Sweet Read for a Chilly Winter

Dear Editor,
    Now that's my kind of cover story [“Naked If I Want To,” Music, Jan. 8]! Louis Black's loving tribute to the first Moby Grape album was a sweet read for a chilly winter afternoon and got me to break out my copy of Vintage, the double-disc Grape anthology from a few years back, which has the album in its entirety on the first disc (with the addition of some false starts and hilariously profane studio chatter).
    What a great record! I used to have the poster that was included in early pressings of the LP hanging up in my dorm room, and though my punk rock friends gave me a hard time about liking "hippie shit," even they were impressed by the power of "Fall on You" and "Omaha."
    The analogy between Moby Grape and Orson Welles is particularly apt, and I guess that makes Wow, the second Grape LP, the musical equivalent of The Magnificent Ambersons.
    I was also reminded of Michael O'Donoghue's not-suitable-for-publication variation on the old joke that gave Moby Grape its name: "What's purple, has a lot of harpoons stuck in it, and is chained to a makeshift plywood pillory?"