Artist:   Alexander Spence
Song:   "Little Hands"
Album: Oar
Label:   Sundazed
Year:    1969

There is no way to describe what this album sounded like when it was released in 1969. It was a musical postcard from so far beyond the edge that the edge had disappeared into an inner outer space. Alexander "Skip" Spence had been an original member of both Jefferson Airplane and Moby Grape, but found himself in Bellevue Hospital's psychiatric ward in 1968 after he tried to kill the Grape's drummer with a fire ax. He wrote all the songs on Oar while he was locked up, and once released, recorded the album by himself during several days in a Nashville studio, of all places. And then basically disappeared into the streets of Santa Cruz for thirty years, dying in 1999. "Little Hands" is like a nursery rhyme for grown-ups, sung with a supernatural mixture of passion and pain. Spence is obviously beyond the realm, and from the sound of his voice he's trying to outrun the demons breathing down his neck. If only he can convince them--and himself--there's a way out of the psychic corner he's painted himself into, maybe hope will save the day. Mental illness is so often an intangible that makes it seem like time is up. This music is the sound of a man reaching out for a lifeline with only his songs as support. There is really nothing like it in popular music, but how could there be? One of the creators of psychedelic rock took a turn into the dark side, coming up for air just long enough to take a stab at immortality, and then sinking again under the weight of thoughts none of us should have to think. Listen and learn what it's like to live there.