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.