Back in the 1990s, bootleggers were issuing a seemingly endless number of illicit concert and studio recordings from the 1960s and 1970s on compact disc as the technology became increasingly standardized and the cost of duplication equipment significantly decreased. These were exciting times for collectors of classic and psychedelic rock since I remember eagerly looking through the listings of regular advertisers in each new issue of Goldmine and DISCoveries magazines to see what recently-released unofficial titles by favorites such as Tim Buckley, the Velvet Underground and Quicksilver Messenger Service had become available for purchase by mail order. In addition to rare recordings by these particular musical heroes, such unauthorized CDs provided me with the only opportunities to hear live material by my most beloved of all 1960s rock bands, the mighty Moby Grape, whose two-disc Dark Magic set remains one of the greatest bootlegs of all time.
The present era of file-sharing has largely rendered these unsanctioned releases obsolete. However, for those collectors with a preference for physical product, the somewhat mysterious Keyhole Records has stepped in to fill the void. I use term “mysterious” because the label does not seem to be a legitimate business entity as the lack of any contact information other than a Cyprus-based e-mail address would suggest. Well, at least they claim to have set up an escrow account to collect royalties for the rights-holders, though I can’t vouch for the solvency of the financial institution in which such funds are allegedly deposited. Money and legal matters aside, the bootlegs that Keyhole has chosen to “reissue” - including items by Captain Beefheart, Jefferson Airplane, and the Mothers of Invention - have generally been well received among collectors on account of their relatively professional-looking packaging and availability on both CD and vinyl.
The label’s contribution to the Moby Grape canon thus far consists of this title, which includes five tracks that previously appeared on Dark Magic but were listed as having been recorded in 1969, not October 22, 1968. I give greater credence to that more specific second date, but regardless of temporal accuracy, the lineup featured here is the post-Skip Spence four-piece version of the band, which was still certainly capable of putting on an excellent show.
According to the sleeve notes, these performances comprised the Grape’s set during a concert hosted by the State University of New York at Stony Brook that also included Procol Harum and Canadian group the Churls. Half of the tracks (“Mr. Blues,” “8:05,” “Sitting by the Window,” “Fall on You,” “ Hey Grandma,” and “Omaha”) are songs from their first LP, while the remainder are split between material from Wow (“Can’t Be So Bad” and “Murder in My Heart for the Judge”) and the forthcoming Moby Grape ’69 (“Trucking Man,” “If You Can’t Learn from My Mistakes,” and “It’s a Beautiful Day Today”), with a song that never made it onto record (“After All”) thrown in for good measure.
As mentioned previously, Moby Grape in its quartet incarnation was a band that remained capable of greatness, as demonstrated by some of the other Spence-less material featured on Dark Magic and Sundazed’s Moby Grape Live. While there are glimmers of such grandeur on this album, one cannot help but notice a general feeling of ennui that pervades the performances. Jerry Miller, Peter Lewis, Bob Mosley, and Don Stevenson were simply too talented to play badly, but it often sounds like they were just going through the motions at this gig. The rejected audience request (for “Omaha”?) at the beginning of the proceedings more or less sets the tone for the entire show, and there are no extended improvisations to help the songs transcend their mostly perfunctory nature. While it has been edited out here, the onstage banter that precedes “It’s a Beautiful Day Today” (which can be heard on Dark Magic) features a very cranky Mosley arguing with his bandmates about the arrangements (“What’s this ‘hey, man’ jive? I counted the song – one, two, three, four – and I went halfway through it.”) Yes, hearing a band disintegrate onstage is something that should be considered more depressing than entertaining, but I kinda wish they had left that bit on this disc for the sake of historical completeness.
While the overall lackluster quality of the material has already been noted, the situation is compounded by the muddy sound of the master tapes or whatever audio source Keyhole utilized for this release. I was hoping they would have had access to something of higher sonic quality than the Stony Brook tracks that were included on Dark Magic. Alternatively, it would have also been nice if digital technology could have somehow been applied to enhance the fidelity of these performances. Unfortunately, neither possible remedy seems to have been employed, and the muffled tone of this recording remains readily apparent.
Even if the producers of this album could not do anything to improve its sound, they definitely did a nice job with its visual presentation (and, in the case of the LP, the vinyl pressing). I doubt if any of the featured photos are actually from this concert, but at least they used pictures that date from around the same period. Some of the images might even be unfamiliar to the most devoted of Moby Grape enthusiasts. There is also a nice glossy insert with text from an article about the band from a 1972 issue of the all-but-forgotten magazine Fusion. It is an interesting read since it was written only a few years after the Grape was supposed to be the next big thing in popular music, but I do object to Keyhole describing this otherwise informative piece as “background notes” in an attempt to give the impression that they were specifically prepared for this release.
I’m going to echo the assessment of several other reviewers in concluding that this a flawed and non-essential album that will probably be of interest only to hardcore Moby Grape fans. But really, are there any other kind?
Tracklist:
1. Mr. Blues2. 8:05
3. Trucking Man
4. If You Can't Learn From My Mistakes
5. Can't Be So Bad
6. Sitting By The Window
7. Murder In My Heart For The Judge
8. Fall On You
9. After All
10. Hey Grandma
11. It's A Beautiful Day Today
12. Omaha