moby grape
Recent content on Elsewhere by Graham Reid tagged as moby grape.
Cat Power: Jukebox (Matador)
Covers albums can be uneven and most often uncalled for: usually they represent some stopgap measure for an artist, and at their worst seem pretty pointless, like Patti Smith's recent Twelve in which she covered songs which had influenced her but she brought nothing to them other than her stylistic signature. Or Bryan Ferry's recent...
ACID DAZE PART TWO: A Day in My Mind's Mind Vol 2; Fantasies, Polka Dots and Flowers
Rather than essay this second collection of Kiwi psychedelic songs from '67-'72 -- subtitled "Fantasies, Polka Dots and Flowers" -- why don't I just reproduce below the liner notes I wrote for it?.................. The exciting thing about this on-going series of psychedelic music from New Zealand in the late 60s and early 70s is...
ACID DAZE PART THREE: A Day in My Mind's Mind Vol 3; 28 Kiwi Psychedelic Trips 1967-72
As with the second volume in this excellent on-going and budget-priced series, I wrote the liner notes to this album and -- with the invaluable research and help of Grant Gillanders who once again chose the tracks and must be on the shortlist of an honour's list for services to Kiwi music -- I also wrote the profiles on the bands who...
JEFFERSON AIRPLANE'S 1993 BOX SET: Fasten your seat belts
History’s such fun. Here are some lyrics from the past to think on: “We are all outlaws in the eyes of America/in order to survive we steal, cheat, lie and [inaudible]/ we are obscene, lawless, hideous, dangerous, dirty, violent and young . . . we are forces of chaos and anarchy.” The singers then toss in the popular noun,...
absoluteelsewhere/1796/jefferson-airplanes-1993-box-set-fasten-your-seat-belts/
MUSIC IS MY MADNESS: Ego, drugs and minor chords, musicians who lost the plot
The world of music is populated by creative people -- and those around them who offer musicians absurd amounts of money, pampering for their inflating egos and medication for their every ailment, real or imagined. The surprising thing is that more musicians don’t follow Elvis, Britney Spears, Amy Winehouse and Pete Doherty...
absoluteelsewhere/1880/music-is-my-madness-ego-drugs-and-minor-chords-musicians-who-lost-the-plot/
Rodriguez: Cold Fact (Rhythmethod)
A couple of years ago at Elsewhere, mostly for my own amusement, I started posting tracks by this Mexican-American Seventies cult figure who only did a couple of albums (although also managed a 1993 At His Best compilation long after he had faded from view) I had been introduced to his stoner charms by an Australian. Which makes sense...
THE SIXTIES by JENNY DISKI: What a long strange trip . . .
Has any decade been more feted, essayed and mythologised than the Sixties? The flowers in hippies’ headbands had barely wilted when the analysis began, and since then many of those who were there have hailed it as rare period in human history, the like of which . . . The past few years have seen 40th anniversaries: the assassinations of...
writingelsewhere/2607/the-sixties-by-jenny-diski-what-a-long-strange-trip/
White Denim: Fits (Inertia)
This three-piece from Austin were everywhere in the UK media when they were touring while I was in England and Scotland in the middle of the year -- and I kept missing them. And the more I read the more interested I became: no one seemed to have a clear bead on them and while some cited Hendrix (it's the wah-wah pedal, folks) others mentioned a...
The Warlocks: Can't Come Down (1965)
By the mid Sixties the spirit and style of poetic Bob Dylan was everywhere as singers and writers tried to match his surreal wordplay. Dylan's harmonica, image heavy lyrics and monotone is everywhere in this demo by the Warlocks out of San Francisco. Of all the Bob-copyists the Warlocks had the best claim to similar territory: they were...
Sky Cries Mary; 2000 Light Years From Home (1993)
A tip? Eat your acid drop right now . . . and . . . and waiting and waiting and . .. now? Shall we around this point try to be serious? Let us try. At the same time as grunge was emerging in Seattle there were other things going on in that city, it wasn't all lumberjack shirts and flailing emotional intensity. The...
fromthevaults/2800/sky-cries-mary-2000-light-years-from-home-1993/
LOVE IS THE SONG WE SING; SAN FRANCISCO NUGGETS 1965-1970: Flowers and freak outs
Any box set or collection which tries to mop up an era, genre or decade is probably doomed to failure, not from lack of genuine effort but because some artists (the big ones) don't want to be included. So you can get a multiple disc, very inclusive set of the Eighties for example and it doesn't have anything by Madonna, Prince, Springsteen and...
Daniel Johnston: Is and Always Was (Feraltone)
I'm probably not alone in thinking of Daniel Johnston, not just as some untutored genius and outsider artist, but as someone whose life has often been pitiable and sad. That he is disturbed is beyond question. That said, Johnston's no-fi cassette recordings (some of which have turned up on CD over the years), can be transfixing for their...
I WANT TO TAKE YOU HIGHER: THE PSYCHEDELIC YEARS 1965-69 edited by JAMES HENKE AND PARKE PUTERBAUGH
Somewhere among my old photographs at home is one of me standing beside John Lennon’s psychedelic Rolls Royce. It was London in late ‘69 and -- aside from revealing the embarrassing affectation of a black cape -- it‘s most interesting for what is in the background: a Morris Minor of the kind that was considerably more common...
13th Floor Elevators: 7th Heaven; Music of the Spheres (Charly/Southbound)
As with Syd Barrett, the music of 13th Floor Elevators has been overshadowed by the story of the madness, in the case of the Elevators the increasingly bizarre behaviour of their frontman Roky Erickson. Out of Austin, Texas in the mid Sixties, the Elevators were a raw and elemental garageband along the lines of England's Downliners Sect and...
music/2937/13th-floor-elevators-7th-heaven-music-of-the-spheres-charly-southbound/
The Gun: Race with the Devil (1967)
In the age of Cream (mid '66 to late '68), Blue Cheer and the Jimi Hendrix Experience, the power trio became an established form and this group from Buckinghamshire -- two brothers and another -- took the hard rock, guitar pyrotechnics sound to the top of the British charts with this single. And that was about it for them. That's...
Roky Erickson with Okkervil River: True Love Cast Out All Evil (2010)
In 2010, the most recent album by the emotionally damaged Daniel Johnston, Is and Always Was, found his often fragile and shaky acoustic pop placed in the context of a band -- and while it was fine to hear his songs that way (as he wanted) there was also a sense that their nakedness had been sacrificed. That wasn't the case on True Love Cast...
essentialelsewhere/3072/roky-erickson-with-okkervil-river-true-love-cast-out-all-evil-2010/
Timothy Leary: You Can Be Anyone This Time Around (1970)
Older, if not wiser, "heads" will know exactly who Dr Timothy Leary was -- an advocate of the widespread use of LSD to change cultural consciousness and to open individuals to the vastness of the cosmos within and without. Tune in, turn on and drop out became a mantra in the late Sixties. His album You Can Be Anyone This Time...
fromthevaults/3089/timothy-leary-you-can-be-anyone-this-time-around-1970/
ANTON FIER PROFILED (1988): A new career in a new town
Anton Fier was, until recently, a star without a bank account -- or manager come to that -- and yet at the nucleus of the hippest collection of New York’s avant-garde ever to hit vinyl. When Fier gets going, the going gets fearful as left-field jazz players, peripheral rockists and unusual combinations of singers,squawkers and...
absoluteelsewhere/3199/anton-fier-profiled-1988-a-new-career-in-a-new-town/
BILL LASWELL INTERVIEWED (1994): In the den of the alchemist
The apartment seven floors up on Park Ave South, just around the corner from the exclusive Gramercy Park area of New York, is much as you might expect. Albums and CDs line the walls. Over there the new Last Poets 12-inch single leans against the wall, on that shelf there the Yoko Ono CD box set sits alongside books by Carlos Castenada....
absoluteelsewhere/3269/bill-laswell-interviewed-1994-in-the-den-of-the-alchemist/
Moby Grape: Just Like Gene Autry: A Foxtrot (1968)
Varying the speed of tapes in the studio is not uncommon, but asking that your listener get up and change the speed of their record player on an album is another thing entirely. Certainly there have been singles which play one side at 45 and the other at 33 (often 12" singles or EPs from the Eighties) -- but in '68 the increasingly...
fromthevaults/3277/moby-grape-just-like-gene-autry-a-foxtrot-1968/
BLUES MAGOOS 1966-68: Pop's psychedelic pioneers
Some albums catch a band at a turning point, one foot in the past and the other stepping towards an unknown but promising future. If the Beatles, through exhaustion and wrung out by the constant pressure to produce, had called it a day in late 1965 their legacy would have been easy to distill down: a few joyfully adolescent pop hits,...
absoluteelsewhere/3941/blues-magoos-1966-68-pops-psychedelic-pioneers/
Sir Douglas Quintet: Lawd I'm Just a Country Boy in This Great Big Freaky City (1968)
When this song was written, Doug Sahm -- singer, writer and frontman for the Sir Douglas Quintet -- was feeling somewhat jaded about the hippie paradise that had been San Francisco. He and the band were from Texas and in the mid-Sixties had, like so many, moved to the Bay Area to enjoy whatever was happening there. But increasingly the...
JEFFERSON AIRPLANE; THE SIDE PROJECTS 1970-74: The Baron and the Nun go it alone, together
The New York garageband Blues Magoos' Psychedelic Lollipop of 1966 was one of the first albums to have the word “psychedelic” in the title, but it wasn't quite the spaced-out sweet thing the name suggested. 13th Floor Elevators out of Texas the same year with their debut The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators...
13th FLOOR ELEVATORS (1966-69): Shall we take a trip, or a Roky ride?
The description “psychedelic music” – much like “freedom” – can mean whatever you want. The first albums with “psychedelic” in the title were by 13th Floor Elevators out of Texas (The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators) and New York's Blues Magoos (Psychedelic Lollipop), both...
absoluteelsewhere/3999/13th-floor-elevators-1966-69-shall-we-take-a-trip-or-a-roky-ride/
The Crazy World of Arthur Brown: The Crazy World of Arthur Brown (1968)
By the latter part of the Sixties there was a clear difference between how American and British "hippies" perceived "the psychedelic era". If it's true that no music movement comes without its own new set of clothes then the difference was visible on the streets. In the US where ponchos, fringed-jackets, tie-dye t-shirts...
essentialelsewhere/4000/the-crazy-world-of-arthur-brown-the-crazy-world-of-arthur-brown-1968/
The Great! Society: Somebody to Love (1966)
There were at least three different versions of this psychedelic classic which is best known in its third incarnation by Jefferson Airplane. But the song dated back to before that '66 single/album track -- back to the band that singer Grace Slick was in before she joined the Airplane. Her previous group -- with her husband Jerry and his...
Barry McGuire: California Dreamin' (1965)
After his growling and apocalyptic version of PF Sloan's Eve of Destruction in '65 the former folkie Barry McGuire -- who had been in the New Christy Minstrels and had co-written their big hit Green Green -- was looking for new material to include on his second album. Producer Lou Adler lined up a number of covers -- the Beatles' Yesterday...
Janis Joplin: Trouble in Mind (1965)
The great Janis Joplin has been dead for over four decades now but it would be fair to observe that no woman in rock has ever approached her deep understanding of the blues and earthy, powerful delivery . . . let alone her self-destructive approach to life. Yet she has been largely forgotten and, as this essay notes, no one seems in any mind...
Ray Manzarek/Roy Rogers: Translucent Blues (Blind Pig)
Given his organ playing was such an integral part of the Doors' sound, it's surprising Ray Manzarek's subsequent four decade career has garnered so little attention, although to be fair it has thrown up few decent albums. I recall trading in his Carmina Burana within a week of getting it in the early Eighties and just last month I paid $5...
music/4333/ray-manzarek-roy-rogers-translucent-blues-blind-pig/
Trembling Bells: The Constant Pageant (Fuse/Border)
This Glasgow quartet fronted by the powerful folk-vocals of Lavinia Blackwall have previously delivered folkadelia but right from the ringing guitars of this, their third album, they have moved more firmly into the psychedelic rock area where Celtic hippies roam wind-swept moors and have anthemic Jefferson Airplane and Fairport Convention...
music/4350/trembling-bells-the-constant-pageant-fuse-border/
Wooden Shjips: West (Fuse)
Wooden Shjips (sic) out of San Francisco once again serve up their particular brand of astral plane psychedelic drone-rock which sounds filtered through steel wool. Their appealing tripped-out grunge sits somewhere along the faultline of their city's Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane and a full volume, garageband metal overhaul of...
Green Pajamas: Green Pajamas Country! (Green Monkey Records)
Although we have learned that Jeff Kelly of Seattle's Green Pajamas -- a band which has consistently delivers seductive and intelligent paisley-pop grounded in the spirit of the mid-Sixties, see here -- grew up playing country music with his father, this new album is something of a surprise. But a surprise in a good way. With...
music/4502/green-pajamas-green-pajamas-country-green-monkey-records/
JIMI HENDRIX IN 2011: Return to Winterland 1968
From the moment Jimi Hendrix arrived in London in the early hours of September 24 1966 to his death in the same city just a few days short of four years later, he seemed to be constantly moving, playing and recording. He played his first jam in London the night he arrived, and a fortnight later -- after jamming with the Brian Auger Trinity,...
absoluteelsewhere/4506/jimi-hendrix-in-2011-return-to-winterland-1968/
Moby Grape, Moby Grape (1967)
The short and dramatic story of San Francisco psychedelic folk-rockers Moby Grape is one of the collision of blazing musical talent, shonky management, record company overkill and bad luck. And it all happened in less than a year. Within six months of their classic self-titled debut album released in mid '67 -- a fortnight after the Beatles'...
Tags related to moby grape
13th floor elevators 1968 a day in my mind's mind anglo-folk anton fier bert jansch bessie smith best of elsewhere 2006 best of elsewhere 2007 best of elsewhere 2008 best of elsewhere 2009 best of elsewhere 2010 bill laswell black mountain blue cheer blues magoos bob dylan brian wilson buddy guy cat power chicago blues chris thompson daniel johnston dann penn diana ross eric clapton essential elsewhere etta james frank zappa from the vaults get a haircut grace slick green pajamas hooked i want to take you higher jaco pastorius james brown janis joplin jeff kelly jefferson airplane jenny diski jimi hendrix john martyn joni mitchell lawrence ferlinghetti like, omigod! the 80's pop box loud, fast and out of control love is the song we sing marijuana muddy waters new zealand music nick cave ornette coleman patti smith pet rocks and punk rock pink floyd psychedelia psychedelic ray columbus rem richard nixon robert johnson robert wyatt rodriguez roky erickson rubber soul santana seattle sky cries mary spooner oldham syd barrett the beatles the doors the flaming lips the grateful dead the gun the mamas and the papas the posies the rolling stones the sixties thirteenth floor elevators timothy leary white denim yoko ono