Moby Grape - 8:05

I love sixties music. Longtime readers and listeners have definitely figured this out. I had my musical coming of age a tad too late. Too young, no money. I remember waiting outside a Jefferson Airplane concert at the Fillmore East for my sister one night as a kid and watching her grappling and laughing with an invisible playmate in our kitchen. The family traveled to HemisFair68 in San Antonio and I saw my first hard rock bill, one of the many good Texas psychedelic bands of the time, but the name now escapes me. Later Liz, my sister, took me to see Canned Heat at Stonybrook. It was there that I first met my lifelong friend Red Leb.

I have been blessed to see so many great concerts in my life but I grew up more in the time of the Band, Allman's and Dead. I call it the blue jean period. Tull still ranks as the best show I have ever witnessed and the most magnetic performer, Thick as a brick. Saw Mick Jagger's birthday show at the Garden in 72 with Stevie Wonder playing drums on Satisfaction and Uptight. Very well, mind you. Lots of rose petals. Bowie was amazing and also amazingly manipulative in the same way that Ian Anderson was. They liked to play big jokes on the crowd.

The list of people I never got to see is long; Janis, Hendrix, Beatles, Who, can you believe it, although I certainly had opportunities. Saw Traffic, Springfield, Byrds, Love, Cream, but long after their heyday. Lucky enough to see the Airplane with Grace. In the seventies I worked for a time finding obscure psychedelic records for a couple of Frenchmen named Roadrunner Records. I worked with the late Chris Bystrom, who later became a surf movie maker, selling records at the Leucadia Flea Market. Chris and I would cruise the Capital Records swap and that is where I met Bob Hite. Chris died after getting in a walking/car accident in Thailand, much like Greg Irons did. I was Art Director on two of his movies, Thunder down Under and one other whose name now escapes me. Oh ya, Blazing Boards. Rick Griffin did the artwork for me on the second, a Belgian friend of his from San Clemente named Luke on the first.

I scoured the record store racks for Bubble Puppy, Elevators, The Fool, all the International Artist label from Texas. Shivas Headband, Ultimate Spinach, Red Crayola, Watchband. Still have tons of the stuff in the shed although unfortunately the cats decided to use the album covers for scratching posts one year.

One band that I never got to see was Moby Grape. This pains me. Because their music has only gotten better with time. A band with a surfeit of guitar players and an inclination for insanity. But such wonderful harmonies. One of the great unsung first generation psych country bands.

I am surprised by how many of my friends love Moby Grape. Kerry saw them at the Fillmore and his older brother knew the band. Also saw them with the Iron Butterfly, I think. Larry's band, Things to Come, with Russ Kunkel on drums (Gene Clark?) played with the Grape at the Whiskey. I am sure that Millard and Stan and John M. saw them. Ken loves their music as does Kip. Ken made me a CD of one of their early albums last month.

Millard asked me the other day if I knew that Peter Lewis from the Grape was Loretta Young's son. Lewis was my favorite singer in the band, or at least on a par with the brooding Mosely. I did not. The stepson of Clark Gable. No, I did not. We exchanged several tidbits of Grape trivia, some of them which have proved false and then went on our way. The next day somebody sent me this Peter Lewis/Neil Young link.

Within a day, news hits the press that Peter Lewis half sister, Judy Lewis, the real daughter of Young and Gable had died last week at the age of 76. Beautiful girl, an actress and psychotherapist who was not acknowledged by her mother and then wouldn't speak to for three years after Judy spilled the beans on the situation.

I don't know what the whole thing means but it does make me want to play some more Moby Grape.