From Jefferson Airplane to Homeless Schizophrenic: The Story of Skip Spence

Описание: This is probably the most amazing story I've covered on my channel so far. There have been many casualties in the history of rock. Shannon Moon, Janis Joplin, GG allen to name a few. These are musicians who we actually lost to dr@gs who are probably in heaven playing harps. But what about the musicians, such as Syd Barrett, who stayed with us mere mortals, lived to an older age and whose minds were too fractured to continue making good music? Today, instead of diving deep into a song we’ll be diving deep into the life of an underrated musician most of you have probably never heard of named Alexander Skip Spencer. He was in “Jefferson Airplane” for a hot minute. He played with the underrated psychedelic Rock pioneers Moby Grape. He developed a serious dr@g addiction and was so strung out on the funky stuff that he aksed his fellow bandmate’s hotel room door down until he was whisked off to prison, then the mental hospital. After all of this he spent three days in Nashville in his pygamas making his one and only solo album on which he played all the instruments mere days after leaving the psych ward. Ladies and gentleman, I introduce you to the one and only Alexander “Skip” Spence. Big thanks to my pal Eli Stevick for the suggestion. Eli, you’re a legend

Alexander Lee "Skip" Spence (April 18, 1946 – April 16, 1999) was a Canadian-born American singer, songwriter, and musician. He was co-founder of Moby Grape, and played guitar with them until 1969. In the same year, he released his only solo album, Oar, and then largely withdrew from the music industry. He had started his career as a guitarist in an early line-up of Quicksilver Messenger Service, and was the drummer on Jefferson Airplane's debut album, Jefferson Airplane Takes Off. He has been described on the AllMusic website as "one of psychedelia's brightest lights";however, his career was plagued by addiction coupled with mental health problems, and he has been described by a biographer as a man who "neither died young nor had a chance to find his way out."