Moby Grape

A fantastic late 60's bay area blues-rock band. Bought their self-titled debut pictured above several months ago and never looked back. Seems like the kind of thing a certain few of you guys here might enjoy, but I have never even heard them mentioned here. From what I hear, they were insanely popular at the time of their debut, but faded away into obscurity pretty quickly. Still, their first album and the follow up double album "Wow/Grape Jam" are great albums. Hard rocking, psychedelic electric blues with a slight country flavor and some of the best guitar interplay I've ever heard. Although I'm fairly new to the Grape, their first two releases are so good, I can see myself becoming a big fan in the near future.

As described by Jeff Tamarkin, "The Grape's saga is one of squandered potential, absurdly misguided decisions, bad-luck, blunders and excruciating heartbreak, all set to the tune of some of the greatest rock and roll ever to emerge from San Francisco. Moby Grape could have had it all, but they ended up with nothing, and less."

I am constantly amazed at how eclectic and knowledge of music truly is. Moby Grape where a very cool band and a favorite of Robert Plant.

Their albums in the 60's where hyped to be the next biggest thing in rock, and thou the albums where not complete flops you would not know that by the way the press reacted against them. Rolling Stone magazine while giving them critical praise at the same time blasted them for all of the record label hype.

Now adays fans and critics would be crying fowl if an album was not hyped, how times change.

The first Moby Grape record is pretty damn good, although if you compare it to similar albums doing the whole psych/baroque/folk/pop/rock thing back then you couldn't say it's up there with say the Byrds or Beatles (Moby Grape S/T was dubbed the "American Rubber Soul").

Having said that, notice that guy in the top right hand corner......Skip Spence. He made an incredible one off solo record in '69 called Oar. He was a bit crazy (Schizoprenia and drugs don't mix), he attempted to murder a couple of his Moby Grape bandmates with a fire axe but was thankfully thwarted and was incarcerated in New York's Bellvue Hospital for 6 months, after he was released he made his way to Nashville on a motorbike in only his pyjamas and recorded Oar by himself on 3 track!

It's this incredibly odd minimalistic psych folk record that is funny, strange and ultimately sad, the sound of total mental oblivion. I guess you could compare it to Syd Barrett, Nick Drake, Kevin Ayers etc but it's totally unique and without peer.

There's a great tribute album to that record that features Robert Plant, Tom Waits, Robyn Hitchcock, Mark Lanegan, Greg Duili, Mudhoney, Alejandro Escovedo, Outrageous Cherry etc.

rattpoison wrote:

Having said that, notice that guy in the top right hand corner......Skip Spence. He made an incredible one off solo record in '69 called Oar. He was a bit crazy (Schizoprenia and drugs don't mix), he attempted to murder a couple of his Moby Grape bandmates with a fire axe but was thankfully thwarted and was incarcerated in New York's Bellvue Hospital for 6 months, after he was released he made his way to Nashville on a motorbike in only his pyjamas and recorded Oar by himself on 3 track!

It's this incredibly odd minimalistic psych folk record that is funny, strange and ultimately sad, the sound of total mental oblivion. I guess you could compare it to Syd Barrett, Nick Drake, Kevin Ayers etc but it's totally unique and without peer.

Yeah, I read about that Skip Spence record. Didn't give "Oar" much of a second thought, but with a description like that...I have to buy it.

rattpoison wrote:

The first Moby Grape record is pretty damn good, although if you compare it to similar albums doing the whole psych/baroque/folk/pop/rock thing back then you couldn't say it's up there with say the Byrds or Beatles (Moby Grape S/T was dubbed the "American Rubber Soul").

Having said that, notice that guy in the top right hand corner......Skip Spence. He made an incredible one off solo record in '69 called Oar. He was a bit crazy (Schizoprenia and drugs don't mix), he attempted to murder a couple of his Moby Grape bandmates with a fire axe but was thankfully thwarted and was incarcerated in New York's Bellvue Hospital for 6 months, after he was released he made his way to Nashville on a motorbike in only his pyjamas and recorded Oar by himself on 3 track!

It's this incredibly odd minimalistic psych folk record that is funny, strange and ultimately sad, the sound of total mental oblivion. I guess you could compare it to Syd Barrett, Nick Drake, Kevin Ayers etc but it's totally unique and without peer.

There's a great tribute album to that record that features Robert Plant, Tom Waits, Robyn Hitchcock, Mark Lanegan, Greg Duili, Mudhoney, Alejandro Escovedo, Outrageous Cherry etc.

I can relate.... The Charltons did something similar prior to Moby Grape but didn't have the quality of musicians that Moby Grape had (IMHO)

Anyone else notice the guy sitting in the middle is flipping the bird? If I were wearing a monacle, it would be popping out right now in a fit of moral outrage!

Nah, he's pointing to the washboard to say 'we scrub up OK'....


Just got this album and am enjoying it.... very late 60s and very cool. i reckon there's been a B-Sides/outtakes compilation of theirs very recently, too.

I like 'em. I only have the S/T,Wow and Moby Grape '69. And yes, there is an outtakes/b-sides album but I can't remember what it's called.

Having said that, notice that guy in the top
right hand corner......Skip Spence. He made an incredible one off solo
record in '69 called Oar. He was a bit crazy (Schizoprenia and drugs
don't mix), he attempted to murder a couple of his Moby Grape bandmates
with a fire axe but was thankfully thwarted and was incarcerated in New
York's Bellvue Hospital for 6 months, after he was released he made his
way to Nashville on a motorbike in only his pyjamas and recorded Oar by
himself on 3 track!

WOW!!!! That's crazy!

Oar is a good album.