CAPTAIN BEEFHEART: STRICTLY PERSONAL (1968)
1) Ah Feel Like Ahcid; 2) Safe
As Milk; 3) Trust Us; 4) Son Of Mirror Man - Mere Man; 5) On Tomorrow; 6)
Beatle Bones 'n' Smokin' Stones; 7) Gimme Dat Harp Boy; 8) Kandy Korn.
Only The Magic Band's second album, and things
are already beginning to fall apart. The original plan was to push forward by
entering full-on psycho-jam mode, and record an album titled It Comes To You In A Plain Brown Wrapper,
but apparently the results were seen as way over the top by even the
progressive dudes at Buddah Records, who declined to release them (although
they still laid contractual claim to them, and, once Beefheart's reputation was
firmly established, eventually released some of the sessions as Mirror Man in 1971). The only person to
remain loyally impressed was producer Bob Krasnow, who took this as an excuse
to break away from Buddah, found his own label (Blue Thumb) and get Beefheart to
re-record a large part of the sessions for the new label.
On the positive side, breaking away from Buddah
did permit the brave Captain to retain his artistic integrity and pursue the
«never compromise» agenda — but there were negative sides, too. The most
frequent complaint about Strictly
Personal has an aura of objectivity, considering that it was shared by the
artist himself: apparently, Krasnow got too heavily involved in the production,
and «spoiled» the submitted tapes with all sorts of psychedelic effects,
including echo, reverb, phasing, reversing the tapes, etc., so that
Beefheart's original vision of the album got corrupted and trivialized — like
Zappa, Beefheart obviously viewed his art as transcending the hippie
conventions of the late Sixties, aiming for a very different kind of weirdness
from abusing trendy studio technology. Another problem might be the departure
of Ry Cooder, replaced by the somewhat less dazzling Jeff Cotton; however, that
lineup change may have been necessary in order to steer the band away from the
more conventional blues idiom, to which Cooder strongly subscribed at the time,
and into the realms of the avantgarde, so not a problem, really.
Personally, I would suggest that the main issue
with Strictly Personal is not the
post-production effects: had the material been great from the start, a few
stretches of phased tapes wouldn't do all that much harm, and besides, it's not
like the entire album is corrupted that way — there's plenty of passages that
have a completely live, un-manipulated feel to them. Much worse, I believe, is
the situation where Beefheart actually had to return to a project that, in his own view, should have already been
completed and done with. The Captain's mind, see, is one of acute restlessness,
and the Captain does not much like to polish the unpolishable... which is why
the original Mirror Man sessions,
even despite the crazy length of those jams, have always sounded more
energetic, sharp, and altogether inspired to me.
But in 1968, the public at large was hardly
aware of all these happenings in between Beefheart's first and second albums,
and we, too, have to remember the correct chronology and take Strictly Personal as a direct sequel to
Safe As Milk — whose title track, by
the way, ultimately ended up on the second album, in one of those strange, but
not unprecedented, historical accidents. Funny enough, the album starts out
fairly innocently, as if it were going to be Safe As Milk Vol. 2: discarding the frigged-up title ʽAh Feel Like
Ahcidʼ, those first three minutes are the same modernized Muddy Waters as
ʽSure 'Nuff 'N' Yes I Doʼ — choppy syncopated slide guitars, harmonica blasts,
and a bluesy guy raving and ranting over the minimalistic arrangement. There
is, however, a difference: this time, there's no true sense of structure, as
the guitar melody comes in and goes away whenever it pleases the players, and
the lyrical flow shows no signs of being arranged into neat verse structures,
not to mention the lyrics themselves, which have more in common with beat
poetry than with ye olde blueswailing.
The problem is, there's no sign here of the
players and the singer actually understanding what it is they are trying to do
— okay, so they are obviously deconstructing a blues pattern, but why? It's not nearly as weird as it
would need to be to truly shake up one's foundations, nor is it particularly
funny or entertaining, and it does not showcase the honed musical talents of
The Magic Band, either. Even the Captain sounds like he's groping around, sacrificing
his mind to delirium in search of divine inspiration but not properly finding
it. This is particularly evident on the interminable ʽTrust Usʼ, probably the
weakest thing on the album — a series of bluesy/jazzy patterns with psychedelic
overtones (this is also one of the most heavily Krasnow-treated tracks) and an
overall muddy sound that never really goes anywhere: slow, prodding, low on
energy, and hardly standing any competition with the typical psychedelic sounds
of 1968's America — such as the Grateful Dead — and the biggest mistake is that
it even begins to compete on that
turf, because that just ain't Beefheart's turf anyhow.
Another particular lowlight for me is ʽBeatle
Bones 'n' Smokin' Stonesʼ; the track is already a spiritual predecessor to the
style of Trout Mask Replica, but,
again, suffers from a really sluggish flow, lack of interesting musical lines
(there's one regular electric riff and one slide counterpart running through
it, and both sound as if they are played by a couple guys whose amphetamines
had just worn off), and a really silly vocal hook — the Captain insists on
signing off each «verse» with a triumphantly whiney "...strawberry fields
forever!" as if this were some sort of meaningful response to the Beatles,
which it is not.
When the band sticks closer to its original
blues guns, the results are notably better: ʽGimme Dat Harp Boyʼ is a
relatively ferocious jam, seemingly growing out of the basic chord sequence for
ʽSpoonful Bluesʼ and then taking on a life of its own — but even so, a brief
comparison with the as-of-yet-unreleased Mirror
Man version makes this one sound as if the entire band were sleepwalking
through the process of re-recording. Maybe this is all Krasnow's fault, but
surely it was not Krasnow who pretty much deprived the re-recording of a proper
«bottom» — the bass on the Mirror Man
is ferocious, and here I can't even properly hear it. Same goes for ʽKandy
Kornʼ, which is here presented as a barely listenable murky mess.
Overall, unless you are a really big fan, I
would strongly suggest ignoring Strictly
Personal as a misfire, reflecting some poor production decisions and a lack
of proper interest on Van Vliet's own side, and getting Mirror Man Sessions instead — the true «lost link» between Safe
As Milk and Trout Mask Replica;
in all honesty, Strictly Personal
hardly deserves more than the status of a bonus disc, tacked on to some limited-edition
special release of Mirror Man as an
act of historical mercy. And yes, you guessed it already — thumbs down, because even certified
musical madmen are not fully exempt from inducing boredom.
On your recommendation, listening to Mirror Man. I'm kind of surprised it's not bothering more than it is. I even kind of get it, sort of. Kind of like Can--It should induce nausea, but on a computer doing repetitive work it actually is kind of groovy.
ReplyDeleteA Looooong time ago, at a garage sale I hit a 'vein' of Beefheart lps, another scavenger type convinced me to trade the 'strictly personal' I found for the 'clear spot..decals' twofer he found... I felt a bit swindled afterward but eventually I got the better deal, & when 'Mirror Man Sessions' was released I was certain.
ReplyDeleteI also agree it's somewhat 'Monster Movie'-ish & hypnotic.
correction: a twofer of 'Spotlight Kid & Lick My Decals....'
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