[P47P47]

...in spite of never actually mentioning Omaha in the lyrics?




Omaha-Moby Grape-1968 - YouTube

[Irishtom29]

I saw Moby Grape several times and they were by far the hardest rocking of the Frisco hippie bands, probably because they had Southern California Surfer band and Pacific Northwest "Louie-Louie" band roots rather than the lame folkie-jug band and wanna-be beatnik roots of so many hippie bands. They blew the doors off the Airplane, Dead, Quicksilver and Country Joe and the Fish. The only hippie band that matched them in rocking
intensity was Big Brother. Blue Cheer was pretty good too.

[DOUBLE H]

Thought I'd weigh in here.

"Omaha" was released as a single (Columbia 44173). I double checked with one of my fact books (Joel Whitburn's "Billboard Top 40 Hits') and it appears the song never hit the charts. I talked to a buddy of mine who owns a collector shop in the area (Kanesville Kollectibles in Council Bluffs) and he said as Omaha was developing a little more radio FM stations, it would get played from time to time. The single was sent as "Advance Copies" (aka promos) to the radio stations. IMO if they promoted it it would have been a top 5 chart hit for sure! .Irishtom 29 IS right, it's a great hard driving rock tune! It apparently does get a spin from time to time on the radio. IIRC both the single and the lp (their 1st) were released around March of 1968. And in those days there wasn't a lot of FM radio stations, sadly!

Omaha has had a successful record/CD/music memorabilia swap meet for the better half of two decades now. For years it was held at the old Radial Social Hall. Nowadays it's at the Firefighters Hall off I-80 near Grove Street (I think).

My own opinion of the song? If I set up a table with a dozen copies of "Omaha", they'd sell in the first hour. Moby Grape as a band only lasted a few years but they had a couple great lp's released in 1968. One of the leaders of that band (and a co-founder) was Skip Spence, who was originally the first drummer of the Jefferson Airplane! Was kind of sad they didn't last longer. Their last lp was released in 1971, titled 20 Granite Creek. After that sadly they broke up.

[CrownVic95]

Omaha is one of my classic favorites and I still have my vinyl 45.

I moved from Henrietta, NY to Omaha in the summer of '68 and I remember the song getting lots in airplay in Rochester before we left. Don't remember hearing it as much in Omaha, but that may have been timing as much as anything. I do remember that there was a good station in Council Bluffs that played it from time to time after that.

Funny thing about the question of "Omaha" being in the lyrics. These days, of course, you can Google anything and get info instantly - like the lyrics of a song. Back when Omaha was released we were decades away from that, so I was never 100% sure exactly what all of the words were. So this morning I did that for "Omaha" for the first time, after seeing this thread. There was one spot where, for all these years, I kinda thought they were saying Omaha, but the search reveals that they're really saying "no more" rain. I just figured that they had to be mentioning Omaha somewhere and that sounded the closest to it.

Oh well, now I know. But that still leaves the question - why is it titled "Omaha"?

Edit: I listened to it again and it still sounds like they could be saying "Omaha" there

Moby Grape - Omaha - YouTube