married and start families, others go off to fight the rich man's wars, others stay in music but make it with others and so on. And I guess that this is just the way it is and has always been, since nothing stays the same and it's always changing. (I'm just full of pop psycho-babble cliche's today. Forgive me.)
Yesterday me and the dog are walking and "Omaha" by Moby Grape comes up on the player except it's not the version off the first album, but a live recording from Amsterdam in 1967. That's about the same time period that I saw them perform on a couple of occasions and it reminded me of a few things. The first is that I don't think I ever thanked Carol Drucker for taking me with her to see them the first time when we were both in tenth grade back at Washington High. So thanks. Hope you're well. The second is that despite the musical history revisionists who believe that the Grape began and ended with Skip Spence, you're wrong.
This was an actual band with moving parts and the back story is quite sad if you don't already know it. Aside from a lengthy legal problem that made it difficult for the band members to earn a living, Skip took a very public emotional tumble (that has been often compared with Syd Barrett) and so the legend has loomed larger than the man. (Gram also comes to mind, but I'm not going to duel with all of you Parsonfanatics today, so please don't take me to task.)
For myself, what happened to bassist, singer and songwriter Bob Mosely that caused him to end up living under a freeway in San Diego fifteen years ago is an extremely compelling story and even more so in that it was guitarist and friend Peter Lewis who went to find him and help out. I believe that Bob is married and living up in Santa Cruz now, and Peter lives in Solvang and still is performing. Another thing I find interesting about the Grape is the relationship between guitarist Jerry Miller and drummer Don Stevenson that stretched back to Pacific NW garage bands in the early sixties. Miller, despite Rolling Stone magazine saying he is just the 68th best rock guitarist (wonder how it was determined that he's not the 10th or 52nd or 74th? What scientific methodology is used for such nonsense?), was probably the hottest American player back in the sixties and continues to still get out there and shred with that old Gibson of his. And Don, one of the greatest drummers I've ever heard and a damn good singer, he spent a good part of his life as a time share salesman for Mexican condos when he wasn't (or isn't) making music. As Jerry Miller says...sometimes the guys just get together to play and go "Moby Grape'n".
Since I'm not a professional writer or journalist, it's good that I don't get paid for this. My problem sometimes is, as you can tell, that I often stumble right about now when I try to sum it all up and make a point or two. I guess for one, whether an artist lives or dies, a band stays together or just breaks up into lots of pieces, the songs live on. It doesn't much matter if they record on vinyl, tape, plastic, analog or digital, but it seems to me that it's very important that we try and keep it available. Another thing is that the musicians we enjoy can often seem frozen in time in our minds, but they do get old and they do die. I found this picture I wanted to post here of some of the guys from Moby Grape taken last year, but couldn't snatch it in the right file format. But if you can imagine, they're older, grayer, heavier and wrinkle-lier. Kinda like the rest of us, or at least me. So as the world turns, thankfully the song remains the same.
Here's one from 67 when they were younger...Skip has already left.
I have long wanted to do some sort of essay about this band but with the internet and all, if somebody is interested in their music or history you can simply Google and read away. So I've been looking for a hook or something different to focus on and from time to time I'd track down the band members as best I could and see what was going on. I probably missed my moment last year, when a sudden flood washed out guitarist's Jerry Miller's Tacoma home and folks there were trying to help him out. Or maybe it could have been the coming together of most of the band down at Omar Spence's (yeah...Skip's son) home studio for recording and practice of a Moby Grape 09 project. They also played a short set down at this year's SXSW billed as New Wine/Moby Grape and featuring Jerry and Don with Omar and others. And those tracks they cut..still rough and in Omar's possession.
For the past few weeks I've been posting something fairly regularly that I call the alphabet project, which is where I go through my digital library and write about some of the artists I like and occasionally stray to a book or otherwise go off topic. I try and keep away from the beaten track and help expose things you wouldn't ordinarily know about, but sometimes I also choose the popular. I've gone from A-G so far and it's been at the letter H that I've had a thought or an "ah ha" moment of sorts.
The music I listen to tends to roughly range from somewhere back in the thirties to stuff done last week. My collection is somewhat unique to me and my tastes, as yours is to you. When I hear a song (and I'll cop to this right here...I hardly ever or never play an album anymore, let alone choose a song. I hit shuffle and let it be.) it's like a living entity to me, regardless of when or where or who has done it. Be it an emotional reaction or if it kicks in some of my memory chips, the source is meaningless because it's only the response I get at the moment that really matters. And so it is that when I'm drawn into a conversation about whether this artist is better or more important that that one (or if this album is more creative than the other) I shut down. Because I think there is no answer to those questions, no truth we can actually see or witness. But I'm wandering off the path again. Sorry.
As I have been going through my music library, I have come to realize that many of the bands I think of as being in the here and now, are actually not...at least not in the physical or material way. And I'm not talking about those bands like Moby Grape from the sixties, I mean bands from this decade. You see, as it has become so easy and cost effective to put out music these days, more and more people do it. And for myself, since I like hearing what young people are creating and performing a bit more than the old folks (did you see Mick on Larry King last night?) it has come to me lately that I'm feeling a little sad when I find that after one or two releases, they break up and move on. I get that college kids go back to where they came from, some get married and start families, others go off to fight the rich man's wars, others stay in music but make it with others and so on. And I guess that this is just the way it is and has always been, since nothing stays the same and it's always changing. (I'm just full of pop psycho-babble cliche's today. Forgive me.)
Yesterday me and the dog are walking and "Omaha" by Moby Grape comes up on the player except it's not the version off the first album, but a live recording from Amsterdam in 1967. That's about the same time period that I saw them perform on a couple of occasions and it reminded me of a few things. The first is that I don't think I ever thanked Carol Drucker for taking me with her to see them the first time when we were both in tenth grade back at Washington High. So thanks. Hope you're well. The second is that despite the musical history revisionists who believe that the Grape began and ended with Skip Spence, you're wrong.
This was an actual band with moving parts and the back story is quite sad if you don't already know it. Aside from a lengthy legal problem that made it difficult for the band members to earn a living, Skip took a very public emotional tumble (that has been often compared with Syd Barrett) and so the legend has loomed larger than the man. (Gram also comes to mind, but I'm not going to duel with all of you Parsonfanatics today, so please don't take me to task.)
For myself, what happened to bassist, singer and songwriter Bob Mosely that caused him to end up living under a freeway in San Diego fifteen years ago is an extremely compelling story and even more so in that it was guitarist and friend Peter Lewis who went to find him and help out. I believe that Bob is married and living up in Santa Cruz now, and Peter lives in Solvang and still is performing. Another thing I find interesting about the Grape is the relationship between guitarist Jerry Miller and drummer Don Stevenson that stretched back to Pacific NW garage bands in the early sixties. Miller, despite Rolling Stone magazine saying he is just the 68th best rock guitarist (wonder how it was determined that he's not the 10th or 52nd or 74th? What scientific methodology is used for such nonsense?), was probably the hottest American player back in the sixties and continues to still get out there and shred with that old Gibson of his. And Don, one of the greatest drummers I've ever heard and a damn good singer, he spent a good part of his life as a time share salesman for Mexican condos when he wasn't (or isn't) making music. As Jerry Miller says...sometimes the guys just get together to play and go "Moby Grape'n".
Since I'm not a professional writer or journalist, it's good that I don't get paid for this. My problem sometimes is, as you can tell, that I often stumble right about now when I try to sum it all up and make a point or two. I guess for one, whether an artist lives or dies, a band stays together or just breaks up into lots of pieces, the songs live on. It doesn't much matter if they record on vinyl, tape, plastic, analog or digital, but it seems to me that it's very important that we try and keep it available. Another thing is that the musicians we enjoy can often seem frozen in time in our minds, but they do get old and they do die. I found this picture I wanted to post here of some of the guys from Moby Grape taken last year, but couldn't snatch it in the right file format. But if you can imagine, they're older, grayer, heavier and wrinkle-lier. Kinda like the rest of us, or at least me. So as the world turns, thankfully the song remains the same.
Here's one from 67 when they were younger...Skip has already left.
Views: 86
Tags: Bob Mosely, Don Stevenson, Jerry Miller, Moby Grape, Omar Spence, Peter Lewis, Skip Spence
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Comment by Donald Eager on May 19, 2010 at 2:08pm -
Thanks for recognizing one of the great 60's bands and one of the best bands of rock n' roll! Have long been a fan of theirs and appreciate your comments!
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Comment by Ron Frankl on May 19, 2010 at 4:45pm -
Thank you for sharing your thoughts on one of my favorite bands.
I can't think of Moby Grape without a lot of sadness, over the lost opportunities and wasted years that its members endured. Rather than dealing with just the egos, drugs and madness that most bands of the era faced, the Grape were also burdened with the manager from hell, a control freak who sought to destroy them collectively and individually when they wouldn't bow to his will. This brutal battle lasted almost 40 years, before the band's members began to regain rights to both their band name and their musical legacy. With the recent issue of the collection "Moby Grape Live" by Sundazed, I hope that the surviving members will get some of the attention they've deserved for so long.
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Comment by Easy Ed on May 19, 2010 at 5:57pm -
Bob Mosely 2008
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Comment by Grant Alden on May 20, 2010 at 3:48am -
I can remember that some form of Moby Grape would play Seattle over the years, but that I was warned off because it wasn't the real band. One member, or the manager owned the name, or something. There was a Fleetwood Mac show went that way, too, but I was probably too young for it. For an instant in the early 1970s, I think, some manager toured a band he called Fleetwood Mac...only it wasn't. And don't get me started on Peter Green again...perhaps I should dust off that turntable...
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Comment by Ron Frankl on May 20, 2010 at 4:41am
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The manager ended up owning the name and would periodically put together a version of the band containing no original members. And he would sue the original band from from working under the name Moby Grape; they were forced to use names like Legendary Grape or the Melvilles. This lasted until a few years ago.
As I recall, the bogus Fleetwood Mac episode occurred at the end of the Bob Welch-era, circa 1974. They were much more successful in the US than in the UK at the time, where they lived. Their manager kept them on the road endlessly in the period, and they finally balked at starting another grueling US tour. So the manager -- Fleetwood Mac's own manager-- hired a new band, which actually played a bunch of dates before the real band found out and stopped it. With all the personnel changes in those years, I'm sure most audiences were none the wiser regarding the deception.
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Comment by Easy Ed on May 20, 2010 at 6:36am
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The Moby Grape legal story (from wikipedia and well sourced):
Moby Grape's success was significantly impeded by decades-long legal disputes with their former manager, Matthew Katz. Legal difficulties originated shortly after the group's formation, when Matthew Katz insisted that an additional provision be added to his management contract, giving him ownership of the group name. At the time, various group members were indebted to Katz, who had been paying for apartments and various living costs prior to the group releasing its first album. Despite objecting, group members signed, based in part on an impression that there would be no further financial support from Katz unless they did so. Neil Young, then of Buffalo Springfield, was in the room at the time, and kept his head down, playing his guitar, and saying nothing. According to Peter Lewis, "I think Neil knew, even then, that was the end. We had bought into this process that we should have known better than to buy into."
The dispute with Katz became more acute after the group members' rights to their songs, as well as their own name, were signed away in 1973, in a settlement made without their knowledge between Katz and Moby Grape's then manager (and former producer), David Rubinson. It was also a settlement made at a time when Bob Mosley and Skip Spence were generally recognized as being legally incapacitated from the effects of schizophrenia.
In 1994, the group members commenced an action against Matthew Katz, Sony Music Entertainment and CBS Records (Sony being the successor corporation to Columbia Records), seeking to have the settlement overturned. This settlement from 1973 meant that the group members would receive no royalties whatsoever from the well-regarded Vintage: The Best of Moby Grape, which Sony had released as part of its Legacy Records series in 1993. At the time of the commencement of the lawsuit, Bob Mosley had been homeless in San Diego since the early 1990s, while Skip Spence was living in a residential care facility in northern California. Production of the Vintage collection soon ceased. In 2006, after three decades of court battles, the band finally won back its name.
In September 2007, a reunited Moby Grape performed for over 40,000 fans at the Summer of Love 40th Anniversary Celebration in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. In October 2007, Sundazed Records reissued the Grape's first five albums (with bonus tracks) on CD and vinyl . The following month, the label was forced to both withdraw and recall Moby Grape, Wow and Grape Jam from print on both vinyl and CD because of a new lawsuit by former manager Katz. Sundazed stated on their website that they were directed to withdraw the three titles by Sony BMG (inheritors of the band's original label, Columbia), from whom Sundazed had licensed the recordings. These developments have resulted in a particular emotional setback for Bob Mosley
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Comment by Ron Frankl on May 20, 2010 at 5:42pm
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Wow, nice find, Ed. They've still got it.
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Comment by Straycat on May 20, 2010 at 6:39pm -
Great post Ed! I've probably played their debut album more than anything else in my collection over the years.
I first saw them at an all-day outdoor festival at the Aqua Theater in Seattle in 1967. A strange collection of bands- Peter & Gordon, Sonny & Cher, Glen Campbell, 5th Dimension. Paul Revere & the Raiders. If memory serves correct (and that's a big IF), the Grape were the headliners.
I saw Jerry, Bob, & Don in the late '80's in a roadhouse tavern in north Seattle when they were going by the name of The Great Grape. Small crowd- had them autograph my worn LP cover, and had a chance to visit with them for about 30 minutes. Great guys!
Thanks for the SXSW vid! Jerry still has the chops!!
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Comment by TR Chapler on November 2, 2010 at 1:16pm
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As a yout' I saw one of their free concerts at Golden Gate Park (lots of free music from bands that became big). They were not only the best band I'd seen to date but the first to have some spirit and put on a SHOW with Skip going wild and everybody banging away. If predicted, they would have been the best of the Dead, Airplane,QSM,etc. The Grape had better and more singers, and sure looked like a lot more fun than tha Airplane, et.al. TRChapler
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