Moby Grape at Carousel Ballroom

The Carousel Ballroom in San Francisco was the former El Patio Ballroom, and it was leased and managed by the Grateful Dead and other San Francisco bands to provide a venue not controlled by either Bill Graham or Chet Helms.  But the bands were better musicians than businessmen and they breathed a sigh of relief when, by summer, Graham had taken over the lease on the Carousel and renamed it the Fillmore West.

Sometime in April 1968, Moby Grape released their second album, Wow, which was packaged with a Super Session style album called Grape Jam. The public and Columbia Records – which had badly blundered when introducing their first album a year earlier -- perceived this as overkill, despite the fact that it eventually climbed up to #20 on the Billboard charts. The Grape played these shows while under the management of Mathew Katz, who coincidentally was also managing It’s A Beautiful Day.  Two for one!  Or…maybe three for one…..

Around this time another group calling themselves Moby Grape was appearing up and down the West Coast as well. It seems that the contract with Katz gave him complete control over the name and so he began funding a bunch of imposters performing under the same name.