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.
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8 comments:

  1. TMink4/12/2010 12:47 PM

    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

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  2. Unknown4/12/2010 2:03 PM

    Grape lives!

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  3. Noam Sane4/12/2010 3:05 PM

    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?

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  4. steve simels4/12/2010 4:33 PM

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

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

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  5. Karatist Preacher4/12/2010 6:07 PM

    I thought Bob Mosley sang that one?

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  6. steve simels4/12/2010 7:19 PM

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

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  7. Faze4/12/2010 7:19 PM

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

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  8. Karatist Preacher4/12/2010 8:55 PM

    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.

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