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

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.

let's never forget the genius

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtEmcruWTso

THEY DON'T HAVE ANY MONEY TO PAY THE RENT!

BECAUSE THEY DON'T HAVE GOOD ENOUGH JOBS!!!

Love this record.

Beck's full-album cover with Jamie Lidell, James Gadson (of Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band), Feist and Wilco probably angers both lovers and haters of Spence's original. I was always fairly indifferent about it, and Wilco and Beck have left me cold for most of the last decade and Jamie Lidell has slipped--so I'm shocked to find myself really loving the cover version.

And when I get you here, I'll never let you go away
Cindy Lou's your middle name, dad was Francis Drake
Your mom, she lived in Florida for thirty years
Till she got bit by a poisonous rattle snake

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRLRn64UotY&feature=player_embedded

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DouiBOOlEok&feature=player_embedded

Gadson lays down some incredibly killer beats on Beck's version.

Never knew till today that Greil Marcus wrote the original Rolling Stone review:

Oar presents some of the most com­fortable music I’ve ever heard--it’s not good old rock and roll, the way Moby Grape plays it anyway, but that line from a thousand old rock ditties, “I just can’t explain, I’m goin’ insane” might be the musical father to Spence’s new music. This unique LP is bound to be forgotten--some day it’ll be as rare as “Mem­ories of El Monte,” the tune Frank Zappa wrote for the Penguins. Get ahead of the game and buy Oar before you no longer have the chance.

(I can't link to the whole thing--it's from a friend's scan of a CD-ROM. I'm wondering if that's supposed to read "uncomfortable.")

The whole review appears in the liner notes to the Sundazed CD. Marcus starts out talking about cut-out albums/bins and looking for treasure therein.

I've got an Edsel vinyl reissue--lot of words on the back, but not Marcus.

OAR Alexander Spence (Columbia CS 9831)

Poking around the shelves of bargain record shops, one will stumble across the wreckage of the rock and roll revolution — the hundreds of albums released in the last few years that no one ever listened to. Shoved against the wall, their hopefully outrageous psychedelic covers now limp and dull, one can almost judge the quality of the music by a glance at the jacket. And crammed in between the waste and the garbage are great records that got lost in the shuffle, LPs that had the misfortune to be released the same week as Wheels of Fire or Cheap Thrills: the already forgotten albums by the Good Rats, Bunky and Jake, and others. The hip FM stations never got around to programming them, Top 40 never heard of them, and the unlucky songwriters and musicians may soon be back toiling at the Sixties equivalent of the proverbial car-wash.

Oar, the new album by Alexander (Skip) Spence of Moby Grape fame, will probably find its way onto the dingy shelves of the bargain shops — even a brand new copy may go for a dollar or less. "This album is an oasis of undersell," read the liner notes (if that's true, it shouldn't be said, right?). Not many new LPs will sell less, I'm afraid. Much of Oar sounds like the sort of haphazard folk music that might have been made around campfires after the California gold rush burned itself out — sad, clumsy tunes that seem to laugh at themselves as Spence takes the listener on a tour through his six or seven voices: a coughing, halting bass on "Diana," a withered, half- dead moan on "Lawrence of Euphoria," or a dazzling, lyrical wail for "War in Peace" and "Grey/Afro."

In one way, this album is a joke. It's so unpolished and rude (as in "rude hut") that it sometimes seems merely incompetent — one might sit by and crack up over every cut. "Uh, uh, Dianna," lurches Alexander Spence, and if it's not intended as a good laugh on Neil Sedaka then it's just plain bad. Nothing on Oar is irritating, though — the music is quiet and insinuating, so if it's not great rock like "Omaha" or cute like "Funky Tunk," this is still real music, not someone's half-baked idea of where it's at.

Spence recorded in Nashville, but lo, he didn't use Charlie McCoy, Kenny Buttrey, and Bob Johnston. He plays, sort of, all the instruments himself — bass, drums, electric and acoustic guitar — and produced his record. Sometimes his playing is about as good as Wild- man Fischer, and sometimes he's perfectly brilliant. The end result is music that has the same tone to it as the tapes Bob Dylan records for fun and doesn't release.

Oar's greatest blessings are "War in Peace" and "Grey/Afro." They're quintessential Spence cuts — anarchic in conception but somehow holding on to form and rhythm in execution. I've never been able to figure out how Spence's most astounding compositions — "Seeing" from Moby Grape '69 and "Indifference" from Moby Grape — were ever performed, they sound like wild street fights, vocalists shouting back and forth, guitarists challenging one another for the lead, harmonies splitting the beat without a thought for the perfect order that's the triumph of Spence's revolutionary music.

Spence triumphs again in Oar, though "War in Peace" and "Grey /Afro" are less immediate in their impact. "Weighted Down" precedes "War in Peace," and by the time it's over the listener may find himself half-asleep, only to be lifted out of the doldrums by the ghostly approach of Spence's electric guitar. Spence states a theme and then sets a mood, following it as far as it will go. His voice is another instrument — I've heard the record many times and not understood more than a score of the words, and though this may be an affront to Spence's lyrics more likely it's a tribute to the seduction of his music.

"War in Peace" is pure San Francisco in its sound, but San Francisco long after the scene and Spence himself have passed from it, and the song has a slow, aging glimpse of what the music was all about. Oar presents some of the most comfortable music I've ever heard — it's not good old rock and roll, the way Moby Grape plays it anyway, but that line from a thousand old rock ditties, "I just can't explain, I'm goin' insane" might be the musical father to Spence's new music. This unique LP is bound to be forgotten — some day it'll be as rare as "Memories of El Monte," the tune Frank Zappa wrote for the Penguins. Get ahead of the game and buy Oar before you no longer have the chance.

— GREIL MARCUS 9-20-69

Yeah, 'comfortable' seemed to me to be the right word.

And that review turned out to be 100% accurate.

marcus otm about the crazy glut of records in the late 60s/early 70s. in fact he was prescient, it only got worse in the 70s. solo LPs by every single member of a hot band, untold "supergroup" (re)configurations, a few thousand too many sensitive singer-songwriters....

does anyone know the full history of this? clearly the labels were overproducing, and usually what follows overproduction is a cash crisis. if/when did this occur in the record industry?

of course, there are two problems: overproducing by releasing too many records that you don't really have the budget to support, and overproducing by producing too many copies of records based on high sales expectations. the latter happens all the time, although i always see the late 70s noted as a moment when that sort of reached crisis levels (e.g. "tusk").

i'd read a good book about all this. emphasis on "good."

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.