| Alexander "Skip" Spence |
| Birth name |
Alexander Lee Spence |
| Also known as |
Skip Spence |
| Born |
April 18, 1946(1946-04-18)
Windsor, Ontario, Canada |
| Died |
April 16, 1999 (aged 52)
Santa Cruz, California, USA |
| Genres |
Rock, psychedelic rock, folk rock |
| Occupations |
Singer, Songwriter |
| Instruments |
Drums, Guitar |
| Years active |
1965–1971; sporadically to 1999 (his death) |
| Labels |
Columbia, Sundazed |
| Associated acts |
Jefferson Airplane
Moby Grape |
Alexander Lee "Skip" Spence (April 18, 1946 – April 16, 1999) was a musician and singer-songwriter best known for his work with Jefferson Airplane, Moby Grape and as a solo artist. His career was plagued by drug addictions coupled with mental health problems, and is described by a biographer as a man who "neither died young nor had a chance to find his way out."[1] During his tenure in the public eye, he had a profound impact on the outsider music and psych-folk genres.
History
1966-1969: Moby Grape and Oar
Alexander "Skip" Spence was born in Windsor, Ontario, Canada in 1946. His father was a machinist. The family relocated to San Jose, California in the late 1950s, based on his father finding work in the aircraft industry. Spence was a guitarist in an early line-up of Quicksilver Messenger Service before Marty Balin recruited him to be the drummer for Jefferson Airplane. After one album with Jefferson Airplane, their debut Jefferson Airplane Takes Off, he left to co-found Moby Grape, once again as a guitarist. It was with Moby Grape that Spence found his greatest musical fame, writing among other songs, "Omaha", from Moby Grape's first album (1967)--a song identified in 2008 by Rolling Stone Magazine as one of the 100 greatest guitar songs of all time.[2]
Spence is acknowledged as having been instrumental in the formation of the Doobie Brothers, by way of introducing John Hartman to Tom Johnston, and encouraging their musical development, as well as occasionally sitting in with their pre Doobie Brothers band Pud, though Spence never was an official member.[3]
During the recording session of Moby Grape's second album, Wow, in 1968, Spence attempted to break down a bandmate's hotel room door with a fire axe, while under the influence of LSD. Spence's deterioration in New York and the "fire axe incident" are described by bandmate Jerry Miller as follows: "Skippy changed radically when we were in New York. There were some people there that were into harder drugs and a harder lifestyle, and some very weird shit. And so he kind of flew off with those people. Skippy kind of disappeared for a little while. Next time we saw him, he had cut off his beard,[4] and was wearing a black leather jacket, with his chest hanging out, with some chains and just sweating like a son of a gun. I don't know what the hell he got a hold of, man, but it just whacked him. And the next thing I know, he axed my door down in the Albert Hotel.[5] They said at the reception area that this crazy guy had held an axe to the doorman's head." [6]
As described by bandmate Peter Lewis, it appears that both Jerry Miller and bandmade Don Stevenson were targets of Spence: "We had to do (the album) in New York because the producer (David Rubinson) wanted to be with his family. So we had to leave our families and spend months at a time in hotel rooms in New York City. Finally I just quit and went back to California. I got a phone call after a couple of days. They'd played a Fillmore East gig without me, and Skippy took off with some black witch afterward who fed him full of acid. It was like that scene in The Doors movie. He thought he was the anti-Christ. He tried to chop down the hotel room door with a fire axe to kill Don (Stevenson) to save him from himself. He went up to the 52nd floor of the CBS building where they had to wrestle him to the ground. And Rubinson pressed charges against him. They took him to the The Tombs (and then to Bellevue) and that's where he wrote Oar. When he got out of there, he cut that album in Nashville. And that was the end of his career. They shot him full of Thorazine for six months. They just take you out of the game."[7]
During his six months in Bellevue, Spence was diagnosed with schizophrenia.[8] On the day of his release, he drove a motorcycle, dressed in only his pajamas, directly to Nashville to record his only solo album, with no other musicians appearing on it, the now-classic psychedelic/folk album Oar (1969, Columbia Records).[9]
1970s and continuing decline
Spence continued to have minor involvement in later Moby Grape projects and reunions. He contributed to 20 Granite Creek (1971) and Live Grape (1978),[10] though his bandmates always included at least one of his songs on group recordings, irrespective of whether he was capable of performing with the group at the time.[11] He had been similarly remembered by Jefferson Airplane, whereby his song, "My Best Friend" was included on the group's definitive Surrealistic Pillow album (1967), despite his departure from the group.[12]
Due to his deteriorating state and notwithstanding that he was no longer functioning in the band, Spence was supported by Moby Grape band members for extended periods. Voluminous consumption of heroin and cocaine resulted in a further involuntary committal for Spence, based on "Aqualung"-like behaviours. As described by Peter Lewis, "Skippy was just hanging around. He hadn't been all there for years, because he'd been into heroin all that time. In fact he actually ODed once and they had him in the morgue in San Jose with a tag on his toe. All of a sudden he got up and asked for a glass of water. Now he was snortin' big clumps of coke, and nothing would happen to him. We couldn't have him around because he'd be pacing the room, describing axe murders. So we got him a little place of his own. He had a little white rat named Oswald that would snort coke too. He'd never washed his dishes, and he'd try to get these little grammar school girls to go into the house with him. He was real bad. One of the parents finally called the cops, and they took him to the County Mental Health Hospital in Santa Cruz. Where they immediately lost him, and he turned up days later in the women's ward."[13]
Mental illness, drug addiction and alcoholism thus prevented Spence from sustaining a career in the music industry. Much of his life was spent in third party care, as a ward of the State of California, and either homeless or in transient accommodations in his later years. He remained in and around San Jose and Santa Cruz, California. Peter Lewis regularly visited Spence during the latter years of his life: "The last five years I'd go up‚ he lived in a trailer up there‚ Capitola. I used to hang around with him; we'd spend the weekends together. But he just basically kind of hit the…he was helpless in a way in terms of being able to define anything or control his feelings." [14]
As one of his four children,[15] son Omar Spence, recalls, "When I saw my dad, it broke my heart. ...There were moments of clarity when he was genius smart, and then he'd wander off having a conversation with himself. Here's a homeless guy that most people would walk past and pity, and he'd say, 'I've been working on a song', and he'd scratch out some barre chords and musical notes on a napkin."[16]
Death and postscripts
Spence died in 1999 from lung cancer. He was 52, just two days shy of his 53rd birthday. More Oar: A Tribute to Alexander "Skip" Spence, an album featuring contributions from Robert Plant, Tom Waits, Beck, among others, was released a few weeks after his death. Prior to its release, the CD was played for Spence at the hospital, in his final stages before death. As Peter Lewis recalls, "He was in a coma‚ and the last thing to go is your hearing. And they had More Oar in there and were playing it for him as they pulled the plug and we were holding his hands. I mean‚ it was like this death of Van Gogh or something. That's the drama of it. You know…it was just so intense."[17]
Spence's "Land of the Sun", one of the only post-Grape recordings he ever completed, was nearly placed on The X-Files soundtrack,[18] Songs In The Key of X. He had been commissioned to write the song.[19]
In June, 2008, a Skip Spence Tribute Concert was held in Santa Cruz. The concert featured Spence's son, Omar Spence, who has sung with various configurations of Moby Grape in recent years. Omar Spence, singing his father's songs, was backed by the Santa Cruz White Album Ensemble, with Dale Ockerman and Tiran Porter, both formerly of the Doobie Brothers, and both of whom have played with various members of Moby Grape in several bands over the past three decades. Keith Graves of Quicksilver Messenger Service played drums.[20][21] Peter Lewis joined the group onstage for the finale.[22] An additional Skip Spence tribute concert was held in October, 2008.[23]
Discography
Tribute Album
References
- ^ Jeff Tamarkin, Skip Spence and The Sad Saga of Moby Grape. Chapter extract from Got A Revolution: The Turbulent Flight of Jefferson Airplane.
- ^ "Omaha" is ranked as number 95 and is 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." Rolling Stone, The 100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time.
- ^ See Tom Johnston Bio at www.doobiebrothers.net. Spence is sometimes identified as a person who helped the Doobie Brothers obtain their major recording contract with Warner Bros. There does not appear to be independent support for this view. Instead, it appears that the band obtained the Warner Bros. contract through sending a demo tape by mail.
- ^ Spence had a full beard for most of his life. He had grown a beard after the release of Moby Grape's first album and, as noted by Jerry Miller, suddenly cut it off during the recording of Wow. An image Spence prior to that occurrence is accessible here.
- ^ University Place and East 11th Street, New York City. Now an apartment building, it was at the time a famous hotel originally owned by the brother of artist Albert Pinkham Ryder. The hotel was named in his honour. Robert Louis Stevenson used one of the hotel's rooms as his studio. Other famous guests included Leo Tolstoy and Thomas Wolfe. Patrick Bunyan, All Around The Town: Amazing Manhattan Facts and Curiosities. Fordham University Press, 1999.
- ^ Interview with Jerry Miller by Jeff Tamarkin. Contained in "Skip Spence and The Sad Saga of Moby Grape", being chapter extract from Got A Revolution: The Turbulent Flight of Jefferson Airplane.
- ^ Interview with Peter Lewis by Jud Cost, 1995; www.sundazed.com.
- ^ Disabled World, "Famous People with Schizophrenia"
- ^ This commonly-accepted version of events has recently been challenged as being mythical. It is asserted, without citation, that Spence first returned to his wife and family in Santa Cruz and that his family accompanied him to Nashville; see Moby Grape.
- ^ Karen Schoemer, "A Fragile Mind Bent in a Psychedelic Era". Contained in Peter Guralnick and Douglas Wolk (eds.)Da Capo Best Music Writing 2000, Da Capo Press. ISBN 0306809990.
- ^ For example, on Truly Fine Citizen (1969), a Jerry Miller-Skip Spence song, "Tongue-Tied", was included. On the Legendary Grape album (1989, CD issue 2003), the album starts with a Skip Spence song, "(All My Life) I Love You", originally recorded by Spence in 1972. Spence was no longer with Moby Grape at the time of Moby Grape '69, yet an earlier song recorded by Spence, "Seeing", was nonetheless included on the album.
- ^ On the 2003 CD reissue of Surrealistic Pillow. an additional Spence song,"J.P.P. McStep B. Blues", is included as a bonus track.
- ^ Interview with Peter Lewis by Jud Cost, 1995; www.sundazed.com
- ^ Interview with Peter Lewis by Doug Collette, July 2007; www.stateofmindmusic.com.
- ^ Aaron, Adam, Omar and Heather. At the time of his death, despite his relatively young age, Spence also had 11 grandchildren. He was also survived by his half-brother, Rich Young and by his sister, Sherry Ferreira. John Pareles, Skip Spence, Psychedelic Musician, Dies at 52. Obituary, New York Times, April 18, 1999. It is unclear whether half-brother Rich Young is also the same Rich Young who was with the initial lineup of the Chocolate Watchband and who currently plays on occasion with Spence's former Moby Grape bandmate Jerry Miller. Spence and the Chocolate Watchband would have crossed paths, since both were in San Jose, California, at the time. The Topsiders, an early band in which Spence was a member as of 1965, pre-Quicksilver Messenger Service and Jefferson Airplane, evolved in part into the Chocolate Watchband. See Profile of The Chocolate Watchband; www.bugpop.com.
- ^ Kimberly Chun, Grape loss. San Francisco Bay Guardian, May 30, 2007.
- ^ Interview with Peter Lewis by Doug Collette, July 2007; www.stateofmindmusic.com.
- ^ Matthew Greenwald, "Skip Spence Lived a Surrealistic Life" Rolling Stone April 19, 1999.
- ^ John Pareles,Skip Spence, Psychedelic Musician, Dies at 52 Obituary, New York Times, April 18, 1999.
- ^ "Honor Thy Father", June 18, 2008 Paul Davis, Metroactive. Retrieved on July 8, 2008. .
- ^ "Father figure: Son friends plan tribute show for Skip Spence", Santa Cruz Sentinal released through Free City News, Isaiah Guzman, June 15, 2008. Retrieved on July 8, 2008.
- ^ "Concert review" , Bret W., music.gather.com. Retrieved on July 08, 2008.
- ^ See particulars here; www.jambase.com.
- ^ Includes one song with Skip Spence vocals, "Seeing", presumably from "Wow" sessions.
- ^ Featuring Spence's two post-Oar studio recordings, the other being "(All My Life) I Love You" (1972).
External links
