April is Schizophrenic

This month defies logic. I wrote a bunch of stuff at many intervals earlier in the month, but nothing seemed right/write, or least worthy of a post. Bakersfield weather usually finds the daytime temps in the low eighties for much of the month. Last year there was a mid-month blast of 90 degree weather for a week straight. We might have seen one day this month when it hit the eighty mark. I am not complaining, but the weather has been a March month of tremendous swings this April. Lots of rain for the region, high winds and big Fahrenheit swings that occur within a twenty-four hour period.  Sinus madness.

I'm waiting  on two CDs that are coming UPS. I did the Record Store Day on the 17th at our fine little local shop, World Records, but did not find anything I was in need of at the moment. There were some cool gems in the bins like Randy Bachman's New Guitar Summit . This has Randy Bachman, Jay Geils, Duke Robillard and Gary Beaudon all on guitar, and was recorded with very few takes for really fine results judging by the samples I've heard. Quiet scotch on the rocks listening.

I was tempted, because Randy Bachman, Jay Geils and Duke Robillard are all big faves of mine. Bachman was the unquestioned king of guitars in Canada during the 1960s, and Neil Young describes just sitting and watching Randy's fretwork at club performances to steal licks from him in his book, Shakey. Anyway, I'm sure the album is a good one, and was under 12 bucks, but I did not bite.

I really went looking for some lost Moby Grape material, but that is hard to come by anywhere these days. I did the online thing, which I mentioned in an earlier post for the two solo CDs that Peter Lewis put out, and then had to go online as well for the Jerry Miller Band release Life Is Like That.  Whenever I play some classic Grape tunes like Indifference, Hey Grandma, Can't Be So Bad and Murder in My Heart For the Judge I always sit in stunned amazement at Jerry's unbelievable guitar work. Killer tracks on Live Grape like Love You So Much, Lost Horizon and Up In The Air really showcase his talent also.

Not having the original albums readily available for so many years is such a disservice to both the band members and the music community at large. I have been fortunate to have owned the original vinyl recordings for every release they made from 1967 through 1984. But most of those records have passed beyond the acceptable listening standard for me, and I have tried to find digital replacements over the years.

I actually still own a very limited box set of the 1984 reunion album recorded at Matthew Katz Malibu home and studio. The box comes with six discs and all 12 songs from the album in various Popsicle colors with the famed band logo and the album art done by Mouse. Some of the tunes on the this limited release hold up fairly well, particularly the Jerry Miller-Don Stevenson tune Too Old To Boogie. The song is just a timeless straight rock tune with amazing guitar chops and a great vocal. Like so many latter day Moby Grape songs there is the bittersweet reflection of what could have been laced throughout the lyrical content. "Too old to boogie, too old to rock and roll, It ain't that you're not willing and it ain't cause you got no soul."

When I was the assistant manager at Tower Records on the corner of Columbus and Bay streets  I met with Matthew Katz (rhymes with crates) several times.  All was forgiven at the time between he and the band members, and they had gotten together to make one more great album. I was skeptical, but as a big fan, and in charge of one of the biggest record stores on the West Coast at the time, I offered to help push the record with a sizable buy if Katz would put a small advertising chunk down for the album art to appear on the store's wall. That old curmudge would not budge. It sold okay for a modest non-advertised  release, but got no air play anywhere.

The record itself sadly is not an honest Moby Grape record Although all five members contribute to the overall product, Skip Spence has a writing credit with Bob Mosley on the song Better Day. This album is really a Bob Mosley record with guest appearances by the three other integral members. Peter Lewis has a couple of songs to go with the Miller and Stevenson penned Too Old To Boogie.

Even a casual listener hears the guitar fills throughout the songs as very different from the trademark interplay that Miller and Lewis created around Spence hooks. Richard Dean on keyboards with Grisha Dimnant as the credited arranger just provide cliches where artistry was always the norm for this band, even at the most battered recorded point in their career, which definitely was the Fine Wine album from 1976. The album has some moments, thanks to Mosley's vocal work and the strength of several of the compositions. However, to hear a beautiful and haunting song like Lost Horizon get overblown bombast instead of the thoughtful licks and tone of the original recording on Live Grape clearly shows the talent did not have the final say on this record.

This was not the first time in the band's recorded history where getting cut out of the final process intervened to short circuit fine songs and stellar playing. Of all the Moby Grape albums released, 20 Granite Creek will always be the one looked back upon as the cruelest of them all.

In the late 1970s a reformed Moby Grape with Peter Lewis, Jerry Miller, Cornelius Bumpus, Christian Powell and John Oxindine were doing shows throughout the Bay Area to promote Live Grape, an album of new material recorded at a small San Francisco night club, The Shady Grove, and at another small venue in Cotati, The Inn of the Beginning. 

I went to a number of shows at both clubs and several other performances this band gave at the Keystones in Berkeley and Palo Alto. They played their asses off each and every time I saw them at these many stops in the Bay hoping a major league management company, or major label person with enough juice, could get them back on the track. Incendiary fifteen minute length performances of classic songs like Omaha and Hey Grandma closed many of these shows with epic guitar efforts by both Jerry and Peter heightened by Cornelius great work on the organ or sax. The band played the best version of JJ Cale's classic Cocaine I still have ever heard live.The crowds ate them up.

I spoke to both Jerry and Peter several times at some of these shows, and tried to get either to do an interview session at KPFA, but maybe the station's radical all over the place format, and my own time slot at 1:30AM to 7:AM on Thursday mornings, counseled them to do just the off the mike conversations we engaged in during 1978 and 1979.

I always asked after Skip, who at a few of these shows was actually in the building. But, in Jerry's words, "was being 'tended to by his girls." There was a sad resignation from both guys that "Skippy" simply had little self will left, or much control over his personal state. Hangers on always seemed to spoil the best laid plans. Both men indicated the band needed a shot of money to get to the next level and play at venues each believed the band was still very capable of succeeding at. Their equipment for the small clubs needed some serious upgrades for the larger venues. The night after night club shows were great rehearsals and prep for their reemergence on the big league music scene.

We talked of the lost in the shuffle records like Moby Grape "69 and Truly Fine Citizen. Both guys wished more time had been allowed to go into the making of both, and understood what both albums ultimately were. Some really good tunes mixed with some hasty efforts that could have been much more if time or circumstance had allowed. Both men hated the liner notes for Moby Grape '69

I brought up 20 Granite Creek at some point, and mentioned how much I loved Goin' Down To Texas and Chinese Song. Chinese Song was a Skip Spence original  with the author doing work on the koto. It remains an amazing and timeless instrumental that captures an East meets West magic in a beautiful five minute arrangement. Peter penned and did the vocals on Goin' Down To Texas, which is two minutes of pure guitar driven energy. He walked away at the one chat I brought this record up, and Jerry supplied the background.

The album had true greatness that was buried under one of the worst mixing jobs ever. Jerry offered  that whoever did the final mix-down made the songs sound like they were recorded in a submarine. Jerry thought Fred Catero did the damage, but it could have been a joint Rubinson and Catero affair that undid a splendid and promising record. Apocalypse and Horse Out In The Rain were totally ruined by the mix in Jerry's mind. That everyone in the band thought how bad the mixes were can be evidenced by Bob Mosely redoing one of his songs, Gypsy Wedding, (the opening track from the Grape album) for his 1972 solo record, which also was on Reprise. 

As a quick aside, a few years earlier when Jerry and Bob (a Duck in 1978) Mosely had recorded the Fine Wine album a young Michael Been had been in their lineup. Michael would surface just a couple of years later with a band, The Call, that would record Horse Out In The Rain as a nod to Moby Grape's frustrations. The Call had a few big hits in the 1980s with songs like The Walls Came Down, I Still Believe (Great Design) and Let The Day Begin.

Anyway, 20 Granite Creek reached #177 on the Billboard charts in 1971. At the time both Skip Spence and Peter Lewis were offered to join a promising new South Bay group, The Doobie Brothers, but declined to do this lost and submerged last David Rubinson affiliated record. Jerry spoke of still having a copy of the original 20 Granite Creek master tapes at that time, and that it was too bad the only document out in the record buying world had that Reprise label on them with the awful mixes.

Well, not many of these records are in existence today Jerry, so maybe there is a glimmer of hope that the original masters are with someone who will do the album some justice after nearly forty years. It won't be from the Jerry Miller collection, however, because nearly all of Jerry's memorabilia was lost during a flood that swept through his home a couple of years ago.  

So I'm waiting today for my Moby Grape Live CD, thinking what a difference this album will be from the many Grape albums released after their initial Columbia run from 1966 through 1969. The contents all lovingly restored by Bob Irwin at Sundazed Records, who deserves some medal of achievement for daring to swim in the shark tank that has consumed Moby Grape all these years.

Skip Spence would have turned 64 this April 18th. There is a website with some astonishing photos of Skip on the streets of San Jose that tell quite story of our society, and our Indifference to so many around us.

The sun shines and the temperatures are mild today in the high 70s. Tomorrow rain is forecast with much colder temperatures. That's April for you.

Thanks for stopping by.

Squeeze The Grape

Anyone see the recent news about Detroit? Total deconstruction of roughly one quarter of the total city and a return to the agrarian roots that were lost to the automobile for a hundred years. Welcome to the 21st century where we all plant crops in cities to feed ourselves, and we try to remember things that were once an important part of our cultural make-up. The new plan beats the daylights out of our current factory farms and CAFOS and might spur a resurgence of community fresh healthy foods and the arts on local levels. Maybe Motown Records will resurrect itself as Gro-town Records. Go Detroit!   

In my world of reconnecting with the a lost past while looking at the future, I have been in touch over the last couple of weeks with David West of Play Ball! Musical Services. His name may not be familiar to many readers of this little blog of mine, but he is a wonderful multifaceted musician/producer. He co-founded the Cache Valley Drifters in the early 1970s, and the band did some marvelous work on Flying Fish Records during that crazy decade. He also contributed backing and songs for the late great Kate Wolf.

As a quick aside, many may not remember Kate Wolf. I had the great pleasure to meet and get to know her a little bit when I worked at KPFA in Berkeley, CA for about six years from 1977 to 1983. Everyone at the station loved her, but  her biggest booster was the warm and talented Robbie Osman. Robbie has a tremendous roots and folk program, Across the Great Divide, that has run for decades at 94.1. He has championed Kate's music passionately for all these years, and deserves special mention as a great human being keeping culture alive in America. We were all devastated when she succumbed to cancer at such a young age in 1986, and on the brink of national stardom. Derk Richardson did a fine article for the San Francisco Chronicle back in 1999 that lives on the Internet as a glowing tribute to Kate's legacy.

 I rediscovered David West through the Youtube clip when I ran across the terrific song by Peter Lewis, America, that I put up on my last blog post. I needed a copy of Peter's concert, Live in Bremen, and could find no one in the states who was selling it at any reasonable price. Anyway, after a few e-mails the good old US Postal Service delivered my new CD.

The record and liner notes are well worth the small green Andy Jackson photo I sent in exchange for the CD. The record contains some great stories surrounding two classic Moby Grape songs, Murder In My Heart For the Judge and Right Before My Eyes.  The story of Murder In My Heart involves Stephen Stills and Neil Young when they were still in Buffalo Springfield, and came to San Francisco to check out the fuss over Moby Grape. In Neil Young's book, Shakey, he talks of the meeting. Peter Lewis did an interview a few years back that also has the full details. When you hear the original concept that Jerry Miller and Don Stevenson put down for the tune played by Peter and David it becomes a wonderful historical musical artifact of pop conscience. His take on copyright is touched with humility and truth. Peter's story regarding the dinner setting at his mother's home with the assembled guests of Hollywood stars all dining at Loretta Young's table, which led to writing Right Before My Eyes, is quite remarkable in its honesty and detail.

The Live In Bremen record shines with an acoustic warmth that covers material from Moby Grape through Peter's first solo record, Peter Lewis. He also plays a great Gene Clark Byrds song, Set You Free This Time, as a wonderful tribute to an obvious key influence, which originally appeared on the Byrds second album. The album the band members all finally got to play on.

Peter Lewis remains one of popular music's most under appreciated talents. He has penned a wealth of great songs over the years with Moby Grape, and on his own very limited released two solo records through a German record company, Taxim Records. Peter Lewis, the first solo album, was produced by John McFee from the Doobie Brothers and got rave reviews from Rolling Stone when it appeared fifteen years ago. The highly positive reviews could not muster many sales. The album remains largely an undiscovered jewel in the cluttered mine of pop music.

The album boasts the aforementioned talents of David West, and host of California Sound veterans from Byrds, Doobies and Credence Clearwater Revival with Cornelius Bumpus, John York, McFee, Stu Cook and Keith Knudsen all lending their talents to the project. The sound is pristine and the songs are all very strong. Changing, gets two treatments on this record, and though I am a bit partial to the second helping I can see why this tune has two versions. The song is a personal microcosm of the Moby Grape story from Peter Lewis. Moby Grape's last full fledged album, Legendary Grape, which was first released on cassette-only in 1990 under the name The Melvilles, also has this song. It did not make the original cassette-only version, but appeared on the lovingly restored first CD edition that the fine folks at DIG Music put out in 2003 to tantalize all Grape fans with what could have been all over again. The original release in 1990 went to only about 600 folks on the Herman Records fan list due to the continued legal problems of copyright. 

Today, any rationale mind in the universe might have thought all the litigation was over, and the band could finally start receiving some of the proceeds from their artistry. Sundazed Records thinking there might be a real market for the original Columbia Records  releases licensed the first four Moby Grape albums from Sony/BMG. Not more than a month after their first reissue date in 2007 did the legal bullshit start up again from lawyers at Sony/BMG, Matthew Katz and the band causing a stop to a very promising re-release. The debut release and Wow were pulled and remain out of print.They join 20 Granite Creek and Fine Wine as lost raisins pruned from the vines of commerce. The excellent Jerry Miller albums, Life is Like That and Live at Cole's remain in obscurity struggling to find ears after fourteen years of availability.  

Hunter S Thompson once perfectly described the music business: "The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side."  

The legal wrangling over the rights to both the name Moby Grape and for much of their catalog has now spanned the entire lifetime of the band and its four remaining founder members while outliving the remarkable Alexander Spence. It is not over to this day. There is a great, and fairly brief, detailed account of this ongoing battle that first appeared in Entertainment Law & Finance and was published by the author, Stan Soocher, on the Music & Entertainment Industry Educators Association website. This account is beyond anything fiction could imagine, and is the full truth and nothing but in the long litigious life cycle of malicious greed gone insane in today's world of corporatism.

Detroit has a good plan in bulldozing a corporate past that turned its back on the city when times got tough. Now the city turns the page and borrows from a more sustainable lesson with small farms and gardens to bring back culture and commerce. Music has been a huge casualty in the business world of merger consolidation and contracts, just ask the Moby Grape survivors. Bulldozing many of the older business models and laying waste to many of the parasites who sucked the sounds from the landscape over the past decades has been tough. It has forced me to piece together old puzzles and try to figure new meanings for lost art that big business in this country never cared for. If we are to "learn from our mistakes" we must have an honest history, and must find all the important cultural documents that made that history. If we embrace in our collective ignorance and pour down modified enhanced flavor substitutes we suffer from malnourishment as a consequence.