1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: 153. Skip Spence – Oar (1969)

 

Of all the remaining artists for 1969, this is the only one that I’d never heard of before, although it turns out I have heard him before. Alexander “Skip” Spence was the drummer for Moby Grape, as well as working with Jefferson Airplane and Quicksilver Messenger Service. On this album, he does everything – all vocals and instruments are him.

What to make of it? What, even, to call it? It’s a little bit folky, a little bit country, all odd. At times Spencer sings in a rich deep voice that calls to mind Fred Neill, other times in a thin voice like a dying man. Which, in some ways, he was. Like Syd Barrett’s solo work, this is  outsider art from a man who is clearly not mentally in a good place, or at the very least is in a period of lucidity amidst other troubles. Not long before recording this album, for example, Spence had been hospitalised after chasing the other members of Moby Grape with an axe while spaced on LSD.

Spence’s singing is often off-key and troubled, but the fact that he sometimes sings more strongly suggests that it’s a deliberate choice rather than lack of talent. There’s a jazz-like quality to much of it where the timing signatures are varied, the harmonies atonal, the melodies wandering. The final track on the original album (which has been re-released with bonus tracks) is the lengthy piece Grey/Afro which is almost like a shamanic chant/drumbeat in places. Compare to, say, Cripple Creek, which is almost a straight country song that could have been done by Johnny Cash.

According to the Wikipedia, Spence treated some of the tracks as demos or rough work to be polished later, but it was published, and flopped, and withdrawn, before he could work on it further. Which would explain why some of it is so rough around the edges.

It’s a difficult listen, which I think would take a couple of goes to really get into, but then I know from my experience with Syd Barrett that even having done this, I probably wouldn’t rush back.