Moby
Grape | Listen My Friends!: The Best of Moby Grape
ROLL BACK
Columbia/Legacy
Review by Peter Aaron
Great as the band’s San Francisco competition
(Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Big Brother
& The Holding Company, pre-burnout Grateful Dead) was,
it’s Moby Grape’s self-titled 1967 debut that
stands as the scene’s most woefully underrated—and
greatest—album. A storming yet highly melodic set, Moby
Grape absolutely explodes with the quintet’s stinging
three-guitar attack and sweeping vocal harmonies, as well
as a methodology that deftly and un-indulgently bends folk,
country, blues, and earlier rock ‘n’ roll styles
to fit the psychedelic zeitgeist. And to top it all off, there
was the ludicrous potency of having five incredibly strong
songwriters all in the same band: guitarists Peter Lewis,
Skip Spence, and Jerry Miller, bassist Bob Mosley, and drummer
Don Stevenson, all of whom were also capable lead singers.
Unfortunately, in most rock histories Moby
Grape is remembered not as the acid-rock juggernaut the band
was early on, but instead as the black cloud of ’60s
pop, a magnet for the bad luck that doomed the group before
it was able to really take off. To start with, Columbia tried
to market the band as the American Beatles, releasing no less
than five singles—ten of the LP’s thirteen tracks—from
the debut album simultaneously, which confused radio programmers
and alienated the group from much of the underground following
it had built its name on. Another blow came on the eve of
the band’s first national tour when three Grape members
were busted with underage girls following the album’s
record release party. CONTINUE....
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