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

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.

'shiny beast' are the half-hearted attempts to re-record everything and I'll agree it's a bit tame, but the original 'bat chain puller' has moments that rival anything. 'brickbats' alone.

'Doc at the Radar Station', with its leaner more polished sound, still has a very angular feel but seems more informed by Zappa's take on XX century atonal music than Coleman style free-jazz (just listen to those instrumentals on Doc)

Yeah, like Zappa informed Beefheart's music one iota.

hey colin not logged in: fair enuff so why did you say that ''It's all blues'' (I mean from what you're saying it is blues + x something).

I rank them:
1-Decals
2-Doc
3-TMR
4-Clear Spot
5-Safe as Milk
6-Ice Cream
7-Spotlight Kid
8-Shiny Beast
9-Strictly Personal
10-Mirror Man
11-Bluejeans & Moonbeams
12-Unconditionally

I've listened to him a lot and I couldn't tell you what it is or what it isn't. There is something incomplete about a lot of it, which isn't a bad thing; the production is almost always bad, except on the last 3 and "Clear Spot." "Decals" really suffers from the shitty bass and drum sound, since the bass and drum playing on that one is amazing. I regard "Decals" as the best because it's the most concise and focused. "Doc" sounds flat (esp. on the Caroline CD I have) but "Dirty Blue Gene" pretty sums up what I like about Beefheart, and overall I think the words on that one are his best by far. Only thing that makes it less than perfect is his voice--he's still funny but the old power and range just ain't there any more.
Zappa once said that CB had a bad sense of rhythm. FZ generally makes me urp but he's right in this case. The weird thing about Beef is the way the music works against itself; there's something horribly thwarted in a lot of it and you sense he's just impatient. The thing that saves it, usually, is the sense as well that he's aware of it but can do nothing about it except to mock his own impulses, constantly, and only occasionally does something really unifed and fairly un-neurotic emerge, like "Click Clack" or the "Clear Spot" album or the great "Best Batch Yet." But Beef's bad rhythm is not really bad in the sense that ordinary folks have bad rhythm--it's more like Howlin' Wolf's slightly off sense of what's happening, metrically, and I've always thought that Beef internalized some of this, and actually did a very strange and cool thing by internalizing all the wrong and oblique aspects of "blues" and came out with what he came out with.

-- J

No--I like it a lot too and it's cool as a response to various things happening at the same time (Beatles, blues revival shit, etc.). In many ways it's his most rockin' album before "Clear Spot."

sounds OK to me.

-- Dadaismus (kcoyne3...), April 23rd, 2003. (later)

anyone care to discuss this?

sounds OK to me.

-- Julio Desouza

Sounds OK but not good. Barely acceptable. Sorta works to reinforce the weird vaudeville vibe of the record, I guess. The pitter-pat of little tap-dancing feet or something.

Beefheart uses undistorted guitar sound. I can def hear the bass on this. It may not be as 'full on' but it doesn't need to be here.

http://www.scarygoround.com/strips/20070730.png

http://www.scarygoround.com/strips/20070731.png

I've listened to the The Spotlight Kid/Clear Spot two-on one disc more than anything else by Beefheart. It is all good, but this one is the one I listen to the most. The song by Beefheart that seems to pop up in my head the most is "Gimme Dat Harp Boy".

I will stop posting these when they stop being so awesome.

http://www.scarygoround.com/strips/20070801.png

hang on. "Ryan Adams" is "writing" this?

Nah, not Ryan Adams, just a character who happens to be named Ryan. The author of the comic is John Allison, the rest of it is on http://www.scarygoround.com/.

Also responsible for this classic Achewood guest spot.

http://www.scarygoround.com/strips/20070802.png

Are you John Allison?

Nah, just someone who finds these amusing and has nothing better to do with himself at 11 PM on a weeknight.

Keep 'em coming, yeah!

I've listened to the The Spotlight Kid/Clear Spot two-on one disc more than anything else by Beefheart

I still haven't really gotten into this one. I never seem to be in the mood for it. If I want to hear an album like this, I'd be more likely to put on Little Feat.

Nice comparison, that, considering they shared a label and producer and Roy Estrada.

http://www.scarygoround.com/strips/20070803.png

fin

heart.gif

As a five-year ILX lurker I am very proud to have my comics linked on I Love Music!!

Oh wow! Sorry to steal your bandwidth, just figured that the folks 'round here would be appreciative :)

This is an unbelievable performance:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghg13ZObXJk

Never heard the song before, I'm guessing it's from one of the less well regarded Beefheart albums.

You should see the concert footage from around that time in which he's wearing a sweater with a picture of himself on it.

Wait. "Gimmee Dat Harp Boy" is about Bob "The Bear" Hite??

Apparently, yes, the story behind it's pretty amusing

Do tell

He was at a club in LA with, I think it was Gary Marker, and Canned Heat were playing and Beefheart was getting increasingly annoyed because, according to Marker, he hated anyone working in vaguely similar areas to himself - you know, white guy singing blues based material and running to fat. He was saying stuff like, "What's that fat guy doing up there singing all those songs by dead black men?" (the rage of Caliban!) and eventually "Hey, gimme that harp, boy, ain't no fat man's toy". Story goes gomething like that anyway.

That's awesome. I love me some Bear Hite though.

mandatory
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fST51cC9PzQ

sweeeeeet

I'm on the third version of "Booglerize" and loved the whole thing. So good. Thanks for the tip Tyler.

but I can't spell "Booglaraize", despite staring at it for 30 minutes.

his voice on booglarize is insane!

Maybe my favorite era.
Winged Eel Fingerling rules.

videos of the magic band from this period are so cool in the way they show just how physical the music was, like it really was this new sort of alien dance music.

I like it when the Captain is wearing his Wind Cape
http://tela.sugarmegs.org/_asxtela/asxcards/asxpicts/CaptainBeefheart1972-03-27e.jpg

this is a hell of a thing

Booglarize is AWESOME

There are other copies of the broadcast video online where is it easier to hear that Don is doing some insane multiphonic singing. But this extra footage is amazing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBxt9jbNjS0

Yeah this is the one I'm familiar with. Opening with the most adorable German VJ you will ever see.

that is a cute VJ.
just watched this thing again. amazing.

Wow. Would take her to Tau Ceti.

Also great performance, goddamn.

That is a cool Beefheart clip.

I've finally got around to some of the side bands around that scene and Mallard and Geronimo Black were both a couple of cool bands too.

It's the way she says "baby". I think I'm in love...

She says:

"Whatever. Maybe that will happen to Captain Beefheart too sometime, because in America he's already one of the greats. His music is a little reminiscent of Frank Zappa, but you can't tell him that or he'll get pissed off. So for the next five minutes we have Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band, performing [a song with] the fairly burlesque-sounding name "I'm Gonna Booglerize You . . . Baby."

the children are the future

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

uh, tough crowd? first of all, that kid's the best frontman I know. second, hell of a lot of "grown up" bands couldn't play this song

This is the year that the Captain finally clicked for me - picked up "The Dust Blows Forwards" anthology and really dig it!

those kids are pretty good, i sure couldn't play that song.
beefheart is weird to get into because his most famous album (Trout Mask) is probably the worst one to start with? Maybe not the worst, but not the best.

Decals is prob a mite less accessible than Trout.

yeah and i guess the latter albums are probably not great to start with either -- i'd say just start at the beginning.

See I'd tend to recommend Clear Spot as a starter.

It was kinda inevitable - XTC does a spot-on cover of "Ella Guru", the Blue Aeroplanes cover "Owed T Alex", and Robyn Hitchcock did a whole gig covering "Clear Spot". I'll circle back and check out the albums proper though looks like "Lick My Decals Off" is hard to find.

I can hook you up with Decals as a single long mp3 file if all else fails you. It's p much impossible to get the CD last time I checked and unlike Starsailor it's not offered through legit download services.

Trout Mask is, despite the flaws, i.e. Zappa's production and what not his best, even if Lick My Decals is his actual best record.

You could easily start w/Safe as Milk, but dive in to Trout.... If you can't see what's good about it by just looking at the cover he's not for you. Its that simple.

Kids were p good.

hey Gerald I have Decals on CD, hit me up via ILXmail if you want a flac copy. And yes, I would say start with Safe As Milk or Clear Spot, although Doc is pretty damn good too.

Scorpio did a 180gm edition of Decals that might still be kicking around.

Decals is prob a mite less accessible than Trout.

― my other pug is a stillsuit (Jon Lewis), Thursday, December 6, 2012 2:13 PM (2 hours ago)

see I think the opposite, if I'd heard decals first I prolly would've gotten beefheart earlier

mainly cause the production job on trout mask is so raw

lick my decals is on itunes btw

and youtube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muiYV4avZfY

Scorpio did a 180gm edition of Decals that might still be kicking around.

Bought that from a rec shop a long time ago, when they existed.

last three albums are killer btw, if your first album is Clear Spot, those would not be horrible next steps...

Decals has been one of my fave records for years, but Trout Mask's rep had always sorta scared me off from listening to it--Decals is purportedly *less* accessible than Trout Mask? I've been avoiding it for nothing?

Decals is NOT less accessible than TMR, but TMR shouldn't present any great difficulty for anyone who likes Decals

TMR has more variety.

It's a good album for doing other things to while listening.

I disagree with Julio fairly violently on this one, the production on "Decals" is abysmal whereas I can see nothing wrong with what Zappa did on TMR - what's not to like?

Beefheart should never have been allowed to produce himself, he fucked up "The Spotlight Kid" too

Its more what TMR's detractors say, as in they don't like what Zappa did -- or more what he didn't do because Beefheart didn't really allow Z to touch it apart from bits of button pushing (or so Z claimed).

Not really that good a judge on prodcution -- both sound fine and are his best recs.

I could do without some of the spoken word/ field recordings bits that Zappa put in tbh

what's wrong w/ the production on Decals, sounds fine to me??

The drums sound like shit for a start. You've got two great drummers on the records, what a waste.

well, it's a trebly-sounding alb, i'll give you that, but it's also a very guitar-y alb, so i don't really miss the bottom-end fug of TMR too much.

iirc from his bk, drumbo was p pleased w/ Decals as a rec - think the Magic Band even believed they'd made a much more 'commercial' object, after the alienating swamp of TMR

It's just nowhere near as powerful and ballsy as the music deserves, it's all a bit meek and scuffly and "avant garde", I'd rather it was more Canned Heat than Henry Cow, to put it crudely. I've covered this before... possibly on this thread!

yeah don't think we're gonna agree on this one - but they'd already made their Canned Heat alb(s) w/ eg Mirror Man, so decals is...something else

No, that's not what I mean, TMR is like a Canned Heat record, it's well recorded and you can hear all the instruments and it has a bottom end, there's "rock" in there

yr clarification only has me scratching my head even more!! i mean, there are a million albs by 60s blues-rock groups w/ plenty of bottom end, rock music chops, good clean production, seperation of instruments etc - i go to beefheart for something else, something that has as much in common w/ free jazz, exotica, the avant-garde, blahdiblah - and for me, decals is prob the ultimate expression of that.

Shiny Beast was the first one I heard (thanks to a review in the Spin Albums Guide and its availability at my local library). I had never heard anything that sounded so wrong or made me so uncomfortable. I'm glad I persevered, though, because I love the Captain dearly now. And that particular album practically sounds like pop to me these days.

i go to beefheart for something else, something that has as much in common w/ free jazz, exotica, the avant-garde, blahdiblah - and for me, decals is prob the ultimate expression of that.

Well there you go, I don't

First one I heard was "Doc at the Radar Station", which retains much of the avant garde aspects but with a tad more oomph, so, perfect for me really

lick my decals is on itunes btw

― CGI fridays (Edward III), Thursday, December 6, 2012 5:15 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Damn I did not know that! Goodbye, single unbroken long-ass mp3 file...

It's just nowhere near as powerful and ballsy as the music deserves
i love the way these records sound, but if you talk to pretty much any of the magic band members, they'd agree with that, not necessarily production, but just the way he made the band play....there's a zoot horn rollo interview in the recent feeding back book where he says as much.
"when beefheart was singing, he'd turn into a little kid who was freaked out. and that really dictated what he did. So then Decals ... more of the same. Then his accusation was that we'd ruined his music; he needed to sing slower. So then we did Spotlight Kid where it's like we were in Night of the Living Dead the tempos were so slow. You listen to the mix and it's all vocal. He wiped the band out."
again, i'm not sure i'd want the albums to sound different, but there's testimony form a guy who was there.
he goes on to say "what the man could do in a room standing there singing was never recorded, period. Interviews, live gigs, I would say the best you ever saw of him was sixty to seventy percent. what he could do when he was relaxed would have scared you to death."

Yeah I agree w/Ward - think I always found straight rock music w/oomph as such to be kinda boring - maybe apart from 50s rock n roll but the 'roll' content is important. Love all the spoken word/field recordings in TMR and so on.

Don't think this stuff is about power or balls at all.

to expand a little on my comment above, decals is more cleanly recorded. trout mask at first blush can sound like a mad rush of nonsense without the definition afforded by decals. you don't have to tell me that clean sound can blunt the immediacy of a recording (I am a connoisseur of garbage sound) but it's easier to appreciate the complexity and interplay of the magic band on decals. yeah, it's more "sterile" but it's a better entry point.

the best way into trout mask imo is to pick a handful of songs and get real familiar with them, the terrain gets less imposing if you recognize some landmarks - 'ella guru', 'moonlight on vermont', 'sugar n spikes', 'the blimp'.

if you're down with decals, trout mask will go down pretty easy. the material on both are *very* similar, it's just the engineering that differs. I guess trout mask does have more stuff that would strike the casual listener as filler - the field recordings, spoken word bits, free horn sprees - but that's like 20% of the album maybe?

after struggling through the john french bk, i've def come down more heavily on the captain's side, rather than the magic band's side, in this imaginary oomph/avant dust-up - like, drumbo in his book is v caustic abt the captain's horn playing, saying how horrible untutored it is (and explicitly judged to be dud in w/ comparison the sophisticated musical chops of the magic band, honed in countless club/bar blues bands etc) - whereas i LOVE the sound of beefheart's sax, and am happy for him to obliterate the magic band as and when he sees fit - nothing these guys have done apart from beefheart has been worth a damm, really ('cept maybe the french/kaiser/thompson etc recs - and again, drumbo isn't too keen on those, too much 'improvisation' and not enough 'rock' whatsits)

but after this skirmish i'm raising the white flag, retreating to my bunker and spinning... i dunno... Mirror Man for the evening

Beefheart was a v good saxophone player, had a great sound. As good as I dunno...the Pistols playing oomphy untutored rock.

Reading that zoot horn hollo comment above as 'recording unable to capture a wild live sound'. Well now that applies to so much great music! Par for the course..

Even though Decals has more conventional-sounding rock sections than TMR, in all I think it's a more complex work. The amount of detail packed into "Doctor Dark" alone is mind boggling. I think the removal of the 2nd guitar opened things up a bit, allowing the bass to take a greater role in shaping the tune. I think Marc Boston is the unsung hero of this band--his lines on Decals and TMR are just sui generis, there is nothing else like them in rock.

As for production I think the debate is just a matter of taste. I think the squished sound of Decals fits the jam-packed nature of the compositions themselves. I wouldn't change a thing, except maybe removing the sax from "Flash Gordon's Ape".

think I always found straight rock music w/oomph as such to be kinda boring

Beefheart w/oomph = not straight rock music

But, yeah, fair enough if you're more into jazz/avant than rock/pop then I can understand where you're coming from

sooo... Sundazed has just reissued two of the Safe As Milk singles... in mono! I wanna buy them but otoh maybe I should just hope they eventually reissue the whole mono LP. I have fallen in love with that version, it is a revelation.

yeah it is the only version i listen to now!

You know what, I bought the original UK Pye single of "Yellow Brick Road", and an original UK promo of the same single..

for less than the price of the reissues, nice as they are..

.. on ebay.

huh, I don't think I've ever listened to the mono version (unless it's the Rhino or w/e version w/a clear spine that came out on CD w/bonus trax five years ago or so). I always think of Autumn's Child as one of those listen-to-it-when-you-get-a-new-pair-of-headphones jams that testifies to the aural satisfaction of dramatic-sixties-panning, like I can't really even imagine it in Mono (or can imagine it being different-different in a way I can't with like some new Beatles reish or w/e).

One of my great regrets is getting rid of my old mono Safe As Milk CD (I think the label was One Way Records) when the stereo Rhino CD reissue came out. I don't like the hard-panned approach they went with on that one.

this one?

http://www.discogs.com/Captain-Beefheart-Zig-Zag-Wanderer-The-O-Collection/release/1849216

Mark G, I am guessing that the singles you refer to are in stereo, not mono. The fact that these new ones are in mono is the main draw here.

This one:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/RARE-CAPTAIN-BEEFHEART-SAFE-AS-MILK-ONE-WAY-RECORDS-CD-/150641808707

I unloaded it for next to nothing at the time. Could kick myself.

Did anyone pick up the "Bat Chain Puller" issued last year? I've yet to get it, mainly because it only appears to be available from the Zappa website and I'd rather pick it up for less money here in Europe. I've just spotted a copy on German eBay

I think the pye single(s) are mono. Also, the Marble Arch / pye album as well, will have to check.

i find myself appreciating beefheart way way more these days than I ever did. I think it has something to do with age, and also having listed to every other type of music to death and at the moment this is all that really makes sense.

Beefheart and Fahey are like fine wines, improving with age.

I dug out Trout Mask this week, was thinking that "Moonlight on Vermont" is probably the most accessible track on the album. Basically, it's the easiest to assimilate, it has a definite rock structure and a drum solo of sorts..

Basically, if you don't like that one, you probably never will like the album.

TMR is like a litmus test to me for whether someone can actually hear music or not.

(xp) Don't know exactly when "Moonlight on Vermont" was recorded but it predates all of the crazier stuff on the album, ditto "Sugar 'n Spikes" and "Veteran's Day Poppy".

Basically, if you don't like that one, you probably never will like the album.

That doesn't make sense, there are only a couple of other straight-ish Blues numbers on it, so actually if someone really likes Moonlight on Vermont and they want to hear more like it they will dislike this record.

"Really likes" means loving it.

Like, as in finds it interesting in a 'toe in the water' way.

"Frownland" is very "jump in the deep end which might scare someone new to it

Shame its the first track huh?

The cover should give a few clues as to what you might be expecting...don't mind me, I have little patience to sell someone to this record.

i'm not sure that slow acclimation is a good model for how people appreciate music, it feels like learning to eat your vegetables because they're good for you.

some people desire familiarity in art and some people thrive on the shock of newness, but to be honest a 40-odd year old record could be placed into either of those baskets, and it makes no odds to me

sometimes i get a vibe from ILM posts that there are people whose world of music has played out like Educating Rita

Basically agree: I wonder how I should "educate" someone onto For Alto. "The first track is only 43 seconds but it has a really nice melody you know.."

Sometimes I am opened up when I read interesting talk about a record, that's more random and far better.

I hate to agree with T-Bone about shit, lest I appear a rockist, but Her Eyes Are A Blue Million Miles is stunning, and probably the best thing he ever recorded.

I was playing Decals a couple of months back. Sounded great.

Haha akm, I had the same experience you did this year. After years of occasionally dipping into the Captain with nothing clicking, it all came together. I, too, have been searching for new sounds. Maybe it's my musical midlife crisis but I'm really happy to finally have him in my life.

I don't understand this equating musical curiosity with middle aged thing, but NV has already said it better I could. You should look at it as more of an epiphany rather than a 'crisis'.

keep thinking thread is called Captain Beetbort

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xaYFNhsjBY

this instrumental is kind of a revelation as to how accessible he was even @ the trout mask time

Agreed. That first chord to me sounds exactly like Sgt. Pepper's and then, because it's free of any vocal I'm all like "Oh, this is kinda like the Stones, only with a neurotic drum part instead."

Finally watched the Captain Beefheart Under Review DVD from 2006. Best part is there's more original footage of the band than I'd ever seen before. Lots of interviews with Magic Band members, Clinton Heylin and Mike Barnes interviews were fine, but Alan Clayson and Nigel Williamson came off as pretentious tw@ts.

Multiple people in this talked about how much better the original Bat Chain Puller sessions sounded compared to Shiny Beast, which I always thought sounded great. The BCP bootlegs I heard sounded like ass, but have not yet gotten ahold of the reissue from last year, which was apparently properly mastered by Ludwig in 2010. It's already selling for ridiculously high prices.

Is it not still available from the Zappa website?

It feels like its gonna be a Beefheart summer.

Bat Chain Puller still $20 from the Zappa site. Anyone heard the new Trout Mask CD they're also selling?

Did anyone pick up the "Bat Chain Puller" issued last year? ... I've just spotted a copy on German eBay

― Duke, Saturday, 5 January 2013 17:46 (5 months ago) Permalink

I didn't win the CD on German ebay..

Can anyone comment on this issue?

Thanks for the reminder.

Note: We here at UMRK determined that the TMR Master was damaged somewhere in the years of it's return orbit. The Vaultmeister created almost in its entirety a new Master from our own Vault safety copies. And as if that wasn't enough chocolate for your Sunday sundae, we had Bob Ludwig remaster the Work for you. What you now have available to you is the definitive TROUT MASK REPLICA. Be the judge. Be the jury. Be the bongo. Be the fury!!!

Looks like I'll be spending another $40+, *sigh*. I wonder if Lick My Decals is next? I'm listening to a DL of Bat Chain and it sounds pretty great, def. way better than the bootlegs.

I'm really feeling "Bluejeans & Moonbeams" right now.

It feels weird having the captain and the band attempting to do something lush and sexy but in a way it's also so damn right.

They should never do disco, though.

Everyone should do disco

In Mojave Desert, disco does you.

I'm sorry but "Captain's Holiday" is embarrasing. The rest of the album is quite alright with me.

There's a chain of thought that "Captain's Holiday" involves no magic band or Don input at all, and is some master they found in the studio.

So: that Trout remaster any good?

xp, plus "the magic band" on this record shared no members with any other incarnation of the group.

No, but.

I didn't think they were so bad, "Upon the My O My" whistle test, for example. Nothing wrong there!

You know what's amazing? The live album recorded at My Father's Place.

I'm sorry but "Captain's Holiday" is embarrasing. The rest of the album is quite alright with me.

Well yes that song is terrible, also I really hate "Rock 'n Roll's Evil Doll", the rest is fine.

nice business card, 1968

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-h6UIQmV02Yk/Teev87avw2I/AAAAAAAADPk/xRlgUHwYGjk/s400/img340.jpg

posted on the Arthur magazine Facebook, via http://galacticramble.blogspot.com/2011/06/being-something-of-beatles-fan-i-have.html

Remastered ‘Lick My Decals Off, Baby‘, ‘The Spotlight Kid‘ and ‘Clear Spot‘ on their way:

http://www.beefheart.com/new-boxset-to-be-released/

Warners have been digging in their archives and are about to release a FOUR disc collection on the Rhino label – ‘Sun Zoom Spark: 1970 to 1972‘.

Due for release on 11 November 2014 this set will include remastered versions of ‘Lick My Decals Off, Baby‘, ‘The Spotlight Kid‘ and ‘Clear Spot‘ (but with no bonus tracks). The fourth disc is a collection of fourteen outtakes which have not been previously released legitimately.

These are the outtakes:

01 Alice in Blunderland (Alternate Version)
02 Harry Irene
03 I Can’t Do This Unless I Can Do This/Seam Crooked Sam
04 Pompadour Swamp/Suction Prints
05 The Witch Doctor Life (Instrumental Take)
06 Two Rips in a Haystack/Kiss Me My Love
07 Best Batch Yet (Version 1)
08 Your Love Brought Me To Life – Instrumental
09 Dirty Blue Gene (Alternate Version 1)
10 Nowadays a Woman’s Gotta Hit a Man (Early Mix)
11 Kiss Where I Kain’t
12 Circumstances (Alternate Version 2)
13 Little Scratch
14 Dirty Blue Gene (Alternate Version 3)

As many fans will already know there are many more outtakes from this time that could have been included so to see only a few is a bit of an anticlimax.

However, it’s good to see ‘Decals‘ finally getting a release after only being available on CD in limited editions and being pretty much unavailable for years. Hopefully the remastering will be done sympathetically to make it shine alongside ‘The Spotlight Kid‘ and ‘Clear Spot‘.

What’s more it’s great that this release has been put together with Jan van Vliet’s involvement, with previously unseen artwork being made available.

‘Sun Zoom Spark‘ will be released as a 4 CD set (at a reasonable price) and a 4 disc vinyl set (at twice the price!)

yeah there's been some talk on the rolling reissue thread

Ah - will check that out. Happened to notice a tweet by The Wire earlier.

Also check this out, a proper recreation of "It Comes To You In A Plain Brown Wrapper": http://albumsthatneverwere.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/captain-beefheart-it-comes-to-you-in.html

beefheart blows. his music's so contemptuous, can't even write a catchy melody! postmodern wank

how dare he appropriate the blues and openly mock it with avant-garde structures. im personally offended

do you feel like a mummy?

beefheart blows

forward 'n back presumably or possibly his stacks

imago I'm gonna assume that was another poorly formed attempt at a joke, otherwise you're dead to me

Does it really matter either way?

"The stars are matter, we're matter, but it doesn't matter."

probably not xp

lj is a hamburger

lol sorry late-night frustration at the hey qt debate boiled over. let me unambiguously state that beefheart is a genius & a miracle

it's a bad comparison anyway o mortal shame

ILX alum Andy Beta provides a pungent, appealing presentation of the xpost Rhino reissue collection, esp. in relation to Trout Mask. Wish he'd been more than parenthetical about "(disc four a fascinating set of outtakes and unreleased material)," but good overall, considering how much there is to for everyone to hear differently. Pretty sure that Decals has been in the Amazon MP3 store for a while, and didn't have much trouble getting the others on CD (years ago), though this batch may well sound better:
http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/19923-captain-beefheart-sun-zoom-spark-1970-to-1972/

(Several Beefheart pieces linked at bottom of this 'un.)

They should sound better, as the CD editions of all three were done over 20 years ago.

Last night I watched the first couple hours of From Straight to Bizarre doc about Zappa's record labels and artists. There's tons of details about Beefheart and the making of his early albums, especially Trout Mask. Includes lengthy interviews with a couple Magic Band members. Sounds like they came out of the experience brainwashed and fairly traumatized. Interesting stuff.

The new version of "Trout Mask Replica" on Zappa records is worth getting, the sound is much improved.

The only actual difference I can recall is the lack of the hobo chat, you know, the "he had a s-s-s-stammer" bit.

Basically, the master as per the normal CD release had degraded over time and use, but Frank had made a safety copy of the mix back in the day, and safely stored it. Nearly all the tracks have been replaced (notably, "Frownland" is unchanged)

. Sounds like they came out of the experience brainwashed and fairly traumatized. Interesting stuff.

Yeah, that's been known about for a while. I'm ploughing my way through the John French book and the Captain really was a terrible man, a terrible man... and this is before we get to TMR (they haven't even started recording Safe As Milk yet!) Some of his abuse and mistreatment of his bandmates is hilarious to read about it but I'm guessing it wasn't to experience.

I know I've stanned for this already, but the movie "Frank" is very much about this level of band trauma..

From the John French book: Monkees were recording 'Headquarters' in (the apparently shitty) RCA Studios at the same time as the Magic Band were recording 'Safe As Milk' and Mike Nesmith, who wasn't too happy about being a Monkee, took to hanging about with Don.

Read somewhere that, when Hendrix Experience was first touring USA, opening for Monkees, they all enjoyed hanging out, except Davy Jones (nobody in either band liked him).

Blurt Mag is giving away the Beefheart box (contest). Deadline 4/18--would have posted sooner, but just now saw it:
http://blurtonline.com/win-captain-beefheart-deluxe-box-set/

Have not recovered from the psychotrauma of the JF book enough to actually resume listening to beefheart yet

Blurt Mag is giving away the Beefheart box (contest). Deadline 4/18--would have posted sooner, but just now saw it:
http://blurtonline.com/win-captain-beefheart-deluxe-box-set/

― dow, Monday, April 13, 2015 5:46 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Hey thanks for posting this btw cuz I won the contest

nice! i still gotta get that box, no one gave it to me for xmas or my bday. what the hell is wrong w/ my family.

I know! I was really dropping the hints to my wife, but I got some socks instead oh and a baby.

but your baby's middle name is "Beefheart" right?

"Rockette Morton" Besinger

wau congrats!

it KILLS me that "Funeral Hill" isn't on that fourth record, what the hell

http://i1214.photobucket.com/albums/cc497/WardFowler/P1010807_zpslyskpijv.jpg

http://www.beefheart.com/50th-anniversary-of-safe-as-milk/

http://www.beefheart.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Captain-Beefheart.jpg

wtf

http://dangerousminds.net/comments/nona_hendryx_covering_captain_beefheart_hear_the_whole_album_here_first

https://downtrend.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/otur2.jpg

I was not expecting the sample tracks to be so enjoyable.

So not only is Jeff Cotton (Antennae Jimmy Siemens) not dead, but he sounds terrific and has apparently never stopped playing and is turning back to being a full-time player again: https://youtu.be/qZNAgY8xqq8

Sad to see that Drumbo French keeps posting FB commments pro-Wall.
Somebody mentioned a seeming trend of avant rock band drummers who turned out to be conservative alarmists. I know Moe Tucker is very much this, now Drumbo french, so are there others?

Cotton makes a negative comparison of DVV to Trump towards the end of that interview, so they haven't all gone bad.

Has Moe said anything since the "Tea Party" days? (just looked it up, it was Oct 2010 )

Somebody mentioned a seeming trend of avant rock band drummers who turned out to be conservative alarmists. I know Moe Tucker is very much this, now Drumbo french, so are there others?

Um, Christian Vander?

Drumbo is a Christian, long term, that probably doesn't help.

It's disappointing, but otoh my respect for the Magic Band is not at all based on their grip on reality.

Jeff Cotton seems like a nice old hippy dude, remarkably together considering.

Yeah, he's definitely not a casualty -- he warms up over the course of that very long interview and it's clear that he is very smart and very together and the years of religious and spiritual stuff he's been in have not left him unable to think, more the opposite. When he does a couple seconds of Pena, it's genuinely thrilling.

Raw Beat Club soundcheck reels from '72:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFW1DRA2xCs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fQTwewHV6M

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ei7OvpL9EmQ

Did the full performance from Beat Club get a commercial release as an edition of the Lost Broadcasts series about 5 years ago. They were turning up complete performances of various artists that had been edited down for broadcast. I assume it was initially a German TV broadcast series that wound up being torrented and then got some commercial releases. I got some of the shows down as torrents can remember Blonde & MC5 (one with the English bassist). I also bought the Atomic Rooster as an official did. So not 100% sure if the Beefheart was released.

Cool, even though the third video isn't working where I am. "Steal Softly Thru Snow"! Great how the band manage to ignore Beefheart's soprano sax and carry on regardless. Also we get to see some of Beefheart's legendary bitching about the sound and soundmen.

strictly personal underrated

i was (once again) trying to get into zappa and just ended up sliding into another beefheart phase

Strictly Personal is very good, it's just that the versions of the same songs on The Mirror Man Sessions are all-time amazing.

they are amazing in both forms! the takes of "trust us" and "safe as milk" on the album absolutely rip and stand with the others. "mirror man" > "mere man" for sure though

i'm probably close to alone in finding the obscuring effects in the production charming

I do find the phasing a bit distracting

I’ve just heart it comes to you in a plain brown wrapper and it might be my favorite beefheart

I’ve only heard, that should read

it was on one of those “albums that never were” blogs I think

i was (once again) trying to get into zappa and just ended up sliding into another beefheart phase

― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson)

i used to be into zappa, he's seriously not worth it unless you're _really_ into the toxic masculinity thing, which i don't get the impression you are

aside from that it's just clusters of notes played really fast, "the black page" really does sum up his compositional approach fairly well

you can feel trout mask forming in the edges of the strictly personal/mirror man/brown wrapper songs and it's thrilling, one of my favorite parts of his catalog if not my favorite

Plain Brown Wrapper you heard presumably = the bonus tracks on Safe As Milk and last half of Mirror Man Sessions? If so then yes, unimpeachable set of songs, Beefheart at his best.

@kate: i did come away with a positive impression of early mothers, especially the cracked doo-wop stuff on freak out and cruising with ruben and the jets, and i looove zappa's instrumental jazz fusion stuff. uncle meat is sort of lost on me beyond "king kong" and a few other isolated tracks; part of the reason i ended up listening to a lot of beefheart instead was that trout mask replica seems to answer the question "what if uncle meat was 100000x better and way less stupid"

I was working with a teacher a few years ago and while out at the pub he told me a story about how Zappa and Beefheart once had an argument about whether there was such a thing as "the right note" - Zappa said there was, Beefheart said there wasn't. I said that it was a good example of why Beefheart was much better than Zappa. He said that he thought it was an example of why Zappa was much better than Beefheart. And that was when we basically stopped getting on with each-other.

@kate: i did come away with a positive impression of early mothers, especially the cracked doo-wop stuff on freak out and cruising with ruben and the jets, and i looove zappa's instrumental jazz fusion stuff. uncle meat is sort of lost on me beyond "king kong" and a few other isolated tracks; part of the reason i ended up listening to a lot of beefheart instead was that trout mask replica seems to answer the question "what if uncle meat was 100000x better and way less stupid"

― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson)

hmmm, that is interesting! personally i don't think "uncle meat" is anything _like_ "trout mask replica". tmr was songs worked out over the course of a year by a killer white blues band in exhaustive brainwashing/rehearsal sessions led by an eccentric megalomaniac and played through basically live in one take. uncle meat is songs, by a weirdo rock guitarist with a semester of composition training and the mistaken impression that he was the second coming of edgard varese, from a hodgepodge of sessions assembled in a strange sort of proto-rundgren maximalist/absurdist stew.

you might like the really early stuff, there's some neat things on "the lost episodes"

i mean they're nothing like each other in conception for sure but i feel like despite that they exude the same odor

exemplary use of the word "odor" brad.

thread idea: albums that smell

i used to be into zappa, he's seriously not worth it unless you're _really_ into the toxic masculinity thing, which i don't get the impression you are

that's unfair, Zappa has like 75 studio albums, "the toxic masculinity thing" is only on 70 of them

lol

this is just to say that i could listen to "kandy korn" over and over again for the rest of my life

honestly the Daphne & Celeste version captures the essence so well I don't really wanna hear the original anymore

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.