Skip spence

It was recorded over skip spence days in December in Nashville, and features Spence on all of the instruments. Described as "one of the most harrowing documents of pain and confusion ever made", skip spence, [6] the album was recorded after Spence had spent six months in Bellevue Hospital.

All are paying tribute to a man whose last meaningful music was made 30 years ago but whose legacy still burns bright. For the past three decades the man in question has been in declining physical and mental health, living on the streets or in care. Now things have deteriorated further. The doctors have also diagnosed lung cancer. His son Omar arrives with a promo pressing of More Oar , the aforementioned benefit album, and plays it at his bedside. Despite his condition, Skip manages a weary smile. His former bandmates in Moby Grape , the Bay Area group he co-founded in the 60s, felt it deeply.

Skip spence

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Rubinson instructed Figlio to keep the tapes running at all times, skip spence record everything that Spence did. When he got out of there, skip spence, he cut that album in Nashville. She and Skip had been living in Greenwich Village, ingesting all manner of hallucinogens.

In the same year, he released his only solo album, Oar , and then largely withdrew from the music industry. He had started his career as a guitarist in an early line-up of Quicksilver Messenger Service , and was the drummer on Jefferson Airplane 's debut album, Jefferson Airplane Takes Off. He has been described on the AllMusic website as "one of psychedelia's brightest lights"; [2] however, his career was plagued by drug addiction coupled with mental health problems, and he has been described by a biographer as a man who "neither died young nor had a chance to find his way out. His father, Alexander Lett "Jock" Spence — , [4] was a machinist, a salesman, and played Route 66 as a solo singer-songwriter and piano player. In the late s, the family relocated from Windsor to San Jose, California , based on Spence's father finding work in the aircraft industry.

It was recorded over seven days in December in Nashville, and features Spence on all of the instruments. Described as "one of the most harrowing documents of pain and confusion ever made", [6] the album was recorded after Spence had spent six months in Bellevue Hospital. Spence had been committed to Bellevue following a delusion-driven attempt to attack Moby Grape bandmates Don Stevenson and Jerry Miller with a fire axe. At the time of Spence's release from hospital, he had written a number of songs that he wanted to record. Producer David Rubinson suggested that Spence record at the Columbia studios in Nashville, where there was a particularly patient recording engineer, Mike Figlio. Rubinson instructed Figlio to keep the tapes running at all times, to record everything that Spence did. The majority of the tracks were recorded using a three-track recorder. Rubinson chose to stay away from the studio, concerned that Spence's recording activities would be distracted by the presence of a producer.

Skip spence

Skip Spence, who has died of lung cancer aged 52, played a seminal role in the San Francisco psychedelic rock scene of the late s as a member of two of its most influential bands, Jefferson Airplane and Moby Grape. He also became its most notorious acid casualty, spending the last 30 years in and out of mental hospitals. Spence was always weird. At the age of 11, he rang up Little Richard to complain about him deserting rock 'n' roll for religion. Weird things happened to him. Born in Windsor, Ontario, he was a singer-guitarist on the mids San Francisco coffee-house circuit and an electric guitarist with an embryonic Quicksilver Messenger Service. He was invited to join Jefferson Airplane on drums because, according to the leader, Marty Balin, 'he looks like a drummer'. Spence's only previous experience had been with a school marching band. He settled well enough to play on the band's first album, Takes Off, and contributed to the writing of some of its most memorable songs, including the opening Blues From An Airplane.

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Yet Oar has some beautiful melodies. Wednesday 20 September Saturday 23 September According to Spence, the Nashville sessions were intended by him to only be a demo, which he gave to Rubinson with the intent that the songs would be fleshed out with full production for the actual album. Monday 13 November Wednesday 14 February He was desperately in touch with the biggest realities in the universe. The latter featured old-time radio broadcaster Arthur Godfrey, who was recording in the studio next door, introducing what amounted to a pre-war dance orchestra parody. Thursday 4 January Saturday 24 February 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. Entertainment Weekly.

He was born Alexander Spence in Canada in , and was given a guitar by his parents at the age of A precocious talent, he also played the drum in his school band, a skill which would come in handy when, having moved to California in the mid-Sixties, he dived into the burgeoning hippie scene of the Bay Area. Spence had already been approached to join Quicksilver Messenger Service as a guitarist when he bumped into the singer Marty Balin at the Matrix, a San Francisco club also used as a rehearsal room.

Moby Grape remains a landmark debut. For a man whose temperament was already hovered at the extremities, it was all too much. He was desperately in touch with the biggest realities in the universe. More Love this track Set track as current obsession Get track Loading. Wednesday 7 February A week later, despite no prior experience, Spence returned as a more than capable drummer. Chronic health issues kept Spence from being creatively active as a solo artist, but overall, Oar is a radiant endeavor. September He contributed to 20 Granite Creek and Live Grape , [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. Archived from the original on July 18, The result, a strange spoken-word piece called Land Of The Sun , was deemed too weird for inclusion. The group were almost embarrassingly gifted. Archived from the original on 22 May