Moby Grape

Bay Area band Moby Grape were launched in a blaze of publicity by Columbia Records in May 1967 when Alexander "Skip" Spence (ex-Jefferson Airplane drummer) played rhythm guitar with them, and no fewer than five singles and one album (Moby Grape) were released on the same day.

The singles weren't hits and the album was unremarkable, run-of-the-mill West Coast music. To compound things, after an outrageously lavish mishap-laden album launch at the Avalon Ballroom, Miller, Spence and Lewis were arrested in Marin County on marijuana charges and for alleged corruption of underage girls.

Though charges were dropped, the mud stuck. With a calamitous tour cut short - and the album peaking at Number 24 - the band were rushed into the studio two months later to record a follow-up.

Relocated to Manhattan after CBS expressed concern about the amount of partying the band were doing, Moby Grape imploded under the weight, culminating in the volatile Spence threatening Stevenson with a fire axe. Spence was incarcerated in New York's Bellevue Hospital for six months.

The second album that emerged was Wow - a double album (released as a single album in the UK) with a fine, surreal cover painting, a track that played at 78 RPM and the first of the recorded jams which featured the group playing with Al Kooper and Mike Bloomfield, as well as much-improved songs (notably Murder In My Heart For The Judge). 

After a couple of further albums (including Moby Grape '69) the group disbanded in Spring 1969. Both Spence and Mosley were subsequently diagnosed as schizophrenic. Spence, most famous for his 1969 Bellevue-inspired master-work, Oar, died of lung cancer in 1999. The intervening years have seen numerous Moby Grape reunions.

TRIVIA NOTE
Guitarist Peter Lewis is the son of actress Loretta Young.