classic albums, atsonicpark edition # 4: captain beefheart - ice cream for crow
 

CAPTAIN BEEFHEART "ICE CREAM FOR CROW"
1982, Virgin Records
1. "Ice Cream for Crow" – 4:35
2. "The Host the Ghost the Most Holy-O" – 2:25
3. "Semi-Multicoloured Caucasian" – 4:20
4. "Hey Garland, I Dig Your Tweed Coat" – 3:13
5. "Evening Bell" – 2:00
6. "Cardboard Cutout Sundown" – 2:38
7. "The Past Sure Is Tense" – 3:21
8. "Ink Mathematics" – 1:40
9. "The Witch Doctor Life" – 2:38
10. "81 Poop Hatch" – 2:39
11. "The Thousandth and Tenth Day of the Human Totem Pole" – 5:43
12. "Skeleton Makes Good" – 2:17

I first heard Trout Mask Replica about 7 years ago. I was mainly into stuff like Melt Banana, the Locust, Dillinger Escape Plan, Atari Teenage Riot, Babyland... stuff like that... stuff that blew my 8th- and 9th-grade mind at the time... I had an ICQ friend at the time (who went by the name Brent Cube...?!) who always reccomended me music, and I would special-order them from the record store, and I got records of the aforementioned bands and one day, he told me if I wanted something really bizarre, check out Trout Mask Replica by Captain Beefheart. I downloaded a song on Napster, I think it was "Ella Guru". I went to the record store and ordered it, and I remember the guy behind the counter being shocked... I guess he'd heard it (or at least heard of it) unlike some of the other bands I'd listened to, and he said, "Well... that's a weird choice..." So, I paid $16 or however much for it, it arrived at the store, and I had my mom pick it up and after school I was doing my homework and put it on.. and I remember being shocked at how listenable it was. It didn't seem too WEIRD to me... just... it sounded wrong. I couldn't connect with it... it just didn't do anything for me. It was either the production (which I still hate) or the in-between song banter or the field recordings... something about the whole record just didn't connect with me. Still, I kept coming back to it, trying to discover what was so great about it. It didn't frustrate me or challenge me so much as just make me go, "wow, that's neat." but then kind of zone out (for the record, "Ella Guru" is still one of my favorite Beefheart tracks, and the instrumentals on Trout Mask are unbelievable). Years later, I look at it as an important, amazing piece of work, and I think most people will never comprehend exactly how amazing it is -- but as a whole, as an album, as a "product" and not just as an inspirational source and cultural milestone, it wasn't as good as it could've been. I blame Frank Zappa! (case in point: no other Beefheart album had such shitty production or so much filler... and yes, Trout Mask is FILLED to the brim with filler)

So, with my first taste of Beefheart being "well, that was good, but I was hoping for something else", I downloaded a few of his albums and I liked them all more... at the same time, I grew to appreciate Trout Mask more; it's not that I had a hard time following the songs, and I still think the guitar lines on that are amazing -- it just wasn't what I wanted, you know?
So, after wading through some albums that were amazing (Doc, Decals, the original Bat Chain Puller) and some that.. weren't.. (Strictly Personal, Bluejeans, Unconditionally), the last album I downloaded was Ice Cream for Crow. I listened to it one time, and I went, "That's it. That's the album I always wanted to hear from Captain Beefheart!" I went and ordered it online, and 2 or 2 1/2 years after first hearing Trout Mask, I'd finally found the Beefheart album I always wanted.

It's just amazing. It seems like no one ever talks about it... but... there's just something about that album.. after years of loving it, I finally found one other person who ranked it as his favorite... I don't really know how it COULDN'T be anyone's favorite. Pairing his most complex material ("Thousandth and Tenth Day of the Human Totem Pole", which is one of the most complex songs I've ever heard; check out the old version of this song if you think the guitarist is just making up the stuff as he goes along), his catchiest work ("The Ghost, The Host, the Most Holy-O" or whatever; I'm bad with titals), and his most challenging work ("Hey Garland I Dig Your Tweed Coat"), the album just feels... right. What REALLY strikes me as just how poppy some of the weird-ass guitar lines and melodies are. The title track has this beautiful 8-note sliding guitar line in the "chorus" that is amazing and also has a very straightforward blues riff/beat. The aforementioned "Ghost" has an amazing chorus and lots of ringing guitar chords. "Ink Mathematics" also strikes me as being ridiculously catchy. There are also a few instrumental tracks on this album, which have to be heard to be believed ("Evening Bell", in particular, is an amazing solo guitar track with so many amazing changes in it that it's unbelievable, and it's also more remarkable to note that the guitarist could play this thing again and again without ever making a mistake -- ?!). And the sole spoken word bit ("Poop Hatch") is endlessly fascinating.

My favorite track has to be "Cardboard Cut-Out Sun Down". There's a breakdown in the middle where everything falls apart and then comes back together and falls apart and comes back together like so many math rock bands have tried to emulate. "Angular" is not a term I like to use, but that's the only way it can be described.

Unfairly overlooked, I think most people who hear this have already had their minds blown by "trout Mask" or "Decals" or "Safe as Milk" (which I tend to find a bit overrated, though it DOES have "Electricity" on it, which probably has the best Beefheart guitar riff), but -- and I guess it seems like I'm being a bit unexcited about his material, and that's not what I'm trying to express at all; 75% of his work really does blow my mind -- this is the album in the Beefheart album that just makes me go, "holy shit." In my top 10 favorite albums ever, for sure. While it doesn't have so much of the "how the hell did he write these songs?" appeal of Trout Mask, it does have his best collection of everything that makes him so great. And to end your career at such a peak is remarkable. Amazing. Trout Mask may be his most important work (and I will definitely agree with it getting all the praise, simply because it was the first to do that kind of stuff), but this is his best.

Oh, and this album also has lots of cowbell. Which I love! Listening to it now, something I think a lot of people don't pick up on is that the lyrics and the overall tone of some of the songs are a bit darker and more depressing than anything Beefheart had done... hmm...

(oh, and something else I'd like to say: for any Beefheart info you'd ever want, go to beefheart.com; this is probably the best fan website I've ever seen for a band -- Jesus.. I've read just about everything on there, it's great)

My favourite Beefheart record. Just wanted to add that, but I have to work now.

beefheart, meh....................

i consider him and his work to be ok, it deserves recognition but it doesnt tickle my fancy. i love the song ice cream for crow but is it arts for arts sake. or is it weird to be weird. i dunno. sorry this is an unpopular opinion i know but thats what it is, an opinion......

maybe i have to listen to them a bit harder......

I think CB was much more an update on traditional blues than weird for weird's sake (the vastly overrated Trout Mask Replica accepted).

I adore "Ice Cream for Crow". It's my personal favourite of his, nicely covering the Magic Band's range. Such a fun record, good choice.

Well, finally caved in to atsonic's endless eulogizing and bought this about 2 months ago, and despite the fact that I love Beefheart somehow never listened to it because I bought several others at the same time. Decided that it's time to rectify that and dug out just now. First listen through just started. The title track is stunning, but I already knew that. Onto track two!

Thoughts later.

OK, Semi-Multicoloured Caucasian is amazing! Like a Beefheart surf rock song!

The part starting at 00:40 in The Witch Doctor Life just blew my mind. I had to rewind it twice just to listen to that sound coming in. So amazing!

Sorry for raising this corpse up just to spam it myself by the way people...

This board needs more Beefheart talk anyway because he's the shit. Ice Cream For Crow is a fantastic album and yeah, I agree that it's probably his best. I can't decide between most of them really.

they're a great, great band.. one of the few which for me are like definitive bands - like i want to be in the kind of band.

I don't think I'd want to be in a band with the Captain personally haha.

nah, but play that kind of music - with like that much bredth.

The Magic Band (all incarnations.. not the Tragic Band though) was so brilliant because of how loose but tight all of it sounded. Well, the last incarnation was tight as fuck, but specifically talking about the Trout Mask/Decals era stuff, I love how at times, it sounded like the band was about to fall apart, but it's all just so together at the same time. They were playing BEYOND the fullest extent of their abilities. I think it's interesting, because I will see some shitty band that clearly is playing sloppy, doesn't know what they're doing, and at times it will lapse into stuff like the Magic Band were doing -- but, obviously, the Magic Band knew what they were doing. To make stuff that somehow sounded so wrong, yet so right, is truely remarkable. Controlled chaos. I think "math rock" and even no wave and various other types of music can all be traced back to what the Captain was doing back in the day. Case of the punks!

I think, 40 years later, no one has still completely gotten their head around Trout Mask... Perosnally, The Captain inspires everything I do. Just amazing music.

It's hard for me to choose a favorite, too, I think Decals and Radar are both jaw-dropping, but this one has a lot of personal feelings attached to it. I wish I could go back and here it for the first time again. You know, my favorite overall might actually be the unreleased Bat Chain Puller. If they could somehow remaster that and release it today, I think that'd really blow people away. It has "Odd Jobs" on it, which I don't think ever appeared anywhere else and is definitely one of the best Captain songs (definitely the best guitar interplay at least).

For my money, no drummer will ever top John French. This was really the perfect band. I mean, every musician was just perfect in it. Really ridiculous.

Ice Cream for Crow is my favorite too...I fucking love the lyrics in The Thousandth and Tenth Day of the Human Totem Pole

The lyrics are cool but it took me a good 20 times of listening to it before I realized the music usually goes with the lyrics quite perfectly. Listen to what he says and listen to how the music corresponds directly after each line.. it's quite remarkable, obviously intentional, and extremely interesting. THE EYES WOULD ROLL TOGETHER *drum roll* It's so cool, again, because you don't notice it, really, because the whole song is so broken and complex anyway but it's really cool if you stop and listen.

How the fuck did he write btw?

Did he have his band members write their parts or was he like no...do this instead!?

I dont understand how u could write music like that and have it the same everytime...

fuckin insane.

He wrote it on a piano and John French or whoever transcribed it to guitar/bass I do believe.

Yeah, but French wasn't always in the band, he would make separate tapes of piano banging and give them to band members also. The song on this album "Evening Bell" took Gary Lucas about 2 months to transcribe, he said he did about two seconds a day or something ridiculous.

Also, I have to change my mind about my original writeup: Strictly Personal is one of my favorite Beefheart albums now. shame about the production!

Jesus christ what an exhausting way to write haha! Very strange he wrote it on piano too....crazy!

Well, the idea was that he wanted to compose music in a way that was alien -- even to him. He had no idea how to play a piano and only had a very very basic knowledge of music otherwise, but piano was especially unfamiliar for him. But he heard all the songs in his head. And so he just kinda tried to bang em out on piano, and then the guitarists banged them out, and it's really funny to think about, you're hearing a fractured version of a fractured version of his fractured mind's fractured music.

He'd communicate drum beats by throwing potted plants at the wall or by recording windshield wipers and telling the drummer to "play that."