RIP Captain Beefheart
Fri, 12/17/2010 - 9:29pm
Don Van Vliet. He invented psychedelic blues, he invented art-rock, he invented some kind of music that no one else ever knew before. I wouldn't be a musician except for him. He taught me the history of the blues and why dada art was important to rock and roll. If the Beatles and Rolling Stones were the father and son, he was the holy ghost.
And in his later years he was a pretty good painter.
Sat, 12/18/2010 - 6:28am
#2
If you got ears, you gotta listen!
...old woman sweat, young girl glisten!
Captain Beefheart was played alot during my upbringing, but only in my late teens did I hunker down and immerse myself.
It took a few listens, but once Trout Mask Replica clicked with me, there are few other thrills like that in music. He completely changed my perspective (well I say changed, I think you have to have a perspective compatible for assimilation into his world view) on music, art and literature.
Band members' accounts of how he basically attacked an instrument until it sounded good to him, then made them transcribe whatever it was he had discovered - may rankle with the technician, but does nothing to take away from his genius. His entire worldview was about the natural and organic - and that's exactly how he approached music.
You should know by the kindness of uh dog
The way a human should be
You should feel the wet wood heart of the tree
Wood sap pop like a frog's eye
Open t' the fly 'n the blood of the river
When it ripples 'n clicks like uh waterbell
'n the elephant in his beautiful grey leather suit
Though he's wrinkled he looks smart as hell
'n the turtle's eyes carry bags very well
'n the snake's in shape
He rattles like uh baby 'wears his diamonds
Better than uh fine lady's finger
'n his fangs are no more dangerous
Than her slow aristocratic poison
And he plays his games on uh grass bed
'n uh monkey never had uh guilty masturbation
'n uh monkey wouldn't shit on another's creation
And the fatman cries throughout all creation
'cause he's got uh cold
'n the icebear dives thru blue zero for uh frozen fish
'n the eskimo wears his hide 'n chews his heart
'n the beautiful grey whale oils some bitches lighter
Someday I'll have money 'n I can frame myself
What uh picture I'll be choppin' down uh tree
Watch John Peel's brilliant BBC Documentary.
Sat, 12/18/2010 - 7:31am
#3
I was 18 when I first heard Beefheart.
I was 18 when I first heard Beefheart. I'd bought a Psychedelic compilation album, and one of the tracks on there was Abba Zaba. It was one of these life changing music experiences. Unlike anything I'd ever heard before, despite it being recorded a few years before I was born.
I was actually annoyed that it took me so long to get around to listening to him. Safe as Milk is still one of my favourite albums. In fact, I was just listening to it earlier on this week... and on Thursday, at our office Christmas meal, I managed to replace the music in the restaurant with a mix from my iPod including the Captain's version of Grown So Ugly.
Wed, 01/12/2011 - 10:10pm
#4
fast and bulbous
indeed. captain beefheart was one hell of a musical experimentator! very trippy. very good. we were in sicily playin when word broke, so in catania we had a moment of noise to remember him by!
So ironic, I literally had just spent the afternoon watching Beefheart clips on Youtube with John Kessel, then a few hours later Kessel called me and told me Beefheart just died.
The footage from his Saturday Night Live appearance in 1981 is particularly awesome, I though. Doing a couple cuts from Doc at the Radar Station, sounding like a mix of Devo and the Fall. How many 60s artists hit the 1980s sounding as mind-boggling and fresh as that?
Frustrating that no one had a chance to see him perform in the past couple decades, that would have been such a cool experience.
Well, there's a wealth of great albums to revisit. Go listen to Shiny Beast, Doc at the Radar Station, and Safe As Milk... I think those are my favorites (there's still a couple I haven't heard).