Artist: Alexander "Skip" Spence
Album: Oar
Year: 1969
"Skip" Spence was the lead guitarist for San Francisco psychedelic rock band Moby Grape, who got dismissed from the band, ended up suffering a breakdown, and wound up in a mental hospital--where this solo album, Oar, was written.
This one's a bit of an odd duck, as would be expected given the circumstances of how it came into existence. This is "tortured genius" kind of stuff here, with moments of shining clarity and others of murky atmospheric rambling. If there's a modern equivalent to Spence, I'd have to say Mark Linkous (AKA Sparklehorse) would be it...and like Linkous, who committed suicide in 2010, Spence's story would not have a happy ending either. He wound up schizophrenic and homeless before dying of lung cancer at age 52.
I did not care for this one much at all. It had its moments, but most of the thing was pretty impenetrable and incoherent. Repeated listens might reveal more charms, but the overall sound of the album is simply not my cup of tea. I admire the attempt to make something wholly original and I appreciate how it serves as a document of mental illness. I have been known to like "outsider" albums like this in the past. (Daniel Johnston and Sparklehorse serve as examples.) But Spence just is not for me.
Rating: Not worth a listen
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