skip spence's "oar" -- visionary underground classic or over-romanticized obscurist sham?

They had lost Barrett and went from: a) unsuccessfully imitating Barrett ("Corporal Clegg", "Julia Dream") to b) somewhat successfully aping Skip Spence-era Moby Grape (on a couple of songs at least). Whatever that adds up to, I don't know. But it's nonetheless interesting.

And, yes, Spence was every bit as great as Syd Barrett was, and vice versa.

-- hstencil (hstenci...), April 12th, 2003 3:30 PM.

I agree. Besides the fact that Syd actually sounds like damaged goods throughout his solo stuff, while I wouldn't assume anything about Spence's mental stability if I hadn't read anything about it, but also Syd was coming at psychedelia from a blues/pop direction while Spence had more of a country folk sound.

a) unsuccessfully imitating Barrett ("Corporal Clegg"

Don't know what you're talking about, "Corporal Clegg" is great.

The "Oar" tribute is all a bit so-what, apart from Beck's "Halo of Gold" which works out a really great song from the source material, and as such may be one of the best cover versions ever.

Bass on this album is so good.

the last half of it, it sounds like the recording techs left out of boredom and the dudes didn't even notice.

didn't he play everything on it? being pedantic but like dude singular

I did not know!

That kind of kills all the great imaginary adventures I made up of the drummer's 'I'm-HITTING-these-drums' face.

yes, supposedly it was all him, at least that's the legend

he was original jefferson airplane drummer so he was definitely playing drums on oar

This is as disappointing as the time I found out Bob Nastanovich was not one of the other guy's developmentally delayed brother.

somewhere there is a thread where people discuss the drastic differences between the Sony and Sundazed CD versions but I cannot find it.

The comparison w/ Syd is an easy, but there are so many differences...

Moby Grape (1st album) has great songwriters and singers, and Skip adds the sparkle.

Piper at the gates has a band going "what do we do now, Syd?"

There's a difference between the 'nonsense' of Syd's Bike and Syd's Matilda mother, and Rog's "Take up thy stethoscope" which sounds to me like rubbish punk...

All I know is I LOVED the Sony CD version, which I lost, then I got the Sundazed version, and it never quite sounded right. Sundazed may be more accurate, but it sounds too clean and brittle compared to the Sony one, I think.

i have the sony one, never got the sundazed but everybody (except dan) raves about it

Oh there's a sony one?

i have the Sony one and it's a drastically different mix. i want to say it was more "rock" so as to maybe appeal to buyers in the early 90s. the one time i heard the original, it had a more murky feel, but this thread is reminding me to seek out the Sundazed one.

I remember picking up Oar after reading a lot of Syd comparisons and being pretty disappointed. Too San Fran hippie/country for me at the time. Luckily, I kept listening and Oar's become an all-time favorite. I guess the Syd comparisons are valid for tracks like "Lawrence of Euphoria" and "Margaret-Tiger Rag" which aren't a million miles from stuff like "Here I Go" or "Terrapin." Melancholic post-acid goofiness. "Grey/Afro" is such a mind-blower; I've kinda felt like the bonus tracks that Sony and (especially)Sundazed tacked on lessen its impact, seeing as how they all seem to flow together, for better or worse.

Grape >> Airplane >> Floyd
Skip >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Syd

All I know is I LOVED the Sony CD version, which I lost, then I got the Sundazed version, and it never quite sounded right.

When Brother JT and Oneida toured together (in 99? 2000?) they played in my town and then crashed at my house after the show. I was playing my brand new Sundazed cd reissue of Oar and all the guys crowded around the stereo. JT was visibly upset by it, he didn't like it at all! He was like "too clean...songs cut short...sounds weird" I think he must have also fallen in love with the Sony version.

On the other hand, Kid from Oneida was raving, "I've never thought I liked this album but this just sounds so good!" It was funny.

OK for research purposes only, here is the Sony "Diana":

http://www.sendspace.com/file/krd6fg

and the Sundazed "Diana" (1 min 20 secs shorter!)

http://www.sendspace.com/file/yi7gf3

also Sundazed version has even more bonus tracks.

yeah Oar doesn't remind me of Syd that much..

I see it way more of as the fucked up drugged out version of John Wesley Harding, same sorta deep funky dubbed out skewed country vibe

so what's the deal with the different song lengths? is the sundazed the way it was originally released and the sony the "uncut" album or somesuch?

I wish I knew, that sounds like it's right. Wikipedia has this also:

Subsequent reissues have added ten more songs, in different stages of completion, to the original dozen. The original release ended with a fade out of "Grey / Afro". The 1999 Sony/Sundazed reissue appends "This Time He Has Come" to a fade-less "Grey / Afro", which reflects how the two songs appeared on the master tapes.

Diana fades out on the original.

?¿

woah to diana being so much shorter. i always heard that vinyl sundazed version was >>>>> cd sundazed version but thought that the earlier cd issues were kinda obsolete. even the production of the original lp is screwed: i think there's something in the sundazed notes about how the final mix skip turned in was pretty incomprehensible, that they had to play with the layers to make anything stand out at all. which just makes you want to hear it, but still.

"Grey/Afro" is such a mind-blower; I've kinda felt like the bonus tracks that Sony and (especially)Sundazed tacked on lessen its impact, seeing as how they all seem to flow together, for better or worse.

"Grey/Afro" is one of my faves song and usually where I start the album. I have no idea which version I own (I checked it out from a library years ago partly bcz the album cover was so wtf). I like all those last tracks that blend into one weird thing, esp. 'It's the Best Thing for You,' where he just sounds like he's making shit up but it's also fun and naughty and distant.

I just got the "Sundazed" LP version, is that so different to the original Columbia version?

http://wfmu.org/Playlists/HT/07/06/sham_69.jpg

?

that's a band called Sham 69, by which I meant to say that spence was a sham (dude sucks). I just started posting here and was going to try and post nothing put pictures for a while, but that seems really stupid to me now, especially if nobody's going to get the references.

pix plz

http://www.gotarevolution.com/SkipSpence.gif

yeah he was laughing all the way to the bank.

uh shit, we got a new caster-down of idols

that's a band called Sham 69, by which I meant to say that spence was a sham (dude sucks). I just started posting here and was going to try and post nothing put pictures for a while, but that seems really stupid to me now, especially if nobody's going to get the references.

Geez, I've sat a few times and talked to Jimmy Pursey, and even I didn't get the reference. Perhaps because it's a really fucking stupid reference, given that Sham 69's name in no way is a reference to anything being a "sham," but instead refers to graffiti in their Surrey hometown of HerSHAM.

It is really stupid to post here using only photos, especially if you don't understand the references yourself.

OK, at least I do now.

Anyhow, never mind the lack of "what's the difference between the two versions" biz:

I just got Sundazed's 10" of two demos of songs for "Wow", i.e. "Gene Autrey" and "Motorcycle Irene"

He'd have made one heck of a solo album right at that point, they're great.

fellini kuti, you are not stupid.

Oar is great listening imo.

I just got Sundazed's 10" of two demos of songs for "Wow", i.e. "Gene Autrey" and "Motorcycle Irene"

hadn't heard of this at all until now, thanks for accidentally notifying me. according to RYM both songs are like 3 minutes? kind of weird to do a 10".

Hey, it was "no accident" you guys!

It's made up to look like an acetate.

Geez, I've sat a few times and talked to Jimmy Pursey, and even I didn't get the reference. Perhaps because it's a really fucking stupid reference, given that Sham 69's name in no way is a reference to anything being a "sham," but instead refers to graffiti in their Surrey hometown of HerSHAM.

It is really stupid to post here using only photos, especially if you don't understand the references yourself.

Intentional fallacy all over that shit. A question was posed: visionary underground classic or over-romanticized obscurist sham? Removing some verbiage: classic or sham? My answer: sham, expressed in a visual reference to a band whose name is composed primarily of the word "sham." For myself and likely most others, s-h-a-m conjures meanings other than a place name's diminutive form, but even the esoterically educated like yourself ought to be able to appreciate it as wordplay. Perhaps this works for you:

http://www.walkersdraperies.com/Ruffled%20Pillow%20Sham.JPG

or this one:

http://30tocure30.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/shamwow-snuggie-slanket.jpg

or should we kill all fun and shout "That's not what that means!" until we're red-faced and hoarse?

sham wow ftw

red-thumbed and carpal'd

Cushion or Cloth?

someone i know said "this album is haunted by friendly ghosts" and i agree.

I don't know, I suppose I grew out of thinking rebus-styled puns when I was about seven. Around the same time I stopped listening to Sham 69.

Deedeedeeextrovert, secret member of Old School.

i'm a secret member of Old Skull

Bah, got the name wrong. But deedee can be a member of that too.

Love the title

this original columbia advertisement is included in the booklet (!!!)

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/61/18/9f/61189fecb72650b5f6468c0842a2a29e.jpg

at this point i haven't made it through the original tracks yet but am v excited.

and yeah it's an awesome title, very head, very sundazed xp

never liked this album, and this paragraph from his wiki entry always made me think he sounded p skeevy. Having spent plenty of time in Santa Cruz and being familiar with its panoply of hippie burnout creeps this is just... not someone that sounds v interesting, to me.

"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."[

i mean, it's entirely possible he was a creep, exacerbated no doubt by years of drug abuse and untreated mental illness.

that said, i'm not really interested in the legend of skip spence, nor do i think it's cool or mysterious or whatever that he freaked out and never made another record (or any other music, really) -- and, perhaps most importantly, i don't think any of these sordid biographical details have any bearing on my enjoyment of this strange record. that shit depresses me and i'm just grateful he had this brief moment of lucidity and put something beautiful and honest into the world.

you might even say that that quote says a lot more about peter lewis than it does about skip, trying to turn the tragedy of spence's instability into this like "har har you dirty dog!" story

anyway, the first ten seconds of "my friend" sounds like it could be the fall

I too have never been able to understand what people see in this record. Just seems like average singer songwriter weirdo stuff, the kind you find done a lot better on literally hundreds of private press "loner folk" LPs

Yup

What in the world is average about any of these songs? You might not like them but they are very unique.

average singer songwriter weirdo stuff, the kind you find done a lot better on literally hundreds of private press "loner folk" LPs

More buzzwords. Who are we talking about that you're asserting is similar to Skip Spence?

ts: skip spence vs. dave bixby

you might even say that that quote says a lot more about peter lewis than it does about skip, trying to turn the tragedy of spence's instability into this like "har har you dirty dog!" story

― budo jeru

one might, but then one would be in essence saying "maybe skip spence isn't the bad person, peter lewis is the bad person!", which would be slightly reductionist.

if people like listening to the record, like the songs, that's wonderful, but often mentally ill people get miscategorized as being "too pure for this world" or some such bullshit. we're not.

above average singer songwriter weirdo stuff, the kind you find done a lot better not quite as well on literally hundreds of private press "loner folk" LPs

="If you like this, you may also like..."

Forgot about this thread! This is one album I think is somewhat similar to Oar.

i went to listen to this album one day about 6 years ago. my ex-wife owned it and we lived together at the time. the vinyl was smashed inside the intact sleeve. i've still never heard it

Re:budo jeru, i definitely side with how he's or she's looking at things. The art is whats important, sordid details of an artists personal life are (or should be) peripheral or secondary. And yes you could say i'm generalizing, as there are some artists who make their private/personal life the fodder of the work. But there are exceptions to EVERY rule. Doesn't change the rule.

And i just saw, you dropped the name of The Mighty Fall!! Now i def need to hear that. Actually the Oar re-ish is quite affordable on Amazon. Next payday, it's mine. Speaking of Fall i got a MES trading card off eBay today. It's pretty funny looking and fairly accurate. Lol! It'll make a swell bookmarker. Y'know I miss that geezer.

rush, i think it’s entirely possible that skip was a shitty person AND peter lewis was shitty for characterizing skip’s behavior in the way that he did. more generally, calling out somebody for having a shitty take re: sexual assault e.g. is in no way diminishing said assault — like, we have conversations about the discussions / attitudes surrounding these things. surely this isn’t controversial.

also not sure if that “too pure” thing was directed at me, but i explicitly wrote that i’m not interested in the “legend” of skip spence, by which i meant essentially the same thing that you did. you’re right, it’s bullshit.

also the late great otm

I finally got the "book/3CD" version thanks to someone who bought it, didn't like it and sold it on ebay. Cheaper.

Anyhow, I am enjoying it! For someone who at that point had been apart from music, it's loose but accomplished in places too.

So finally listening to this (17 years after I said I would lol) and I can't believe there was a tribute album! Bloody funny to have Tom Waits and Flying Saucer Attack on the same record.