Wednesday Music: Skip Spence's solo LP Oar

It's Halloween week. This isn't at all a Halloween-themed album, but some of it is pretty creepy (some of it is very light-hearted), and the story behind it reads like one of those exploitive LSD-bad-trip movies that were being made at the time.

Skip Spence was one of three guitarist/singer/songwriters on the first Moby Grape album, which is sensational, and has been featured here already. Great songs, amazing harmonies, they had it all and blew it due to a number of factors, one being Spence's breakdown (others including misguided hype, dishonest management, and an ill-timed drug bust).

The band relocated from San Francisco to NYC to record their second album, during which time Spence's LSD consumption was increasing, and he had fallen in with a questionable crowd, including a girlfriend who claimed to be a witch. Matters came to a head when he took a fire axe to his bandmate's hotel room door ("Here's Johnny!" Jack Nicholson style). That earned him a six month stay at Bellevue, with all the Thorazine he could eat, and (naturally) his departure from Moby Grape (although he would contribute songs to their subsequent releases).

During his incarceration, he wrote the songs for this, his only solo album and recorded them in Nashville upon his release, performing all the instruments himself (he had played drums on the first Jefferson Airplane album, so that was no stretch for him). It is definitely not a rock record, with some country/folk styled songs joined by extremely loose pieces, all deeply wrapped in a hazy psychedelic atmosphere. The combination of whimsy and darkness is highly reminiscent of the two solo albums Syd Barrett made after being removed from Pink Floyd under circumstance's similar to Spence from the Grape (although no hotel room doors were damaged in Syd's departure).

Not surprisingly, the album was a flop, but remained legendary among those "in the know", a category that included Robert Plant, Tom Waits, Alejandro Escovedo, Beck, Mark Lanegan, and others who contributed to a tribute album 30 years later, shortly before Spence expired after a very rough life in poor physical and mental health, often living on the streets in Santa Cruz or San Jose. And the first "real" band I played in covered one of the songs ...

"Weighted Down (the Prison Song)" (tragic country):
www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRgouBGrA9s

"War In Peace" (ethereal folkish spaciness):
www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRgouBGrA9s

"Lawrence Of Euphoria" (simply goofy):
www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIiKSGnafSk

"Dixie Peach Promenade" (humorous, but with an edge):
www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-l8CnZcDMg

Taken on: October 25, 2020

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