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Oar After 40 Years: Brilliant or Mere Ramblings?
Retired Columbia Records staff producer and industry rabble-rouser David Rubinson sits across the table from me in a vegetarian restaurant tucked away in the Richmond district of San Francisco. We’re here to discuss his involvement with Oar, the only solo record by Skip Spence. The record turned 40 this year and has slowly, quietly grown far beyond original expectations. In fact, in the beginning, Rubinson seems to have been the only person with any faith at all. The producer remains baffled by the general indifference.
“When I brought the record to [Columbia], they didn’t hear a thing,” he says with his hard-to-miss Brooklyn accent. “The record company barely released it.”
“You had to push them to release it?” I ask.
“Begged. Pleaded. They had no motivation to put this record out, they didn’t think it was ever going to sell, and it came out to complete silence. Nobody said, ‘Jesus Christ, this is a masterpiece. This is great work of poetry; this man has created a great work of art.’ It wasn’t packaged, no promotion campaign, no release party. I actually don’t recall anything happening.”
Today, of the handful of people involved with the project, there are only a few left to tell the story. Besides Rubinson are recording engineer Mike Figlio (who refused to be interviewed for this piece), mixing engineers Don Meehan and Fred Catero. Spence, who is credited as producer and played all the instruments himself, died in 1999 as did Bob Cato who designed the stunning cover art. Second recording engineer, Charlie Bradley, died in 2005. All of these people had a large impact on the final version of a record still hailed as a masterpiece by some and nothing more than mere ramblings from an acid casualty by others. Either way, Oar is still being talked about all these years later. This is how it was made.
* * *
In June of 1968, Alexander “Skip” Spence was admitted into the Psychiatric Ward of New York’s Bellevue Hospital in lower Manhattan, putting an end to a highly creative period of his life. Oddly, it also signaled the beginning of his most prolific writing cycle. Unbeknownst to everyone involved with his career at that point, Bellevue provided Spence the safety he needed and the time to create what was to become his best-known work.
Having spent a good portion of his youth in San Jose after his family relocated there from Ontario, the talented and handsome Spence couldn’t find a better place to start than San Francisco. By the end of 1966, he had already been involved in two seminal acid-rock bands—an embryonic version of Quicksilver Messenger Service and the first recording line-up of Jefferson Airplane, in which he was the drummer.
But it was former Airplane manager, Matthew Katz, who formed a group around Spence when things began to happen. Surrounding him with R&B vets Don Stevenson, Peter Lewis, Bob Mosley, and Jerry Miller, Moby Grape was born. And this is where David Rubinson comes into our story.
Already known in the industry as a brilliant, strong-willed producer and talent scout, the East Coast native was in San Francisco for other reasons when he happened across the band, and from the moment he first saw them, he knew he had to work with the group. Leaning over our table, he still gets excited almost 45 years later. “When they came on they just burned like crazy. They were incredible. There was no lead singer, they all sang five-part harmonies, and the guitar work was incredible, impeccable, three-guitar orchestrations, and [Bob] Mosley was a killer bass player.”
Instincts told him there’d be a bidding war, so he worked hard to see that Columbia was the one that would sign them. He befriended the band right off, worked with them, paid their rent and even dental work, and, most importantly, believed in them. The Moby Grape/Rubinson team was so hot after Columbia signed them that a rival company offered Rubinson a job as long as he brought Moby Grape with him.
It wasn’t hype either; Moby Grape’s self-titled debut is still touted as one of the greatest debuts of that era. Although much like their peers in mind and spirit, Moby Grape didn’t have a lot in common with them musically. They cut away the fat and kept it simple: No extended instrumentation, no surreal lyrics, no starry eyes. And it worked. Ten no-nonsense songs, only two of them over three minutes, with every one a possible single. Unfortunately, they also had what has been described to this reporter (by several credible sources) as one of the worst managers in the history of rock music, which is saying something. By most accounts, Katz was exceedingly selfish and had no idea how to book, promote, push, or finance the band, and Moby Grape suffered.
There were, shall we say, distractions during the making of the first LP in Los Angeles, and Rubinson thought it would be better for them to record the anticipated follow-up in New York, where they could concentrate without interruption, with different studios, engineers, and more available studio time. Spence, always a bit of a wild card, was already showing signs of erratic songwriting. “Just Like Gene Autry: A Foxtrot” was his elaborate tribute to old-time dance bands (and was mastered on the original LP at 78rpm), while “Seeing” had him shouting “Save me, save me!” during the refrain—an early glimpse of what was to come.
It was near the end of these sessions when he disappeared with a woman known only as “Johanna” who, as Rubinson recalls, was English, practiced black magic, and was fond of a certain brand of LSD that produced a three-day high. They vanished into the wilds of the city for two days and things were never the same. It’s a fairly well-documented story that’s as heartbreaking as it is intriguing.
Spence returned a changed man—very high, very agitated, very paranoid. The woman had convinced him that his bandmates were the embodiment of evil. Rubinson was in the studio alone with engineer Roy Halee when a call came from the band’s road manager at the Albert Hotel where the group was staying. Apparently, Spence had cut through the door of Stevenson’s room with a fire ax, and not finding him inside, was headed to the studio, with eyes-a-fire. In a cab.
“How he got into a taxi with a fire ax in his hand, I have no idea,” muses Rubinson, “but that’s New York!”
Members of Moby Grape, the police (who Rubinson had called), and Spence all converged outside the studio door at the same time. During the emotional stand-off, Rubinson was able to talk Spence down; he took the ax from him and the police took over, after which he, Miller, and Stevenson followed the police car with Spence inside to the nearest precinct.
“Don and Jerry had to come over [and] swear out complaints, because there was no way we were going to get him clean or dry or down or get this shit out of his system. We didn’t know what to do, maybe we fucked it up. I didn’t know anything about drugs, I have to admit it. But talking to him and seeing him… his eyes were like one-arm bandits.”
Spence was taken to the Manhattan Detention Center on White Street (better known as “The Tombs”) and then later moved to Bellevue. His band moved on without him; there was no other choice. Rubinson paid for a lawyer out of his own pocket and convinced Columbia to put some money towards the legal fees.
13 Comments
Probably the best story I have read about my father. Thanks guys.
It explains a lot of how I feel now and how I’ve always felt through my growing years. I have little past memories of dad as a child, but they were all filled with love and laughter. His inner greatness is being passed on to his generations through his children and 13 grandchildren, many of whom are musicians themselves. What an “exact” and “true” article of an unusual and emotionally complex man that was my father, trapped by his mind and countless unnecessary medications, but eventually freed by loved ones and also by the ongoing love of those who knew him best. Thank you Ruben, Bob, Peter, Jerry, Don, Terri and especially my mom who rode with him on that lonely motorcycle ride (yeah, surprise!). We (and I think I speak for the entire Spence family) greatly appreciate this article and the goodness and healing it brings to his shattered name and reputation. Thank you!!!!
What a beautiful story! The second I heard the first Grape album, I was in hook, line, & sinker.
It was one of the first LPs I ever bought for myself, & I played it at least once a day for weeks & weeks, imagining the guys in the band playing this brilliant music.
I bought Oar years later when it was released for a short time on CD, and admittedly have not spent much time with it. After reading this, I plan on doing just that this evening. Thank you to the Spence family for continuing to shine thru the sun that was Skip Spence.
Great telling of a story that has gone untold for 40 years. Nicely done. For me, the Grape was the brightest star to come out of the SF scene. Oar has been on my list for years, but I’m going to get off my ass and finally get it.
I first heard of this LP in MOJO Magazine when I lived in San Francisco. About a week later, I asked a record collector friend of mine if he’d heard of it. Better than that, he had it!!! He told me to be careful; it could very well change my life. I went home and did other stuff while I copied it to a cassette. I gave the album back without listening to it. A few days later, I sat down with the cassette and gave it a listen. I didn’t understand it at all….until the second listen. Then I was hooked!!! I probably listened to that album twice a day for a year. I was lucky to find two original copies in the same week in Goldmine (for a small fortune) and they still remain some of my most prized possessions. I have turned countless people on to this masterpiece and I will continue to do so…probably for the rest of time. Yes, Skip, it changed my life.
There will never be a songwriter like him again. What Moby Grape could have been with a real manager and what further Skip Spence releases were locked away — unfortunately we will never know.
Thank you for this very interesting article. I have Oar and I love it. I will always love this masterpiece. Skip Spence was a masterpiece.
Oar is like a dream all these years later. It still shimmers like a gold nugget in a stream. Moby Grape
could have been anything from commercially huge to talent beyond imagination. I cannot listen to them or skip without a huge feeling of regret at what the world missed in a band called Moby grape. Check
out More oar the tribute cd.
Great article about a stunning, evocative album. “Oar” is a work of complete genius. Got my first copy back in 1977, promptly went happily insane listening to way too much Skip Spence. “Seeing” and “War in Peace” are two of the definitive psychedelic rock masterpieces of the sixties. “Seeing” is both a premonition of Skip’s own impending implosion, but also a vision of the larger implosion of American society and the psychedelic counterculture that was to take place at the very end of the sixties. This downfall is probably symbolized most by the nightmare of the 1969 Altamont Concert – - a disastrous event at which a “Faux Grape” band put together by Matthew Katz played outside the speedway on a flatbed truck!
A few oversights are to be noted in the article. Skip already was making a name for himself as a folkie at The Shelter folk club on William St. in San Jose in 1964-1965 – - right after he got out of the Navy. Also, Skip played in the San Jose folk rock band “The Other Side” during this early period. His start was in San Jose, not in San Francisco. [Peter Lewis was likewise a folk rock musician, not an R & B veteran as the article asserts. The unlikely combination of R & B and folk stylings is what made Moby Grape such an incredibly dynamic and innovative band.]
Also, it should be noted that Skip for the most part recovered from the 1968 NYC blowout, playing during this later period in some quite good rock bands based in San Jose and the Santa Cruz Mountains, like Pachuco and The Yankees. This was a period of recovery, before Skip’s much more devastating methamphetamine overdose that took place in October 1973 at the notorious Chateau Liberty biker bar in the Santa Cruz Mountains.
I first met Skip in the summer of 1977, and he looked at that point like a seventy year old man – - a fact of which he was conscious, as sometimes he would “camp it up” a little for photo sessions, holding a cane and leaning over like an aged man.
But Skip was still healthy and vibrant up to that tragic 1973 overdose. It was during this 1973 episode that one of the enduring Spence legends took place, when he suddenly rose off the morgue table at the hospital, after already having been pronounced dead and summarily toe tagged, asking for a glass of water. This is a confirmed story, from people who were there.
nifty stuff…i remember reading about “Oar” in the liner note sleeve for the Big Star album ‘Third’ around 1978, highlighting some of the sonic and emotional similarities between the two releases, and didn’t find it until the early 80’s…..now with the weather here in New England being cold and wintery, in my mind this is the perfect mood scene to listen to this great release…….along with Scott Walker of course!
Skip Spence was an inspiration to me. Not only because of the music (although I often saw Moby Grape at the Fillmore auditorium. No, it was him on stage that totally impressed me. He was totally engaging, energized by the music, and somehow just totally illuminating. I would watch him on stage… so happy, upbeat, almost transfixed. I frequently saw Quicksilver, the Grateful Dead, and the Airplane, but nobody was as exciting to watch on stage as him. He was my hero.
I am 59 years old now, and how I wish I could go back and feel the energy than he and the rest of the band exuded.
To his sons I would say, “My life has been changed for the better by your father.”
len.austin@bhsu.edu
No question Moby Grape was one a great band and one of the most influential bands of its time.
Jerry Miller is still kind of over -looked as one of the best guitar players of that era. Every song on the ¨debut” Moby Grape album could be a hit today. Bob Mosley, Skip Spence, Jerry Miller, Peter Lewis and Stevenson were a total creative unit. It´s good to see Skip Spence and “Oar” are getting attention 40 years later. Skip Spence´s song ” Land of the Sun” is worth trying to find. Never could understand all the nasty things said about Moby Grape or memebers of the band. Not one of them ever QUIT playing music or quit trying !!
I was in Barcelona and found myself at the Sagrada Familia, Antoni Gaudi’s stunning and massive church. A surreal place. Awesome. Anyway, I listened to Oar whilst wandering around and climbing up. What a perfect match of music and place. Skip lives.