FOR THOSE WHO MAY BE unfamiliar with the story of Moby Grape, it reads like a movie script. NPR picked up the story of the band in 2007. The Seattle Times wrote a retrospective through the eyes of Tacoma guitarist Jerry Miller in 2021, which referred to him as ‘one of our musical treasures.’
It all happened back in late-1960s San Francisco. It starts at the spark of a drummer who was kicked out of Jefferson Airplane after only one album because he disappeared to Mexico without telling them. Then he returns from Mexico and resurfaces playing guitar and singing in another band with four other singer/songwriters—including Miller and Don Stevensen from a Tacoma-area band called The Frantics—which becomes Moby Grape. The band catches fire. Journalists and critics rave. The band signs to Columbia. Their debut album releases in 1967. It’s hailed as a masterpiece. They’re being referred to as America’s Beatles. They are influencing bands like Led Zeppelin. They’re playing the Monterey Pop Festival…
Turns out they signed a bum deal with a bad manager who wrote the contract in his name, claiming property rights over not only the band’s songs and image, but also the name Moby Grape. Legal trouble ensues. The record company botches the debut album’s release. Chaos is brewing between the band members. The second album bombs. In 1968, the guy that sparked the whole thing loses his mind on drugs, goes nuts on hotel room door with a fire axe and winds up in an insane asylum. The manager runs off with all the rights. The bass player ends up homeless…
Meanwhile 50 years later, our Tacoma hero at the heart of this quintessential terrible saga of American Rock & Roll—Jerry Miller—is playing Brother Don’s this month. // NICK SLEDGE
JERRY MILLER w/ Tim Hall 7 p.m., Aug. 26, all ages, no cover at Brother Don’s, Bremerton
