Moby Grape

Columbia Records promotional photo, 1967.
L-R: Skip Spence, Jerry Miller, Bob Mosley, Peter Lewis, Don Stevenson

Moby Grape is an American rock band founded in 1966 as part of San Francisco's psychedelic music scene. The band actually had elements of rock, folk music, pop, blues, and country music.

Their name came from a joke that played off Herman Melville's Moby Dick: What's big and purple and lives in the sea? Moby Grape. member Don Stevenson says that it was a time of rather silly, nonsensical band names like Strawberry Alarm Clock, Electric Prunes, and 13th Floor Elevator.

They were one of the few groups in which all members were lead vocalists and songwriters. Before they had recorded, they had played many club gigs with all original songs. 

A trivia bit about the 1967 debut album is that the band photo has Don Stevenson making a middle finger gesture over a washboard. It is airbrushed off later cover and poster photos making the original album quite collectible.

The later years and albums became overshadowed by the story of Skip Spence. Alexander "Skip" Spence had been a guitarist but but became the drummer for the Jefferson Airplane on their first album but was kicked out after that. He went back to guitar when the Moby Grape was formed.

Spence had been using a lot LSD along with many in the San Francisco psychedelic scene. He developed severe mental illnesses, including a belief that he was the Antichrist. He'd attacked two of his bandmates with an axe, and had also gone to the CBS building and attacked people there. Luckily nobody was injured, but he was committed to a psychiatric hospital. Lewis, who had left the band for a time, returned to take his place.

There are several collections of their "best of" songs and reissues of their original albums.

In 2018 a detailed biography - What's Big And Purple And Lives In The Ocean?: The Moby Grape Story by Cam Cobb was published.

Trivia: Peter Lewis is the son of the film star Loretta Young,

For Contrast: They went to Columbia Studios in March 1967 to cut their first album, which took five days. The Beach Boys were also in Columbia studios over the same five days, in another studio in the complex, and spent all 5 days just doing vocal overdubs for the “Heroes and Villains” single.

Supertramp

Supertramp is an English rock band formed in London in 1969. The band's songwriting founders, Roger Hodgson and Rick Davies, originally called their band "Daddy" but to avoid confusion with the similarly named Daddy Longlegs, the band changed its name to "Supertramp." 

That name was inspired by The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp by William Henry Davies, who was a Welsh poet and writer who spent much of his life as a tramp or hobo, in the United Kingdom and the United States. He also became one of the most popular poets of his time. His writing focused on nature, observations about life's hardships, his tramping adventures, and the various characters he met. In 1948, the BBC Home Service recorded a version of the book in 15 episodes narrated by Welsh poet Dylan Thomas.

Rick Davies, founder and only constant member, shared the same surname as the Welsh writer, but it was original guitarist and lyricist Richard Palmer-James who suggested the name. Palmer left the band after only 16 months, and they carried on for four decades. In 1986, the group released a collectible compilation titled The Autobiography of Supertramp, a direct reference to the book.

They started as a progressive band but moved to a more pop-oriented approach which led to their most popular album, Breakfast in America. Released in March 1979, it reached number 3 in the UK and number 1 in the US and Canada. The album spawned four successful singles (more than their first five albums combined): three of Hodgson's songs, "The Logical Song", "Take the Long Way Home" and "Breakfast in America," and Davies's "Goodbye Stranger." 

The Very Best of Supertramp is their hits package and Slow Motion is their eleventh and final studio album, released in April 2002.

Official Site www.supertramp.com

My Ears Are Burning

If someone says “My Ears Are Burning” they mean that they think someone is talking about them behind their back.

The origin comes from Ancient Rome. Romans paid particular attention to bodily sensations. They believed signs could be omens of good or bad luck, depending on where these sensations occurred. 

The left-hand side was associated with bad luck and the right side was good luck. 

A burning sensation in the left ear indicated criticism. Burning in the right ear was associated with praise.

Over the centuries, the two merged and it became a more generalized feeling that you were being talked about. There is no science behind it, just superstition, and no actual burning sensation is required to feel like you are being talked about in either a good or bad way.