captain beefheart appreciation thread
 

we all know and love trout mask replica, but i recently got clear spot, shiny chain, and ice cream for crow (their best in my opinion). completely amazing riffs and just.. i dunno. at first, i dismissed it as random and boring clanging, but it really is just totally totally brilliant once you let it sink in.

I house-sat for my friend when I was younger. Her dad had an amazing record collection. I borrowed and taped probably 90% of his records in the two weeks I looked after their house. I was terrified as I carried all that vinyl back and forth between my house and theirs, if I'd dropped any of them I would've probably had to elope.

But it got me into Captain Beefheart (among others) and I still have all those tapes. Still love the Captain. :)

i love the captain. mirror man is my favorite. i'm not too into trout mask- it's good, but not as great as everyone says.

my dad got to see him back in the day. apparantly for the encore people were shouting "more! more!" so don sang the song "more"....

Mirror Man is my favorite too.

Hell yeah. I like me some Beef.
Doc at the Radar Station is good (thanks again atari)
I haven't heard Mirror Man.

i've only heard trout mask replica and lick my decals off baby, where to go from here?

trout mask replica is ok, doc at the radar station is my favorite

Yeah same here, but I only have Trout Mask Replica. I have to say, it was so far ahead of it's time. It is seriously amazing. How the fuck did they write those songs?

Doc at the Radar Station and Ice Cream for Crow are great as is Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller). Stay away from Bluejeans and Moonbeams though....it's pretty bad.

I love beefheart. Such amazing music! I never get tired of listening to that band and the captain's voice. I even like the poppier stuff like Bluejeans&moonbeams and Unconditionally guaranteed. Safe as milk, clear spot and spotlight kid are my favourite sthough

i havent listened to very much beefheart. but i found a 45. of "diddy wah diddy" at the flea market and bought it! i got that and aint she sweet by the beatles for 1.50$

i love flea markets

Haha. I HAD to bump this 3 years later. Favorite musician ever.

I was listening to Safe as Milk for the first time in a while recently, and was reminded just how fucking incredible that album is. Simply amazing. It's just one of the tightest rock albums ever recorded. 12 tracks in under 34 minutes, all of them stone cold classics. Just 12 (mostly less than 3 minute) slices of total perfection, that manage to have all that Beefheartian depth and weridness within what are effectively pop songs. Exactly the kind of album you so rarely get these days. I adore Beefheart's more 'out' stuff too, but there's still always a special place in my heart for Safe.




Also, the bit where the bass switches to that fucking amazing heavy riff at 1:35 of Zig Zag Wanderer just might be the greatest single moment in the history of music.

He really made some TRUELY groundbreaking music. Next to the Beatles (who I'm not a huge fan of admittingly), I'd say Beefheart was truely the most boundary-pushing rock musician ever. Even though a lot of people look at stuff like Strictly Personal as a failure (though I love it -- the actual songs on it are my fav. Beefheart songs, though the production is a bit shitty), you can already see he was breakig away from the "safe" Safe as Milk rock and trying new experiments. Just insane. He had a silly little "sellout" period there for a year but every other album is truely groundbreaking in some way.

I largely agree (with the possible expetion that I'd try and fit the VU and maybe Dylan in there somewhere, if we're talking groundbreaking 60s artists). I mean fucking hell, the guy recorded:

Safe as Milk
Strictly Personal/Mirror Man
Trout Mask Replica
Lick My Decals Off, Baby

At a rate of one a year between 67-70. That shit is insane! Easily up there with the Velvet Underground 67-70, or Beatles 65-69, or Dylan 63-66, as a display of totally mind-boggling productivity and invention. Legendary.

"The moon was a drip on a dark hood
'N they were drivin' around 'n around
Vital Willy tol' Weepin' Milly
I'm gonna booglarize you baby"

Beefheart = GOD.

End of thread.

Bat Chain Puller.

Yearly bump.

Just heard the song LITTLE SCRATCH recently, which is basically "The Past Sure Is Tense" with cleaner production (was recorded during Clear Spot sessions) and lyrics that weren't as good. Man, this version is SO inferior to Past Sure Is Tense..

Got the 33 1/3 book on Trout Mask recently, good stuff..

Currently, I'd rank:
1. ice cream for crow
2. lick my decals off baby
3. doc at the radar station
4. strictly personal
5. trout mask replica
6. shiny beast
7. mirror man
8. safe as milk
9. spotlight kid
10. clear spot

Not even going to count the 2 sellout albums.

Obviously I love him. But wierdly, I haven't listened to him much at all since probably last summer. I'm smoking less weed, which might have something to do with it.

....blows away like a FEATHER.

YES!

I do love this band so much.

Making love to a vampire with a monkey on my knee
The pond shined dry like a ladies compact
Lilies leaped like flat green hearts with white hearts
Squirting yellow pollen...cocks...
Ferns ran like cool spades.. fossils. ..away from rocks
Bees echoed dark carbon hums that dashed in nothing
Gnats fucked my ears 'n nostrils
Hit my brain like hones 'n numbed t' nothing
Wings stuck on liquid bones
Making love to a vampire with a monkey on my knee
The moon poured hollow down my milky leg
Splashed still ‘n moved
The wind peed down the willows 'n pricked the needle vine
The monkey moved a fur shadow... its soot tail curled in twos
Its lips smiled needles.. its eyes rolled loose
Her throat broke open... glistened in the dew
Red berries dangled like a dream of rubies too
Snot muscles ran down her ivory chin 'n tooth within
A locket... a pin held fast to then, my love, my pocket deep within
'N senses dangled the chain that clasped me to her then
The messenger spoke the wind that blows between our time
I sensed you then 'n whispers spin 'n flow in silver dust
Around the pointed pin
Sent to nothing
God, please fuck my mind for good
Making love to a vampire with a monkey on my knee
Oh fuck that thing.. .fuck that poem...eyes crawl out with maggots
White cloth bones pile up light thrown blades
Rags ‘n skull.. scoops soil cracks.. .drain screams.. please
Take my hand 'n join me... too soon its clutches gleams
Making love to a vampire with a monkey on my knee
Death be damned... life

so

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jt75lxDooP0

this 8 bit version of dirty blue gene is note-for-note... ridiculous... wow.

^^hail to all trackers!

I agree all that is said in this thread!!! And I think captain is almost as underestimated as the other great Dr. John. My favourite Beefheart albums are: Trout Mask Replica, Lick My Decals Off, Doc at the Radar Station, Ice Cream For Crow, Strictly Personal and Safe As Milk. They are all as great! The good albums are: Spotlight Kid, Clear Spot and Shiny Beast. Unconditionally Guarenteed and Bluejeans are not bad, but not as good as those others. Few months ago I listened Guaranteed and suprisingly I found it better than I remembered. And I have to say that the album "Bongo Fury" which he made with Frank Zappa is also very great!

love beefheart and love zappa.

I really didn't get into Beefheart back in the sixties and seventies. There was just so much music at that time that he just kind of slipped through the cracks on me. Which is kind of surprising as I generally picked up 2 albums a week. One album would be by someone I knew and 1 by someone I didn't know.

So I get to enjoy him now as a new band along with at least a dozen other bands that you folks have turned me on to. THANKS