NPR piece on Mobe Grape

[indigo_dave]

A friend alerted me to a recent piece on NPR about Moby Grape. They recorded one of the greatest R&R albums ever released. Sounds like an exaggeration, but it's not. I went to amazon and found that their 1st (and best) album had been re-released in a newly remastered version that gave better clarity to some of their musical sublties. I might have ordered the new version, but it seems it was pulled from distribution by legal action from their old manager.

 

I just thought I'd share this. Also, you can find a live performance by them on youtube.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17498799

[blue2blue]

A fine album -- contrived as hell but huge fun, nonetheless. That was an era when the right producer (in this case, Matthew Katz, who managed the early Airplane, where MG central figure Skip Spence had first been noticed) could put together a band, Svengali-style, and still end up with something very cool. (Sadly, as the radio piece points out, Katz has stood solidly in the way of reunions or use of the band name; it's hard not to see him as the villain of any Moby Grape history.)

 

People talk about the Monkees as though they were the only put-together band that managed to somehow transcend its contrivance but a number of important bands were assembled by third parties: everyone from Peter, Paul, and Mary to the Buffalo Springfield. The Monkees were simply the most overt -- and overtly self-conscious -- of those bands. And, lets face it -- how many of the so-called super groups of the 70s would have ended up together if not for the machinations of managers and A&R people?

 

 

Some more background info: http://wm01.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:difexqe5ldte~T1

[Rabid]

I have that on LP. Over the last few years I have learned that remastered does not always mean better. Sometimes it just means "compressed for loudness."

[Jeff da Weasel]

Here's an interesting tidbit: there was very nearly a "trade" between the Grape and Buffalo Springfield that might have changed musical history.

 

Peter Lewis for Neil Young. Weird, huh?

[Alndln2]

I bought thier first album when it came out and liked it then. I listened to it recently and didn't like it as much as I did then, my memories sounded better. In the early 70's when I lived in L.A. I met what seemed like some crazy street bum in a music store(West L.A.?)and after he left the salesman told me it was Skip Spence! I remember saying "man, what happened to him?" Years later I read the story after he passed away which was sad. It would be nice if these guys got a break after all these years of bad buisness/breaks etc.

[indigo_dave]

I guess they indeed sufferd from bad luck and a lack of good sense. Watching their performance on youtube (from the Mike Douglas show of all places) I noticed how Skip Spence played rhythm guitar with the (rhythmic) sense of a drummer - which he'd been in Jefferson Airplane. I also noticed a {censored} eating grin like maybe he was feeling no pain. It was a shame for all of them (to me anyway) because based on talent and musicality, they should have been in there pitching, in the same company as Buffalo Springfield, Jefferson Airplane and other great California bands of the day.

[soapbox]

I heard the NPR piece. Interesting and sad story:

 

Moby Grape Just Can't Catch a Break

 

Best,

 

Geoff