This is one of the few polls where I had no clue as to which song was gonna win.
― baaderonixx, Tuesday, 15 January 2008 09:20 (sixteen years ago) link
I missed this one. I would have voted for the first track, "The Dust Blows Forward 'N The Dust Blows Back." I love this album more as the years go by.
― nicky lo-fi, Tuesday, 15 January 2008 09:25 (sixteen years ago) link
Grabt album but I wouldn't have a clue which track is which.
― Autumn Almanac, Tuesday, 15 January 2008 09:48 (sixteen years ago) link
And, er, I'm surprised anyone else can remember. Did you all listen for your favourite track so you could find out its name?
― Autumn Almanac, Tuesday, 15 January 2008 09:49 (sixteen years ago) link
i could've voted for about 15 tracks, so i didn't vote.
― Frogman Henry, Tuesday, 15 January 2008 09:52 (sixteen years ago) link
(xpost) Sorry, what do you mean?
― Tom D., Tuesday, 15 January 2008 09:53 (sixteen years ago) link
"Moonlight" and "Ella" are two of the "poppier" (ha) songs on the album, so not so surprising they came out on top
― Tom D., Tuesday, 15 January 2008 09:54 (sixteen years ago) link
They are not all the same!
I could sing you all the tracks if you mentioned the title, apart from some of the instrumentals (c'mon, that'd be a tuff gig!)
I haven't heard it for a while though (mislaid my CD somewhere)
― Mark G, Tuesday, 15 January 2008 09:55 (sixteen years ago) link
Oh, yeah, that's a good point.
― Autumn Almanac, Tuesday, 15 January 2008 09:58 (sixteen years ago) link
"Ella" is the closest this album gets to a chorus.
― baaderonixx, Tuesday, 15 January 2008 10:19 (sixteen years ago) link
The only thing about "Ella Guru" is the talking over bit. Which is fine on the album, but I'd like it without, for compiling externally.
I do have the instumental backing track, so one day I'll re-edit it.
― Mark G, Tuesday, 15 January 2008 10:28 (sixteen years ago) link
I didn't vote. Probably would have gone with Sugar N Spikes because it deserves at least one vote.
― sonderangerbot, Tuesday, 15 January 2008 10:32 (sixteen years ago) link
It does. It's another of the pop songs!
― Tom D., Tuesday, 15 January 2008 10:33 (sixteen years ago) link
xp - you mean the whole "She's young too!..." rant?
― baaderonixx, Tuesday, 15 January 2008 11:04 (sixteen years ago) link
Nooh, the "that's right, fast and"...
Which is great of course, but it covers over some nifty guitar bits.
Who knows, if I made one, I might well decide I miss it.
― Mark G, Tuesday, 15 January 2008 11:07 (sixteen years ago) link
"I do have the instumental backing track...."
A tedious Beefheart-obsessed pedant writes:
S'not an instrumental backing track, it's ("... a bush recording - we're out recording a bush!") an entirely different recording which resulted from a largely abortive attempt by Zappa & his sound engineer Richard Kunc to record the album at the house in Ensanada Drive where The Magic Band had spent the previous 8 months writing and rehearsing it, using the same portable equipment that they'd recently been using to record Larry "Wild Man Fischer" The only bits of those recordings that actually made the final album iirc were "Hair Pie Bake 1" and some of the spoken bits ("The Dust Blows Forward And The Dust Blows Back" "Orange Claw Hammer", "China Pig" and "The Blimp" were recorded at the house, but not by Zappa / Richard Kunc and not afaik using the same equipment).
― Stewart Osborne, Tuesday, 15 January 2008 14:54 (sixteen years ago) link
ah, so it wouldn't work right, right?
― Mark G, Tuesday, 15 January 2008 15:13 (sixteen years ago) link
Fuuuuuuck I forgot to vote. If I did I would have gone for "My Human Gets Me Blues"
Also, I recently realized the genius of "Veteran's Day Poppy"
― Ivan, Tuesday, 15 January 2008 15:58 (sixteen years ago) link
I don't think this poll was up for long enough - my fault!
― Tom D., Tuesday, 15 January 2008 15:58 (sixteen years ago) link
how in the hell did Frownland only get 1 vote
― flappy bird, Tuesday, 24 November 2015 23:36 (eight years ago) link
DACHAU BLOOOZZ!!
― brimstead, Wednesday, 25 November 2015 02:02 (eight years ago) link
Why do I not own this album
― brimstead, Wednesday, 25 November 2015 02:03 (eight years ago) link
quite a landslide for Moonlight on Vermont. Can't even remember how that one goes. I like the one with the windscreen wiper drums.
― canoon fooder (dog latin), Wednesday, 25 November 2015 09:35 (eight years ago) link
... give me that old time religion.
I like the one with the windscreen wiper drums.
Not on this album.
― Caput Johannis in Disco (Tom D.), Wednesday, 25 November 2015 10:29 (eight years ago) link
oh no? okay then it's the crazy drums on one of the hair pie tracks.
― canoon fooder (dog latin), Wednesday, 25 November 2015 10:48 (eight years ago) link
I'm glad to see that the most worthy options all got at least one vote. "When Big Joan Sets Up" is the one I find myself returning to the most these days.
― The Squirrel Who Punched His Dad In The Neck (Old Lunch), Wednesday, 25 November 2015 15:00 (eight years ago) link
"I guess you don't get your drummer, then?"
― Mark G, Wednesday, 25 November 2015 15:10 (eight years ago) link
whats the one on side 3 with the sick bassline
― flappy bird, Wednesday, 25 November 2015 17:49 (eight years ago) link
ant man bee?
― motörhead or gaz, matron? (NickB), Wednesday, 25 November 2015 17:54 (eight years ago) link
ah! it's Fallin Ditch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WePYZnUt0s
― flappy bird, Wednesday, 25 November 2015 18:19 (eight years ago) link
'All of them, at the same time' is the correct answer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9FprYu3gy4
― pomenitul, Wednesday, 7 April 2021 14:29 (three years ago) link
The earliest individual bit I can pick out from that mix is the slide guitar from "Moonlight on Vermont" at 1:45.
This was the first album I spent months searching for, in the summer of '87. It runs the gamut from amazing ("Pachuco Cadaver") to terrible ("Wild Life"), I don't accept the idea that appreciating it is all-or-nothing (even if you listen to it all at the same time).
― Halfway there but for you, Wednesday, 7 April 2021 14:54 (three years ago) link
not sure i can tell the difference between amazing and terrible here. "wild life" rules
― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson), Wednesday, 7 April 2021 15:04 (three years ago) link
I don't dispute with anybody who happens to like every song, just the idea that the album has to be swallowed whole or not at all.
― Halfway there but for you, Wednesday, 7 April 2021 15:17 (three years ago) link
Pretty sure this is my only poll ever.
― Duncan Disorderly (Tom D.), Wednesday, 7 April 2021 15:25 (three years ago) link
... ah no, wait a minute there, I did a poll based on the Stu Francis single, "Ooh I Could Crush a Grape".
Of course, the album as a whole is an great achievement. What I dislike about "Wild Life" is the riffs sound like leftovers, the lyric is dumb and repetitive, and the sax is particularly aimless.
― Halfway there but for you, Wednesday, 7 April 2021 15:28 (three years ago) link
Wild life, along with my wife...
― Duncan Disorderly (Tom D.), Wednesday, 7 April 2021 15:32 (three years ago) link
I like that anecdote Jim O'Rourke told recently, about someone coming up to Henry Kaiser and asking him what time signature a certain Beefheart song was in, and Kaiser replying "They're all one"
― Ward Fowler, Wednesday, 7 April 2021 15:42 (three years ago) link
this album would be great if it was instrumental but the captain's beat/bluesman minstrelsy shtick is insufferable and sinks the whole project
― nothing in the dialog and click 'OK' (Left), Wednesday, 7 April 2021 15:44 (three years ago) link
Do you actualy like anything?
― Duncan Disorderly (Tom D.), Wednesday, 7 April 2021 15:53 (three years ago) link
Not just music, but in general.
lol, I knew before I opened it that Left was just taking a dump in the thread.
― You Can't Have the Woogie Without a Little Boogie (Old Lunch), Wednesday, 7 April 2021 15:55 (three years ago) link
Yes, Trout Mask Replica would have been better sung by Joan Baez.
― Halfway there but for you, Wednesday, 7 April 2021 15:55 (three years ago) link
Talking of insufferable singers.
― Duncan Disorderly (Tom D.), Wednesday, 7 April 2021 15:56 (three years ago) link
i have talked about a lot of stuff i like on ilm. i like ornette's "dancing in your head" which has been compared to beefheart but is much better
― Profile I Want to Edit My Profile... Change Display Name: (Left), Wednesday, 7 April 2021 16:03 (three years ago) link
not baez but maybe catherine ribiero
― Profile I Want to Edit My Profile... Change Display Name: (Left), Wednesday, 7 April 2021 16:08 (three years ago) link
*ribeiro
i even said i like the instrumentals
― Profile I Want to Edit My Profile... Change Display Name: (Left), Wednesday, 7 April 2021 16:10 (three years ago) link
It's funny to me when someone uses Ornette to put down Beefheart. Christgau and the TMR chapter in the book Kill Your Idols both did this. I love them both, so it's weird when someone is like, "when you grow up, you can forget that silly Beefheart nonsense and have some wholesome Ornette".
― Halfway there but for you, Wednesday, 7 April 2021 16:10 (three years ago) link
by all accounts he was extremely generous to other musicians
― Profile I Want to Edit My Profile... Change Display Name: (Left), Wednesday, 7 April 2021 16:25 (three years ago) link
anyway so best track - at least one of the hair pies is instrumental i think? that one
― Profile I Want to Edit My Profile... Change Display Name: (Left), Wednesday, 7 April 2021 16:28 (three years ago) link
Good quote from Beefheart, "I'm not trying to put my name beside Ornette Coleman, because you can't put your name beside Ornette Coleman."
― Duncan Disorderly (Tom D.), Wednesday, 7 April 2021 16:28 (three years ago) link
An ungenerous listener might call the Captain's sax playing "minstrelsy" in relation to jazz, though.
― Halfway there but for you, Wednesday, 7 April 2021 16:29 (three years ago) link
call me generous because that doesn't bother me so much. maybe it should
― Profile I Want to Edit My Profile... Change Display Name: (Left), Wednesday, 7 April 2021 16:37 (three years ago) link
Think we might need to tighten up our definition of 'minstrelsy' just a smidge
― You Can't Have the Woogie Without a Little Boogie (Old Lunch), Wednesday, 7 April 2021 16:38 (three years ago) link
yah no shit
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, 7 April 2021 16:43 (three years ago) link
it's not a coincidence that a huge number of white rock vocalists sang or sing the way they do and it's not something without historical precedent. listen to the aerosmith's "honkin' on bobo" and tell me it's a) racially unproblematic and b) totally different from what beefheart was doing (yes he did more interesting things with it, that's not the point)
― Profile I Want to Edit My Profile... Change Display Name: (Left), Wednesday, 7 April 2021 16:49 (three years ago) link
this is pretty basic history-of-rock stuff, it doesn't mean you have to burn your records but denial shouldn't be an option either
― Profile I Want to Edit My Profile... Change Display Name: (Left), Wednesday, 7 April 2021 16:50 (three years ago) link
sir there's nothing you can tell me about honkin on bobo that I don't already know
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, 7 April 2021 16:52 (three years ago) link
the minstrel show has plenty of influence through a lot of (if not all) popular music, not only that made by white people, and not in any way confined to blues/rock singers
― Bastard Lakes (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Wednesday, 7 April 2021 16:55 (three years ago) link
of course. but there are specific ways certain tropes surface in white rock (broadly speaking) that are sort of acknowledged and handwaved away at the same time
― Profile I Want to Edit My Profile... Change Display Name: (Left), Wednesday, 7 April 2021 17:02 (three years ago) link
I'd wager that most people on this board are well aware that the entire concept of rock and roll was pretty much swiped wholesale from underacknowledged Black musicians. That fact alone doesn't exactly clear the way for referring to music you dislike as 'minstrelsy' because it reminds you of the work of Black artists.
― You Can't Have the Woogie Without a Little Boogie (Old Lunch), Wednesday, 7 April 2021 17:13 (three years ago) link
yeah it's not that anyone doesn't acknowledge all that, left, i'm not discounting it at all - just, to quote, you rhetorical style is often "the closest weapon at hand"
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, 7 April 2021 17:21 (three years ago) link
I mean, there are certainly plenty of problematic aspects to white electric blues (the Blueshammer problem, you might call it) but I would source them to racist interpretations of 1930s delta blues, rather than to the minstrel show. This is a world where actual minstrel show songs or "c**n songs" (Hello! Ma Baby, Bill Bailey, Mighty Lak a Rose, Swanee) are still remembered in the lineage of the Great American Songbook.
― Bastard Lakes (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Wednesday, 7 April 2021 17:26 (three years ago) link
listen to the aerosmith's "honkin' on bobo"
This thread has become one to watch, investing early could pay big dividends
― JoeStork, Wednesday, 7 April 2021 17:28 (three years ago) link
lol, got to that part of Left's post and was like 'that's a hard no'
― You Can't Have the Woogie Without a Little Boogie (Old Lunch), Wednesday, 7 April 2021 17:57 (three years ago) link
Listening to Aerosmith's "Honkin' on Bobo" seems to have had a trauamtic effect, so I'll pass.
― Duncan Disorderly (Tom D.), Wednesday, 7 April 2021 18:05 (three years ago) link
When I listened to it I wound up honking all over my bobo, took me an hour to clean up
― You Can't Have the Woogie Without a Little Boogie (Old Lunch), Wednesday, 7 April 2021 18:15 (three years ago) link
Once you honk you just can't stonk.(pls refer to educational video about "The Stonk" on youtube if you don't understand this)
― Bastard Lakes (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Wednesday, 7 April 2021 18:20 (three years ago) link
Surprised to see 0 votes for "my human gets me blues."
― trip maker, Wednesday, 7 April 2021 18:43 (three years ago) link
― Profile I Want to Edit My Profile... Change Display Name: (Left), Wednesday, 7 April 2021 bookmarkflaglink
This how the capitalist bosses talk about Beefheart?
― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 7 April 2021 20:24 (three years ago) link
what
― new display name (Left), Wednesday, 7 April 2021 20:38 (three years ago) link
The album title was suggested by Steven Tyler, who heard the phrase somewhere and the band found it funny.[4]
― soref, Wednesday, 7 April 2021 21:23 (three years ago) link
huh
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=HONKIN%27%20ON%20BOBO
― I like signing up to dead sites (sleeve), Wednesday, 7 April 2021 21:25 (three years ago) link
(xp) Trout Mask Replica?
― Duncan Disorderly (Tom D.), Wednesday, 7 April 2021 21:31 (three years ago) link
https://worldscinema.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/The-Bobo-19672-e1544456799524.png
I don't care if you're black, white, blue
― soref, Wednesday, 7 April 2021 21:33 (three years ago) link
You should check this out:https://cuneiformrecords.bandcamp.com/album/pork-chop-blue-around-the-rind
― o. nate, Friday, 9 April 2021 20:29 (three years ago) link