Captain Beefheart

I mean that "Decals" sounds less like a rock album (because all teh bottom's been taken out) and more like just more cerebral, sexless, "difficult" music for dwellers of musical ghettoes to consume. Actually I still love the album, esp. "Bellerin' Plain"

I have never read that zappa book BTW and I like henry cow.

"Beefheart needs to sound like a rock band" - great, just what the wrld needs, another fuckin' rock band. I like the sound of 'Decals' prob. because it's marginal and scratchy and 'bottomless' or whatever - v. 'punk', not rock. 'Clear Spot' sounds like a Van Morrison alb.

"Trout Mask Replica" still SOUNDS like a wrong album, it's produced to SOUND like a rock album not something esoteric and avant-garde.

Andrew, if you think "Clear Spot" sounds like a Van Morrison album can you point me to which Van Morrison album and I will order forthwith.

Should read: "Trout Mask Replica" still SOUNDS like a ROCK album, it's produced to SOUND like a rock album not something esoteric and avant-garde.

(Freudian Slip)

Anyway, I even quite like "Unconditionally Guaranteed" and "Bluejeans and Moonbeams" - so what do I know?

"Bellerin' Plain" is another electricfying track.

hahaha!

yup.

must get doc as well. its criminal that i haven't heard this yet.

I rank the Beefheart albums thusly:

1) Decals
2) Trout Mask
3) Strictly Personal
3) Clear Spot
4) Doc
5) Crow
6) Safe as Milk
7) Spotlight Kid
8) Mirror Man

I haven't heard "Unconditionally Guaranteed" or "Bluejeans and Moonbeams." I suspect they're not nearly as bad as everyone says, but I won't mind being wrong on that score.

Whoever said that "Decals" doesn't rock is insane. "Doctor Dark" is one of the rockinist songs EVAH. Plus the title track? Come ON! I do love TMR, but it's hard for me to swallow in one go. Plus, some of the instrumental 'house' versions of the TMR songs available on the "Grow Fins" boxset are more groovin' than the Zappa studio versions, particularly "Hobo Chang Ba."

Trout Mask .. genious, masterpice, etc.. but I think it sounds like a late 60's psychedelic album (which it is...) .But I mean, it sounds dated & sounds like he was trying to be weird.. Decals seems more *?sincere?* (not sure if that's the word I want...)

...Al Johnson of U.S. Maple.

Stuff like 'Doc' on the other hand incorporated the weirdness much better, taking the music somewhere else, instead of putting the weirdness into music. I dunno - maybe it stems from my total disinterest in da bluuues, whereas I dig Doc's contemporay rock base, on an atonal tip

the time signatures in beefheart are not 4/4 like in blues but they are not quite the same. the way the instruments 'grate' against one another in TMR aren't like in a blues record. that's even before you get to the field recording shit.

the blues is at the heart of TMR but to call it simply a blues rec is to kind of simplify things a bit.

So amend my list to add "Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller)" at #9.

Thanks for reminding me, I'd forgotten that was on.

Ry Cooder:

We wrote the tune and I don't remember a whole lot about it except that [I wondered] who can sing this? Well, only Beefheart's got that kind of crazy low voice to put this across. I got him to come down out of the desert - it was the last time I saw him. Locked him in a room and went through all kinds of hell to get him to sing the whole song once. He's the most incorrigible, difficult guy in the world. "I hate Hollywood... those lights - I hate those lights... who's that guy?" That's just the producer, leave him alone... "I hate producers." Just sing the song. "I have to go to the bathroom." Just sing... the song. Jesus Christ! We locked the door. Actually did. "Get me outta here," he was yelling - banging the door with his fists. I said, "You sing - then you can come out." He put me through a lot of hell during the Safe As Milk days and I got off on that. I got him now! We got Beefheart now. But it was good.

it's too bad the much more profane film version doesn't seem to have been released anywhere officially...

Only found out the other day that there's an exhibition of Don's paintings currently on in London:

https://www.michaelwerner.com/exhibitions/don-van-vliet7

― Ward Fowler, Wednesday, 10 January 2024 bookmarkflaglink

Nice. I am definitely going

I went. Found the paintings to have a similar energy to his music. They are not fully abstract, nor fully figurative.

I've never been to the desert but I got a feeling this is what it could be like. They transported me there.

One week to go, it's just three rooms. Go.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucA3q5VCQW0

RIP to elliot ingber aka winged eel fingerling on gibson les paul junior wearing sunglasses and aloha shirt on stage right.

RIP. This was his moment in the sun...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3i0wU9HsCE0

Samuel Andreyev's YouTube channel has some great Magic Band interview videos. Also recommended is his analysis and transcription of 'Frownland'.

RIP Elliot - total legend. The Fraternity of Man album is a banger. Worked alot with Lowell George.

RIP

RIP

I actually didn't realize he was in such poor physical health by the time I knew his music (i.e. around the turn of the century). I knew he had health issues, but I finally saw this film from 1993, apparently his last public appearance of sorts, and it's clear he wasn't going to return to performing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwytKykXbpM

iirc he quit performing (and music) specifically to devote his time to painting, irregardless of his health. the gallery that sold his work told him that if he wanted to be taken seriously as an artist he would need to do it exclusively.

I think it had a lot to do with his health. Wasn't his condition why he lived out in the desert, as he would be more comfortable in that kind of heat?

I think Richard Strange had a similar thing, I recall him saying the only time he felt comfortable was in a phone box in the middle of a heatwave.

He lived in coastal northern California in his later years, not the desert.

wiki:

He exhibited only few of his paintings because he immediately destroyed any that did not satisfy him.

and yeah he died in Arcata! as wet as it gets.

Well, when he quit music after "Ice cream for crow" that's when I meant

Once the money from the art started coming in he moved to the coast basically.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Music/comments/c16htc/50_years_ago_today_captain_beefheart_and_his/ercoua6/?context=3

"I cared for Don Van Vliet during my clinical rotation as a nursing student in the hospital the week before he passed away at Mad River Hospital. It was a surreal experience to wash his junk. I was the only person who knew who he was while he was a patient."

holy shit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1bqBXfrxio

Newly discovered footage from a 72 Beefheart show in Paris. Looks like Elliot Ingbar, Bill Harkelroad, and Mark Boston on guitars, Roy Estrada on bass, and Art Tripp on drums.

Nice angles!

The Magic Band are wearing the same outfits as from the German TV appearance:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpHgG4jILa0

How many other drummers have worn a monocle?

...or panties as a doo-rag?

...or panties as a doo-rag?

― imperial frfr (Steve Shasta)

it's actually pretty common in japanese media

anyway glad to see some footage of this gig show up

the audio from their '72 "pop deux" appearance has circulated for a while... i had a tape of it back in the '90s. "click clack" from the broadcast has also circulated on video for a long-ass time.

the tracklist on my audio copy:

"don speaks" (0:11)
hair pie: bake iii (mark boston solo) (0:51)
alice in blunderland (3:36)
abba zaba (3:00)
interview (part 1) (1:56)
click clack (2:54)
my human gets me blues (1:22, only end section - not cut, this is just all they played for whatever reason)
interview (part 2) (1:47)
i'm gonna booglarize you baby (3:14)
interview (part 3) (2:38)
spitball scalped a baby (drum-sax duet) (1:14)
golden birdies (2:08)

the interviews are overdubbed in french and weren't on the copy i originally had on tape

would be nice to see the whole video show up some day... whenever INA gets around to posting it i guess. INA does a really good job of taking care of their archive, so i'm sure the whole thing is around.

that "Click Clack" video was on the Grow Fins box (and it totally rules ofc)

in other exciting Beefheart news, thanks to tyler for hipping me to this stunning new remaster/"demix" of Safe As Milk, plus tons of bonus tracks including some I had never heard before.

https://www.profstoned.com/2025/04/captain-beefheart-his-magic-band-safe.html

oh nice, i don't often keep track of prof stoned's stuff but they do good work