like most music snobs i know i am a huge fan of "lost" records recorded by crazy people. weather it be the original "smile" album by Brian Wilson or the two albums put out by syd barrett before he walked home bare foot and crazy from London to Cambridge never to be seen again. this brings me to the subject at hand.. skip spence... he came to prominence as a member of the group "moby grabe" in the mid to late sixties... where like a lot of his counterparts at the time he pretty much brushed his teeth with LSD... during the recording of the last moby grape album (that he was a part of) he attacked two of the other members of the band with a fire axe subsequently landing him in bellvue for a six month stint where he wrote most of what would become the quintessential "lost" album... "oar"... according to legend on the day of his release from bellvue he, still dressed in his hospital robe, got onto his motorcycle and drove straight through the night to Nashville to record this great record... for those of you that have not heard "oar"... it is a beautifully stark portrait of a man falling apart... he is the only musician credited on the record which is quite incredible when you hear how well all the instruments are played... songs like "Diana" and "little hands" are moving enough to bring the hardest man to tears... skip unfortunately disappeared into a lifetime of mental illness and obscurity after the recording of "oar"... and he died in 1999... unfortunately he never was able to see the impact that his record had on musicians such as myself and others including beck and Jeff tweedy of wilco... to make a long and rambling blog entry short... pay skippy some respect and pic up "oar"... and listen to it with wild eyed wonder as was intended by genius himself.
here is a link to the song little hands from the album "oar"
http://youtu.be/4t2ZufBbnD8
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