Book Review of:
‘WEIGHTED DOWN:
THE COMPLICATED LIFE OF SKIP SPENCE’
by CAM COBB
(Omnibus Press) www.omnibuspress.com
ISBN 978-1-9131-7218-3, Hardback, 374pp+8 colour plates
Another broken hero, another beautiful loser. We know the fractured outline, from orbiting early Quicksilver Messenger Service, to drumming on Jefferson Airplane’s pre-Grace Slick first album… then on into Moby Grape. A troubled talent with mental health issues accelerated by narcotic indulgences. On its first release, Alexander Lee Spence’s 1969 solo album Oar, sold only 700 copies, but was later reclaimed as a classic of psychedelic oddness. There’s a story he was incarcerated in the prison ward of New York City’s Bellevue psychiatric hospital after attacking two other Moby Grape members (Don Stevenson and Jerry Miller) with a fire-axe, and that as soon as he was released, he got on his motorcycle still wearing pyjamas, and roared Easy Rider-style all the way south to Nashville to do the album entirely solo.
His father, Jock Spence, was a semi-pro pianist who wrote his own romantic ballads. The family zigzagged down from Windsor, Ontario to arrive by a circuitous route at the warmer climes of the Evergreen Trailer-Park in Phoenix, Arizona by 1953. Born 18 April 1946, Alex – already known as ‘Skip’ was ten when his itinerant family rolled into California, and eventually to San José. By which time Skip and younger sister Sherry were already caught up in the Rock ‘n’ Roll insurrection. He was gifted a guitar by his parents and learned how to play, developing a flat-picking style as the Folk-music rival washed around San José.
Father Jock was a musician, who’d also been a World War II air-ace hero. Maybe it was on that principle that teenage Skip got involved with the Peacenik Folk scene, but also falsified his birthdate so he could sign on for the US Naval Reserves? He also got girlfriend Patricia May Howard pregnant and marries her 15 March 1964. It was a time that Jorma Kaukonen called the ‘break out of that post-Eisenhower mould.’ The Ground Zero for hip.
Caught up in the post-Beat Generation pre-counterculture South Bay Beatnik-Folk scene, he played as a duo with Billy Dean Andrus – later of Weird Herald, at venues such as the small fifty-seat Offstage Folk Music Theatre where they sold marijuana from under the bar, it was a hoot with open mic accessibility frequented by Jorma Kaukonen, David Crosby, David Freiberg and Paul Kantner who would call around to jam – as Cam Cobb writes, it was a burgeoning focus for those ‘on the verge of stardom, notoriety, or even tragedy – sometimes all three.’ Skip took LSD while it was still legal (it was not criminalised until 6 October 1966), with Geoff Levin as his ‘guide’ – according to Timothy Leary’s ‘How To’ trip manual. It was the happening thing. Instant satori on a sugar-cube. All the cool folks were doing it. And for Skip, it was the first of hundreds of trips! (Levin was later a member of People!, who had a no.14 hit May 1968 with Zombies-cover ‘I Love You’, Capitol 2078, then the Celestial Navigations project.)
If acid was a catalyst, electric Dylan was another as Skip transitioned into a harder-edged group called the Manes. Then, briefly, the Other Side. Meanwhile, Marty Balin – who had previously fronted Folk fourpiece the Town Criers, was going through the same evolution. As quarter-owner of the Fillmore Street ‘The Matrix’ club, he pacted with Paul Kantner, singer Signe Toly (later) Anderson and Kaukonen to become the club’s house-band, and first Jefferson Airplane line-up. ‘The Matrix’ was more than just that, it was also a community hub. The Great Society played there, from which the burgeoning Airplane took Grace Slick. And when Skip played there with David Freiberg and guitarist John Cipollina – the roots of Quicksilver Messenger Service, Balin headhunted him too. The Airplane needed a drummer… so Skip took a week’s rehearsal time to learn drums. By September 1965 he was in, as psychedelia was defining the San Francisco Haight-Ashbury Sound.
Skip drummed with the Airplane at ‘The Matrix’ with the Charlatans, and with Blues legend Lightnin’ Hopkins. He played with them at an anti-censorship benefit at the ‘Calliope Warehouse’ with the Fugs and ‘romantic anarchist’ Lawrence Ferlinghetti – who had himself faced prosecution for publishing Allen Ginsberg’s ‘Howl’, then he played with them at Bill Graham’s new ‘Fillmore Auditorium’ (10 December 1965) with the Mystery Trend and Great Society.
Skip’s earliest recorded work eventually surfaced on Jefferson Airplane’s ‘Early Flight’ compilation (Grunt CYL1-0437, 1974) with ‘High Flying Bird’, ‘Runnin’ Round This World’ – the B-side of debut single ‘It’s No Secret’ (RCA 8679), plus Skip’s composition ‘JPP McStep B Blues’ and his co-write with Paul Kanter ‘It’s Alright’ which all date from rejected sessions at RCA’s Sunset Boulevard studios in LA, 16-18 December. But the first to be released was on ‘Jefferson Airplane Takes Off’ (USA RCA 3584, August 1966), which included two co-writes with Marty Balin, ‘Blues From An Airplane’ and ‘Don’t Slip Away’ as well as John D Loudermilk’s ‘Tobacco Road’ and Chet (Dino Valenti) Powers anthemic ‘Let’s Get Together’ already a hit for the Youngbloods and We Five. This was a folksier sound than we normally associate with the Airplane, and although Signe has clean clear moments of vocal energy, her singing style is more conventional than Grace Slick’s would be.
The problem was that Skip was a sparkplug, and the Airplane was already brimming with guitarists and songwriters. He’d never intended being a drummer, but he was stuck behind the drumkit. There are stories about how he quit… or was fired from the band, the tales contradict or collude depending on who’s telling it, but the general shape is that he took off for an impromptu break in Mexico, missed rehearsals, and was replaced by Spencer Dryden, who debuted with the Airplane 4 July 1966 at the Berkeley Folk Festival. Signe Anderson was soon to follow. Yet ‘Skippy’ sat in on sessions, and one of his beguilingly Folky songs, ‘My Best Friend’ survived onto ‘Surrealistic Pillow’ (February 1967, RCA Victor LPM 3766)… while undaunted, he went on to form Moby Grape.
The complex ins-&-outs of the Grape family tree are meticulously charted, almost gig-by-gig by Cam Cobb, with brushes and encounters with bands of near-mythic stature, the Misfits, the Vejtables, Sons Of Champlin, Peter & The Wolves. Through what he terms ‘the real summer love’ in the creative ferment of 1966, until the line-up condensed out as Peter Lewis (rhythm guitar), Jerry Miller (lead guitar), Bob Mosley (bass), Don Stevenson (drums), with Skip doubling on rhythm guitar and all writing and contributing vocals. They were a fully-formed band who’d all worked their way up through rough-gigging in various combinations, and brought an airtight range of skills to the Grape. As ‘Crawdaddy’ (June 1967) magazine editor Paul Williams pointed out, Moby Grape had ‘five vocalists, five songwriters, and about twelve distinct personalities (Skip Spence alone accounts for five of them)’. Songs were worked sitting in a acoustic circle. ‘Omaha’ at Skip’s house – ‘listen my friends, listen my friends,’ or at a venue called ‘The Ark’. Or ‘Someday’ which was reworked from a number Miller & Stevenson had written and recorded as part of the Frantics in the summer of 1966.
Jerry Garcia, Buffalo Springfield and the Holding Company dropped around to check them out. They played ‘The Avalon’ with Thirteenth Floor Elevators, from Austin, Texas. There were bad vibes between the two bands. Cobb draws intersecting lines between Skip and the Elevators’ Roky Erickson, both were on the brink of ground-breaking albums, both would be institutionalised soon after.
On the brink of fame and fortune – as well as tight pants, they opened for Love at ‘The Fillmore’, both Elektra and Atlantic were putting out feelers. But they signed with US Columbia – the label home of Bob Dylan and the Byrds. After being withdrawn to edit out the offending finger that Don was flipping on Jim Marshalls’ cover-photo, ‘Moby Grape’ (June 1967, Columbia CL 2698) was also issued as a controversial five singles, a move that confused radio station playlists and resulted in none of them becoming a major hit, ‘Omaha’ stalled at no.88. To Rock historian Lillian Roxon ‘there were no stars or featured performers; everything was very equal and level’ (1971, ‘Rock Encyclopedia’). Yet flourishing the fluency and magic of three interweaving guitars – a three-way guitar crosstalk, with ‘8.05’ which ‘clearly foreshadows Crosby Stills & Nash’ (Phil Hardy & Dave Laing ‘The Encyclopedia Of Rock Vol.2’). The album peaked at a Billboard no.24. It was a potentially great band, sabotaged by the underhand dealings of former-Airplane manager Matthew Katz, and by over-enthusiastic record label strategies! Meanwhile, they played the ‘Monterey Festival’, which ‘has to be my favourite memory of playing live with Moby Grape’ according to Mosley. Then there was a fractious and ill-advised tour supporting the Mamas & Papas, and the Buckinghams.
For the first album, thirteen tracks had been recorded across just six tight weeks. For the second – a double-album issued optionally as two separate albums, night-time sessions dragged on indeterminately, frequently working in different combinations, seldom with all five members in the studio at the same time, and complicated by an ongoing trial for possession and contributing to the delinquency of minors – which referred to three eager seventeen-year-old fans. ‘Murder In My Heart For The Judge’ indeed. Also by now ex-manager Katz marketing his own rival ‘Fake Grape’. ‘Wow/ Grape Jam’ (April 1968, Columbia CS 9613), includes ‘Black Currant Jam’ as part of its ‘Grape Jam’ sequence, augmented by organist Al Kooper (borrowed from Blood Sweat & Tears), plus Mike Bloomfield (from Electric Flag) on the 14:05-minute ‘Marmalade’. Mosley’s slow smoky Blues ‘Never’ has been seen as a root source for Led Zeppelin’s ‘Since I’ve Been Loving You’. The choogling Miller-Stevenson track ‘Can’t Be So Bad’ with its complex horn-arrangements and brief acapella passage, was included on the UK budget-price sampler ‘The Rock Machine Turns You On’ (1968, CBS PR22), alongside Spirit, the Byrds, Peanut Butter Conspiracy, Tim Rose and others. On a personal note, it was by buying this compilation that I first heard Moby Grape, and was mesmerised! Spence’s spoof honkytonk ‘Funky-Tunk’ with its helium-voice passages, follows his sound-effect-laden spoof-biker anthem ‘Motorcycle Irene’. Another of Skip’s songs – ‘Just Like Gene Autry: A Foxtrot’, was confusingly included as a track to be played at 78rpm! This old-timey ‘celestial melody’ features TV-host Arthur Godfrey on ukulele and voice-over introduction. This time the album reached no.20 on the LP chart.
Yet one of Skip’s most intense songs, ‘Seeing’ survived from the ‘Wow’-sessions onto the by-then fourpiece band’s third album ‘Moby Grape ’69’ (January 1969, CBS CS 9696). To Cobb it is a ‘revelation, seeing through dreams and deceit, boring through our personal walls to see things as they truly are,’ crying ‘save me’ as it builds to a breathy acid-climax. ‘That oscillation was all over the roadmap of Skip’s life and art’ Cobb says, ‘introspection stood side by side with silliness. Joy with sadness. Genius walked hand in hand with folly.’ As with Peter Green – original Fleetwood Mac leader, there had been a fissure of mental instability which drugs simply opened up. During June New York recording sessions at the CBS West Fifty-Seventh Street studios, Peter Lewis lit out back for California, while Skip met Groupie self-styled witch Joanna Wells, and flipped. This is the scary fire-axe Manhattan breakdown that resulted in his arrest, and prolonged six-month incarceration. Jorma Kaukonen visited him at Bellevue and found him ‘inhabiting more than one universe at the same time.’
By the time of his November 1968 release, Skip – now preferring to be known by his given name, Alexander, had accumulated a reservoir of new songs, even though the enduring myth of his motorcycle ride to Nashville seems to have been apocryphal. And he built the album that was to become Oar (May 1969, US Columbia CS9831) – his magnum opus, layer by layer, overdubbing himself on a three-track machine, with only engineer Mike Figlio assisting. ‘Little Hands’ is a sentimental acoustic hymn to his children, with near-falsetto line-endings, to the genuinely strange ghost-voice ‘War In Peace’, which closes with Cream’s ‘Sunshine Of Your Love’ riff. ‘Weighted Down (The Prison Song)’ is a deep-voice country ballad that teeters of the edge of parody, ‘whose socks were you darning, darling, while I been gone so long.’ There’s a touch of ‘I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight’ from Dylan’s own Nashville phase.
Skip was reunited with wife Pat – who was pregnant with their fourth child, but he was also shooting heroin. When Mosley quit before the album’s release – to join the Marines!, the remaining trio went to Nashville to record the disappointing ‘Truly Fine Citizen’ (July 1969, US Columbia CS9912) with local bassman Bob Moore standing in, Bob Johnston producing, and a plaintive country-tinged Miller-Skip Spence ‘Tongue-Tied’. Various subsequent break-ups and reformations did little to salvage their once-promising reputation. After a lengthy hiatus the full original line-up reconvened to record a one-off album for Reprise, ‘20 Granite Creek’ (September 1971, Reprise K44152/RS6460), named after a big old house in which they rehearsed. It includes Skip’s experiment with the Japanese stringed zither-like koto, called ‘Chinese Song’, although the recording sessions were disrupted by Skip’s unpredictably erratic behaviour, including locking himself in his room for days on end. After a riot at the ‘Fillmore West’s closing concerts 18-19 June 1971, they admitted defeat, Skip disintegrated, and the reunion fizzled out.
Skip’s wife and kids were gone, he was couch-surfing a nudge away from unhinged, struggling with cross-addiction to smack and speed, then he was sleeping under bridges with the homeless people. There’s a 1973 story that he OD-ed, but woke in the morgue. Bob Mosley was also in straitened circumstances, and had fallen on hard times. Yet Skip had an enduring gift for friendship, even when he was panhandling outside the liquor store. There was a constellation of associates on his side, if sporadically, in recurring formations. Peter Lewis took him to a Monastery to exorcise his demons. And Grape wasn’t Grape without his input. Another expanded but failed reunion, Live Grape (Escape Records ESAIA, April 1978), has his intermittent and unpredictable presence, including his song ‘Must Be Goin’ Now, Dear’, and another – ‘All My Life’ which he’d demo’d with a pick-up band called the Yankees as early as 1972. Then after decades of litigation, Katz was back for Moby Grape ’84 (San Francisco Sound SFS04830). Skip was absent for the old-style rocking single ‘Too Old To Boogie’, but co-wrote ‘Better Days’ with Mosley.
The Doobie Brothers gifted Skip a Fender Stratocaster. He traded it for coke. He was never ‘weighted down by possessions.’ But reissues – through the specialist Sundazed label, and re-evaluations were rehabilitating his reputation. Lost tracks were added to CD editions as the psychedelic nostalgia industry flashed-back to. Better Days. A tribute album, More Oar, A Tribute To The Skip Spence Album (1999, Birdman BMR-023, UK Jericho CHOCD603) includes luminaries of the calibre of Robert Plant (‘Little Hands’), Robyn Hitchcock (‘Broken Heart’), Beck (‘Halo Of Gold’), Tom Waits (‘Book Of Moses’) and others. The last number that Skip ever recorded – ‘Land Of The Sun’, was added as a bonus track. Commissioned – then rejected, for an X-Files themed album called ‘Songs In The Key Of X’, there’s chuckling laughter, tabla, and semi-spoken vocals. He had a new partner in Terry Lewis. But his body was into terminal collapse. He died on Friday, 16 April 1999, just two days before his fifty-third birthday.
For Skip – says Cobb, ‘his life was his art.’ ‘Spence was like the trickster gods of myth, or the wise fool paradox from literature. He noticed things others missed. He gazed upon what others could not, or would not, see. He juxtaposed words and meanings in unexpected ways. Things came together brilliantly for fleeting moments, before they fell apart. Ultimately, he would look too deeply into his own darkness.’ The rest is a chaos of false starts. Cam Cobb scrupulously documents the zigzag life of this broken hero, this beautiful loser, with exhaustively detailed bonus sessionography and gig listings.
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BY ANDREW DARLINGTON
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