Captain Beefheart: Bat Chain Puller

CAPTAIN BEEFHEART: BAT CHAIN PULLER (1976; 2012)

1) Bat Chain Puller; 2) Seam Crooked Sam; 3) Harry Irene; 4) 81 Poop Hatch; 5) Flavor Bud Living; 6) Brick Bats; 7) Floppy Boot Stomp; 8) Ah Carrot Is As Close As Ah Rabbit Gets To Ah Diamond; 9) Owed T'Alex; 10) Odd Jobs; 11) Human Totem Pole; 12) Apes-Ma; 13) Bat Chain Puller (alternate mix); 14) Candle Mambo; 15) Hobo-ism.

The latest and, probably, the most arduously expected archival release from the Captain is this: the original Bat Chain Puller, recorded in 1976 but shelved due to personal and technical prob­lems before being reborn in an entirely new coating three years later. In 2012, it finally got an official stamp of release on Gail Zappa's Vaulternative label, set up to handle Frank's archives — and, as it turned out, a little bit of Don Van Vliet's as well. Of course, veteran fans had already known all of this for a long time from their bootleg copies, but now, here's the Captain sending you one more gift from the grave without having you break the law or anything.

As you already know, most of the songs from Bat Chain Puller eventually became Shiny Beast, but a couple short instrumentals (ʽCarrotʼ and ʽFlavor Bud Livingʼ) and one vocal number (ʽBrick Batsʼ) had to wait until Doc At The Radar Station, and two more (ʽ81 Poop Hatchʼ and ʽHuman Totem Poleʼ) had to wait all the way until Ice Cream For Crow. Considering that ʽOdd Jobsʼ was already available on Grow Fins (albeit in demo form and very poor sound quality), the only song I do not recognize at all is ʽSeam Crooked Samʼ, another of Beefheart's beatnik recitations set to a background of gently noodling avant-jazz guitars. Additionally, the album is expanded with a few bonuses, such as an alternate mix of the title track and a lengthy improvised piece, ʽHobo-ismʼ — eight minutes of acoustic blues guitar, harmonica, and the Captain in Son House / John Lee Hooker mode, mumbling, growling, and howling out strings of neo-blues lyrics to an «authentic» dark country blues backing. Admittedly, it's fun for a couple minutes, but gets tedious very quickly if you're not too deeply into that kind of thing.

So what's the deal, anyway? Does this old recording still deserve its own place under the sun, or has it been rendered completely superfluous by Shiny Beast? From one point of view — given that the Captain was always very specific about preserving the compositional structure and arrangement details of his songs, and never really favored improvised variations on any of his songs once they were finished — it is superfluous: although the new recordings, considering both the complexity of the songs and the fact that everything had to be redone from scratch under new studio conditions, could not help but sound somewhat different, they are still exceptionally close, enough to make the comparison more interesting for the Beefheart historian than the average fan. On the other hand, the two albums were recorded by significantly different lineups of The Magic Band — for instance, Bat Chain Puller did not have Bruce Fowler on trombone, whereas Shiny Beast did not feature John French — and this makes the original version sound a bit more raw and less cluttered with extra instrumentation than Shiny Beast. So it's not like you aren't really offered a choice: some people did complain about a slight overproduction problem on Shiny Beast, and this gives them a chance to rejoice and pick a new intimate favorite.

I do have at least this to say: although I am still largely indifferent to ʽHuman Totem Poleʼ, this version of it here sounds far more tight and energetic than the one on Ice Cream For Crow, largely because John French is a better drummer (or, at least, a better Beefheart-style drummer) than Cliff R. Martinez, and is able to lock himself in a better coordinated groove with the two surrounding guitar players. Also, the track works better without the Captain's ugly sax blowing all over it (sorry, all you best friends of the Beefheart-'n'-saxophone alliance). The rest, well — I frankly don't care all that much, but since I like Shiny Beast, it's nice to be able to hear a few highlights in slightly edgier, though not necessarily better, versions. Anyway, no enlightening revelations here, but a pleasant souvenir for the fans and a useful piece of the Beefheart puzzle to put together with the rest.

Captain Beefheart: I'm Going To Do What I Wanna Do - Live At My Father's Place

CAPTAIN BEEFHEART: I'M GOING TO DO WHAT I WANNA DO: LIVE AT MY FATHER'S PLACE (1978; 2000)

1) Tropical Hot Dog Night; 2) Nowadays A Woman's Gotta Hit A Man; 3) Owed T'Alex; 4) Dropout Boogie; 5) Harry Irene; 6) Abba Zaba; 7) Her Eyes Are A Blue Million Miles; 8) Old Fart At Play; 9) Well; 10) Ice Rose; 11) Moonlight On Vermont; 12) The Floppy Boot Stomp; 13) You Know You're A Man; 14) Bat Chain Puller; 15) Apes-Ma; 16) When I See Mommy I Feel Like A Mummy; 17) Veteran's Day Poppy; 18) Safe As Milk; 19) Suction Prints.

Well, I guess it's a free world after all, one in which, if a man says he wants to live at his father's place, nobody should have the right to prevent him from doing what he wants to do, regardless of currently established social conventions and free from psychologically traumatic social pressure. Besides, Captain Beefheart does look like somebody who wouldn't mind living at his father's place, right? In fact, in a certain figurative sense, this is precisely what he'd be doing from 1982 and right up to his own death in 2010 — retired to his father's place to plant cabbages, fish for trout (let alone the mask replicae), and live in his own world, impenetrable to outsiders, so...

...oh, hang on. This is not «[lɪv] at my father's place», this is «[lʌɪv] at ʽMy Father's Placeʼ», a music venue in Roslyn, New York, where The Magic Band performed a full set on November 18, 1978 — with the entire show, for once, professionally recorded and mixed on a two-track tape, making this, at the moment, probably the only representative live Beefheart album that you can hear in more-than-decent sound quality; kudos to all the kind people at Rhino Records who took good care of the tapes and released the show as a nicely packaged 2-CD edition in 2000 (the second CD just has the two brief encores, but it was better than truncating the tapes).

Upon release, the album was universally acclaimed by all those 10-15 people who actually got around to listen to it, and I am happy to join this group — because, make no mistake about it, this is truly as good as live Beefheart can get, and should by all means be considered an essential part of the catalog now, rather than just an add-on for hardcore fans. For one thing, the recording captures The Magic Band at its latter-day peak: Shiny Beast had only been released one month ago, and both the Captain and his sidemen were clearly happy about this. Although the backing band lacks Ed Marimba, who had formally been a «guest» on Shiny Beast, that does not prevent the rest of the players from tearing as professionally and with as much feeling into those grooves as they'd just done in the studio, or to loyally devote themselves to recreating the madness and frenzy of some of the highlights of the Captain's backlog.

Second, the setlist is quite auspicious. You know there's gonna be very heavy focus on Shiny Beast (indeed, they do 10 out of 12 of its tracks, even including a recitation of ʽApes-Maʼ), but that's fine, what with the songs being so great and all. Meanwhile, the other half of the show gives you a brief overview of the Captain's (almost) entire career, starting off with the early days (kick-ass, totally convincing renditions of ʽAbba Zabaʼ and ʽDropout Boogieʼ that show how easily Beefheart could still slip into that spirit of '67 ten years later), paying respectful tribute to TMR (ʽMoonlight On Vermontʼ, ʽVeteran's Day Poppyʼ, and even a blazin-fire' resurrection of the album's poetry bits such as ʽWellʼ and ʽOld Fart At Playʼ), and briefly grazing the «acces­sible» era of 1972 with a tearfully soulful rendition of ʽHer Eyes Are A Blue Million Milesʼ and a version of ʽNowadays A Woman's Gotta Hit A Manʼ that is every bit as boogie-happy, hilarious, and socially insightful as the original. Leaving aside the disastrous year of 1974, this is perhaps not as thoroughly representative a retrospective as it could have been, but then again, this is not about churning out «top 40 material», as Beefheart himself jokes at one point — it's about ack­nowledging the relevance of the past without de-emphasizing the present. On an amusing note, despite the endless flow of requests from the audience (there's one particularly annoying guy who keeps asking for ʽI'm Gonna Booglarize Youʼ as if his life depended on it), the good Don never takes even a single one — ultimately stating to the audience, in a sort of fatherly admonishing tone, that "I'm going to do what I wanna do" and thus giving the album its title.

And this brings me to my last and most serious point: this is a truly great record in terms of, like, «getting to know» the Captain. It's not like he's got a personal rapport with the audience or any­thing, but it clearly invigorates him to be delivering his art directly to the people, and he seems even more on fire here than he does in the studio. Every vocal part is enunciated, intoned, injected with blues, jazz, and absurdist feeling as if he were fighting for top prize; even when he is simply reciting his poetic lines, he seems truly possessed — at the end of ʽOld Fart At Playʼ, when one of the band's members finishes it off with TMR's original "oh man, that's so heavy", you can all but feel the amazement in the guy's voice. On ʽAbba Zabaʼ, he extends and wolfishly howls the lyrics ("Indian dre-e-e-e-am!, tiger m-o-o-o-o-n!") like a werewolf caught in the middle of the transfiguration procedure — far less restrained than in the 1967 studio, but still totally in control of the situation. And in between the songs, or, sometimes, in the middle of them, he sometimes drops hilarious one-liners that help both instruct the audience and keep it at a distance (like "cut it out, man, this is not in 4/4 time! some things are sacred!").

Normally, I would probably call a live album like this expendable, because Beefheart's discipline principles involved sticking as close to the originals as possible — the show has virtually nothing by way of improvisation, respecting the «composer's wishes» attitude, and it is cool how the new Magic Band is ready to oblige the man, loyally studying all the nuances of the old songs. But the weirdness of the material is so strong that simply hearing it come back to life again in an envi­ronment like this is inspiring — and the environment does matter greatly, with the small audience infected by the band's enthusiasm and getting into the game (much as I miss the sound of empty beer bottles crashing on the stage: that would have been the perfect finishing touch). Perhaps if we had a smattering of live recordings like that, if we had to be subjected to «Beefheads» end­lessly recording their own piles of Vliet's Picks or something, that would have quickly turned into unbearable overkill. But just for this once, a representative recording, in admirable sound quality, of the Captain once again at the top of his game is a real joy, and in a way, it makes me appre­ciate the man much deeper than his studio output, so, unquestionably, a thumbs up and a major recommendation for everybody here, not just for the top hardcore fans. Let the Captain woo you over with his over-the-top enthusiasm, if nothing else.

Captain Beefheart: Grow Fins Vol. 3

CAPTAIN BEEFHEART: GROW FINS VOL. 3 (1969-1982; 1999)

1) My Human Gets Me Blues (1969 live); 2) When Big Joan Sets Up (1971 live); 3) Woe Is Uh Me Bop (1971 live); 4) Bellerin Plain (1971 live); 5) Black Snake Moan (1972 radio phone-in); 6) Grow Fins (1972 live); 7) Black Snake Moan II (1972 radio); 8) Spitball Scalped Uh Baby (1972 live); 9) Harp Boogie I (1972 radio); 10) One Red Rose That I Mean (1972 live); 11) Harp Boogie II (1972 radio); 12) Natchez Burning (1972 radio); 13) Harp Boogie III (1972 radio phone-in); 14) Click Clack (1973 live); 15) Orange Claw Hammer (1975 radio); 16) Odd Jobs (1975 piano demo); 17) Odd Jobs (1976 band demo); 18) Vampire Suite (1980 worktapes/live); 19) Mellotron Improv (1978 live); 20) Evening Bell (1980 piano worktape); 21) Evening Bell (1982 guitar worktape); 22) Mellotron Improv (1980 live); 23) Flavor Bud Living (1980 live).

The last volume of Grow Fins is as messy as they come — an assortment of mostly live post-TMR perfor­mances, roughly arranged in chronological order and interspersed with occasional demos and snippets of radio interviews (usually involving Beefheart briefly tapping into his blues roots with an acapella Howlin' Wolf imitation or a short harmonica solo). It is an interesting mess, for sure, and could have been quite awesome if not for the awful sound quality on the absolute majority of the tracks — hiss, crackle, pop, and lo-fi audience recording are the norm of the day here, so the entire experience is really for those who like their unlistenable Captain to sound even more unlistenable; I mean, what can be better than dissonant cacophony, other than dissonant cacophony that sounds like total lo-fi shit?

That said, it's a bit of a pity, because the live recordings from 1971-72 are quite energetic and inspired. For one thing, this was the height of Beefheart's involvement with free jazz, and so you get an even longer, wilder, more hysterical version of ʽWhen Big Joan Sets Upʼ — and a nine-minute long drums-and-sax improv called ʽSpitball Scalped Uh Babyʼ, the likes of which you will not find on any studio Beefheart album (whether it's any good, though, is up to seasoned connaisseurs of free-form jazz to decide). For another, it gives you a good chance to verify that The Magic Band did indeed rock harder live than in the studio — the guitar riffs on ʽWoe Is Uh Me Bopʼ are crisper, and the lead lines far shriller than the marimba-soothed studio version, and ʽGrow Finsʼ gets a red-hot fuzz cloud all over its rhythm guitar and bass, approaching, if not heavy metal, then at least the classic Stones sound in terms of heaviness.

Once the ferociously flogged-on live version of ʽClick Clackʼ from 1973 is over, the chronology predictably takes a break (nothing from Beefheart's Annus horribilis of 1974), and the latter day material is not nearly as tough. A lot of space is taken over by the Bat Chain Puller number ʽOdd Jobsʼ — first in the form of a monotonously looped, brain-beating, piano demo version, then in the form of an equally looped and brain-beating early band demo, with guitars replacing piano but not much of an overall change. And the live material from the early 1980s is mostly confined to bits of «Mellotron improvisation» (where the best bits come from Beefheart vocally taunting the audience rather than the actual rape of the Mellotron) and a couple guitar solo bits from Gary Lucas that add little to what we already know about the man's skills from the studio records. This really sounds like barrel-bottom-scraping.

In conclusion, I must restate that on the whole, Grow Fins is a disappointment, and as bad as the situation with Beefheart's vaults might have been, I feel that a much better job could be made out of it — but it is most likely that the whole thing was done on a shoestring budget anyway, be­cause one thing that never stuck around for too long around the Captain or his pals was money, and as noble as that sounds, it also has certain drawbacks. Still, given the choice between this kind of selection with this kind of quality production and nothing, even I, not the world's biggest Beefheart admirer by any means, would go along with the project. As Zappa says in his introduc­tion to this volume's first performance, "Listen, be quiet and pay attention to this man's music, because if you don't, you might miss something important, and we wouldn't want that to happen to you, because you need all the friends you can get". Seems like the thirty years that elapsed between that pronunciation in 1969 and the release of Grow Fins in 1999 didn't make that message any less relevant.

Captain Beefheart: Grow Fins: Trout Mask House Sessions

CAPTAIN BEEFHEART: GROW FINS: TROUT MASK HOUSE SESSIONS (1969; 1999)

CD I: 1) Untitled 1; 2) Untitled 2; 3) Hair Pie: Bake 1; 4) Hair Pie: Bake 2; 5) Untitled 5; 6) Hobo Chang Ba; 7) Untitled 7; 8) Hobo Chang Ba (Take 2); 9) Dachau Blues; 10) Old Fart At Play; 11) Untitled 11; 12) Pachuco Cadaver; 13) Sugar 'N' Spikes; 14) Untitled 14; 15) Sweet Sweet Bulbs; 16) Frownland (Take 1); 17) Frownland; 18)

Untitled 18; 19) Ella Guru; 20) Untitled 20; 21) She's Too Much For My Mirror; 22) Untitled 22; 23) Steal Softly Through Snow; 24) Untitled 24; 25) My Human Gets Me Blues; 26) Untitled 26; 27) When Big Joan Sets Up; 28) Untitled 28; 29) Untitled 29; 30) China Pig.

CD II: 1) Blimp; 2) Herb; 3) Septic Tank; 4) Overdub.

I am not that much of a Beefhead to guess correctly whether this second volume of Grow Fins would have pleased the seasoned fan or offended him. Normally, an entire CD of outtakes from the Trout Mask Replica sessions would be considered a godsend — the problem, however, is that this CD offers no truly new material whatsoever. It is quite likely that there was no new mate­rial, since everything that Beefheart wrote for the sessions ended up being on TMR (indeed, I am not sure myself what exactly it would be that could separate a «good» TMR composition from a «bad» TMR composition): you create it, you hum it, you indoctrinate it in the players, you record it, you move on. Even so, a set of alternate takes could be interesting at least for historical purposes, as well as psychological ones: it might always be instructive to understand how weird­ness takes shape under a set of erratically driven chisels.

Problem is, unless you are really really dedicated to sorting out the nuances, the entire CD simply sounds like an instrumental version of TMR. Yes, these are slightly different takes from the ones that ended up on the final album, but I am in no way prepared to discuss the specific ways in which they are different, having a life and all. Ultimately, once you weed out all the "Untitled" tracks (most of which just consist of barely audible conversations, bits of tuning up, random noises and, occasionally, even nature sounds), you are just getting a good glimpse at what TMR would have sounded like if Beefheart had, for some reason, decided that the record would do just as fine without his presence. I do not think that many people will find that glimpse enjoyable, but there may, of course, be some people out there who really love the twisted textures of the Magic Band, yet find the Captain's Howlin' Wolf-meets-Allen Ginsberg persona annoying and hindering proper musical enjoyment, just like some people, for instance, could claim to enjoy the Rolling Stones but hate Mick Jagger's guts. Who knows?

There's also a second CD here which is even worse — a few extra tracks of barely audible banter, including one on which you can hear parts of the telephone conversation in ʽBlimpʼ. As it turns out, the audio tracks on the second disc were a mere pretext to include some video files as well: rather poor quality, though certainly priceless, amateurish footage of some of Beefheart's live shows from 1968 to 1972, and in VCD format at that (ugh).

On the whole, I'd characterize this part of Grow Fins as a tremendous disappointment — as slim as the pickings probably were, they could have certainly done a better job with them, cutting out most of the «noodling» and concentrating on those particular takes that differed the most from the final versions (ʽPachuco Cadaverʼ, for instance, has been noted to have a different bassline here, if it really matters to you). Then again, I guess negative evidence is just as important as positive one in certain situations, and this might be one of them.

Captain Beefheart: Grow Fins - Just Got Back From The City/Electricity

CAPTAIN BEEFHEART: GROW FINS: JUST GOT BACK FROM THE CITY / ELECTRICITY (1965-1968; 1999)

CD I: 1) Obeah Man (1966 demo); 2) Just Got Back From The City (1966 demo); 3) I'm Glad (1966 demo); 4) Triple Combination (1966 demo); 5) Here I Am I Always Am (early 1966 demo); 6) Here I Am I Always Am (later 1966 demo); 7) Somebody In My Home (1966 live); 8) Tupelo (1966 live); 9) Evil Is Going On (1966 live); 10) Old Folks Boogie (1967 live); 11) Call On Me (1965 demo); 12) Sure Nuff N Yes I Do (1967 demo); 13) Yellow Brick Road (1967 demo); 14) Plastic Factory (1967 demo);

CD II: 1) Electricity (1968 live); 2) Sure Nuff N Yes I Do (1968 live); 3) Rollin' 'N' Tumblin' (1968 live); 4) Electricity (1968 live); 5) Yer Gonna Need Somebody On Yer Bond (1968 live); 6) Kandy Korn (1968 live); 7) Korn Ring Finger (1967 demo).

Since the idea of «self-discipline» was about as alien to the Captain as it was so totally integral for Zappa (may have been the one chief distinction between the two of them after all), his vaults were predictably left in a much less user-friendly state than Zappa's, and the stream of archival releases after his retirement from music has been notably thinner than Frank's, even if, judging by the sheer number of various bootlegs produced over the years, there's a huge amount of goodies there for poor starving fans.

On the official circuit, the single largest dig into the vaults consists of the 5-CD set Grow Fins, lovingly prepared by fans with the assistance of John French (who also wrote a lengthy history of The Magic Band for the liner notes) and released on the Revenant label that normally focuses on retrospectives of various old blues and folk artists — and thus, accepts Beefheart into the same pantheon with Charley Patton, Doc Boggs, and John Fahey; then again, who's to say the Captain was not an American primitivist when it comes to understanding American pritimitivism? He certainly preserves and carries on the spirit of Charley Patton far more loyally than oh so many «polite» blues-rockers who think they cover Charley Patton when in fact they do not.

Anyway, even though, technically, the entire boxset should count as one single album, its 5 CDs logically fall into three (maybe even four) distinct subdivisions, and it would make sense to com­ment on them separately. The first CD, subtitled Just Got Back From The City, covers outtakes, demos, and occasional live performances from the Captain's formative years (1965-66) and all the way to the sessions for Safe As Milk; thematically, it is barely separable from the second CD, subtitled Electricity and containing primarily live performances of Safe As Milk and Magic Man material from 1968, so we will talk of them together, and leave CDs 3-4 (TMR-era outtakes) and CD 5 (a messy mix of later era live performances) for later.

The first disc here is clearly the most surprise-laden and instructive for all those who have not had that much experience with Beefheart in his pre-Safe As Milk days, barring maybe a brief acquai­ntance with ʽDiddy Wah Diddyʼ from the Nuggets boxset. You might have guessed that in those early days he may have started out as a blues singer — but the first ten tracks here actually con­firm that guess with solid musical evidence, such as, for instance, the Captain not just being in­spired by Howlin' Wolf, but actually covering Howlin' Wolf, live from the Avalon Ballroom in 1966, where you could really confuse him with the real Howlin' Wolf for a moment, except that, once you put two and two together, Beefheart's voice is still too high and thin to perfectly match the thickness and depth of the Wolf's delivery. He also does a great John Lee Hooker on ʽTupeloʼ, four minutes of dark, sludgy blueswailing that's probably as good as the best white boy blues effort in America circa 1966 — well, not exactly blowing away the Paul Butterfield Blues Band (Beefheart was never as obsessed with his harmonica-blowing skills as Paul, and none of his early guitarists were Mike Bloomfield), but still doing a good job of conveying the creepy menace of hardcore electric blues.

In fact, the opening number, an unreleased self-penned demo called ʽObeah Manʼ, introduces us to the beginnings of Beefheart as a swaggery blues-rocker just dying to make a flashy introduc­tion — much like Paul Butterfield on ʽBorn In Chicagoʼ, which introduced the world to the But­terfield Blues Band one year before; leave it to the young aspiring Captain, however, to make things a little more complex by introducing us to the Igbo word "obeah" that was probably un­known even to the likes of Muddy Waters. There's also ʽJust Got Back From The Cityʼ, a wan­nabe ʽI Wish You Wouldʼ imitation with lots of squeaky harmonica, and some strange attempts at Stonesy pop-rock songs (ʽHere I Am I Always Amʼ) that at least show you how Beefheart was no sworn enemy of accessible pop stuff, and how, in a way, what he did in the unfortunate year of 1974 could be seen as a sort of «return to childhood». (For some hardcore childhood, you can go all the way back to the 1965 demo ʽCall On Meʼ, a folk-pop ballad that is so sweet, you'd swear it was commissioned from Sonny Bono — unfortunately, the sound quality on that one is about as bad as on your average Charley Patton track from 1929, so you'll have to press your ear real hard to be able to laugh all the way to the bank).

As we advance towards the «official» Beefheart years of 1967-68, things become less interesting: the Safe As Milk demos, besides also being featured in bootleg sound quality, disclose no new secrets, and the live performances from 1968 never reach the intensity of the Mirror Man jam sessions, more like the wobbly muddiness of the re-recordings on Strictly Personal. In particular, there's an 11-minute jam version of ʽRollin' 'N' Tumblin'ʼ which Beefheart uses as an excuse to practice his atonal soprano sax — I don't know, it just does not seem to me a good idea to mix Muddy Waters with Albert Ayler, as brave as it might seem on paper, because if I want psychotic sonic mess, I pick Ayler, and if I want a rollickin' piece of blues, I pick Muddy, and do I want to have both at the same time? Not sure. Much the same happens with ʽYer Gonna Need Somebody On Yer Bondʼ, except there he does the same stuff with harmonica, and it's even messier. Then again, it might just be the sound quality — all these tapes sound flat and bootleggish. So I'd say that the only track on the second disc that should be of considerable interest is the studio demo ʽKorn Ring Fingerʼ from 1967, a psychedelic waltz with nicely seductive slide guitar work, al­though taken at a very slow tempo for the Captain — but at least you get to hear it in superb sound quality, with a clear stereo separation of the instruments.

This is a bit disappointing, because while inferior sound quality is always to be expected of the earliest recordings, you'd think that by 1967, once the Magic Band really went professional, those problems could have been overcome. But then again, I guess nobody ever took any serious care of the tapes anyway — safeguarding Beefheart's dirty underwear was on no record label's top shelf of priorities, so don't expect Beatles Anthology sound level for any of these demos; as for the live performances, I guess people were too terrified to record the Captain much in 1968 — one of the few exceptions being Frank Freeman's Dance Studio in Kidderminster, UK (according to one source, The Magic Band was "pleased the venue did not sell alcohol, as this meant there were no beer bottles that could be thrown at them" — more than that, somebody was kind enough as to bring a tape recorder along). So, basically, you just get what you can get, and ain't no use complaining.

Captain Beefheart: Ice Cream For Crow

CAPTAIN BEEFHEART: ICE CREAM FOR CROW (1982)

1) Ice Cream For Crow; 2) The Host The Ghost The Most Holy-O; 3) Semi-Multicoloured Caucasian; 4) Hey Garland, I Dig Your Tweed Coat; 5) Evening Bell; 6) Cardboard Cutout Sundown; 7) The Past Sure Is Tense; 8) Ink Mathematics; 9) The Witch Doctor Life; 10) '81' Poop Hatch; 11) The Thousandth And Tenth Day Of The Human Totem Pole; 12) Skeleton Makes Good; 13*) Light Reflected Off The Oceans Of The Moon.

The Captain's «swan song» is probably one of the least swan-song-like swan songs in existence: in fact, his decision to retire from his musical career came as abruptly and unpredictably as most of his other decisions — the really amazing thing being that he (unlike so many other phony «quitters» with their «farewell tours») actually delivered upon that pro­mise, and spent the next thirty years of his life at a safe distance from any musical activities, as a painter, poet, and family man. But do not even try to search for any signs of a musical testament or lyrical goodbye on Ice Cream For Crow, a record that stays firmly committed to the artistic values of Doc At The Radar Station and is usually regarded by critics as a fine companion piece to the latter, albeit slightly less energetic and exciting.

It is hard not to share that judgement, and since I was not overwhelmed with Doc, you won't find a whole lot of passion for Crow in this review, either — but some polite admiration is still in order. To accuse the record of a «lack of focus» would be like accusing a rat's tail of a lack of hair, but what makes it harder to sit through is that it also lacks the energy of Doc: with one exception, these songs almost never rock hard — if Doc was Beefheart's warped equivalent of a kick-ass garage rock album, then Ice Cream is more like his equally warped interpretation of an unassu­ming collection of roots-rock tunes. A bit jazzy, a bit folkish, a bit bluesy, and, of course, always on the verge of falling apart.

The exception in question is the title track, probably the most accessible number on the whole record, based on an old idea of a boogie-rocker going all the way back to 1971 (and yes, it would have made a great addition to The Spotlight Kid). Fast paced, with a steady beat, a tightly con­trolled, gritty slide guitar riff, and some nice lead work from another slide guitar in the right channel, it starts things off in a compromising, but cool style, and will leave you forever guessing about the symbolism of giving "ice cream for crow" (Van Vliet said something about the opposi­tion of ʽblackʼ and ʽwhiteʼ, but it all makes no more direct sense than his painting on the front sleeve). The funniest thing is that, according to the liner notes, when released as a single, Gary Lucas tried to market the song for gay clubs on hardcore nights — so now you have a legitimate reason to claim that Beefheart's music is «gay». Then again, it sure ain't straight.

Anyway, I cannot really get too far into the rest of it. I don't mind the usual problem of Beef­heart's melodies refusing to stick around — as long as he is in his TMR mindset, you have to be ready for it — but most of these grooves are too slow, draggy, and, I'd say, almost pensive, as if the band recorded them in a relaxed, meditative state of mind: cue the instrumental ʽSemi-Multi­coloured Caucasianʼ, with one guitar chopping out funky chords in the right speaker and another one swirling Grateful Dead-like ragas in the left one. Sounds maybe cool on paper, but too much abstract sonic geometry for my taste, and with hardly any development, although they do change keys for a couple bridge sections.

And, actually, ʽCaucasianʼ is still a highlight next to stuff like ʽCardboard Cutout Sundownʼ, a piece of broken blues that does nothing but break the blues, and many other tracks that sound like its younger brothers. I do admit with the sometimes expressed point of view that there is an aura of depression to many of the tunes — that the whole album sounds sad and tired next to the some­what more energetic and uplifting sound of Doc — but I probably have to work long and hard to learn to empathize with that kind of sadness, and without any guarantee of success. It feels like there might be something deep, grim, and scary hiding at the bottom of avantgarde de­baucheries like ʽThe Thousandth And Tenth Day Of The Human Totem Poleʼ, but it's hard to scoop out from under all the dissonance and broken rhythmic patterns and, above all, this stuff drags — granted, that might have something to do with all the lineup changes (apparently, new drummer Cliff Martinez and new bass player Richard Snyder complained about not having enough time to gel with the rest of the band), but it also might have something to do with the fact that the process was no longer nearly as fresh or exciting for the Captain as it used to be.

The legend goes that he quit music to capitalize on his painting — wanting to be taken seriously as a visual artist, rather than some spoiled rock star engaging in hobbies — but listening to Ice Cream For Crow and occasionally getting bored with it, rather than befuddled as usual, makes me suspect that he got bored with his own music himself. It is hardly a coincidence that a lot of these tracks represent completed (or semi-completed) ideas that go all the way back to the early Seventies and even the late Sixties (ʽWitch Doctor Lifeʼ was originally conceived in 1968, which is why it also sounds moderately more conventional than almost anything else here) — the Cap­tain wasn't particularly interested in developing new ideas, and if it is true that the only complete­ly new tracks here were ʽCardboard Cutout Sundownʼ and ʽSkeleton Makes Goodʼ, I can get that because I actively dislike both (two sonic messes in the worst traditions of TMR).

Of course, fans of TMR should feel free to disagree with this assessment — but even repeated listens could not swerve me from the impression that Ice Cream For Crow is Don Van Vliet loyally playing the role of Captain Beefheart, giving his small fanbase precisely what they want, but not necessarily giving himself precisely what he wanted at the time. Too much of this just sounds dull and predictable, and certainly no longer as stunning for the poor ear caught unawares as it used to be in 1969. Do not take my word for it (after all, most of the critics usually give the album the same acclaim as they give its two predecessors), but do not ignore the huge differences in style between it and Shiny Beast (a total masterpiece in comparison, as far as I'm concerned), either. Aw heck, perhaps it was an intentional swan song, after all. I mean, who are we to define the concept of a swan song for somebody like Van Vliet? ʽSkeleton Makes Goodʼ is as good a title for a final musical testament from the man as any.

Captain Beefheart: Doc At The Radar Station

CAPTAIN BEEFHEART: DOC AT THE RADAR STATION (1980)

1) Hot Head; 2) Ashtray Heart; 3) A Carrot Is As Close As A Rabbit Gets To A Diamond; 4) Run Paint Run Run; 5) Sue Egypt; 6) Brickbats; 7) Dirty Blue Gene; 8) Best Batch Yet; 9) Telephone; 10) Flavor Bud Living; 11) Sheriff Of Hong Kong; 12) Making Love To A Vampire With A Monkey On My Knee.

For his last two albums, Beefheart once again settled on a sound that brought him as close as possible to the spirit of Trout Mask Replica — so, predictably, you can tell that there will be less enthusiasm on my part for both of them than there was for Shiny Beast. Although the bulk of his band stays the same, there are some important lineup changes: Art Tripp is no longer here to provide his characteristic marimbas, and Richard Redus has been replaced by a returning John French, who, for some reason, switches from his usual drums to guitar — and with guitar prodigy Gary Lucas also contributing some parts, this brings the total to three guitarists, so that the Cap­tain could now compete with Lynyrd Skynyrd if he wanted to.

As a result, the overall sound is quite removed from Shiny Beast — with less emphasis on per­cussion and brass (Bruce Fowler is still a member of the band, but his trombone is quite subdued here), Doc is a totally guitar-groove-oriented album, much like TMR, following similarly jagged, angular paths, with a crisp, bone-dry sound from everyone involved — so much so, it makes me feel thirsty as hell before even reaching the ten-minute mark. It is also much less diverse, without any vaudeville distractions like ʽHarry Ireneʼ or Latin experiments: really, we're back to Beef­heart-rock full-time, except that the tunes sound a little bit more like real tunes (but only a little bit; reading up on the details of the sessions shows that the overall atmosphere was the closest that Beefheart ever got to reproducing the original conditions of TMR).

Of course, by 1980 this kind of sound was no longer as far ahead of its time as it was in 1969. With a miriad intelligent post-punk guitar bands in action, the Captain now sounded like a mem­ber of the pack — his Magic Band could be an opening act for Pere Ubu, for instance, or vice versa. This does not, however, mean that the Captain was now taking his cues from the likes of Pere Ubu: as usual, he is following nobody's path but his own, and the album's complete and total failure to chart anywhere arrogantly and defiantly proved that. I mean, who the heck would use a Mellotron on an album in the age of total synthesizer rule? (Actually, use of the Mellotron on tracks like ʽAshtray Heartʼ and ʽMaking Love To A Vampireʼ is one of the more brilliant touches on the record — giving them a certain dramatic flair that at least partially alleviates the excessive dryness and geometric formality of the sound).

As your brain re-adjusts to that old paradigm, the music eventually begins to flash its own twisted, but paradigmatic logic — in the coordinate system of Beefheart, ʽHot Headʼ would count as a kick-ass cock-rocker, for instance, the Captain's idiosyncratic answer to AC/DC's ʽYou Shook Me All Night Longʼ: "she can burn you up in bed just like she said cause she's a hot head", he sings in his finest Howlin' Wolf tone to a mean, funky guitar riff that probably reflects one of the Kamasutra's trickier positions. ʽAshtray Heartʼ would be the equivalent of an angry «bitch-dumped-me» punk rocker — in fact, "you used me like an ashtray heart, case of the punks!" is precisely the way Beefheart starts it off — except that no true punk rocker would dilute the emo­tions with brief Mellotron interludes, or support them with a percussion part that sounds like Bill Bruford imitating Keith Moon. And ʽRun Paint Run Runʼ is terrified escapist garage rock, except it sounds as if all the running is done on the spot... then again, this is probably exactly what you'd expect from running paint.

Unfortunately, even with all the adjustments adjusted, eventually the record begins to get a wee bit boring. No matter how many of the tunes we can explain away as «twisted projections of nor­mal situations», the overall sound is fairly monotonous, and as the tracks get longer and longer (ʽBest Batch Yetʼ says everything it has to say in two minutes, then drags on for three more; ʽSheriff Of Hong Kongʼ is six and a half minutes of the same brief guitar groove repeated over and over), I begin to get the feeling that the Captain actually has far less to say than he thinks he has — to the extent that I end up enjoying the short, minute-long instrumentals acting as «brea­thers» in between the long vocal tracks much more: ʽA Carrot Is As Close...ʼ and ʽFlavor Bud Livingʼ don't have a shred of memorability between them, but at least they do not overstay their welcome, and the latter is a dynamically evolving solo that sounds like a cross between Spanish flamenco and free jazz, which is kinda cool.

Perhaps this should have worked better if the Captain did this in Wire format — you know, with one to one-and-a-half minutes as the average length of each track; this would have given him the opportunity to rattle off as many musical ideas as possible (and it wouldn't have been hard, be­cause he was clearly on a rejuvenated roll at the time) without running any of them into the ground, swamping critical listeners like me with the sheer quantity of imagination outbursts rather than making us be all like, «yeah, cool idea, but cool enough to groove against the grain for 3-4 minutes? not really...». Then again, considering that the album marks the man's triumphant return to his native turf, who am I to tell the artist how he is supposed to behave on his own pro­perty? I'm still happy to shut up and give the record a respectable thumbs up, even without necessarily having to warm up to it all the way — he's doing his thang, he's happy about it, the band works up a solid sweat, and unless you can provide satisfactory proof that you, too, have made love to a vampire with a monkey on your knee and are therefore qualified to issue an informed judgement on the record, you can't really be sure that you have successfully cracked this record and found it lacking it spirit. I know I'm not sure at all.

Captain Beefheart: Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller)

CAPTAIN BEEFHEART: SHINY BEAST (BAT CHAIN PULLER) (1978)

1) The Floppy Boot Stomp; 2) Tropical Hot Dog Night; 3) Ice Rose; 4) Harry Irene; 5) You Know You're A Man; 6) Bat Chain Puller; 7) When I See Mommy I Feel Like A Mummy; 8) Owed T'Alex; 9) Candle Mambo; 10) Love Lies; 11) Suction Prints; 12) Apes-Ma.

By late 1974, I think, music lovers worldwide must have given up on the Captain, who'd seemed to guide his ship into the rocks — losing his loyal Magic Band, his artistic integrity, and any signs of respect from the formerly receptive critical base. The only reason for optimism was that, even at his least adventurous, Beefheart had always followed his own muse and nobody else's: «simplistic» and «commercial» as they might be, even the 1974 records sound like they could not have been produced by anybody else. Of course, the man had his original set of influences, all the way from Chicago blues to free jazz, yet once his musical vision had solidified, he seemed to pay very little attention to whatever else was going on in the musical world around him — interested in doing his own thing and nobody else's, and even if he was going to «sell out», he'd still do it the Beefheart way, rather than take a cue from The Doobie Brothers.

A good boost of confidence came from Frank Zappa, with whom Beefheart spent a lot of time together in 1975-76 (including an appearance as vocalist and occasional songwriter on Bongo Fury from 1975), and by 1976, the Captain felt resuscitated enough to put together a properly assembled new Magic Band and begin recording again — the result was Bat Chain Puller, an album of completely new material that was to see the light of day in 1976, yet ended up on inde­finite hold after a conflict between Zappa and his manager Herb Cohen resulted in all sorts of legal difficulties. Fortunately, this did not suffice to destroy the good spirits of the Captain once again, and by 1978, he was back on his feet, with a new deal with Warner Bros. (you know, the most avantgardist record label in the world) and a new album, consisting partly of re-recorded songs from Bat Chain Puller (hence the double title) and partly of completely new material.

And it is like 1974 never existed. No, scratch that — it is as if the Seventies never existed as a decade altogether: Shiny Beast picks up precisely where Trout Mask Replica and Lick My Decals left off, and feels like a superb reboot of the Captain Beefheart franchise. Basically, Beef­heart returns to the idea of «continuing to make weird music, but making it more accessible»; however, instead of steering his musicians towards more blues, more funk, and (ultimately) more pop, he remains more closely attached to the original idiom of TMR, except that certain angles get smoothed — less tricky time signatures, musicians seemingly playing more in tune with each other, grooves that take sufficient time to develop and sink in the mind: often catchy without ever sounding simplistic, and fairly adventurous without ever sounding irritating and pointless. Not to discriminate against The Spotlight Kid and Clear Spot, but this is probably the kind of sound that the Captain should have had going for himself in 1972 — although, this being 2017 and all, who really should care about a decade-long delay now? Particularly since the Captain always preferred to live in his own time anyway.

From the most basic point of view, we have our Captain back showcasing his insanity, paranoia, otherworldly creepiness, and, occasionally, «alternate sentimentality». The very first song, subtly hinting at the dawn of the computer age as Beefheart happily exploits the many meanings of the word ʽbootʼ, is a post-modern cartoonish apocalyptic vision in its own rights: with the Captain's new guitarists, Jeff Morris Tepper and Richard Redus, playing bluesy rings around each other and drummer Robert Williams playing complex polyrhythms with the verve of a good Keith Moon disciple, ʽThe Floppy Boot Stompʼ is not one of the album's most melodically memorable num­bers, but it is all that it takes to immediately ascertain — yes, the Captain is back, and it looks like he hasn't been that excited about being back since ʽFrownlandʼ, gleefully painting meltdownish pictures of how "the sky turned white in the middle of the night" and "hell was just an ice cube melting off on the ground". (Essentially, it's about a battle of characters between The Farmer and The Devil... spoiler: The Farmer won. But that shouldn't be a surprise; after all, Don Van Vliet is a plain old God-fearin' man at heart).

From then on, the record never lets go, and each new song is brimming with ideas. If it is a Latin-style dance number (ʽTropical Hot Dog Nightʼ), it will come equipped with a slightly dissonant trombone lead part (courtesy of Bruce Fowler), an overloud marimba part (courtesy of Art Tripp III, the only member from the old band who came back for these sessions), and a message that the Captain is "playin' this song for all the young girls to come out to meet the monster tonight" — sure, what else? It wouldn't be fun any other way. ʽBat Chain Pullerʼ rides a groove that actually gives the impression of somebody or something (a bat?) being rhythmically pulled by its chain, apparently with great difficulty, and the song keeps adding more and more layers as it goes on, descending into an ocean of controlled psychedelic chaos at the end. And as silly as a title like ʽWhen I See Mommy I Feel Like A Mummyʼ might sound, musically the song sounds like a cross between a New Orleans funeral march, a Black Sabbath riff-rocker, and a free jazz impro­visation — but with a basic groove to which you could toe-tap if you wanted to, and with a couple of highly melodic riffs that you could whistle if you needed to. As for the title, well, it is not the first time that the Captain sings to us about his inborn fear of women; personally, I think that whoever «Mommy» is, she should be proud of causing such a complex bunch of emotions to be encoded in such a bizarre musical synthesis.

Somewhat simpler pieces also rule — ʽCandle Mamboʼ is indeed the Captain's personal interpre­tation of what a proper Latin dance number should sound like (and the solution is: more marim­bas!); ʽLove Liesʼ has distant melodic ties to Ray Charles' ʽI Believe To My Soulʼ (and, transi­tively, to Dylan's ʽBallad Of A Thin Manʼ as well), but the Captain's take on melancholic soul-blues has to have much more Mardi Gras-style brass in it; and just for diversity's sake, ʽHarry Ireneʼ is an almost completely normal music hall number that sounds more Ray Davies than Captain Beefheart, but it is a totally charming interlude, a well-placed moment of sad sentimen­tal calm in between all the madness. Predictably, there are a few instrumentals as well, and they all rule: ʽIce Roseʼ may be a little too derivative of Zappa (I think everybody can hear echoes of ʽPeaches En Regaliaʼ in there), but ʽSuction Printsʼ is totally Beefheart, a crazy blues-rocker that actually manages to rock in between all the complex rhythmic patterns.

I should probably mention as well that production values for the record are much higher than they used to be — despite the near-cacophonous melange of instruments on most of the tracks, every single guitar, every brass part, each puncturing of the marimbas remains perfectly distinct, and there's tons of replay value here as you can trace all the cool flourishes of one guitar, then con­cen­trate on the one in the other speaker, then try to assimilate the marimba melody... somehow, these songs turn me on in ways that Trout Mask Replica never could, and as unqualified as I am to discuss the musicological aspects of both records, I will just have to ascribe the difference to a smart type of compromise that Beefheart achieves here, as well as the dense nature of the arran­ge­ments — who knows, perhaps what TMR really needed for success was more horns, marimbas, and a cleaner mix.

Then again, no: it may well be possible that it simply had to take Beefheart several more years to understand properly how that ideally-visualized, but not ideally-reproduced alternate musical world of his could come to emotional life. And I wish I could ascribe his success to the dawning of a new musi­cal age — but the fact is, Shiny Beast sounds absolutely nothing like any New Wave record at the time, and thus, remains absolutely timeless. It ends on a depressing note (the forty-seconds long ʽApes-Maʼ is one of Beefheart's most pessimistic bits of declamation, espe­cially if he is referring to himself, which I think he is), but then, it's not as if the entire record were contrastively uplifting: there's plenty of melancholy and desperation hiding in these grooves, they are just not openly «whiny» or «hysterical», and that's a good thing, because in order to suc­ceed, Shiny Beast had to show some teeth, first and foremost — otherwise, people would just say «oh, he's bitching about being down on his luck and out of talent». Nope: Shiny Beast is all set to kick your ass, then give you a friendly pat on the head, then kick your ass some more, and only then retreat in the corner and let out a few hard-to-hold-back sighs... "Apes-Ma, Apes-Ma, you're eating too much and going to the bathroom too much... and Apes-Ma, your cage isn't getting any bigger, Apes-Ma". Don't we all feel like that sometimes? Thumbs up.

Captain Beefheart: Bluejeans & Moonbeams

CAPTAIN BEEFHEART: BLUEJEANS & MOONBEAMS (1974)

1) Party Of Special Things To Do; 2) Same Old Blues; 3) Observatory Crest; 4) Pompadour Swamp; 5) Captain's Holiday; 6) Rock'n'Roll's Evil Doll; 7) Further Than We've Gone; 8) Twist Ah Luck; 9) Bluejeans And Moonbeams.

Maybe I'm going too soft or too crazy, but I see more signs of life on Beefheart's second «faux-commercial» album of 1974 than on the first one — even though, by that time, the entire Magic Band had deserted him and was replaced by a bunch of really obscure musicians (Dean Smith on guitar, Micheal /sic/ Smotherman on keyboards, Ty Grimes on drums, Ira Ingber on bass, if you like names and all that), earning the popular moniker of «Captain Beefheart's Tragic Band». But... despite that, or because of that? In a way, replacing your loyal apostles, trained in the ways of the avantgarde, with a bunch of nobodies might have been the right way to go if you truly wanted to make a conventional record — at least, that way you would reduce tension in the studio.

And as a conventional record, Bluejeans is better than its predecessor because it does not sound so painful — not only is Beefheart in healthier vocal form throughout, but fewer songs sound like misguided, clumsy attempts of a deranged innovator to change his train at the speed of 200mph. Case in point: there's a cover of J. J. Cale's ʽSame Old Bluesʼ, and it's a good one — a normal dark blues song, done by the Captain with his usual growl and every bit as convincing as the ori­ginal, though, perhaps, not very necessary. But there's some confidence here, and a suggestion that, perhaps, Beefheart would have fared better at the time if he had simply switched to standard blues or blues-rock. Something like an album of Howlin' Wolf covers, for instance.

As usual, he insists upon starting the record with an evil-grin of a nasty funk-rocker, and as usual, the opening number is one of the best things here — ʽParty Of Special Things To Doʼ holds its own against not only ʽUpon The My-Oh-Myʼ, but against ʽI'm Gonna Booglarize Youʼ and ʽLow Yo-Yo Stuffʼ as well. Surrealist lyrics ("the camel wore a nightie"), evil cackle, nasty riff, what's not to like? I do miss the fascinating guitar interplay between left and right channel, but if you can cope with the simplified approach, it's a good, reliable groove — unfortunately, the only one of its kind on the entire record.

The Captain also gets more sentimental than he's ever been, with three surprisingly decent tracks. ʽObservatory Crestʼ has a certain meditative aura about it — a song about really doing nothing except watching the city from an observatory crest, to the sound of quasi-psychedelic chimes and relaxing slide guitar phrases; ʽFurther Than We've Goneʼ suffers from an unfortunately hysterical vocal delivery (dear Captain, if you're trying to be soulful and sentimental, please do not scream about it on one of those laryngitis-stricken days!), but makes up for it with a surprisingly good extended guitar solo; and best of the three is the title track, melodically and emotionally stuck in somewhere be­tween James Taylor and Blood On The Tracks-era Bob Dylan, but with an excep­tional vocal performance this time — in fact, this is a tune that would not have sounded out of place on the funeral day for the Captain, what with its peacefulness and a feeling of finally accep­ting life as it is ("I'm tryin' in all ways and learnin' in between"). Yes, it's fairly generic mid-1970s soft rock, but it does work, together with the supporting guitar work and almost Emersonian Moog synth solo from the keyboard man.

On the down side, ʽRock'n'Roll's Evil Dollʼ is a fairly lame attempt at learning the «dance-rock» moves of the day (the Captain treading on Bee Gees territory? certainly not the right thing for him), and then there is what might be the total nadir for Beefheart — the incredibly lame, New-Orleans-meets-German-cabaret, nearly instrumental ʽCaptain's Holidayʼ, which might have been the perfect welcoming music for a whorehouse if the Captain ever bothered setting one up ("ooh captain captain, lay your burden down"). It is a fairly tight groove, but one that sounds sleazy, pimp-wise, without being intelligent, and it has been rumored that Beefheart does not even play his own harmonica on that one, so it remains to be understood if he has any relation to the track whatsoever, or whether it was just a stupid joke played on him by «The Tragic Band». Not that he'd noticed — apparently, he was in such a daze at the time that they could have invited Neil Diamond to guest on a couple of tracks and he'd probably be all right with that.

Regardless, the record is not a total waste — it's just that there is no reason whatsoever to go for it if you are interested specifically in Captain Beefheart, rather than just a few examples of decent, emotionally resonant mid-Seventies soft-rock that could just as well have been delivered by Jack­son Browne or somebody even less individualistic. And, objectively, it does mark a particularly low point in the man's artistic career, because he'd pretty much stopped being Captain Beefheart: in all actuality, this record should really have been credited to «Don Van Vliet & The Tragic Band». It's no big crime to dissolve your artistic identity — it might even be a useful exercise in humility — but it's no good, either, if you don't stand to gain anything in return, and this album flopped even worse than Unconditionally Guaranteed. Still, yet another curious chapter in the Captain's history, there's no denying at least that.

Captain Beefheart: Unconditionally Guaranteed

CAPTAIN BEEFHEART: UNCONDITIONALLY GUARANTEED (1974)

1) Upon The My-O-My; 2) Sugar Bowl; 3) New Electric Ride; 4) Magic Be; 5) Happy Love Song; 6) Full Moon Hot Sun; 7) I Got Love On My Mind; 8) This Is The Day; 9) Lazy Music; 10) Peaches.

1974 was unquestionably the strangest year in the history of Captain Beefheart — the year in which he came out with a pair of albums that turned out to be his most «normal» recordings ever, and that, in itself, makes this the most bizarre and unpredictable turn of events for the man. Other artists could be expected to go «commercial», perhaps, and genuinely sacrifice the search for new sounds and experiences to boring, but financially rewarding, conventionalism: Don Van Vliet, however, seemed like one of the few select artists for whom «going commercial» was as easy to do as it would be for a fish to walk on land. Not because he was so vehemently and ideologically against it, but because he'd spent so many years not speaking that language at all.

His failure in 1974 was not in «selling out», but rather in the fact that he had no idea whatsoever how to sell out. Apparently, the slightly more accessible grooves of The Spotlight Kid and Clear Spot failed to increase public interest in his music: if the former did very briefly put him on the charts, the latter only brought back the plunge, and something more drastic had to be resorted to if the poverty-eliminating strategy remained in place. And so, with a hint of self-irony on the album sleeve where the Captain is holding some crumpled dollar bills with a semi-stupefied look of total incredulity, Unconditionally Guaranteed arrives as a fully normal record of contemporary pop-rock, blues-rock, and roots-rock songs — genre-wise, probably standing closer to mid-Seventies «pub-rock» than anything else.

The results are nowhere near as bad as they are usually advertised: had this album been recorded by anybody but Captain Beefheart, the typical reaction would probably vary from mild pleasure to absent-minded indifference, rather than disgust and horror. The worst thing, however, is that even if this somehow happens to be the first Captain Beefheart album in your life, it will still not take long to understand that something is very wrong — that this is either a mediocre commercial artist feigning artistic madness, or (as was actually the case) that this is a formerly mad artist trying, but not knowing how to sound «normal». Where his previous two records observed the balance between craziness and conservatism quite loyally, here the craziness is largely restricted to some of the lyrics (occasionally) and some of the vocals (many of which suffer from what seems like a bad case of laryngitis, though perhaps it was merely an effect of suffering from supreme depression at the idea of what he was doing). And that's a piss-poor balance — if you ask me, the only choice to make this record good would be to go all the way, and take proper care of all the arrangements, inflections, and modulations.

At least it begins nice enough: ʽUpon The My-O-Myʼ is a mean-'n'-lean funky workout in the tradition of ʽBooglarize You Babyʼ and ʽLow Yo-Yo Stuffʼ, though with less interesting and complex guitar work — but a nice flute and sax interlude from guest musician Del Simmons to compensate. The self-addressed question, "now tell me, good Captain, how does it feel / To be driven away from your own steering wheel?" sort of gives you a first hint at whatever is coming up, but the groove as such still has plenty of snap, and Beefheart's vocal performance is probably his best on the record. Skip ahead, though, and the next track is ʽSugar Bowlʼ, a pedestrian country rocker with exactly one musical phrase to make sense of — and not even a phrase that was invented by Beefheart or any of his musicians. But if that song is simply «nothing special», then ʽNew Electric Rideʼ is a monotonous, repetitive groove whose lyrics suggest an air of joyful exuberance — "here we go again, baby, on the New Electric Ride... I could barely hold my pride..." pride in what? the fact that it is possible to sing in some sort of a dying croak and still manage to stay on key? The problem is that the music, the lyrics, and the vocals on this song just do not belong together — you might as well invite Pavarotti to sing on a Clash track, or, more to the point, Stephen Hawking to sing ʽHey Judeʼ, or maybe forget it, because the former would at least be novel, and the latter disturbing. ʽNew Electric Rideʼ is just pathetic.

With song titles like ʽHappy Love Songʼ and ʽI Got Love On My Mindʼ, it is as if the befuddled Captain were hopelessly lost somewhere in between the art of parody and the desire to generate a bunch of genuine generic love ballads — the results being equally unpalatable to his old fans and to the general public. Weirdest of all, he is not totally incapable of creating a good love ballad: ʽThis Is The Dayʼ, on which he sings with an unusually clean and convincing voice, and graced with a very pretty lead guitar melody, is a really good track whose lyrics do not try to make use of commercial clichés, and ʽMagic Beʼ almost comes close, although his voice is still too shaky on that one to normalize it completely (and, like I said, only total and utter normalization would allow these songs to have a proper emotional effect). But for every track like that, there's one or two silly «happy-exuberant» numbers like ʽFull Moon Hot Sunʼ that simply feel sick.

I do not deny the catchiness of the melodies, but it would be shameful to call Unconditionally Guaranteed a good album just because the Captain took care to insert some earworms — which were never his preferred specialty in the first place. The closing ʽPeachesʼ, a musical variation on Wilbert Harrison's ʽLet's Stick Togetherʼ, is kind of a guilty pleasure to me, but it would still work better with a different vocal performance. Otherwise, the best I can do is not condemn the record: it is essentially listenable, and there is something deeply intriguing in its artistic failure that still makes it an unexpendable part of Beefheart's total legacy, much as the Captain himself would want all of us to forget it.

It is said that upon hearing the final results, the Magic Band was so shocked of its own wrong­doing that it simply stood up and left the good Captain — and that the good Captain subsequently disowned the record himself and, once his contract with the Mercury label ran out, urged every­body who bought it to return it for a proper refund. Even so, there is no getting away from the fact that Don Van Vliet wrote these songs, and the Magic Band recorded them (and later on, the Captain even took a few of the better ones on the road), and it wasn't merely to placate the record industry bosses. There is also no getting away from the fact that this record is not boring — if you want boring American music from 1974, try Kansas or, I dunno, Carly Simon. It is an artistic disaster, but when the artist is of Don Van Vliet's caliber, disaster has its own special fascination that can even be more memorable than success.

Captain Beefheart: Clear Spot

CAPTAIN BEEFHEART: CLEAR SPOT (1972)

1) Low Yo Yo Stuff; 2) Nowadays A Woman's Gotta Hit A Man; 3) Too Much Time; 4) Circumstances; 5) My Head Is My Only House Unless It Rains; 6) Sun Zoom Spark; 7) Clear Spot; 8) Crazy Little Thing; 9) Long Neck Bottles; 10) Her Eyes Are A Blue Million Miles; 11) Big Eyed Beans From Venus; 12) Golden Birdies.

This follow-up to The Spotlight Kid, which it ends up somehow resembling even in name (and for a long time now, both albums have been available commercially on a single CD), represents the Captain's next step in marrying weirdness with accessibility — now with the aid of producer Ted Templeman, who'd previously worked not only with Van Morrison (who might have some common artistic and spiritual ground with Beefheart), but also with the Doobie Brothers (who probably don't have any). The band's lineup remains the same (plus the brief addition of Zappa veteran Roy Estrada on bass), but there's an additional brass section appearing from time to time, and even, oh God help us, some backup female singers («The Blackberries») as if we suddenly found ourselves in the middle of a true soul-searching session.

Regardless, the songs are still strange and curious, and the mix of old and new influences works well — also, there is a bit more speed, power, and heaviness to the material, so that, unlike Spot­light Kid, it never really gets a chance to sag. Honestly, it is like an attempt to re-do Spotlight Kid, correcting some of its mistakes, but also clinging to the formula where it worked — and so ʽLow Yo Yo Stuffʼ establishes almost the same vibe as ʽI'm Gonna Booglarize You Babyʼ: another funky beat, another Howlin' Wolf-style vocal perfor­mance, another pair of sick-twisted blues riffs attacking the listener from both channels, only the Captain sings in a higher range this time around, choosing an active-aggressive rather than pas­sive-aggressive strategy, but he' pretty scary both ways. Musically, these guitar parts aren't quite as uniquely mesmerizing as the dialog between his two inner halves that Zoot Horn Rollo conducted on ʽBooglarizeʼ, but the sexually charged voodoo ritual atmosphere is still generated perfectly.

Perhaps, with the onslaught of the loud glam-rock sound in 1971-1972, the introduction of brass support was no coincidence — but the Captain had his own interpretation of glam-rock anyway, best illustrated on the second track, ʽNowadays A Woman's Gotta Hit A Manʼ, which charges on with the energy and drunk fervor of a Slade or a T. Rex track, but still has all the instruments playing in slight dissonance with each other, so the track couldn't be called «catchy» unless all the different zones of your brain were functioning like arpeggiated chords. Its fascination is more of a chameleonesque one — starts out as a swampy blues-rocker, then goes on to wobble between T. Rex-like glam, Otis Redding-style soul groove, and more swampy blues-rock (when that stin­ging guitar break comes along). And it's got a pro-feminist stance, too! Good old progressive Captain with his progressive spirit.

Actually, while we're on the women issue, this record has arguably the best sentimental love ballad that Beef­heart ever had the bravery of recording — ʽHer Eyes Are A Blue Million Milesʼ is an awesome chunk of psychedelic blues-pop (okay, I just googled it and people have occa­sionally used such a noun phrase before, so I'm cool) whose guitar melody actively suggests both loving admiration and panicky tension, just the kind of mixture you'd probably expect to get from Don Van Vliet when he really fell in love (which he didn't do too often, by the way, at least not since marrying Janet Van Vliet at the end of 1969). I even think that the guitar guy intentionally throws in a bit of Lennon-esque phrasing in the bridge section, to reflect that they also go for the same mix of roughness and tenderness that should characterize the most honest and psychologi­cally convincing ballads — but then again, I also have a nasty tendency to overthink things.

Not every song has its own individuality, and a few might be on the filler side, but I'm sure that no two people would completely agree on what constitutes the highlights and the lowlights here. For instance, I am no big fan of ʽToo Much Timeʼ, which takes us a little too close to comfort into «sunshine soul» territory (and those backing vocals border on corniness), but others might like its relaxed and friendly nature as a bit of relief from the overall harshness. On the other hand, I seriously dig the funk groove of ʽCrazy Little Thingʼ, but others might grumble that it is merely a half-assed attempt to cop the sound of James Brown and the like — and I wouldn't really know what to answer if it seemed like a problem.

I'm almost sure that most Beefheart fans would at least agree on ʽBig Eyed Beans From Venusʼ as a major highlight — a song that takes Fleetwood Mac's ʽOh Wellʼ as a starting point and then turns blues into raga, raga into psychedelic noise, and noise back into blues without blinking. "Mister Zoot Horn Rollo! Hit that long lunar note, and let it float!" commands the Captain one minute and a half into the song, confusing himself with Kirk for a while, but Mister Zoot Horn Rollo had had plenty of obedience training to do exactly what was required, and throws extra fuel on Beefheart's last psychedelic masterpiece in a long, long while. Overall, the guitar work on that track, combining the finest traditions of the Grateful Dead, Cream, and the Velvet Underground all at once, seems far more emotionally charged and stunning to me than anything on TMR or Lick My Decals Off. Maybe that is what they mean by «going commercial»?

Because they clearly cannot mean sales: Clear Spot charted and sold much lower than The Spot­light Kid, probably because there was even less promotion and because it had no particular soft selling spot like ʽI'm Gonna Booglarize Youʼ — not a happy piece of news for the Magic Band, who were beginning to feel angry at having to compromise the «purity» of their artistic vision without even being financially rewarded for it. But, once again, do not get it wrong: almost every­thing on Clear Spot remains «experimental» to some degree, and every single track totally retains the Beefheart spirit. I used to think of it as a slight stepdown from The Spotlight Kid, but not any more — it's really got more highlights and more diversity to it, so here's another well-earned thumbs up, concluding the Captain's second mini-period of creative bliss.

Captain Beefheart: The Spotlight Kid

CAPTAIN BEEFHEART: THE SPOTLIGHT KID (1972)

1) I'm Gonna Booglarize You Baby; 2) White Jam; 3) Blabber 'n' Smoke; 4) When It Blows Its Stacks; 5) Alice In Blunderland; 6) The Spotlight Kid; 7) Click Clack; 8) Grow Fins; 9) There Ain't No Santa Claus On The Evenin' Stage; 10) Glider.

By all accounts, The Spotlight Kid marks the beginning of the era of Artistic Compromise for the Captain — his «going commercial», allegedly in order to at least somewhat alleviate the dire straits in which he and his Magic Band found themselves at the beginning of the new decade. Of course, the word «commercial» cannot be referred to here unless in the most ironic of all possible senses: compared to the real commercial music of 1972, such as Harry Nilsson and T. Rex and The Carpenters, The Spotlight Kid could hardly be believed to attract fresh new crowds of easy-going music listeners. In fact, although I lack any precise figures, I'm pretty sure it could not have sold a significantly larger number of copies than any of its predecessors — even in an era when Close To The Edge and Thick As A Brick could become megahits.

Essentially, what happens here is that the Captain takes one step back, into the era of Mirror Man, when the Magic Band still worked in a more overtly blues-based paradigm. The rhythmic grooves are normalized, returning to more traditional forms and with notably fewer unexpected shifts throughout the song — but the gruffness, darkness, and «avant-sexuality» of Lick My Decals Off are all retained, so, if anything, the results now sound closer to Howlin' Wolf than they ever did before. The only area in which there is very little compromise involved are the lyrics, but as long as the Captain keeps using that spooky tone, it hardly matters what he sings anyway (and besides, if Jon Anderson was able to sell plenty of records with his cosmic gobble­dy­gook, why shouldn't the Captain with his bluesnik fantasies?).

Coming off the uninhibited sonic escapades of 1969-70, the record was clearly a disappointment for the hardcore fans operating on the principle of «the weirder, the better», but as far as I'm con­cerned, it returned Beefheart to the golden middle standard — as the songs become overall more comprehensible, yet still totally far out if compared to either classic electric blues or contempo­rary blues-rock. Sure, Zoot Horn Rollo would later state that he hated what they did on that re­cord; but he sure as hell does not sound disinterested or uninspired on the guitar tracks of ʽI'm Gonna Booglarize You Babyʼ — as the Magic Band discovers the joys of funk, the guitarist is not content to simply play the same syncopated lines all over; instead, he begins by having one funky part in the right channel, then supplements it with a slide lead part in the left channel, then has the left lead part gradually taking over the funky rhythm duty while the right part gradually evolves into a trance-inducing grumbly buzz, hovering over your head like one big fat bumblebee with a particularly nasty hangover. Over this exciting cloud of noise (that honestly gets me going far quicker than anything on Trout Mask Replica), the Captain keeps mumbling how "if you keep beatin' around the bush, you'll lose your push!" — an aphorism worthy of either a sexual and a spiritual interpretation, but we will settle for nothing less than both.

The track forms a terrific opening; the problem is that few of the remaining performances match its gruff force, inventiveness, and humor. A few walks down the line, we find ʽWhen It Blows Its Stacksʼ — slow and ominous rather than fast and bulbous, but a great showcase for the Captain in ultimatum-delivering Old Testament mad prophet mode, announcing the coming of a modern age Messiah: "better watch out, there's a man eater around". Again, Zoot Horn Rollo spins angry rings around the rhythm (I really have no idea how he could have hated his work on these tracks), while Art Tripp is fighting to enlighten the atmosphere with playful marimba interludes. Still later, they return to scary-swampland atmosphere again with ʽThere Ain't No Santa Claus On The Evening Stageʼ, but it is even slower, and the «transform your guitar from rhythm to noise» trick does not work as efficiently the third time around.

Of the remaining tracks, the one closest in spirit to TMR is the instrumental ʽAlice In Blunder­landʼ — starting out with some tricky interplay between drums, marimbas, and guitars, with expected signature changes and all sorts of «blunders» involved; however, one minute into the song the rhythm becomes streamlined, and the composition turns into a normalized jam, with the guitarist stuck somewhere in between Clapton mode and Hendrix mode, something that would have never happened on TMR. Nevertheless, the combination of psychedelic guitars and marim­bas is fun (not unlike something you'd easily encounter on a classic Zappa record), and just about satisfies my personal «weirdness quota».

Some of the material is oddly lightweight, bordering on what might be called «schizophrenic vaudeville» — the title track is an absurdist narrative set to a poppy marimba rhythm, and the whole thing is so carnivalesque, you'd almost expect Alice Cooper in his top hat jump out of the bushes at any moment and do a little tap dance with the Captain. ʽClick Clackʼ, with its train whistle-imitating harmonica and blues-rock riffage, reminds me of next year's ʽSilver Trainʼ by the Stones — but completely unfocused, starting out as an experiment in non-trivial time signa­tures and ending as a half-assed attempt to ignite jam mode. And on songs like ʽWhite Jamʼ and ʽBlabber 'n' Smokeʼ the Captain just sounds sick — confused and whiny instead of being The Wolfman — hardly top pick material, but it is interesting to hear him in such a «vulnerable» state of mind all the same.

Perhaps I used to overrate this album a bit, just because it made me so happy to hear Beefheart return to more sense-making middle ground — in retrospect, The Spotlight Kid suffers from quite a bit of meandering filler, as if the group «got it» that it was supposed to play slightly more acceptable chord sequences, but did not really get what it was supposed to do with them. Clearly, there was no intention whatsoever to do a «normal» blues-rock record, but in this middle-of-the-road mode, for certain winners like ʽI'm Gonna Booglarize Youʼ you get a monotonous, repetitive correlate like ʽGliderʼ. Still, I insist that the band here is more often on fire than on autopilot, and they would do even better next time in the same mode. To me, this record makes sense, and that's reason enough to give it a thumbs up.