Three electric guitars, grooving real loud

This weekend is the 40th anniversary of the Monterey International Pop Festival, which was the unofficial start to the "Summer Of Love". Razor & Tie has released a two-disc retrospective of various performance. Some of the album is available on eMusic, including songs by heavy hitters like The Who, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, The Byrds, and the Jefferson Airplane that aren't usually on eMusic.

One band that isn't on the album, and wasn't in D.A. Pennebaker's Monterey Pop film, or Rhino's 30th Anniversary CD box set, or Criterion's 35th anniversary DVD was Moby Grape. They opened the second night of the festival, but their set wasn't filmed for the movie because their manager asked too much money. They weren't even name-checked in Eric Burdon's "Monterey", but his line about "ten thousand electric guitars grooving real loud" was probably written under the influence of Moby Grape.

With three guitarists who all wrote airtight three-minute songs and sang three part harmonies like angels, the Grape were easily the most talented San Francisco band of the 60s, but they were cursed by bad management and overzealous promotion. Their debut album came out the same week as Sgt. Pepper, in tandem with five simultaneous singles which killed off any sales momentum they ever had. They went on to make a few more albums, but never delivered on the promise of the first one. Sony has just put out a single disc overview of Moby Grape called Listen! My Friends, which is a pretty good starting point, at least until their first album is reissued properly. It's currently only available on a cheapo CD on their sleazy ex-manager's San Francisco Sounds label.

Here is Moby Grape's opening set at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival from 40 years ago this weekend. After being introduced by Tommy Smothers, they blasted through four songs from their debut album, which had come out just a couple of weeks earlier.

"Three guitars leading the charge, and voices blending in delicious harmony" as Joel Selvin wrote in his Monterey Pop book.

Moby Grape 06/17/1967
from the Monterey International Pop Festival
0. Introduction by Tommy Smothers
1. Indifference
2. Mr. Blues
3. Sitting By The Window
4. Omaha

There are a few early Moby Grape performances on youtube, including this kicking version of "Omaha" from a 1968 Mike Douglas Show where Mikey calls them "the Moby Grapes".