Moby Grape

Moby Grape
Studio album by Moby Grape
Released	June 6, 1967
Recorded	CBS, Hollywood, CA; March 11 – April 25, 1967
Genre	Psychedelic rock
Length	29:23
Label	Columbia
Producer	David Rubinson
Moby Grape chronology
Moby Grape (1967) Wow/Grape Jam (1968)

Moby Grape is the rock band Moby Grape's eponymous 1967 debut album. Coming from the San Francisco scene, their reputation quickly grew to immense proportions, leading to a bidding war and a contract with Columbia Records. The album peaked at #24 on the Billboard 200 albums chart in September 1967.

Reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	[1]
Robert Christgau	A−[2]
Rolling Stone	(favourable)[3]

Columbia chose to release ten of the thirteen songs on five singles: "Fall on You"/"Changes", "Sitting By the Window"/"Indifference" (2:46 edit), "8:05"/"Mister Blues", "Omaha"/"Someday" and "Hey Grandma"/Come in the Morning". The only single to chart was "Omaha".

Nevertheless, as Gene Sculatti and Davin Seay write in their book San Francisco Nights (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1985; out of print), Moby Grape "remains one of the very few psychedelic masterpieces ever recorded." Justin Farrar considered that "(i)t's no understatement to hail the group's 1967 debut as the ancestral link between [sic] psychedelia, country rock, glam, power pop and punk."^[4] In addition, the 1983 Rolling Stone Record Guide said their "debut LP is as fresh and exhilarating today as it was when it exploded out of San Francisco during 1967's summer of love." In 2003, the album was ranked number 121 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time., ahead of Jefferson Airplane's Surrealistic Pillow (146), The Byrds' Greatest Hits (178), Buffalo Springfield Again (188), Grateful Dead's Live Dead (244), Big Brother and the Holding Company's Cheap Thrills (338), and The Doors' albums L.A. Woman (362) and Strange Days (407).

Noted rock critic Robert Christgau listed it as one of The 40 Essential Albums of 1967.^[5] As reviewed by Mark Deming, "Moby Grape is as refreshing today as it was upon first release, and if fate prevented the group from making a follow-up that was as consistently strong, for one brief shining moment Moby Grape proved to the world they were one of America's great bands. While history remembers the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane as being more important, the truth is neither group ever made an album quite this good."^[6]

Skip Spence, ex-drummer of Jefferson Airplane, plays guitar on the album. In 2008, Spence's song "Omaha" was listed as number 95 in Rolling Stone's "100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time".^[7] The song was described as follows: "On their best single, Jerry Miller, Peter Lewis and Skip Spence compete in a three-way guitar battle for two and a quarter red-hot minutes, each of them charging at Spence's song from different angles, no one yielding to anyone else."^[7] Writing in 1967,^[8] shortly after the album's release, Crawdaddy! creator Paul Williams described "Omaha" as "the toughest cut on the album (and) one of the finest recorded examples of the wall-of-sound approach in rock. It surges and roars like a tidal wave restrained by a seawall."^[9]

On the front cover of the original release, Don Stevenson is "flipping the bird" (making an obscene gesture) on the washboard. It was airbrushed out on subsequent pressings, but the UK re-issue on Edsel/Demon restored the photo to its original state.

On October 9, 2007, Sundazed Records released a remastered CD version of the album's stereo mix containing bonus tracks, some of which were previously unreleased. In addition, Sundazed also released the album's mono mix on LP, but with no bonus tracks. Both the CD and LP versions were taken out of print, along with Wow and Grape Jam, on November 3, 2007, for reasons not officially stated. It has been widely circulated among the Moby Grape mailing list that former manager Matthew Katz, with whom the band has been in legal battles since the late 1960s, threatened to file a lawsuit against Sundazed claiming ownership of the album artwork.

Notable covers and soundtrack inclusions

Robert Plant covered "8:05" and "Naked If I Want To" as B-sides to 1993 singles; "8:05" is also included on the expanded reissue of his Fate of Nations album on Rhino Records. Robert Plant also performed "Hey Grandma" live when with his pre-Led Zeppelin Band of Joy, during the 1967-1968 period.^[10] The Move covered "Hey Grandma" on their eponymous first album, released in 1968. More recently, "Hey Grandma" was included in the soundtrack to the 2005 Sean Penn-Nicole Kidman film, The Interpreter, as well as being covered in 2009 by the Black Crowes, on Warpaint Live.

Cat Power has recorded two covers of "Naked, If I Want To" which appeared on her 2000 album The Covers Record and on the limited edition of her 2008 album Jukebox.

"Omaha" has been covered by The Golden Palominos in 1985 on their Visions of Excess album, with Michael Stipe on lead vocal. The song has also occasionally been performed live in concert by Bruce Springsteen.

Track listing

Side one

1. "Hey Grandma" (Jerry Miller, Don Stevenson) – 2:25
2. "Mr. Blues" (Bob Mosley) – 1:55
3. "Fall on You" (Peter Lewis) – 1:50
4. "8:05" (Miller, Stevenson) – 2:17
5. "Come in the Morning" (Mosley) – 2:04
6. "Omaha" (Skip Spence) – 2:19
7. "Naked, If I Want To" (Miller) – 0:51

Side two

1. "Someday" (Miller, Stevenson, Spence) – 2:30
2. "Ain't No Use" (Miller, Stevenson) – 1:33
3. "Sitting by the Window" (Lewis) – 2:38
4. "Changes" (Miller, Stevenson) – 3:13
5. "Lazy Me" (Mosley) – 1:39
6. "Indifference" (Spence) – 4:09

Bonus tracks on 2007 CD edition

1. "Rounder" (instrumental)
2. "Looper" (audition recording)
3. "Indifference" (audition recording)(previously unissued)
4. "Bitter Wind" (previously unissued)
5. "Sweet Ride (Never Again)" (long version, previously unissued)

Personnel

• Peter Lewis – rhythm guitar, vocals
• Bob Mosley – bass, vocals
• Jerry Miller – lead guitar, vocals
• Skip Spence – rhythm guitar, vocals
• Don Stevenson – drums, vocals

Charts

Album - Billboard

Singles - Billboard

References