"Totally unique. Overwhelmingly imaginative. Superb lyrics.
Music is incredibly complicated but still flows. Infinitely easier
to listen to than transcribe. A fresh outlook on life, the universe
and everything."
1967: Safe As Milk
1967: Mirror Man
1968: Strictly Personal
1969: Hot Rats
1969: Trout Mask Replica
1970: Lick My Decals Off, Baby
1971: The Spotlight Kid
1972: Clear Spot
1974: Unconditionally Guaranteed
1974: Bluejeans & Moonbeams
1975: Bongo Fury
1975: One Size Fits All
1978: Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller)
1980: Doc At The Radar Station
1982: Ice Cream For Crow
1984: The Legendary A&M Sessions
1993: A Carrot Is As Close As A Rabbit Gets To A Diamond
1996: The Lost Episodes [recordings made 1958-79]
Taken from Delerium's info about Captain Beefheart :
Beefheart (real name Don Van Vliet) was born in Glendale, California in 1941. One wonders what the Lancaster High School,
which included Frank Zappa and Van Vliet could have been like. After playing briefly with a band called The Blackouts, the
'mad captain' took the name Captain Beefheart and formed The Magic Band in 1964, which was based in Los Angeles. His
first single for A & M was a version of Bo Diddley's Diddy Wah Diddy. The justification for Beefheart's inclusion in this book -
essentially his surrealistic lyrics, wayout words and deranged blend of rock and blues - is perhaps marginal.
His debut album, which was rejected by A & M and eventually released by Buddah in the US and Polydor in England, sounded
like nothing that had been heard before. Beefheart's growling and grunted vocals were most unusual, his vocal range most
impressive, but some of the lyrics almost inaudible. Nonetheless, the material was of a consistent standard, with Autumn
Song, Zig Zag Wanderer, Electricity and Yellow Brick Road among the stronger numbers.
Mirror Man, the next album he recorded, was rougher and not released until 1971. It is not considered one of his best.
Strickly Personal, was even less commercial, but represented a musical progression. Raw blues numbers like Ah Feel Like
Ahcid and Gimme Dat Harp Boy were combined with more imaginative tracks like Trust Us, On Tomorrow and the
excellent Kandy Korn, which features some superb intertwined guitar work, and displays Beefheart's vocals at their howling
and growling best. The album was apparently mixed without his supervision.
However, this line-up disintegrated after the album, St Clair left to work in a car wash and Handley joined a printing works.
Then Beefheart by chance bumped into his old school mate Frank Zappa, who was busy setting up his Straight record label.
With the promise of complete recording freedom Beefheart started work with a revised line-up on an album. The result was
inevitably bizarre. Many would find Trout Mask Replica completely bewildering on an initial hearing. The band apparently
recorded it in four hours and added the lyrics in four and a half hours without hearing the music! Most of the songs on the
album are formless in the traditional sense, but it is perhaps one of the best samples of spontaneous playing. The album
became an underground classic. It was certainly atmospheric. Beefheart's next album was similar but lacked the spontaneity
of Trout Mask Replica.
Following the band's return from a nationwide tour in 1971, Beefheart and Zappa fell out and Beefheart switched to Reprise
and changed his line-up bringing in a couple of influential figures:- Elliot Ingber, formerly of The Fraternity of Man who
became known as Winged Eel Fingerling and Artie Tripp (Ed Marimba) from The Mothers of Invention. The resultant album,
The Spotlight Kid, a depressing blues effort, is less relevant to the book, but was his first album to make any impression in the
Album Charts peaking at No 131. The same may be said of Clear Spot, made without Fingerling, but with Roy Estrada on
bass, although musicaly this was one of Beefheart's best albums and it also made the album charts peaking at No 191.
Here we leave Beefheart - his subsequent recordings being of little relevance to this book. He and his band were an almost
unique phenomena in the history of rock. Quite unlike anyone else, especially on those early recordings, and musically at
odds with mainstream rock, these recordings are essential for connoisseurs of progressive rock.
Get your own Free Home Page