Captain Beefheart

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?