My last blog post got me in big trouble with my computer. Doing the usual search for reference links it came across a very malicious site. I wish I could tell you the site name, but that history purged itself with a big electronic dump. For your protection stay away from all golf sites. I know I will from now on.
A lot changed over the years since my old Dell first came home. This new HP slim line model holds more than eight times the hard disc memory, and processes at a much higher rate than my old workmate. I won't bore you with all the useless tie-ins to sites that now get loaded instead of software, but I will say it was nice to have a copy of Microsft Office in the house I could still load. Software ain't cheap. So this week I'm breaking in my new office compadre. I surf on magical electronic waves carrying me to new places where I find familiar faces.
Speaking of breaking in, this month marks an anniversary of sorts for one of my all-time favorite bands, Moby Grape. March of 1967 found the five founding members (Peter Lewis, Jerry Miller, Bob Mosley Skip Spence and Don Stevenson) recording their brilliant first album for Columbia Records. The album is currently out of print. According to the excellent liner notes David Fricke supplied for the Legacy Records Moby Grape-Vintage release in 1993, Fall On You, Come In The Morning and 8:05 all were finished between March 11 and March 14 of 1967. The remaining tracks were completed for the band's first album by the last week of April. The record cost $11,000 to make and endures as a classic album without a filler tune to be heard. I don't think the members of Moby Grape ever saw a nickel from their wonderful debut release.
This band epitomized the old blues tune Born Under a Bad Sign. On the night of their first album's listening party Peter Lewis, Jerry Miller and Skip Spence were arrested for contributing to the delinquency of three young girls and for pot possession. The charges were dropped, but the die had been cast. The album contained sure hits, but the record label in one of the most bizarre marketing and sales approaches in music business history released five singles (ten songs) at once from the record. Disc jockeys in most of the country disregarded them out of hand, partly due to the arrogance of the five simultaneous singles releases, and partly because they had no idea which of them they should play. And partly because Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band had been released just two weeks prior.
The band played at the Monterey Pop Festival on the second night, Saturday night, where they opened the evening's show. No one who was not at the show has seen the band's performance. There might be footage somewhere in D.A. Pennebaker's estate, but as Pennebaker remarked in his notes on the Criterion DVD release of the historic festival, "It'll never be complete." There are stories out in the universe that Mathew Katz (that rhymes with ingrates) demanded a million dollars to film the band's performance. The end result? No filmed Moby Grape. Here is the audio clip just recently posted on youtube. Tommy Smothers does the introduction.
There are so many stories surrounding Moby Grape and the ordeals the band mates faced with managers, record companies, lawyers, drugs and mental illness. Most of these recounts are simply not complete, because the story of Moby Grape does not end in 1967, 1969, 1971, 1978, 1984, 1989, 1990, 1995, 1996, 1999 or 2007. When all has been said and done the band has put down tracks under various signatures for five decades and has played to hosts of crowds thoroughout that span of time. This band was not a flash in the pan, but an odd mix of young people thrown together who ultimately stuck by one another for life. The band is American grit and determination personified, with talent to boot.
The story of this band and its members goes on. The Grape musical legacy grows through, of all things, the Internet and the personal computer. The two very things that demolished the music business as most of us knew it in our lifetimes and punished Moby Grape so severely in the process. I close with a song I just found last week on Youtube. The song comes from Peter Lewis. It's called America. It's a beautiful song and I think a lot of people will be touched by it when they hear it. Just spreading words and tunes while breaking in a new computer.
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