Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Don Stevenson from Moby Grape: Toronto Mike'd #1351

Episode Date: October 26, 2023

In this 1351st episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike chats with Moby Grape's Don Stevenson about the rise and fall of Moby Grape, playing the Monterey Pop Festival, busking in TTC subway stations, and making his Massey Hall debut at the age of 82. FOTM Gare Joyce co-hosts. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Pumpkins After Dark, Ridley Funeral Home, Electronic Products Recycling Association, Raymond James Canada and Moneris. If you would like to support the show, we do have partner opportunities available. Please email Toronto Mike at [e-mail]

Welcome to episode 1351 of Toronto Mic'd. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, a fiercely independent craft brewery who believes in supporting communities, good times, and brewing amazing beer. Order online for free local home delivery in the GTA. Palma Pasta. Enjoy the taste of fresh, homemade Italian pasta and entrees from Palma Pasta in Miss taste of fresh homemade Italian pasta and entrees from Palma Pasta

in Mississauga and Oakville Pumpkins After Dark Get your tickets now at PumpkinsAfterDark.com RecycleMyElectronics.ca Committing to our planet's future means properly recycling our electronics of the past

The Advantaged Investor Podcast from Raymond James Canada. Valuable perspective for Canadian investors who want to remain knowledgeable, informed, and focused on long-term success. Season 5 of Yes, We Are Open, an award-winning podcast hosted by FOTM Al Grego and Ridley Funeral Home, pillars of the community since 1921. Today, making his Toronto mic debut, Don Stevenson. Welcome.

Thanks. Nice to be here. Well, it's an honor to have you here. I'm in the presence of a rock and roll royalty. Right. And that's not Gary Joyce, who is also joining me. Gary, you're my co-host. A rock and roll serf is what I am, along with a royal.

But before we, because we've got so much to cover here, but tell us, Gary, how did this come to be? How did it, this is like those movies that start like, how did I get get here how did it come to be that you and don are now sitting in my basement to talk about uh moby grape and and so much more well i met don uh at factory girl uh i was introduced uh to him uh by the owner of the pub uh george and he said uh you know gare uh this is don stevenson he played in a band moby grape right and i was like oh my god like i have the moby grape debut album as like a japanese import uh you're a big moby great like right away i I was like, you mean Omaha, 805? Hey, grandma. Like I just went through the track listing, right? And Don and I met.

We became fast friends. As soon as I got home, I pulled out my album and there is Don sitting in the front row. And we'll probably talk about the photo for the cover of that debut album. We're going to cover all this ground. But yeah, so we ended up becoming very fast friends after that.

The one line I always, like Don is the least self-impressed guy in the world i know he came out to a comedy gig i did and after the actually my first comedy gig and after you'll never remember this you you said oh you know that takes stones to get up there, right? And I'm like, yeah, I'm in front of 100 people. You played Monterey Pop in front of 100,000. You had to sing and keep time. Listen, I mean, I even have some audio from the Monterey Pop Festival there. So much great audio will guide us here.

But Don, you live in Toronto? Yes. I think that's the first mind blow. How did you end up living in the big smoke here? will guide us here. But Don, you live in Toronto? Yes. I think that's the first mind blow. How did you end up living in the big smoke here? Well, I was actually living up in Whistler, British Columbia. And just prior to that, I was doing some consulting over in Asia and Malaysia. And my friend Jude Carrillo called me up and said, Hey, man, I got this great gig up in Canada, up in Whistler.

It's for a vacation club. You know, he says, I'm running the thing for InterWest, and why don't you come over and work with me? So I ended up in Whistler, which is one of the great places in the world to end up. Was there for almost a decade. One of the great places in the world to end up was there for almost a decade. And, you know, I could ski in the winter and play golf in the summer. Amazing. You know, just have a really great lifestyle.

My wife used to let me ski with her, and I let her play golf with me. So anyway. Perfect marriage. So we kind of got to the place where I was thinking about stepping down and moving on. And I had a company ask me to come out to Toronto, a company called Safe Step, to be a regional manager out here. And my wife thought that was a great idea because our grandkids are in Toronto. Right. And so then... But what does this company do, Don?

Like anything related to music no it is actually related to old people and having a problem getting in and out of the bathtub you know so i'm trying to help a lot of old people well that's why you're with gear that's right he had more than you know yeah he got in and out of the booth today at breakfast quite quite well he's not just a friend he He's a client. That's right. So anyway, yeah, I came out just to be with the grandkids, and my wife was thrilled, and so we've been out here almost 10 years now.

I would think that might be a mind blow to find out Don Stevenson from Obie Grabe walks amongst us in this city, but not only do you walk amongst us, here's how I want to open the show, and Garrett, we're going to take this in a million ways. We've got Don held captive in the basement where is he going to go you can just grab him if he tries to escape here we're going to cover a lot of ground here but you just when i met you you handed me um you called it payola you gave me a a cd and the name of this cd is busking

in the subway and i thought we'd start just listening to a little bit of busking in the subway and I thought we'd start just listening to a little bit of busking in the subway and find out your story about literally busking in the TTC subway. So let's listen to a bit of this. You're telling the story in the song. That's it. That's Burton Cummings singing with me.

Wow. Okay, drop those fun facts, Don. So I went to the audition. I had to find out who was the man. This is me. Well, I sang my songs and I guess I passed the test. Now I'm busking in the subway. Busing in the subway. I like the sound of this car rolling down.

Busing in the subway. All right, so this is Toronto Mike's. It was a bit of a Toronto focus, although we'll be going to California, as Led Zeppelin once said. But busking in the subway, what's the story, Don? Where could I have seen you busking in our subway system here in Toronto?

Well, you could have seen me at just about any given stop on any given day because it's a rotational basis. You play at one subway station for three days and then you get another one the next three days. So I kind of pick and choose the locations I like and the time I like. So yeah, down...

What's your favorite station? Poscai. Finch. Because it doesn't matter if anybody participates. It's just got great acoustics. Oh, that's a fun fact right there. So, Gare, how long again have you known Don? It must have been shortly after you moved here.

It was. Almost a decade ago. It's a decade ago. And is there like, they don't just let anyone busk. Like I can't, you know, Gare and I can't start busking in the subway, not in 2023, maybe back in the good old days. But you, did you have to audition?

Or what's the story? Did you say, yeah, I'm here. I was in a band called Moby Grape. I'd like to busk in the subway. Like, how does that process work? No, I didn't get grandfathered in. They should have grandfathered you in. But no, they had auditions.

And so you have an audition and there's three judges there that go ahead and kind of judge your audition. And then if you make it, then you get to pay 350 bucks and you get a license and you can go down in the subway and play. And they give you a schedule and you show up and that's your gig, right? That should be a reality show where you got your judges. Maybe Jay Gould could be one. We could have these judges.

And who's worthy of being a TTC busker? And you, of course, are worthy. They wouldn't give an exemption to Burton Cummings. No. No, actually. Get out of here. We recorded the song. Burton was kind enough to come and sing with me and play with me

because he likes Moby Grape. And we have kind of a back story a little bit. But when he came and played, he sang on, he sang on 805 and played piano on this and sang on a couple of songs. And so I got the idea with TTC. I said, you know, why don't we just do a pop-up gig down at Blur and Young or something? And I couldn't get it past, you know, past the people that make those kinds of decisions. Wow. And Burton was like, he was into it.

Well, look, if we can ever do this again, I'll make some phone calls. I know people, okay, Don? That's an oversight. I like people that know people. You know what I'm talking about. Well, Gare's here because he knows people

and he said that Don Stevenson would visit the basement and I know you brought a guitar. Lots of excitement. So, Gare, where can we begin? I know where I want to begin, but maybe I just do my thing and you, it's not rude.

I know you're a proud Canadian who doesn't want to be rude, but just you can take it anywhere you want, because you're a big Moby Grape fan, but I know where I want to begin, so can I just go my route, and then you can take us wherever you want as we get there.

Okay. Here's where I want to go. I want to start here, Don. A little music here to guide us. You're gonna have everything Till that day comes See how the time runs Till that day comes Say you'll be mine All right, take us way back, Dawn.

How do you end up playing with the frantics? And then before we get you to Moby Grape, we'll kind of build up who the heck were you and what was going on in that scene? Well, there's a lot of stuff in the formative years. I learned how to play drums and learned how to get into the place where we all get into probably in our lives where there's nothing

more important in your life than one particular thing it just completely consumes you so i've had i had years of that before i got to the frantics and those are some great stories playing down the black and tan and back and eddie jones and eddie janes and john lee hooker and playing in all these underground black clubs and you know going, going through high school, learning how to play. You know, the great scene that was in Seattle, some kind of a musical convergence. You're from Seattle. Yeah. So it seems like there's always been some sort of like musical convergence going up in Seattle. So eventually I ended up playing with the Playboys.

There were two great bands in Seattle, but there were more than that. But the Playboys and the Frantics were like the Stones and the Beatles, right? The Playboys were just kind of a badass, throw your drums in the trunk of your car and show up on Tuesday. And the Frantics were like Bobby Darin, you know, just singing Splish Splash, you know. Taking a bath. Taking a bath.

Yeah. So anyway, I ended up playing with the Playboys at a place called The Roll-In up on Fifth Avenue in Seattle. And, unfortunately, right now it's a parking lot, which is, you know, kind of ironic. They paved paradise. They put up a parking lot. They did.

So, back then, believe this or not, we would play six nights a week, and we would have a gig for, like, six, up a parking lot. They did. So back then, believe this or not, we would play six nights a week, and we would have a gig for like six, seven, eight weeks. So you would have a steady gig, six nights a week in the same bar, and you would stay there for two months or three months or whatever. And when I was playing at the roll-in, I'd pack up my drums and put them in the back of my truck and go pick up Mike Mandel, who was a blind B3 Hammond organ player, a wonderful, wonderful player.

Turned out to be a great studio musician in New York, and Lee Parker, and go down to Black and Tan. And then Black and Tan would start at like 2.30, 3 o'clock in the morning, and we'd play until 6 o'clock in the morning. And that's where you would have all of the Chitlin Circuit, all these people coming in and playing. Great, great experience. And that gig at the Roll-In kind of was coming to an end.

And John Keelyore, who was the drummer for the Frantics, and they were playing down in Tacoma at the Top Hat. And John Keelyore got in a car accident. And unfortunately, he's a really great to this day he's a wonderful percussionist and an intellectual i don't understand anything he says but uh another reason you like gear joints yes so so uh he got in a car accident and uh so the frantics, they had heard me play drums, and they asked me if I'd come and play with them.

And the money was good, and there was a gig in Tacoma. And they also had a passage already booked to go down to California and play on Broadway. So that's when I met Jerry Miller, who ended up being the lead guitar player for Moby Grape. But Jerry and I, the first time we met, we were instantly buddies. It was just like, you know, like that was the way it was. We were just the best of friends and still are to this day.

So this was a song that Jerry and I wrote called Someday. And interesting, we ended up writing another song for Moby Grape called Someday. But it didn't sound very much like this one. So yeah, Jerry and I wrote a couple songs called like Human Monkeys. And, you know, we wrote Chambers Creek and Someday. And so these were songs that we had recorded up in the Northwest. And we played it, we played at the Top Hat for, for quite some time, you know, for another six weeks before we went to California. So Jerry and I got to really know each other and got to play together. Funny, man, when I first met him,

Jerry's never missed a gig in his whole life that I know of, except he missed one. But when I first met him, he had to go home because he had lost his front tooth. And he forgot to put it in. It was at home, so he had to go back home to get his front tooth. Oh, like a hockey player. And when he was looking for it, he put his front tooth sometimes in his wallet.

Okay. Which is one of the first things I saw Jerry. So he's opening up his wallet, and there's this little rag in his wallet. And I go, you know, what's that, man? He goes, he said, hey, dude, that's my binky. And he pulled out this little rag and put it up to his nose. And that was his blanket from when he was a baby. This dude treasured the things that were important in life. What you should say about Jerry Miller is that Eric Clapton was asked to name his three favorite guitarists.

Jerry was one of them. Wow. He is a powerhouse. Speaking of great guitarists, Gary, you tipped me off that Jerry played with Jimi Hendrix. Is that right? So I was, we all know the Hendrix album, Band of Gypsies, but like how many of us know the origin of the name? Right, Don?

I sure don't. But Don does? No, I don't know. Oh, I thought it was. You're setting him up like. I thought you rehearsed this at the Lucky Dice. Yeah. Like I say, not so lucky at the Lucky Dice. Yeah. Like I say, not so lucky at the Lucky Dice.

But no, I thought that was the name of the bar in, what was the name of the bar in Seattle where Hendrix played? I thought it was. Oh, well, Hendrix played, I think Ray Charles and Hendrix both played at the roll-in. Band of Gypsies, you know, I probably, I'm not sure exactly what the reference was for that. But I do know that we did a whole concert tour with Jimi Hendrix.

Right. And that, you know, he actually opened for us. What kind of guy was Jimi Hendrix? He was just like, just a regular dude. I never knew him any other way than just a regular guy. So he would smoke a couple of fatties periodically and had some conversations. But he was just a really good guitar player.

Hey, I don't mean to leave you out here. Did you hear that? He's a good guitar player. Good guitar player. Hey, I don't mean to leave you out there. Did you hear that? He's a good guitar player. I probably said something about that at some point, and it's like escaped my memory. Yeah.

No, I remember how this went down. Although I don't know exactly how far back Jerry, did Jerry know Jimmy prior to meeting you or along the same time before uh before moby well jerry was from tacoma and jimmy was from tacoma so that's probably a probably it's true yeah yeah i like we met him yeah it just it's amazing the two guitarists like and jerry's like he's teaching guitar right now yeah he's plays he has steady gigs a couple of times a week and teaches guitar and some of them are online and like some some are on youtube and it's just like oh my god yeah i always said if john wayne was a guitar player he'd want to be Jerry Miller.

Wow. That's a very, that's high praise, much like that Eric Clapton tidbit. That's kind of wild. So now, Gary, help me out here because we're going to get Don to Moby Grape. So in the timelines of things, so we talked about your role in the frantics and then your relationship with Jerry. And now, what is the logistics involved with you becoming a member of Moby Grape? Well, Jerry and I went down to California with the Frantics. And we were really excited because on Broadway at that time, before we went down, the birds were playing on Broadway.

time, before we went down, the birds were playing on Broadway. And the birds actually changed my mind about music. I wanted to be a jazz drummer. I wanted to, because that period of time I was talking to you about, I was like playing a lot of B3 Hammond organ trios. We were playing a lot of charts, a lot of standards. And there was a lot of jazz going around in Seattle and people were all going to each other's sessions and sitting in with each other and listening to people who were just, you know, really playing well. And I put on a headset and, uh, smoking a really good, um, dinky and somebody, I think Skeelier actually played the birds for me. And when I heard that, I went, oh my God, that is so amazing. It just like expanded my horizon. And I went, that is really, really cool.

And one of the things that we were excited about in the frantics was going down to Broadway because the birds were playing there. By the time we got to Broadway, the birds had left and Carol Dota had taken over. So now we're backing up topless dancers on Broadway. It's a gig. Yeah, it's a gig. So we didn't stay there for very long. We stayed there for a few weeks.

One of the great things was it was like a pound of, could I have a pound and a half of music, please? It was just like ordering it up. And in between songs they had them they had the drummer which was me i had to keep playing right so i'm going so these dancers could keep dancing you know and finally we just got so fed up you know we we quit and went down to the peninsula and played uh you know jerry and i played some gigs down in the peninsula. And that's when we got a gig up. The Frantics, I should mention that the Frantics,

after that gig, came back up to San Francisco and played at a place called the Agogo Club, the Dragon Agogo. And we hired Bob Mosley. And we saw Bob Mosley playing out at the airport with Joni Lyman and Joe Scott Hill and that trio. And Bob Mosley was like, he was like a surfer god. He was saying like, you know, the best blues singer you ever saw and looked way too handsome to even, you know, it wouldn't be fair.

You know, in a competition of good looks, Mosley would win. And so, and he played bass like just like a monster and so we'd love the guy and then that gig for them uh broke up and so we asked bob if you'd come and play with us and that was with the frantics um and that was like you know with the chuck shoning on b3 hammond organ and bob hosco and myself and uh and we didn't have a bass player because chuck would play with a b3 hammond organ but it didn't make it right so we had bob come in and play bass and it was a great six-week engagement bob actually cracked some guy in the head with his bass from the stage we were in the dragon go-go because the guy was harassing him, and Bob just went, bam, and just gave him a good shot.

So then we broke up. That band broke up after that period of time, and I guess Bob went back home to San Diego, and Jerry and I went back down the peninsula down to Redwood City. And so we played some gigs around San Mateo and picked up some gigs here and there. And that's when we got an audition call

from San Francisco to come up and to audition for a new band that Matthew Cates was forming. And he had Skip Spence, who was the drummer for Jefferson Airplane. Windsor native. Windsor native. I didn't know that.

Yeah. Okay, that's why you're here, Gare. I need these fun facts spit at me early and often. Okay. So we went up to San Francisco, and it also turned out that Bob Mosley was there with Peter Lewis, who Bob had been playing with Peter, and Peter Lewis is Loretta Young's son,

which is pretty interesting because I wanted her to be my mother when I was a little kid. That is, I think Freud would have a field day with all this. I think so. She actually invited me with the rest of the band to her penthouse in New York for my 30th birthday. Wow. So I was in awe.

We could do an hour on that party there. That's true. Some funny stuff happened. Anyway, so yeah, so we went up to San Francisco, and there was Peter and Bob and Skip, and they had the drums set up and an amp, and so Jerry brought in Beulah, and I came in, and we sat down, and the audition actually just was let's play all our favorite rock and roll songs.

So we played chuck berry and jerry lee lewis and you know rhythm and blues songs and stuff that we all knew and uh it went past just one or two songs for the audition we just ended up playing for maybe 45 minutes or an hour together and it just clicked it was perfect and so jerry and I were trying to be cool. So we got done playing and I said, thank you for the audition. And Jerry said, no problem. Thanks, man. So we kept it under wraps and got in the car and we got in the car. I look at Jerry and Jerry looks at me and goes, whoa, man, God, that was like blah, blah, blah, you know?

And then we got the call. You got the call. We made the we made the cut so when you get the phone call i mean you kind of you felt like you already got it i guess but what's that moment like where it's like like you got the gig it was like we already knew he got it you already knew you got it that was you nailed the audition yeah you couldn't uh you couldn't let that slide it's amazing that you really hit the ground running with with the the band but then it's it's five guys all songwriters all singers right right like i mean just uh like a royal flush what was kind of fun was that uh we were all so new to each other and we all had such great regard

for what happened just in our audition that I think one of the reasons our first album had so much critical acclaim in a lot of ways is because all we wanted to do was impress each other. I just wanted you to think that I was, you know, I'm just so glad to be here with you and you guys.

And here's what I'm doing right now. And what do you think? And the next thing you know, somebody else is saying, well, why don't we put a harmony part here? And Jerry would say, well, let's take the bridge and do this with it. And Peter would add an intro and a figure. You know, so it was all about collaborative effort. But it was more than that it was like there was a magic that was going on um because everybody was so um i guess i don't know if the word humble is the right

word but just everybody was so not in charge you know there was nobody in charge and so it's just it just evolved because we kept contributing to each other's ideas musically. Skip was the one fellow who was really well-known and established, though, in that mix, right? And, you know, talk about the collaborative rather than the a leader and and followers uh but skip does seem to be a creative catalyst right probably the one who was pushing the envelope in a lot of ways um skip see peter played he was a finger picker and he he could play with all of his fingers and could just really it was really an amazing thing. He still does it.

I mean, it's just like, it's a really interesting way to play guitar. And Jerry is like a, he does comps, and he does solos and fills. And Skip was just a mystical entity that musically moved in and out, playing who knows what, you know, but it was always,

it was always moved things along and made that better. You know, if he had a first nation name, it would be Skip who moves along and makes things better. And so he wasn't so much as a, as a leader, but he would bring in wonderful songs. But he didn't come in and say, here's the song and here's what I want you to do. He would just come in and say, here's this and let it happen.

How did he start out as, or how did he end up as the original drummer in Jefferson Airplane? Like what was he doing playing drums? And then that, I don't know. From what I understand, he wasn't really an accomplished drummer when he joined them. He just knew how to play drums. Yeah. So that's where he was coming from before the audition.

That and he had played guitar, but he wasn't playing guitar at that band. He wrote My Best Friend for the airplane and a number of other songs so he was a contributor to the airplane he was on their first album Perhaps now if you don't mind I'm going to play so we're talking about Skip here let me play a song he penned and then sort of to get us

talking Moby Grape here because I know Gare and I have a few Moby Grape here because I know Garen and I have a few Moby Grape questions. Cause they're my friends Cause they're my friends Cause they're my friends Cause they're my friends You thought I'd never run And I'm not forever Won't leave you ever

Now my friends Are the stars left behind Over rain From where we came I don't even want to fade it down, but here. So Skip wrote this song? Yeah. How do you stay hydrated drumming like that, Don? That's what I want to know.

That is some propulsive stuff. God. I could take my T-shirt off after playing and ring it out. This is, of course, we talked about this is the first, this is the self-titled, I guess it comes out in the summer of 67. Right. So just a little time after the Leafs last won the Stanley Cup. That's when this album comes out, too.

Date-stamped it for Torontonians. So the Leafs. Seems like yesterday. Yeah. Seems like yesterday. Every spring a parade down Bay Street, right, Gareth? That's it. Shout out to FOTM Dave Schultultz okay so man questions can you tell me a

little bit about the scene at the time so you mentioned how critically acclaimed this album is moby grape but what was the scene like when when this drops in the summer of 67 like what a time well first off i can't imagine why a lot of radio personalities don't use the introduction to this for their introduction to their radio show. Because it is like, wow. And that's Omaha. I feel like I should, I will say this. So for people, my vintage, I think they need to be educated on Moby Grape. I think that as time goes on, there are some bands in this scene that you hear an awful lot about.

And then some bands that seem, dare I say, overlooked. Moby Grape doesn't quite get the it's just desserts, the accolades that they're worthy of. Do you feel that? I think we all end up where we belong, right? Okay, that's a good attitude. I just feel like there are some people who are going to be listening to us right now who probably will be like, I'm not sure I know Moby Grape.

What do you think, Gare? What I would say is that Moby Grape is well known among musicians more than the public. I really think that they were an influence on musicians rather than, you know, I mean, you guys chart look at omaha um and and again you're right

listen my friends would be a great way to start your your podcast but uh right you know that springsteen you know when he was first touring uh way back before the e street band like that was on his set list and i mean he he you know that that there was there that there have been so many people that have uh looked looked and borrowed uh directly or indirectly from uh from the moby grape uh canon know, I think that speaks to what the band was able to accomplish and just the quality of songwriting. What say you, Don? This song was kind of interesting, the Genesis, because he came in with the song,

and it was just like full of energy, right, for sure. And then, you know, Jerry puts in that, and then, you know and we get the harmonies and get it all together and it ends up being um just a really energetic high-powered love song to the people that wanted to hear us or were listening to us it was like skippy's love song to you and, it's just, all my lovers get under the covers, squeeze me real tight into the light with all your might beneath and above, so out of sight being in love. You know, so it's just like a cool, cool thing.

I remember, and Skippy, when he would play, he was like a, he would bounce around and jump up and down and roll his eyes back up in his head and not know where he was. He played this song and came off the stage at the Ark just because he didn't even know where he was, you know? And it was so energetic. This song actually got us, was one of the reasons we got kicked off the tour with the Mamas and Papas.

It was too good? It was. You don't want to, at the end of this song it just goes and then they come on go monday monday yeah i could see that it didn't work out well not chilling out in the fact that we were it's funny he That's the real talk right there. With Skippy, right? His father was a band leader. That's right.

Yeah, his father was a band leader and also eventually played clubs where he was a piano player and like that old-fashioned kind of nightclub where you come in and talk to the keyboard player and ask him to play any song. Yeah. His dad was. So you have on the one hand,

the father who's the organizer and coordinator. And then the, the other, the son is like a madly spontaneous in the moment, right? Utterly in the moment guy. Yeah. Good.

Good. As we cover more ground here, and again, I've got a load of questions for you, Don, but I want to play a song that was penned by you and Jerry. Okay. So this is a,

another great Moby Grape song from that, that debut. Let's give us a taste of one of yours. Hey grandma, you're so young No man, it's just a boy Been a long time this time Been a long time this time Been a long count this time It'll all count this time round Everything's upside down

It's gonna be good It's gonna be good It's all my fault And most things Just a waste of time Well, I gotta have this time Well, I gotta have this time Well, I gotta have this time Hey Grandma, what do you remember about writing this song?

First off, it's a shuffle. And if you listen carefully, you don't hear any shuffles anymore. So these shuffles are almost completely out. They've gone extinct. They've gone extinct.

Which is, with Jerry and, that was our kind of tradition and our heritage from the Pacific Northwest because everybody played shuffles because they were so funky. our heritage from the Pacific Northwest, because everybody played shuffles, because they were so funky. So when Jerry and I wrote songs,

a lot of them were shuffles. And so this song was kind of like, you know, the ladies that were wearing patchouli oil in these long granny dresses, you know, and I don't know. Granny glasses, too. Granny glasses, yes, yes exactly little square glasses yeah then flowers in their hair and uh and these just long uh you know cotton uh paisley dresses you know they were like it was almost like a granny dress or something you know so

we were just saying hey grandma you're so young your old man's just a boy you know, so we were just saying, hey, grandma, you're so young. Your old man's just a boy, you know, so it was kind of just like a tribute to these patchouli oil-smelling beautiful young women who are moving underneath these granny dresses to just drive you a little bit crazy with their flower in their hair. I have a question for Gare Joyce. How would I know about granny dresses?

Well, yeah, was that song dedicated to Gare? Hey, grandma? Okay. Gare's the stand-up comic. Don't forget that, Don. I just pretend to be one on a podcast. Now, Gare, as a fan of Moby Grape, do you remember any details of when you picked up this self-titled debut in vinyl? Yes, I can get this exactly.

Okay. So I remember I was just out of high school when I bought Rolling Stone, the Rolling Stone magazine's record guide, the first edition. And they rated albums from, uh, zero stars to five stars and Moby Grape, uh, was a five-star album. And I knew the name and I'm, I thought I must've heard this band. Uh, but, uh, I just went out and tried to put together to gather up for my collection all the five-star albums, regardless of if I knew the music or not. Which is smart.

Yeah, give me the quality, and then I'll discover new genres and new bands. I was probably more of a fan of rock criticism than rock when you get down to it. I mean, I could rhyme off the name of any rock critic. But at the time, there was no getting a Moby Grape album domestically here. Yeah. So I had to get an import all those years back. So this would be like 78 or nine, I guess. And I will say I'm surprised.

At that time, I was buying Raffi albums and Sesame Street albums. But it surprises me that you had to get Moby Grape as an import. It was out of print for God knows how long. In and out of print, I guess. But domestically, I don't know. It's funny. I guess it was 84, Rolling Stone record guy did its second edition. And Moby Grape, which had been like a five-star album, there was no listing for the band in the second edition.

there was no listing for the band in the second edition right like that i i mean it was a crazy take uh takeoff uh in 67 you know like you're on the cover of teen beat right like you're you're you're everywhere right right and um but by by the late 70s uhoby Grape albums were hard to find. I remember finding Grape Jam, the double album. I remember finding a used copy of that at a used bookstore on Dundas between Church and Jarvis. That's how my memory operates. I can remember it distinctly. Jarvis. That's how my memory operates. I can remember it distinctly.

But the first album I ended up getting is a Japanese import. And that's the first, that song we just played, Hey Grandma, penned by Don and Jerry, that's the first song on the first side. Like that would be your first taste of Moby Grape, right?

Absolutely. Although I, you know, as soon as I heard Omaha, I knew i had heard it before right it is it is one of those uh experiences where you know it's not uh uh deja vu uh whatever the uh oral a u r a l uh equivalent is is. That's what I had hearing Omaha. Now, who would have, okay, so Don's only been here 10 years, but would 1050 Chum have played Omaha? I would guess, yeah.

What did Omaha sort of chart out as? Was it like, I guess the important thing. The album charted. Yeah. I guess one of the key components. I guess the important thing. The album charted. Yeah. I guess one of the key components. I have this info actually. So, okay. It peaked at number 24 on the pop albums chart.

And as a single, Omaha peaked at 88 on the pop singles. And Hey Grandma, by the way, 127 on the pop singles. So what should be said here is that there was a problem with the performance of the singles off the first album. Because they all came out on the same

day. On release of the album. Well, let's talk about that, Don. What was the strategy there? What was the lack of strategy there? Artists do that a lot today, right? Likeke will just drop 20 songs here you go yeah well i think it was all done on in good faith i mean columbia loved the band oh it was they put everything i was gonna say it was really a marker of like their expectations and their,

their love of the music you were making. Right. They, they love too much. They did. They overloved. They loved you to death. They overloved you.

So what I'm seeing, what happened is some guy, some A&R guy, you know, in the back room when they're doing the, you know, doing all the strategy to be able to launch this new band that they think are going to be the American Beatles or whatever. I mean, they were really high.

High expectations. It will be great. So some guy's in the deal. He says, I got an idea. Here's what we're going to do. Okay? This band, I love this band. The music, they make the thought.

We're going to do something nobody's ever done before in the history of music. You know what we're going to do? Not one, not two, not three, not four, but five. Five singles. Every one of these singles are a hit. Can you believe it? There's no B-side on this album. We're going to put out five singles at one time.

We're going to saturate the American public with Moby Grape. It's going to be the biggest thing that ever happened. Right. And everybody goes, I like it. I like it. I like it. Let's do that. And then the reality of it was nobody knew what to play because all five singles came out at the same time.

Right. June 6, 1967. Yeah. One station would play 805. Somebody else would play Omaha. And then pretty soon they thought it was a big hype and we were just the monkeys. And not that the monkeys were all just hype but you know what i mean there was like uh

you know there was this like this must not be real because look at all this stuff they're trying to push on our and it just it just killed the uh killed the album i i do have by the way a picture or a cover of teen beat magazine where Moby grape is on it from 1967 that you, that you were on, on team beat magazine cover is just says like along with the monkeys, right? Like that was, that was the,

the era, but, and again, working against the, you know, the, the talk about the curse of timing, right?

Your album comes out, you drop five singles, and then within a week, Sgt. Pepper comes out. Right. You just talk about sucking the oxygen out of the market. I want to ask about the cover, so the movie Grave cover here. Legend has it you were flipping the bird on this cover, Don. Is that correct? Well, I guess I think the vice president of the United States had already flipped the bird in public.

So I didn't think it was too outrageous. But Jim Marshall was taking the photos. And for some reason, I didn't care for the photo session. You look pretty pissed off in the photo. Also, Jim Marshall, just give a little context. This is a famous rock photographer, Jim Marshall, who's taking these photos. Yeah, he was way more popular than we were.

Right. And I had the audacity to think that he was like, I just didn't enjoy the session, didn't particularly vibe out with Jim. Does not look like the summer of love. That's not what your expression says. That wasn't it. So on almost every picture he took,

I was giving the bird. Yeah. So I was sabotaging. But in 67, this is quite the controversy, right? What do they do? They airbrush it out? What do they do for that gesture? I think the first 200,000 copies or whatever,

they had the finger there, just in his prominent position. And then housewives from the Midwest or whoever it was started to complain. And so then with the next edition. Tipper Gore's mother, probably. She got upset about the whole thing and had us remove the finger. So I think that, yeah, Columbia had to airbrush the finger off on the next releases. Oh, that's wild here. Hey, I want to, because, you know, there's a, the whole band sort of contributes to writing

songs on this album, which is very cool. But I want to play just one more Miller Stevenson before we get into this Monterey Pop Festival, because I got questions about that. A lot of ground I want to cover. And I want to play a cover from an FOTM. FOTM, Don, means Friend of Toronto Mic'd. You're now an FOTM. Awesome.

So, and by the way, are you still busking in the subway stations? Can someone spot you at Young & Bloor station? There would be some spottings periodically. Okay, that to me is the mind blow. There's so many mind blows in this episode, but Gary, that's a big one. You don't even know. That guy playing the guitar in the subway station, he might be a member of

Moby Grape. Who knows it? But here is another Moby Grape song I'm going to play. And then we'll talk about the Monterey Pop Festival, get to some questions from listeners. Listeners. To love you is so good, to keep you would be so wonderful. Here is my heart that I give, it's all that I have. Please change your mind. Before all my sunshine is gone Do you think you could try? Do you think you could try? Do you think you could try?

Don, this is a beautiful song. Thank you. People ask me, you know, what the first Moby Grape album is, you know, what type of music it is. And I always say it's everything. Like, you could find any type of music somewhere in the grooves. Like, that this song is on the same album as Omaha is hard to fathom.

Right. This sounds like Crosby, Stills & Nash or something. There's jazzy, inflected songs, like rockers. Almost everything is in there in 35 minutes, I guess, or 40 minutes, whatever it was. Don, what do you remember about writing 805? Well, for 805, there's a couple of things about it that I like. One is that the introduction that Peter plays, if you listen to it carefully,

guitar players have a hard time figuring out how to play that. I mean, I know some really good guitar players that I play 805 with that have to figure out a secondary way to play that. Well, do you want to, hey, let me play, let me, so talk over it here. Like, so bring it down in the mix here. Can you, can you play this, Don? If that's Peter with his finger-picking, which is really... Okay, just stay in...

Just, yeah, yeah. So that's Peter with his finger-picking skills. And he would work very hard at getting... He's a perfectionist. He's a pilot. Oh, he's one of those guys. That's a good place for a perfectionist, by the way. A pilot's a perfectionist. You know, he's a pilot. He was a, you know. Oh, he's one of those guys. That's a good place for a perfectionist, by the way.

A pilot is a perfectionist. No repair. Someone that's going to be close. Yeah, right. I think we can make it. Close enough. Okay, before I forget, so Peter Lewis's daughter recorded a track-by-track cover

of this self-titled debut by Moby Gray back in like 2015. Did you ever hear that? Yes, I did. How was it? It was really good. And Peter, who is... Arwen is her name. Arwen, yeah. Peter, who is a perfectionist, went to New York with John DiNicola, who

wrote... He wrote, This is the time of our life, and never, never felt this way before. You know that song? So, from Can you name that tune, Gary? I'm going to buzz out on that one Okay, sorry

I could have So, nonetheless They went to New York And with a bunch of studio musicians Reproduced the first album For everyone to be able to sing on it And it almost I think it almost killed Peter, because like I said, he's a perfectionist,

and he had to have every note perfect, so it was an amazing accomplishment. And so Peter's a very complicated man. But his daughter, yeah, reproduced the entire first album. I thought you were going to say that it almost killed his daughter. If you're recording it from Peter. I talked to Peter on the phone a couple of times. And I don't want to say high maintenance or something like that.

But he could be difficult, I would think. A tough taskmaster as a parent. Yeah, so 805, the other thing I like about it is it has a trick ending. So when people think it's over, it's not over. Right. I like the idea. The false bottom.

Yeah, when people think things are over, it's not over. But 805 was when Jerry and I were driving down from Seattle down to San Francisco to play on Broadway. We crossed the Golden Gate Bridge. And we left all our girlfriends and wives and everybody behind. And Jerry just said, hey, man, what time is it? And I said, it's 805.

And he goes, yeah, well, I guess we'll be leaving here soon. And we both went, what? And so it was like, that's a song, man. And so we ended up kind of singing about our wives and lovers and those people that we had left behind in Seattle. And that's a good example of when we brought that to the group, look at the harmonies that came out of it and the different types

of the different ways that the guitars weave in and out with each other. So 805, that turned out to be a really pretty ballad. How do you think Robert Plan did with his cover of 805? It was great.

Are you kidding me? No, it was really great, really great to hear him do that. Yeah. How does that help the wallet? Like when, like how does it help finances when a Robert Plant covers one of your songs?

I, I, I guess it would be really, really good if you had your publishing and your. So tell, do you mind if we, could you tell us the, give us the real talk on that? Because a lot of people assume, oh, you know, Don Stevenson co-wrote a song.

And if it gets on a big album by a big artist, he's going to see a check in his mailbox. But give us the real deal on how that works for you personally. Well, when Moby Grape was at the Ark, which was a big ferry boat in Sausalito Park there. It was an after-hours club. It turned into being an after-hours club. This ferry boat docked in Sausalito. So after people were done playing at the Fillmore and the Avalon, they would come over to the Ark.

And on the Ark, there was, you know, there was like Janis Joplin and Big Brother and the Holding Company and Lee Michaels and the Buffalo Springfield and Moby Grape. None of us had any exposure at that time. It was just a place for people to come over and listen to music after hours. But San Francisco was buzzing with A&R people because it was happening, right? So people were all over the place trying to find a band that they could sign and take advantage of all the music that was coming out of San Francisco. And to make a long story short, Matthew, who was brilliant in that he was able to find this group

and put it together and see talent when he saw it and know what it was about but he had the wrong he had the wrong uh attitude in life right he was like seeking all of the good stuff and all of the you know all of the money and all of the fame and all of the things that come with it rather than seeking the good intentions of uh helping to build careers and uh and loving the music that happened and knowing that all these things would happen anyway. All the music would generate all of this money and there'd be enough for everybody, right? But Matthew was, you know, like the story of the monkey.

For him to win, you have to lose. That was right. So I won't, but that's exactly what happened. So he pretty well, he was managing us at the time and just said, I'm going in and negotiate on your behalf with Columbia Records. And he said, I just need to have the power to be able to do that. And we're, you know, we're just like kids, so to speak, of it as naive in some ways. So we signed off on the paperwork to be able to give him the ability to go ahead and

negotiate for us and we ended up giving away our publishing and our royalties and our name and you told me one time who told you not to sign it yeah jerry miller no i thought you said neil oh neil young too yeah that's right because they had they had been approached by the same thing and jerry was the only one i I think Neil had talked to Jerry. Yeah. And Jerry had told us not to sign it. Always listen to Neil. Yeah.

Hindsight being 20-20, of course. It's easy to sit here in 20-23. But I'm sorry that happened to you, that you guys essentially exploited and taken advantage of. Yeah. You know, again, if we would have paid attention, it wouldn't have happened, but we didn't. so but then then then some heroes came out of the woods in the 90s like glenn miskell was a an attorney uh entertainment attorney and and it went to the courts for years

and years and years and finally i just in the last 10 years or so uh we got our name back and got their publishing back and got royalties back and all of those things. It's a little bit late to have taken advantage of the music that we sold. But it's interesting because I'm in Toronto. I've got a nice wife and a nice home and friends like Gare. and friends like Gare, who, by the way, when we first met,

one of the things we did was I gave him my first solo album and he gave me his first, I don't know if that was your first book. Yeah, The Code. By G.B. Joyce? Yeah, man, I love that book. So I became a fan of his. Good old name, Wayne.

Yeah. And coming down the stairs right now, everyone, Jason Priestley. Come on over here, Jason. It'll happen. Yeah. So it was a little late to be able to uh take advantage of of the actual money that rolled in at one time but

matthew's house burnt down in 19 or 2017 and all of the stuff that he had accumulated you know went down with it and when i did see it see his home you know he had a dog in there and it crapped all over the carpets. He just lived forever. He did. Is he still with us or was it just like in the last couple of years? Because he'd be well into his 90s. I saw a thing from his niece on Facebook that said that Matthew had passed in May 17th of 2007. Or 2021.

Yeah. But it's like Elvis. He was still winning lawsuits. Like in five years he was suing a neighbor over offense. Yes. And he was suing his niece. Yeah. This woman who wrote.

And she won. But she said, I felt like I lost. You know. Because I had to deal with I lost litigious is that the word? litigious litigation is sport that was his recreation Matthew Katz I'm on the Wikipedia page

which does not know if he has passed away Wikipedia has not been updated usually they're pretty quick on the draw to let you know when somebody dies. But he was born in 1929, if you want to do the math on how old he would be if he was still in it. But I'm reading here about like, you think, yeah, Jefferson Airplane and him were in the courts for 21 years.

Like I'm just reading a 21-year litigation there with Jefferson Airplane. So, wow, okay. He might have served Wikipedia with papers. That's why it's not listed. Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated, I think is what

he said. Okay, Don, this is amazing because I have some great questions. I have somebody who asked me about two subjects that I hope we can cover in a moment, and I got music to guide us through that as well. But also, again, I mentioned an FOTM has covered one of your songs. So just the other day, I had a gentleman over here named Michael Philip Voya Voda. And Michael Philip Voya Voda produced an album for Change of Heart, one of my favorite bands, actually a great 90s

rock band from this city. And Ian Blurton is the brains behind Change of Heart and the lead singer and principal songwriter. And he wrote me a note when he heard you were coming on and I have a song from them to play. Lots of ground to cover, but does anyone in this room right now enjoy a can of Fresh Craft beer? Anyone?

Hand up. Hand up? Okay, okay. Three hands up. Three hands up, okay. so i have the most delicious fresh craft beer in the province it's from great lakes brewery and i'll get you guys some cans to take with you when you leave today so you're going to take home some fresh craft beer so thank you great lakes brewery also and again gary i've already apologized to you because i actually i had a great episode with jonathan gross the day, and I had his meat lasagna ready to go.

And he literally then informed me that he will not combine dairy and meat, which is a religious thing for those who adhere to the Jewish faith. And I then gave him the vegetarian lasagna. I only had one, and I gave it to him. And now I wish I could give it to you. I know you're a proud vegetarian. All I have is meat lasagna right now. Are you a vegetarian, Don? I don't know. Okay. So the good news is you're definitely leaving with a frozen lasagna from Palma Pasta. That's in my freezer right now. Delicious, delicious. Oh, you're going to love

it. You're going to be sending me like that's you'll be saying, Gare, that's the best lasagna you can buy in a store. So thank you, Palma Pasta, for sending that over. I do owe you, Gare. Here's my pledge to you is I will make a special order to get a vegetarian lasagna next time you're in the city. Jonathan Gross, who didn't remember my name, also took my lasagna. What did you think of that episode?

I loved it, but I noticed Mark Weisblatt thought it should have been better and I actually think it was pretty damn pitch perfect. I thought it was just great. Yeah. But why doesn't he remember you?

I knew that going in. Listen, I was saying this to Don earlier. You know, he's hanging with David Lee Roth and, you know, on tour with The Clash. How would he remember me, the lowly night editor at the, you know, working the police desk at midnight? Sure. But the man to your left, I'll point out,

Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Steve Miller, The Birds, B.B. King, Buddy Guy, Sly Stone, just a few names that Don Stevenson has played with. And he can remember my name. Which is really that's something that Jonathan Gross should learn from. Well, he'll be back for

a sequel and I'll beat him up for not knowing your name. Have him wear his Cooperalls. Oh my God. That was actually what he did remember. And thank you for bringing that up. It made for a great, a great conversation. A couple of podcasts I want to shout out.

One is called the advantaged investor podcast. That's from Raymond James, Canada. Whether you, uh, already work with a trusted financial advisor or currently manage your own investment plans, the advantaged investor provides the engaging wealth management information you value as you pursue your most investment plans. The Advantage Investor provides the engaging wealth management information

you value as you pursue your most important goals. So subscribe to the Advantage Investor. I have a wireless speaker for you, Don. I have one for you too, Gare. This is a great quality speaker that you can listen to your jams with. And you can also listen to season five

of Yes, We Are Open, which is an award-winning podcast from Moneris, hosted by FOTM Al Grego, who will be returning to the program shortly to kick out some jams. And he went east this time. So he went to the Maritimes, he went to Newfoundland,

and he collects stories from small business owners, and he shares their inspiring stories in Yes, We Are Open, season five, dropping now. That's your homework. PumpkinsAfterDark.com is where you go to get tickets for that award-winning Halloween event in Milton, Ontario. You know it's the season. This is the Halloween week.

This is the big week for Pumpkins After Dark. Schedule your visit. Get your tickets now because that'll sell out. Last but not least, I want to shout out Ridley Funeral Home. Pillars of this community since 1921. There's a measuring tape for you if you need to measure anything.

That's courtesy of Ridley Funeral Home. And Recycle My Electronics. I have an episode of Cliff Hacking coming up. We're going to kick out some recycling jams. But that's where you go to find out where you recycle your old electronics, your old devices. Maybe you've got an old organ that doesn't work. Don't throw it in the garbage. My pacemaker.

Oh, you know what? Then we can shout out Ridley Funeral Home for real. That's like a high probability of that going badly. But go to RecycleMyElectronics.com Don has Ridley in his address book right now. That's funny because

Brad Jones is Don has Ridley in his address book right now. That's right. You know what? That's funny because- It's on my speed dial. Brad Jones is not too far away. I can have him come over. This might get exciting. For a fitting? Yes. For a measurement.

Here, I got a tape. You know what? You'll look good. That's all I can promise you. They do good work. They're in their pillars of the community. Okay. So thank you to all who helped make Toronto Mic'd possible.

Jason Schneider, he's a good FOTM himself. He says, Don's a sweetheart. Sounds like Jason's talked to you, Don, because he knows you're a sweetheart. I would love to hear his memories of playing. And now, because I'm an organized host here, I'm going to start playing a little something to set the mood here. Yay! He wants to hear all about the Monterey Pop Festival.

The first group tonight is kind of like in a more difficult position than other groups because everybody's getting settled and someone has to start the show. And this next group, I think we're very happy that they decided because nobody else

wanted to go first. It's a difficult position and let's have a warm hand. Really. Let's make it extra warm for Columbia recording artists Moby grape let's come on there you are Let's hear it. Thank you. One, two, to hear everything. What a moment in rock and roll history.

This is the Monterey Pop Festival in 67. Tell me all your memories of playing this. Can I ask one question first? You're the co-host, of course. Is that Tom Smothers doing the introduction? Indeed. No wonder he sounded so lost without Dick, right? He's just wandering around the stage.

so lost without Dick, right? Just wandering around the stage. But it's funny because in real life, he's actually a pretty sharp, fast-moving, talking guy, and he's in character doing that intro. And the Smothers Brothers were so big at the time, according to controversy. Yes.

I think, first off, being the first, there's two places you didn't want to be in that festival. One was opening, and two would be closing. And if you notice, only Skippy's mic was on. So Jerry and myself,

but we're all singing harmonies. But there was only one mic that was on. Wow. So that was on. Wow. So that was like a, you know, I think as the set goes on, they get some of the other vocals. But the festival was amazing. It was like everybody

who was everybody was there. So you're running into all of these, you're running into Jimi Hendrix and Otis Redding and just, you know, the mamas and the papas who forgave us, they were behind this thing, and they actually invited us and wanted us to come. And so we had just a great time.

We were all living, there was a complex, a motel complex, where almost all of the musicians and their families and boy's girlfriends and whatever were staying. So there was a lot of interaction, a lot of people cooking up brownies and passing them around. And, you know, there's a lot of jamming outside, you know, where the public wasn't really allowed to come in. So, but it was really a great festival and a wonderful feeling, you know, of the day, the time, the love that was being shared at that time the failure of the mics wasn't the first failure involved in in your performance there it was it was the paperwork beforehand right wasn't matthew holding out for a million dollars for you to be included

and that's sort of how you ended up first in the lineup. That's exactly why we ended up first. We were scheduled to be on the same night as Otis and Jimi Hendrix and all that because we had a new album that just had hit the charts and we were an exciting band. And if you listen to the rest of that, you know, the concerts, we were really at a height of playing. We were just like powerful, right? And so it would have been a perfect match for that night. So that was where we were slotted.

And Matthew told, you know, the, who was it? I can't think of the guy's name right now, I'm sorry. But the promoter, that he wouldn't let us perform that night because that's what they were filming the whole festival. He said, you can't film my band unless you give me a million dollars. You give me a million bucks, you can film Moby Grape. It's the biggest band in the world right now. Lou Adler.

Lou Adler, that's right. And Phillips from Mamas and Papas, they kind of co-produced it. So that was his input. That's how great of a manager he was so they said okay well i guess we won't be able to video to film the band and uh they're going to be opening the festival they'll be the first band on so that film ended up becoming famous yeah of which we were not on and uh what would have been great promotion for you guys. Over the years, it would have been. You couldn't buy it for a million dollars. No, no.

That's right. And this laid buried, these tracks laid buried until, I guess, Criterion Collection came along and did an edition of Monterey Pop and among the DVD extras is Moby Grape's performance opening the concert. Although I don't remember Tom Smothers in it.

Yeah, it did get videotaped, but it wasn't by the, it wasn't the same, it didn't have the same quality. No, no. But it did come to light, you know, how long ago was that that came out? I'm not sure. It didn't have the same quality. No, no. But it did come to light, you know, in the, I don't know, how long ago was that that it came out?

I'm not sure. But it wasn't well. Five years or something like that. Yeah, just recently that those, the video of that came out. Yeah, maybe for the fifth. No, we haven't hit the fifth. Yeah. Yeah. Matthew might have sued Criterion over that for all we know.

Did you witness Otis Redding's set at Monterey Pop Festival? Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay, because you're right. When you think back and like, you know, just what a famous moment this is, you know, a couple years before Woodstock, you got this Monterey Pop Festival and Otis Redding's sort of coming out party sort of

where it's like, okay, here he is, let's go. What was it like to see Otis at the height of his powers? Well, I was actually, I had sat down underneath the stage where there was a dressing room with Jimi Hendrix prior to his set with a couple of other guys from our band, and we were just talking with them. So we were very excited about the venue for that night. And I can remember distinctly seeing Otis Redding.

And it just absolutely blew my mind. It was like a lion. It was like a lion moving on the stage with all of this authority and all this power and all this might. He was so confident and so powerful. And it was just like like you're just sitting there saying this is like this is the real deal otis is the man you know and so there was it was

a great performance a great performance one of the weirder album combinations of all time that that otis redding jimmy hendrix live at monterey album right right? Right. One on one side, one on the other. Hard to, like, where, you know, one of these things doesn't belong. No, they both belong, but just they seem very, very different. You know, it's amazing when you think Otis Redding, what, what he left behind, what a

catalog. I mean, the man dies at 26, 26. And then Jimi Hendrix, 27. Right. Like, you will never know. It's one of those uh those drive you crazy thinking about you know what we were you know deprived of from these fantastic artists wow okay monterey so that sounds uh i'm trying to think now when the woodstock had its 50th anniversary there were a bunch of docs and you'd hear about i think it was blood blood sweat and

tears or something where they uh they didn't record it properly or something. Like the tracks, they had an issue and it was out of tune and stuff. And they also were not represented on the very popular documentary that came out about Woodstock. And it sounds like you had a similar unfortunate situation there at the Monterey Pop Festival. But I want to ask a second question from Jason Schneider, and this one's a little heavier, but I'm hoping we can get the real talk from you done. By the way, you've been amazing. Like, Gare, thanks for setting this up.

Gare Joyce, you're going to end up in the Hall of Fame if you keep up this kind of effort here. The FOTM Hall of Fame, of course. Not the Sports Writing Hall of Fame. Yeah, I've got no shot at the Hockey Hall of Fame. You'll get in after Bobcat gets in. I think that's... Pos Hall of Fame. Yeah, I've got no shot at the Hockey Hall of Fame. You'll get in after Bobcat gets in. I think that's... Posthumously.

So next week? I'll fix that in post. Okay. So Jason Schneider also wants to know, he wants to talk about, and I think we need to talk about Skip Spence. And we've kind of alluded to different things here and there. But when you read up on Moby Grape, there's a lot of discussion about Skip Spence. And we've kind of alluded to different things here and there. But when you read up on Moby Grape, there's a lot of discussion about Skip Spence and his use of LSD. And I have the ideal song to kind of talk about Skip Spence, and then we can talk about the end of Moby Grape. But here's a song to guide us along. Take me far away My was and my game

In the dream of yesterday I'm so goodbye When one creeps by Takes my brain away In that dream you were away In that dream you were in the stars I watched the walls all fall away A heap of thoughts we went upon And they stayed that way This is Scene.

And this is from MobyGrape69. And this is a Skip Spence jam. But can you talk to us, Don, about Skip and set the record straight. We hear about, you know, LSD, and you tell us the real story. You were there. First off, you know,

this song is like an amazing song. This isn't Moby Grape. This is off of Aura, I think, off of his personal album. Okay, okay. Moby Grape did this song, and it's an amazing song. The Moby Grape version is much shorter. Yeah, you're right. I pulled a different version.

And it's got a lot of harmonies and guitar parts, and it's a really great composition. And it's a great composition on aura also so the truth can be funny it can be factual it has to be factual it can be scary it can be a lot of things and skippy saying the truth and one of his one of his verses is he talks about the daring ice skater trading you know skating the truth and one of his one of his verses is he talks about uh the daring ice skater trading you know skating the truth on the ice you know so skip was um you know certifiably went uh went into places where you know where he couldn't compromise with the reality that we live in. And so he went to his own place and he got escorted there through LSD and through heroin

and through, you know, through drugs and all through being a creative genius and not being able to kind of, like I said, compromise in the same realm that most people live in.

And so eventually you had to go check him out like a library book in San Jose, where he was staying in a facility where they took care of him. He actually ended up with a girlfriend that really took care of him and loved him, and his end story was pretty cool. But that's what happened.

I mean, you know, and Bob Mosley also. A song on volume two of this album I just did is called Stories You Don't Know. And it's interesting. Like in almost every home and almost every family and almost every situation, particularly in these days, there's mental health issues that happen. And people don't talk about them because it's a betrayal to the person who's mentally ill or it's um or it's too difficult to to deal with or it's too hard to you know it just gets pushed down and doesn't get dealt with and so you know so bob mosley also was

schizophrenic and lived for many many years under the freeway and you know had a one that's own anyways so there's those that issues and and i think that uh that you know i don't i don't think peter's mentally ill but i think peter has such depth of um concepts and philosophies that it becomes very difficult to understand everything that he's thinking because of his complicated nature right and so so I just think that Skip was

was a we're not not a victim but just a certain segment of that time and that place where the love that was happening in Haight-Ashbury, which was real. I mean, you know, if somebody wanted your coat, you gave it to them and said, hey, how would you like my hat, you know? So there was a real spirit of cooperation that was going on.

And, you know, just like everything can't last forever. And it turned. And that would be a Woodstock was a perfect example of that. And so Skip became, like I said, overcome and overwhelmed by this woman in the village that was, I guess she was a witch, you know, and so overcome by psychedelics and by philosophies and by control by this person. And that's, you know, that's when, that's how the band broke up. You know, that's when Skip went in tombs after he tried to come to the hotel door at the, you know, in New York with a fire axe. They're looking for me. It would have been the ultimate rock and roll death. It would have.

Kill the drummer. That's right. Yeah, so that was it. Wow, I feel like you can't just say that and walk away. Could you elaborate on that? So we know about the the the substance abuse but also pairing that with mental illness um well the one thing i'd say in like by by the accounts by your account we've talked about it before skip went someplace with

the woman he went off with he went He went someplace and never really came back. Exactly. And after that, so that was in New York. Right. And you guys are recording, was it at Black Rock or something like CBS? Yeah, we were recording in Columbia Studios. Yeah. And so that's where the band, I would guess, would be in crisis before that.

But then it was hazardous to your health. Well, it's a fire axe incident, right? So this is when you're, I guess you're recording Wow. Right. Yeah. So it was also, you know, we also like ended up, uh, you know,

the Fillmore East, we ended up having the, uh, the, the distinct distinction of like having the, probably the worst set of music ever played in the history. And it was the last closing night. So,

uh, you know, that was, uh, it was a lot. B.B. King came on after us and, and cleaned it all up.

But that was when Bob was like at his height of, or was going sideways and would play in the wrong key. And Skip was like just, you know, sabotaging, not on purpose, just he was doing his best, but it didn't, he wasn't playing the same song as the rest of us. And so, yeah, so that was, that was kind of like, you know, the end of that era. And so, yeah, he had come up to the studios where Jerry and I were recording.

Because it was right, you were right, things were kind of falling apart at that time. Peter didn't want to be there, and there was a lot of stuff that was going on. Peter the perfectionist and Skip the most imperfect person in the world. Yes. And also suffering from schizophrenia, right? Like this is his diagnosis anyways in 1968. Right. So he came up to the studios at Columbia

to find Jerry and I. And at that point he was with this witch and she was telling him what to do. She was saying what he should do and what he shouldn't do. And I had actually gone to their apartment in Greenwich Village and had spent a little bit of time, you know, because I knew Skip wouldn't come to rehearsals and didn't do that and I went down to see him, you know, and see what was going on.

They had a street guy who was probably as old as I am right now, if not older, but didn't, that and I went down to see him and see what was going on. They had a street guy who was probably as old as I am right now if not older but didn't, you know, and he was laying on the couch and that was their oracle. This guy was an oracle and so I got out of there pretty quickly and so when

Jerry and I were some days later, we went into the studio to record Big which was not a song that we were ever going to record. But it was a song that Jerry and I wrote that made us laugh. It's a funny song. And actually, the recording came out really cool because it's so imperfect. But anyway, we were doing that. And then we left the studio to go back to the Albert Hotel.

And when we left the studio to go to the Albert Hotel, Sk and when we left the studio to go to albert hotel skippy showed up at the studio with uh you know with this woman just saying you know have you seen don you know have you seen jerry have you seen don you know and uh so david rubinson who was always the adult in the room and tried to calm him down and um and but he left and uh so david tried to send out a message, said Skippy's really gone off, you know. So Skippy came back to the Albert Hotel, and then Jerry and I had left again to go back up to the studio. And just as we had left, Skippy came to the hotel

and took a fire axe and went through the front door and was, you know, here's Skippy. The shining. Yes. That's wherehen king got it from yeah and so then so they uh actually when he went back up to studio that's when uh david uh you know called some some help and they actually put a skip in the tombs and uh and before that happened you know it it's, really a great thing. I was freaked out. David said, Skippy's trying to kill you.

And so I said, well, I don't know what to do. So I called my Indian grandma. And she was like a First Nations woman and lived up in the Napa Valley. And she was my wife's grandmother. And I always loved her. We'd go up to her place and we'd kill a rabbit and cook it. I mean, you know, this was real. It means nothing to me.

Yeah. No. So, sorry, man. But anyway, we knew what we were doing when we had dinner. And so I called her, and I said, you know, because she was mystical, and I called her. I said, here's what's going on. This guy's running around the city in New York, and I don't know what kind of perception he has, but he's trying to kill me. And she said, well, you just plead the blood of Jesus.

And at that point, that almost freaked me out as much as, but it worked. But you did try to, Moby Grape did try to carry on without Skip, right? I think we did Moby Grape 69, which was one of the best albums we ever did. And we toured all over Europe. the best albums we ever did and we toured all over you know europe and yeah we we carried we played a gig in uh philadelphia after we played new york and then we took the train moved to philadelphia we played at the spectrum and uh that gig was without skip and we missed obviously you missed skip but we played in the circle and it's a circle in the round it was a round stage and there was 25 000 people in the in the spectrum at that It was a round stage, and there was 25,000 people in the spectrum at that time.

We were the Chambers Brothers and the Staples Singers and Janis Joplin, and it was quite a venue. It was probably the best we ever sounded because when we were sitting there, I was sitting and looking directly at Bob Mosley, and Peter was looking at Jerry, and we were all singing. So for the first, I'm not sitting there, I was sitting and looking directly at Bob Mosley and Peter was looking at Jerry and we were all singing.

And so for the first, I'm not standing behind, I'm not sitting behind everybody. I'm looking at each other in the face. And so our harmonies were just like bang on. And we did a, an amazing set and you just hear that. Man,

you jump off the stage and head into the back room and, you know, Janice and Adele said, that was a wonderful wonderful set way to go you guys and then we jammed until the janitor kicked us out and all these people backstage you you played the uh the cut from a skip spence's or a solo album so that was something that that skip recorded after he was released from the institution in New York after he attempted to murder you.

And so David Rubinson was the producer on that. Right. And I talked to David about this one time. And so Skip actually left the institution in New York after like months. I don't know if it was six months. He didn't have access to any instruments or paper or even, you know, a pencil. But he wrote Orr kind of and banked it in his memory. And like David told me that Skip was released,

still in a hospital gown, right? Hops on a motorcycle and rides to Nashville and records this album that, you know, he had no opportunity to practice or rehearse or anything like that. Just cold, right? And every instrument, right? It's kind of one of the,

I think it's the freakiest aspect of it at all. And David's kind of the undersold hero in all this mix. And funnily enough, David Rubinson, you talk about the litigation of Matthew Cates. David Rubinson was served papers

from Matthew as he was being wheeled into heart surgery. Oh, man. By the way, in the background now, so this is the Moby Grape version, right, from Moby Grape 69.

So this is the scene. So, yeah, so like. The first comment on this YouTube link where I'm playing it from YouTube. What happened to Moby Grape is a tragedy of music. Why they are virtually forgotten today is absolutely mind-boggling. That is just a comment there randomly thrown on the page for scene from Moby Grape. An interesting thing about Skip also is that he was approached

by Twilight Zone to write some background music for the Twilight Zone. It was too strange for the Twilight Zone. That when you're too strange for the Twilight Zone. That, when you're too strange for the Twilight Zone, that's your calling card here. Okay, so we're going to say goodbye to Moby Grape

because I want to bring us up to speed of what's going on now because you're going to be playing Massey Hall. There's so much stuff, what's happening now, but I did promise an FOTM here. So I'm going to read a note from an FOTM that is Ian Blurton. And Ian is from Change

of Heart. And he writes in Moby Grape is a great band. Change of Heart covered a Moby Grape song on Smile. So Smile happens to be my favorite Change of Heart album. There's a little context. And here I want to play it a little bit, find out, A, do you know about this? And then B, what do you think of it? Because I know Ian's listening right now. Papa, your words on the 4th of July Can I buy an amplifier on time? I ain't got no money now But I will pay you before I die Don Stevenson, any notes for Ian Blurton there? He's a big fan.

Well, thank you for singing that. You did a fantastic job. I love that. It's really nice to have you do that. I appreciate it. At the time that that song, when we put it on the album, it was the shortest song ever recorded by a rock and roll band. That's it.

By the way, I didn't play that down. I just want to let the listeners know. I didn't truncate that. That was the full cover from Smile. Yeah. Very nice cover. All right, Ian, there you go. Now you have your, you can take that as your ringtone. Very nice cover. Shout out to Ian Blurton. Now, okay, so Moby Grape, obviously, maybe

you give us the segue. So Moby Grape breaks up, and then you and, you form the Rhythm Dukes. Tell us about that transition there. So the Rhythm Dukes is a non-starter, man. I wasn't really even in the Rhythm Dukes. I know it goes down in history as I was, but Fuzzy John was the drummer in the Rhythm Dukes. I think maybe I could play three cards on a guitar,

so as long as they just played country songs, I was in the band. And then they realized I couldn't play a B-flat minor, and they told me to, you know, shuffle off. So I thought it was a good band, though. Yeah, you know, because history... John Barrett and... Yeah, history suggests that Jerry Miller and Don Stevenson formed the Rhythm Dukes post-Moby Grape. But you're here to correct the record. Yeah, Jerry and I

actually formed a band called Swifty Toulouse after that. And that was a cool band. And we played with One Hand Clapping, too. But yeah, the Rhythm Dukes is a really good little band down there. But I wasn't in it.

Listen, okay, if Rosie Gray Tio is listening, we have some Wikipedia updates to do here. Okay, you've been amazing. I feel like I've taken so much of your time, but here's a song. Well, I've been planted by the river. I am waiting on the shore. And I am growing on living water. I will walk in sin no more. Thank you, Lord.

Oh, thank you, Lord. Oh, thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Now I'm treated, oh. Thank you, Lord, for Don Stevenson. My goodness gracious, what are we listening to, Don? Sounds amazing. That's off my new, soon-to-be-released album,

Unlimited Engagement. And that's a song just of gratitude. And I think my family and my faith are really, you know, I'm like one of those football players that come off after the game and go, I just want to thank God and I'm so lucky to be here and playing with these guys and that's exactly how I feel. So that's what that song is an expression of. The only thing that's limited is the engagement with Don. Like, I mean, to me, you're an inspiration the way that, like, you still want to get out and create and perform, you know, and at 82, I mean, it's...

Wait, wait, wait, wait, don't bury this lead. Don Stevenson is 82 years old. This man I've been talking to for the last 90 minutes is 82 years old. Yeah. You honestly wouldn't know. He has to be. You know, like, I'm practically there, right?

You know, it's like. Well, you're there physically. Yeah. But no. Yeah. And you recorded. So King of Fools was your first solo. Right.

And so you were almost 70 then, like 68 or so, something like that, which is a tremendous, tremendous debut album, debut solo album, considering, you know, Rolling Stone says that Moby Grape's debut album is one of the greatest of all time. It always shows up on those lists. And one of the, I think it was number 115 or 120 greatest 500 albums of all time. And Omaha always shows up on those best guitar jam songs lists. Yeah. But like, I would say that Don's King of Fools is the best debut solo album of anyone over 60.

I would, it's like, what were you waiting for? We're into analytics. You know what? Does Alberta Hunter fit on that list? Alberta Hunter. Yeah, she might be on that list. It's like when Makarov won Rookie of the Year or whatever, and they said, oh, wait a minute here. It's like Don Stevenson, Rookie of the Year.

But yeah, King of Fools really is amazing. And this just is well listen to it beautiful listen to this thank you Well done, Don. Now you're actually at Massey Hall. We got to talk about this gig. It's coming up.

So this is November 18, 2023. This is the last Waltz tribute. Massey Hall, what can you tell us about, like who can we see there? And what can you tell us about this Massey Hall gig? It's Don's debut at Massey Hall. It's Massey Hall, what can you tell us about, like who can we see there and what can you tell us about this Massey Hall game? It's Don's debut at Massey Hall. It's Massey Hall debut. My debut.

It's Chess Fever, who's a band out of San Diego. And they're really great musicians, great players, really. And they do the entire last waltz from the beginning to the end. And so that's the show. But they also invite performers to come and join them. And so I've been invited to come in to join the band. I'm singing any number of Bob Dylan songs with my friend Jerry Lejar. And so it's nice to be included in that. I'm really looking forward to it. You know, it's really a cool event.

Very cool. Again, November 18th starts at 7 o'clock at Massey Hall, which is basically, that's the best venue in the country as far as I'm concerned. Amazing. Better late than never, Don Stevenson making his Massey Hall debut. Man, Gary,

mop-up time. What a career, what an episode. I'm honored to be here with Don. The new music at 82 years old sounds amazing. Listen, Don leaves me shaking

my head and just sort of worshipful and hopeful. I look at Don and I think, God, if he's out there performing, creating, engaged, perpetually optimistic, you know, resilient, you know, why can't I? Why shouldn't I? That's the way I, what would Don do?

Right. But I just, I just, we were talking about the creative aspect, you know, when we were sitting at the Lucky Dice diner. Shout out to New Toronto's institution, Lucky Dice.

Potential new sponsor for Toronto Mike. But we were talking about it, and it is you sit down and you work at it, and the more you work at it, you get to places that you wouldn't go. And there's no coast in Don Stevenson and I hope that I won't ever get coasting

How was this for you Don? How was your, you know not only are you making your Massey Hall debut but you just made your Toronto Mike debut How was this? Well Massey Hall can't stand up to this He has completely got the spirit of Toronto Mike right there. Don Stevenson.

I think the mind blow of this episode, there's many here, but the fact that busking at a TTC station near you could be Don Stevenson, rock and roll legend, a drummer for Moby Grape. That's a mind blow. By the way, I know it predates your involvement with the band, but do you know like who for Moby Grape. That's a mind. But by the way, I know it predates your involvement with the band. But do you know, like, who named Moby Grape?

I know you joined it, I think, after the name was already in place there. But do you know the story of how Moby Grape got its name? No, I was there from the very first moment there was a breath into Moby Grape. And I think if you talk to Matthew, he invented it. But not really. Mosley and Skip came into rehearsal one day, and we were trying to find names for the band. Matthew wanted to call us the Bull Brummers or something. But Bob says, you know what? I heard this terrible joke.

What's big and purple and swims in the sea, right? And he said, Moby Grape. And we went, that's really out there with the, you know, Strawberry Alarm Clock and all the other stupid names that are around. Right. I think people remember that. So we became Moby Grape.

Named after a dad joke, essentially. Yes, exactly. A bad dad joke. Good luck at Massey Hall. I like this promo item here I see from Chess Fever. It says,

prepare to be bowled over by a seasoned icon. I think that says it all. Prepare to be bowled over by a seasoned icon. I think that says it all. Prepare to be bowled over by a seasoned icon. Thank you to you, Don Stevenson. Amazing debut. And Gare,

thanks so much for being here in person and for making this happen. You are the straw that stirred this drink. And Gare, thank you from the bottom of my heart. I'm on the ballot for the Toronto. I didn't say that. I think Don will be in there before you. We better be.

Shout out to Ridley Funeral Home. And that brings us to the end of our 1,351st show. Now you can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike. I'm also

on Blue Sky S Toronto Mike. How can we learn more about what's happening with you Don Stevenson? Well unlimited engagement if you're interested in the music you can email me at Don Stevenson with a V

1000 at gmail.com and if you request an album I will mail you one. the V, 1000 at gmail.com. And if you request an album, I will mail you one. You can pay me whatever you like, or don't pay me at all. I don't care. So, Don Stevenson, 1000 at gmail.com. Just drop me a note, and I think the albums will be pressed and finished in about three weeks. I'll mail you one.

Amazing. Gare, shout out your awesome sub stack there. How can we subscribing hear more from you? Yeah, my sub stack is called How to Succeed in Sports Writing Without Really Trying. And it comes out weekly, twice weekly sometimes. And it's a follow-up to my audible memoir of the same name, How to Succeed in Sports Writing Without Really Trying. And we'll be back here tomorrow,

but first I want to thank our sponsors who made this all possible. Thank you to Great Lakes Brewery. Thank you, Palma Pasta, Raymond James Canada, Mineris, Recycle My Electronics, Pumpkins After Dark, and Ridley Funeral Home. See you tomorrow at noon when Rob Pruce and Bob Ouellette return for another episode of Toast.

That will also live stream at live.torontomike.com. Again, this will be Friday, October 27th. See you all then. And I've kissed you in places I better not name And I've seen the sun go down on Shakhty Kul But I like it much better going down on you Yeah, you know that's true Because everything is coming up

Rosy and green Yeah, the wind is cold, but the smell of snow warms us today. And your smile is fine, and it's just like mine, and it won't go away. Because everything is rosy now. Everything is rosy, yeah. Everything is rosy and, everything is rosy and gray.