Customer Reviews

Listen My Friends: The Best of Moby Grape

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Since Sam King covered the music of Moby Grape quite well in his review, I'll concentrate on the other aspects of this release. The photos include several never before released shots, mainly from the promo shoots for the first album. The liner notes are by and large correct, and give a good overview of the band's early history.
Like Vintage, Columbia's earlier compilation, the first album songs have the non fade out endings on Hey Grandma and Omaha. The sound is overall quite good, the production method used on the first album limiting just how much tweaking could be done in 2007.
What's up next for this band? Well, with Omar Spence substituting for his dad Skip, the original lineup will be playing the 40th Anniversary Monterey Festival this summer. We can hope this release will generate enough interest that the 4 Columbia albums are re-released, hopefully with bonus tracks. Listen, and tell your friends about Moby Grape!

I love the Grape, they truly are the great unsung band of the 60's. Their stuff is almost uniformly great. That said, this is only the 3rd best Moby Grape compilation out there. The best of course is the 2-disc "Vintage", which I think you can still find on Amazon UK. If you don't feel like hunting, then get "Crosstalk", which is cheaper than this release and has a better track selection. There's no way a Moby Grape best-of can be considered definitive while missing two of their best songs, "Fall On You" and "It's a Beautiful Day Today".

In 1967 Moby Grape was the best band in San Francisco, maybe America. So why haven't you ever heard of 'em?

The rise and precipitous fall of Moby Grape makes up perhaps the most legendary, and enduring, tale of sixties rock. In centuries down the road, people will still be talking about Moby Grape. They were a band which when they first appeared on stage in San Francisco immediately established themselves as one of the hottest acts of rock, way ahead of their time in both spirit and prowess, according to Rolling Stone writer Ed Naha.

This collection is a superb coverage of Moby Grape's essential discography, covering all four albums that the band recorded for Columbia. Truthfully there is classic material missing from this compilation from the first album, as well as the third album "Moby Grape '69," but this just further reinforces how brilliant this band really was.

The 20 songs that have been gleaned from Moby Grape's arsenal are overall quite well chosen. The liner notes are well crafted and inspiring, and the graphics and photos are first rate. This collection is a great place to start in introducing oneself to one of American rock and roll's enduring legends.

I have sympathy for the many reviewers who obsess over this band and what might have been, but I don't think they were the revelation that many others do. As far as San Francisco bands go, the Grape were more commercially oriented than all but the Jefferson Airplane. Lyrically, they wrote interesting but hardly unique songs--nothing on the order of the best of Country Joe and the Fish; instrumentally, they were more than competent, but Quicksilver Messenger Service was more accomplished and more adventurous. As for the kind of hyperbole that talks about "5-part harmony"...well, harmony can only extend to 4 parts, and the Grape often sang in 3-part, but doubled voices so that the texture was thickened.
The real story here is that the Grape was more than just the sum of its parts. However impossible Skip Spence must have become, his contributions to the first two LPs were crucial, and each subsequent album pales in comparison to Moby Grape and Wow! Thus, the songs from these two LPs are the heart of this compilation, and as competent and earnest as the remainder are, they can't measure up to the songs from the first two. This is a very good one-disc sampler (though I, too, miss It's a Beautiful Day Today), but my advice is to try to obtain the deleted Sundazed CDs of the first two LPs until such time as they are rereleased in "authorized" versions. Avoid the terrible Matthew Katz-owned San Francisco Sound CDs--they were mastered at incredibly low dynamic levels and sound horrible; in addition they are criminally over-priced.

Whilst i don't have this cd, owning Fall on Amsterdam, Vintage Grape, the SF Sounds rerelease of the 1st lp - if you have ANY interest in 60s rock and don't have any Grape, do get this. Easily the best band out of SF - maybe Califonia (MUCH tighter than the usual psych bands): exacting vocals (though...not better than the Beatles who by their mid career were using more innovative harmonic structures); fabulous triple guitar leads; songwriting that even on their first lp ranged from inventing country rock to the tightest power pop one can imagine (Omaha anyone?). Their first lp, w/ middle finger intact, is one of the few lps i've kept all these years. Spirit, out of SoCal was the only CA band of the era that could play w/ the Grape

Yes the first album is the best but Columbia screwed them up my releasing 5 singles at once!!! Anyway I would have given 5 stars if they had squeezed in Naked if I Want to (from the first album).

Still you should buy this now!!!

Just a singles kid in the 60's I bought most of the first album that way-"Omaha" being a favorite-and being in the Great Lakes area I was torn between that feedback-loud and the harmonies of the Byrds. Grape, Buffalo Springfield and Notorious Byrd Brothers VS Cream, the Who and Stones-San Francisco VS Britain.

This collection is fantastic, not as complete as Vintage but a sweet trip back. As nice as the uncensored poster
from the debut album, oddly in-your-face but satisfying. I recommend "8:05", "He", "Motorcycle Irene" and of
course "Omaha". Enjoy the vibe, man.

Where exactly do you place Moby Grape in the strata of American pop music circa 1966-69? I can't honestly place them in the upper echelon with the likes of The Byrds, Dylan, The Band, Simon & Garfunkle, Hendrix and the Doors. But certainly they do belong smack-dab in the middle of the second tier, with The Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, The Dead, Buffalo Springfield, The Mamas & Pappas, Santana, Steve Miller Band and of course Love, the other great Bay area band that never had a top-40 hit.

With that said "Listen My Friends" will provide you with your 20 song fix of MG. Actually there's only 19 tacks. The last cut is a throw-away radio ad. I wasn't a huge fan back then. But I did have the first two Lp's and the Grape Jam Lp, an interesting jam session with Mike Bloomfield & Al Kooper. This new collection has sure found a home in my car. Listening to it has gotten me back into a Ooh Mama Ooh!!!Grape Moby solid groove ....Or maybe its that Murderous vendetta for The Judge that keeps you comming back for another look at Motorcycle Ireane?....What ever your taste in Grape Jam, Listen My Friends is vintage and ripe. Pop a grape into your mouth right now. Close your eyes and you'll be on your way to Omaha....Ooh Mama Ooh...Omaha!!!!Enjoy.

I'm serious with this title. Moby Grape, had it not been mucked over by the record companies, would be considered one of the best bands of the 1960s, or any other decade. Consider this: their first album was better than the first by the Beatles, Byrds, Beach Boys, Cream, Jefferson Airplane, Rolling Stones (just to name a few). They had 5 part harmony which could bury the best work by Brian Wilson or the Beatles. Jerry Miller was one of the top five lead guitar players of his generation (the other 4 being the usual suspects, led by Jimi Hendrix). Their three guitar onslaught, driving rhythm section and 5 part harmonies were, simply KILLER (WITH A kapital k!!). And the songwriting was to die for!! Straight rockers like "Hey Grandma", "Changes"(not on this compilation)and "Indifference", beautiful country ballads like "8:05" and "Ain't that a shame" and psychedelic visionary Skip Spence compositions like "Seeing" and "Omaha"!! Its endless. THERE SHOULD BE A LAW AGAINST NOT GIVING SUCH TALENT DISPLAYED BY THIS BAND ITS JUST RECOGNITION!!! A hundred years from now, Moby Grape WILL be recognized as one of the top groups of its era, long after lesser, more well known acts have been long forgotten. Hey, that is the point, eh? Moby Grape was NOT an act. its passion was REAL!! For its members all too real. One caveat about this collection: after listening to it, you WILL want to seek out all of their first three albums. There are too many choice cuts missing here. I could go on for days. However, suffice it to say you will NEVER hear a finer group of musicians (of any genre). Perhaps that's the point: they WERE just TOO GOOD to believe at the time.

As the author of the Jefferson Airplane book "Take Me To A Circus Tent" I had the honor of interviewing Jerry Miller. His stories of what the band went through made it clear that even with so many forces against them cream will still go to the top.

This is a terrific introduction to the group. While the fanatic (Rightly so) will always find songs that should have been included, those that are on this package will give you all sides of the Moby experience. They could rock, they could play, and their music was and is a great represenstation of the amazing sounds that eminated from the city by the bay.

If you are in Omaha or Ohio listen my friends and get a taste of the grape. It'll be rather pleasing.

Be well always,
Craig Fenton
Author of the Jefferson Airplane book "Take Me To A Circus Tent"