Alexander Skip Spence
Alexander "Skip" Spence first came to the attention of the record buying public when he played drums on the first Jefferson Airplane album, but his first and preferred instrument was guitar. He only became a drummer because an Airplane member spotted him in a club, thought he looked like a drummer, and gave him a pair of sticks. Spence was too much of a free spirit to last with the Airplane or any other band. His spontaneity and lyrical guitar work had a lot to do with the artistic success of Moby Grape's early records, but he left that band after his personal quirks took a nasty turn and he threatened his bandmates with a fire axe. This episode led to a lengthy psychiatric hospitalization, the first of many instigated by the schizophrenia that dogged Spence for the rest of his life until he died of lung cancer. Oar, his only solo record, was tracked shortly after his release.
Alexander "Skip" Spence first came to the attention of the record buying public when he played drums on the first Jefferson Airplane album, but his first and preferred instrument was guitar. He only became a drummer because an Airplane member spotted him in a club, thought he looked like a drummer, and gave him a pair of sticks. Spence was too much of a free spirit to last with the Airplane or any other band. His spontaneity and lyrical guitar work had a lot to do with the artistic success of Moby Grape's early records, but he left that band after his personal quirks took a nasty turn and he threatened his bandmates with a fire axe. This episode led to a lengthy psychiatric hospitalization, the first of many instigated by the schizophrenia that dogged Spence for the rest of his life until he died of lung cancer. Oar, his only solo record, was tracked shortly after his release.
Oar
Canadian-born Alexander 'Skip' Spence was the co-founder of Moby Grape, and played guitar with them until 1969. In the same year he released his only solo album: Oar. The album was recorded after Spence had spent six months in a mental institution following a delusion-driven attempt to attack his Moby Grape band mates with a fire axe, after having ingested LSD. As the urban myth goes, on the day of his release he drove a motorcycle - dressed in only his pyjamas - directly to Nashville to record …
AndOarAgain
AndOarAgain provides unparalleled access to what David Fricke calls “the most harrowing and compelling artifacts of rock & roll’s most euphoric era” across three dozen unheard tracks! In addition to the quintessential original album, AndOarAgain features nearly two hours of unheard music on the way to Oar–along with roads not taken–that both clarifies and muddies the enigma of how psychedelic legend Alexander “Skip” Spence determined the final state of his iconic masterpiece. The time: December,…
I Want A Rock & Roll Band / I Got A Lot To Say / Mary Jane
Skip Spence leaves his hotel. Its a cold day in Nashville, climbing to only 43 F in the afternoon. It may be Sunday, but on this day a 22-year-old musician is working at Columbia Recording Studios. Over the past few days, hes recorded a slew of new songs and today will be no different. On December 7, 1968, Skip Spence will record no less than 8 different songs. He has only 3 more days left to finish the album. It's been fast and furious and its also been tough, recording every instrument on ever…
All My Life (I Love You)
Two of Skip's rare post-Oar studio excursions; 'All My Life (I Love You),' from '72, is Spence's boisterous take on Badfinger/Raspberries-style power pop, while 'Land Of The Sun,' recorded in '96 with the X Files in mind, sounds like nothing else under the sun, and finds Skip sonorously intoning a poem atop a psychedelic bed of sound.