Alexander 'Skip' Spence- 'OAR'... this record owns me.

[JohnDavisNYC]

i've been soooo into this record lately, just got a new copy on vinyl and freaking out about it. so crazy and wierd, but so stripped back... nothing'wierd' going on, but the aesthetic and the delivery is so fucking out...... recorded on a 3-track machine. awesome. the most amazing reverb ever.

i love it. anyone else?

john

[aurelialuz]

it sneaks up on you. i just kept listening to it and one day i realized i loved it.

[;ivlunsdystf]

Or, in my case, I read all about it in a review and KNEW that I would dig it ... and did (the Sundazed CD reissue). I am stunned by my total lack of success at turning others onto this material though. Either everybody I know is lame or they think I'm totally lame or both.

It's an epic album in the way that Moby Dick is an epic novel or Good, Bad Ugly is an epic film.

[lonesome_tone]

its a really awesome record... like the missing link between early sf, ca psych and british stuff like the floyd, soft machine etc... the bonus cuts on the cd reissue are awesome as well.

[honkyjonk]

Dood,

What IS that reverb? It is so fucking awesome.

I like how the acoustic guitar sounds like he's using a piece of carboard for a pick on a couple songs.

Here's a question I have about this album. There is so much verb on his voice on a few of those tracks and it sounds really good, but with only 3 tracks, and more importantly because of how the performances sound, it really seems like he sang and played at the same time, so was he always using 2 tracks, 1 for voice the other for guitar? (and then the third for drums and bass), because the guitar doesn't seem to be too afected by that reverb.

Of course he could have bounced a couple things down, ie drums and bass which are usually the only other two things going on. This is all elementary recording 101 right, but it just seems so obvious that he recorded acoustic and voice not only at the same time, but first. So given that the isolation of his voice from the guitar was sufficient to drench is voice and not make the guitar sound like poo, that only leaves 1 track for drums and bass. Hmmmm.

This album is so fucking tapeop like nothing else.

I've had the same experience, trying to get people to like it. "UUUUUUUh, why's he drumming like that?"

An indepth interview with someone involved, (if Spence didn't do ENTIRELY everything himself, which it kind of seems like he did) shure would be nice to read.

Okay I have to go listen. . . . Top ten ever IMO.

[Maurice]

The lner notes have Charlie Bradley, Mike Figlio, and Don Meehan as the engineers on the sessions, with Don Meehan and David Rubinson mixing the original tracks.

[sloanfiske]

just about sums it up.

and moby grape was one of the best unsung bands of all time

Q: Better than "Madcap Laughs"?

That's been going on for years.

[GLEA]

The only time I saw Spence, was in '66 when he was drumming for the Airplane. Great drummer. He had these cymbals with big wedges cut out of them. Very funny. He played at our high school, the posters said ex-Grape, ex-airplane. I didn't believe it, and didn't go. The band was called the Pachucos, which was some of the later to be Doobie Bros!! Wish I would have gone...

My pal Lou used to hang around with Spence in San Jose. This would be the early 70's. From what I can tell they'd just get drunk and forget where they parked the car. Yikes.

Oar is great listening. Again, at the time, it was one of those records that just did not make much sense, as there was nothing else like it. We had the same reaction to Madcap and Peter Green's End Of The Game. I've still got my originals of all those...

[aurelialuz]

Dood,

What IS that reverb? It is so fucking awesome.

dude, columbia nashville. a bunch of dylan records have it too. my favorite reverb ever.

[jx]

Love this record. apparently he would record the bass(!) and vocals at the same time, then overdub the guitar and drums. if you listen, a lot of the songs are quite obviously led by the bass- 'little hands' 'grey/afro'... this is the only time i've ever heard anyone do this...

[Mason]

BOOKS OF MOSES!!

[MichaelJoly]

Whoa, Toaster, thanks for bringing this disc up. Really beautiful late 60's Bay Area vibe huh?

So many doors opened back then that the vistas beyond are still not fully charted. Skip Spence with "Oar" was a great explorer. So organic, loose and free - kinda fearless too I think.

I met Skip one day in the Haight, on Waller St. in '77 or so. I was in a punk band at the time and was enjoying an uncharacteristicly sunny day on my front steps playing my '63 SG with a vibrato style I must have picked up from from John Cippollina of Quicksilver. Anyway, this guy walks by and says "cool sound, wanna get to gether and jam?. a bunch of us have a place in the Upper Haight and get together to play. My name's Skip, Skip Spence."

I'm like, damn I can't believe I'm in freak'n San Francisco in the Haight (grew up back east) and Skip Spence thinks I have a cool enough vibrato that he want's me to jam with his buds.

I told my punk bandmates about the encounter who talked me out of getting involved with any of that old hippy shit. My bad.

[tonewoods]

"More Oar" is kinda a cool listen too....

[tonewoods]

The lner notes have Charlie Bradley, Mike Figlio, and Don Meehan as the engineers on the sessions, with Don Meehan and David Rubinson mixing the original tracks.

Well, I just went and had a listen to "Oar" for the first time in years, and there is no fucking way in the world that any of these guys would have guessed that they were working on a record that would become a cult classic 30 years down the line and wind up on a few top 10 lists...


What a beautiful trainwreck of a record....

[nestle]

Yep another vote here, love that record-
I always seem to fall for the sound of records made by people losing thier minds ala' Barrett, Brian Wilson.... whats up with that? It's like insanity porn