Captain Beefheart

And . . . uh . . . Dr. Demento is a DJ. He doesn't really make any music, he just plays records.

go listen to the last few seconds of 'petrified forest' from ..decals.., those are my favourite few seconds of any music ever does that count for anything I wonder

I'd like to hear more Beefheart, but based on my ambivalence about what I have already heard, I'm not interested enough to actually go out and buy the stuff (and I'm not into downloading mp3s).

maybe 'the real' bat chain puller ?? -- it's nice to know beefheart isn't completely over

that box set is fun career overview as is that book by zoot horn rollo what'sis name -- box and ice cream and kandy korn and decals 'n' stuff and "hey garland i dig your tweed coat" better than aggrivated penalty material like "moonbeams" and "necessarily retarded conversation with unfunny sunny dummy mojo bono on badumb human totum pole manure come home day"

Just heared TMR again, whats with all the hate fr it? yeah i agree that Decales is the better one and my personal fav, but i have much respect fr TMR. I got introduced to Don Vliet via Decales, maybe thats the reason why TMR makes perfect sense to me? though i'll admit to a few weak track here. first time i heared "frownland" i played it on endless repeats, also "fallin` ditch", "ella guru","hair pie: bake 2" deserve a special mention if i'm not leaving anything out. its one fantastic(Ugly) record.

But Clear Spot is not to be missed. If you can find the CD with both Clear Spot and The Spotlight Kid, all the better. "Her Eyes are a Blue Million Miles" is one of my favorite love songs.

"Doc" is a great album - much better than "Ice Cream For Crow" where the Captain sounds old and exhausted and the band sound like some indie band. "Shiny Beast" is probably TOO polished, "Doc" combines the polish of "Shiny Beast" with the spikiness of "Ice Cream For Crow". Novelty music? Pah!

I confess to being amazed that anyone could possibly prefer "Lick My Decals Off" to "Trout Mask Replica" - "Trout Mask" just has so much more POWER, it's a ROCK album definitely. I like "Decals" but it has an air of charming and charmed eccentricity which makes it easier for Beefheart-detractors to dismiss it as mere obscurantist noodling and goonery. Plus the production stinks. It seems to easy to ignore "Decals" whereas "Trout Mask" is simply impossible to ignore.

there's tons of ohter good stuff you missed out off tmr rex
yeah i know: "moonlight on vermont","veteran's day poppy","pachuco cadaver" and tons of others.

This reminds me of Ben Watson's (who I normally can't stand) dismissal of Henry Cow and "Rock In Opposition" (in opppsition to what? Selling records?) in his silly Zappa book.

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

FPed. Which original?

(xp) Actually I'd never heard that version before, it just reinforces what a genius song it is.

Love the Daphne & Celeste version but the one on Mirror Man Sessions is in my top 10 tracks of all time.

Same here.

ohhhhhh my fuckin goddddd clear spot is so rad. i should've been listening to this record for years!!!!

hi, Brad

probably my favorite Beefheart ("Her Eyes Are a Blue Million Miles")

the "Click Clack" groove is my single fave Beefheart thing

I still own the two-fer that includes The Spotlight Kid.

I mean....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2ZMOKLsiuY

the daphne and celeste version of "kandy korn" is good, but i do think my favorite is the version from the magic band's second '68 peel session. unfortunately good quality recordings are hard to come by - that particular track is around in slightly better quality than the rest of the session from an alternate off-air recording. i also like this older famitracker take:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=360V-7LW5mQ

Stopping by to affirm Brad is 100% otm abt the Strictly Personal stuff (which I've only heard on the Complete Mirror Man Sessions)

CMMS really does a great job of bridging the gap between Safe as Milk and TMR

I supplemented my digital copy of "The Mirror Man Sessions" with the bonus tracks from the 1999 reissue of "Safe As Milk", they make a great extension and give a complete picture. There might be more from these sessions on the "Grow Fins" box but I don't think they're critical.

Great write-up about Doc At The Radar Station in The Quietus today:

https://thequietus.com/articles/28822-doc-at-the-radar-station-captain-beefheart-anniversary-review

Thanks will check that out later

ta for the link, spent the last hour looking at Hilma af Klint paintings. she's awesome!

Nice enough interviews. Lol @ the Throbbing Gristle 'like'

I love you, big dummy!. My playlist.

wow i really love ice cream for crow. my favorite of the final three

"Don Van Fliet"

Don't remember seeing this thread before the past week; it's gotten me looking around---a bunch of skeevey-looking CDs still on Amazon (several of which I bought quite a few years ago), but also, discovered that they now have a nicely-priced legit-looking Decals (ditto several others that I already have), also I'm Goning To Do... on mp3 (and a bunch of other Rhino Handmades likewise, incl. Television's Live at the Old Waldorf and that monster Fugs box). Grow Fins mp3 is $49.49, much less than even the used CD edition on there.
I've just finished first listen to Albums That Never Were's version of It Comes To You In A Plain Brown Wrapper, different from the Sundazed, and, as always, he tells you exactly what and why and how he used which materials---sound is crisp, well-defined without getting anal about it (I listened to the flac; also offers mp3s: 2 "discs," 45 minutes each):
http://albumsthatneverwere.blogspot.com/search/label/captain%20beefheart

Fast typing, sorry. "Kandyyyy Korn, Beeee reborn..."

That Decals is legit--it, Clear Spot, and Spotlight Kid were broken off from the now OOP Rhino "Sun Zoom Spark" box.

It seems like most of the MIA Bizzare/Straight titles have been reissued physically and digitally now, although several of the former may not be in-print as of late.

Are there any good Beefheart live DVDs at all?

Beyond the BBC 'Tragic band' OGWT? Not as far as I know

there's four killer tracks on the Grow Fins box that iirc are live videos

Probably the stuff they shot for the Beat Club? 1971 two drumkit/ two guitar/ bass line-up.

The Beat Club Booglarize is way better than the Spotlight Kid version.

The Beat Club video I thought was amazing as you could actually see how some of that stuff was played.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0d0rsW9p3I

I was just thinking after watching this SNL the other night https://vimeo.com/385867940

I think there was a gig filmed for French TV, 1980? Not sure how much of the gig.

I had no choice but to to stan (it’s actually kinda beautiful) pic.twitter.com/uGp9iWXnr4

— Sasha Frere-Jones (@zombiesfj) August 9, 2021

This was the last straw that finally got me off my ass to order this.

By the way, this week Trout Mask Replica appeared on streaming services for the first time ever (the 2013 Bob Ludwig remaster).

The Legendary A&M Sessions is just an awesome record.

^^Speaking of, The Captain gets a phone interview and a needle drop on American Bandstand in '66:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFfKWfJ8Tc8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKWVLOIEO-Q

^ never heard this before - from the blue collar OST
the clanging/industrial percussion is cool!

yeah the only place that's been compiled is on The Dust Blows Forward 2xCD, I think

that's a cool one. i heard it on a Jack Nitzsche comp ... called Hard Workin Man, actually! https://www.discogs.com/release/4561165-Jack-Nitzsche-Hard-Workin-Man-The-Jack-Nitzsche-Story-Volume-2

Guess it's a little reunion with the captain and ry cooder, too.

Which was absolute torture to record according to Cooder - hilarious torture though.

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

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.