Monday, April 12, 2010

Compare and Contrast: The Genius of Skip Spence

And speaking as we were on Thursday of Moby Grape's great, tragic Syd Barrett-figure, from 1969 and his beautiful, funny, and occasionally terrifying solo album Oar, please enjoy Skip Spence and the shambolic but haunting "All Come to Meet Her Now."




And from 1999 and the superb Spence tribute album More Oar, here's criminally underrated Brit folk-rockers Diesel Park West and their glittering cover version.




Obviously, the DPW track is far more focused than Skippy's original, but it's essentially the same song and arrangement. In fact, what's really cool about it is that it sounds (to my ears, at least) exactly like how it would have sounded had his old band mates in the Grape ever gotten a chance to bash it out along with him.

8 comments:

TMink said...

I had heard OF Oar, but I had never heard anything from Oar. This song is almost liquid, and it sounds like it is well recorded. Thanks!

Trey

Unknown said...

Grape lives!

Noam Sane said...

More of a chant than a song, but both versions are quite beautiful. I hear echoes of the Springfield's "Go Ahead and Cry"...

Spence was a bit ahead of his time, no?

steve simels said...

Skippy was something else, that's for sure.
:-)

And his kid sounds EXACTLY like him...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eK_MRqEXRg

Karatist Preacher said...

I thought Bob Mosley sang that one?

steve simels said...

You mean covered it? If so, news to me....

Faze said...

I have to admit I really needed Diesel Park West to tighten that song up before I could appreciate it.

Karatist Preacher said...

Skip was long gone by that point; there may be a bonus track of him singing but the version on '69' is Mosley with Jerry Miller doing the Skippy parts.