Captain Beyond: Far Beyond A Distant Sun - Live In Texas

CAPTAIN BEYOND: FAR BEYOND A DISTANT SUN (1973; 2002)

1) Intro/Distant Sun; 2) Dancing Madly Backwards (On A Sea Of Air); 3) Amworth; 4) Myopic Void; 5) Drifting In Open Space; 6) Pandora's Box; 7) Thousand Days Of Yesterdays; 8) Frozen Over; 9) Rhino Guitar Jam; 10) Mesmerization Eclipse; 11) Stone Free.

So brief and turbulent was the age of Captain Beyond that they pretty much forgot to leave behind the principal qualification proof of a genuine prog-rock / hard-rock ensemble of the 1970s, and you know what that is, don't you? For a long time, the only semi-officially endorsed product, distributed through their fan club, was Frozen Over, a bootleg recorded at the University of Texas in Arlington on October 6, 1973, when the band toured as a support act for King Crimson, no less, promoting their freshly released second album. Eventually a shortened and reshuffled version got an official CD release under the title of Far Beyond A Distant Sun (in 2002), and finally, in 2013, the complete show was released as Live In Texas on the Purple Pyramid label, specializing in cleaning out the vaults of various semi-forgotten Seventies' acts.

There is no doubt that the band could put on a good show — in fact, they play for almost as long as King Crimson themselves played on that same night, and I don't think Mr. Fripp would have allowed that if they sucked. The problem is the sound quality — the show may have been recorded by stage-placed equipment rather than from the audience, but there are no signs of mixing consoles, and although the results are technically listenable, they can only be recommen­ded to non-audiophile fans of the band. (For the record, there is another, an even larger, 2-CD re­lease on the same label called Live Anthology, with selections from live shows in 1971, 1972, and 1977, but I haven't got that one and cannot say if the sound quality is generally any better. Could be at least partially, because some of the recordings are from Montreux '71, some memories of which survived even in the form of decent video footage).

Anyway, (major) sound problems aside, this seems to be a representative and generally satis­factory portrait of the band at their peak. The studio recordings are not particularly improved or «muscularized» in a live setting, but the band is capable of retaining all the psychedelic colors and reproducing all the technically challenging grooves and instrumental flourishes (like Larry's cute «bumble-bee» bit on ʽDrifting In Open Spaceʼ, for instance — too bad his guitar keeps jum­ping in and out of the mix). Also, they don't have a keyboard player on stage, so all the keyboard parts are replaced by guitars — remember how I complained about the lack of a kick-ass guitar solo on ʽDriftingʼ in its studio incarnation? Well now, the song has a totally kick-ass guitar solo, as do many others. Too bad it all sounds so shitty.

There's quite a few surprise elements appearing throughout the show, but they're questionable. ʽPandora's Boxʼ is a lengthy mood-setting soundscape, slow, quiet, with minimalistic, almost ambient guitar serving as a backdrop for Evans' boring poetic monologue. Rhino's ʽGuitar Jamʼ is disappointing: the man is a very capable guitarist, but this here «jam» is largely just a test for one of his guitar tones — seems like some kind of an early talkbox, but it sounds as if he just disco­vered it and is testing its possibilities rather than intentionally using it for any specific purpose. ʽMesmerization Eclipseʼ starts out okay, but then transforms into a 15-minute drum solo: and, okay, Bobby Caldwell was a good drummer, but he did not have either the jazz versatility of Ginger Baker or the superhuman crashing power of John Bonham to deserve a 15-minute drum solo (actually, not even Baker or Bonham deserved a 15-minute drum solo).

They do close the show with a Hendrix cover (ʽStone Freeʼ) that is almost unexpectedly good — I mean, these days there's absolutely no reason to listen to it, but it turns out that Rhino could offer a pretty decent imitation of Jimi for those who still yearned for a live Hendrix-style sound in the early 1970s. So it all just goes to show that, just like in the studio they had enough ideas and good taste to qualify as a solid B-level prog outfit, so did they have their excessive misses and undeniable successes on stage: not a great band with an unmatchable vision, but a good one with real talent to burn. Too bad they did not have the opportunity to leave us a sonically worthy memento of that (live) goodness.

Captain Beyond: Dawn Explosion

CAPTAIN BEYOND: DAWN EXPLOSION (1977)

1) Do Or Die; 2) Icarus; 3) Sweet Dreams; 4) Fantasy; 5) Breath Of Fire: A Speck Within A Sphere; 6) Breath Of Fire: Alone In The Cosmos; 7) If You Please; 8) Midnight Memories; 9) Space Interlude; 10) Oblivion; 11) Space Reprise.

They should probably have retitled the band «Beyond Captain» for this one. Apparently, by 1976 most of the original members found themselves with nothing to do, and decided to have another shot — all except Rod Evans, who went into respiratory therapy instead (giving a whole new meaning to the words "Hush! Hush!"). So Caldwell, Dorman, and Reinhardt had to find them­selves a new vocalist. His name was Willy Daffern, he came from nowhere in particular (I think he worked for The Standells a bit in the late 1960s), and he sucked.

Well, maybe not «sucked», precisely, but he belonged to the same cohort of loud-mouthed, text­bookishly «soulful», pompous (white) vocalists that also included David Coverdale, Glenn Hughes, Lou Gramm, miriads of them — at least Rod Evans never pretended to operatic qualities, and he had a somewhat somber and humble tone that worked well with the band's loud music, whereas this guy has no subtlety whatsoever, even if in terms of range and technique he might have been slightly better qualified than Evans.

Most of the complaints about Dawn Explosion, however, are usually targeted not against the vocalist, but against the music — this is just hard rock without any progressive ambitions, the fans complain, and the record's intelligence quotient falls way below acceptable standards. I find these accusations a bit too far-fetched: for sure, there's a lot of hard rock riffage here, but it's not as if they turned into Thin Lizzy or AC/DC overnight. There are multi-part suites here, too, and soulful ballads, and psychedelic interludes, and even a jazz-fusion instrumental. And even the hard rock numbers are not aggressive, but rather celebratory, just as they used to be. There's no attempt here to reorient the band in another direction — there is an attempt to make it somewhat adapt to the times, with «arena-rock» overtones, but the basic combination of heaviness, psyche­delia, and pop instincts remains intact.

The main problem remains the same — the songs are just not good enough to warrant an auto­nomous existence in some personalized VIP cell inside your brain; and coupled with the issue of a new and annoying vocalist, and especially if placed in the context of 1977 with its major changes of musical aesthetics, Dawn Explosion cannot help being somewhat disappointing. I like the riffs — ʽFantasyʼ kicks ass through all of its six minutes (although they probably shouldn't have been ripping off Deep Purple's ʽBloodsuckerʼ), and the opening riff of the ʽBreath Of Fireʼ suite is like a respectable gentleman's take on Aerosmith's ʽWalk This Wayʼ, and ʽIf You Pleaseʼ sounds as if it were inspired by the Beatles circa 1965 — but I do not find them sufficiently in­spired or original to last a long time beyond basic operative memory.

Overall, if you do not mind the vocals, the entire record is perfectly listenable, and Reinhardt's soloing on ʽFantasyʼ, the power ballad ʽMidnight Memoriesʼ, and the second part of the ʽBreath Of Fireʼ suite is genuinely ecstatic-emotional. (ʽOblivionʼ, curiously enough, sounds very close to the jazz-hard-rock of Gary Moore's G-Force, which Daffern would be briefly joining a couple years from then). As far as «old school rock» from the first years of New Wave is concerned, Dawn Explosion is nowhere near the fat bottom of the list. But it is doubtful that a record like this could drag even a single young fan away from New Wave's fresh appeal. Naturally, it sold very little, and the band found itself falling apart once again in 1978.

Captain Beyond: Sufficiently Breathless

CAPTAIN BEYOND: SUFFICIENTLY BREATHLESS (1973)

1) Sufficiently Breathless; 2) Bright Blue Tango; 3) Drifting In Space; 4) Evil Men; 5) Starglow Energy; 6) Distant Sun; 7) Voyages Of Past Travellers; 8) Everything's A Circle.

Although the band's second album was recorded less than a year after the debut, it already re­flected some serious changes in the lineup: keyboard player Reese Wynans was brought in, along with Guille Garcia on various (mostly Latin/African) percussion, and original drummer Bobby Caldwell was replaced by the much less known Marty Rodriguez. Additionally, Lee Dorman emerged as the only active songwriter , pretty much responsible for the entire structure and sound of the record. The result is fairly obvious: they drift farther away into the direction of symphonic-progressive rock, «cosmic conscience» and stuff, leaving much of the hard rock baggage behind, so there's just no way one could call Sufficiently Breathless a balanced mix of hard-rock and art-rock, and this is probably why the album usually tends to get a bad rap compared to its predeces­sor (even if there's still plenty of heaviness drifting about).

As somebody who likes the heavy-prog sound of Captain Beyond without being floored by it, I must say that from such a standpoint, the two records, although sounding quite different, are just about equal in overall quality. This here is pleasantly melodic, modestly catchy, adequately voca­lized, intelligently composed rock music, already a little outdated even for 1973 (but perhaps more easily appreciated in retrospect, as our perspective of time becomes more and more flat­tened and distorted), but totally inoffensive and occasionally charming in its hippie idealism. Its only real problem is contextual — everything that you hear here, you can hear done a little (or a lot) better by other acts (some of them already defunct by the year 1973).

Thus, the title track is an acoustic anthem in the vein of Crosby, Stills & Nash (except for the dis­torted psychedelic guitar solo that combines real nice with the acoustic rhythm track), a clever enough opener to pour some sunshine into your living room, but neither the instrumental exube­rance nor the chirpy vocal harmonies are on the required level to push the whole thing off the ground. ʽDrifting In Spaceʼ is a potentially great Latin rocker with a cool «exploding fireworks» lead guitar riff introducing each sung verse, but none of the verses is even resolved properly — they build up the tension all right, but they never explode it! And what's up with the quiet jazzy electric piano solo? It's nice, but in a song like this, it could only serve as a taster for a kick-ass guitar extravaganza, which never comes — it's like this whole song was thought of as a counter-example for aspiring songwriters: «here's what happens if you have some cool ideas but fail to bring them up to logical conclusions».

Pretty much every song offers something, but the something is never enough. Kick-ass guitar extravangzas finally arrive on ʽEvil Menʼ, a slow funk-rocker with Rhino milking the wah-wah for all it's worth, but the song's potentially fabulous heavy riff is inexplicably kept in the faraway background most of the time (maybe they thought that if they put it up front, they'd be sued by Deep Purple for ripping off ʽSpace Truckin'ʼ which it somehow resembles, but come on). ʽStar­glow Energyʼ has a great moody start, with probably Rod Evans' finest vocal performance on the album, but despite all the soulfulness that they try to muster, the song still never finds a proper climactic peak — the guitar solos are too quiet, the mix is too muddy and preoccupied with psychedelic sound effects, the fadeout arrives unexpectedly and again leaves the impression of something unaccomplished and unsatisfactory.

And yet, I am still surprised at how every song here sounds organic, warm, and tasteful — few things are easier than being embarrassed and angered at the unimaginative, derivative, inadequate pretense of a second-/third-generation art-prog outfit, but maybe it is precisely because Captain Beyond take so few risks that they consistently deliver this very decent vibe, almost free of cor­niness even when they tackle formulaic lyrical subjects (maybe it's just that Rod Evans, whose voice is not strong enough for operatic behavior, sounds like an honestly concerned human rather than a cocky showman even when he asks you "what is wrong with this world of mine, falling in a spiral?"). This way, although I'm pretty sure that in a week from now, I will not be able to re­member a single note from this album, the overall impression will still remain as a vague cloud of positive vibrations, and so, here is a thumbs up rating while that cloud is still holding together, nice, juicy, and thick.

Captain Beyond: Captain Beyond

CAPTAIN BEYOND: CAPTAIN BEYOND (1972)

1) Dancing Madly Backwards (On A Sea Of Air); 2) Armworth; 3) Myopic Void; 4) Mesmerization Eclipse; 5) Raging River Of Fear; 6) Thousand Days Of Yesterdays (intro); 7) Frozen Over; 8) Thousand Days Of Yesterdays (Time Since Come And Gone); 9) I Can't Feel Nothin' (part 1); 10) As The Moon Speaks (To The Waves Of The Sea); 11) Astral Lady; 12) As The Moon Speaks (Return); 13) I Can't Feel Nothin' (part 2).

This band, and their debut album in particular, seem to have acquired somewhat of a cult status over the years — as usual, once one becomes sick and tired of all the predictable art-prog-rock masterpieces of the early 1970s, the discovery of something seemingly special under the surface is always a source of joy, and yes, you can construe Captain Beyond as a band that had some­thing special about them if you really put your heart and mind to it.

The band's background does not look terribly auspicious: a «second-rate supergroup» assembled from past members of early Deep Purple (singer Rod Evans, whose main claim to fame was the popularity of ʽHushʼ), Iron Butterfly (bass player Lee Dorman; also guitar player Larry ʽRhinoʼ Reinhardt, who only really played with the band on one of their albums, and far from the best one at that), and Johnny Winter's band (drummer Bobby Caldwell). All of these people were known to be «okay» at their jobs, but you wouldn't want to accuse any of them of having a unique style or songwriting genius or anything. So how could they all get together and make a record that not only would not stink, but would even be capable of getting a cult following?

Essentially, by sounding like a slightly softer, slightly more «sincere» (rather than openly post-modern-cynical) version of Blue Öyster Cult. On the whole, Captain Beyond could be classified as hard rock with a psychedelic edge, relying on a combination of heavy distorted riffs, spaced-out guitar soloing, and half-macho, half-stoned vocals (to acquire which Rod Evans had to smoke triple amounts of pot and grow himself an extra pair of testicles — at least, if you compare this style with Deep Purple circa 1968) suggesting that only strong, well-endowed males with big swords and hairy chests deserve to go to psychedelic heaven (think also of Hawkwind, although Captain Beyond are more song-based than jam-based, and sound more like a tight rock band than a bizarre psychedelic orchestra).

This can theoretically be a fun suggestion if you don't take it too seriously, and, indeed, the record is quite pleasant. Side A is essentially a collection of loosely joined not-too-fast riff-rockers; Side B is technically more conceptual, with two mini-suites consisting of several short movements, but there's not that much difference in terms of atmosphere, and there are soft acoustic interludes on both sides. The band also experiments with time signatures (the rhythmic pattern on ʽDancing Madly Backwardsʼ, for instance, does suggest a bit of moonwalking), delays and echoes (ʽMyopic Voidʼ owes a heavy debt to Jimi), and occasionally tries to build up some suspense (ʽAs The Moon Speaksʼ, probably influenced by Electric Ladyland and In The Court Of The Crimson King at the same time) — in other words, spending half an hour with Captain Beyond is anything but a boring experience, and it is nice to see how those guys managed to bring out the best in each other where few people probably suspected that «best» existed in the first place.

Unfortunately, the songs do not lend themselves easily to detailed descriptions, largely because there isn't much diversity — a bit slower, a bit faster, okay — and because the riffs, while defi­nitely «crafted» rather than just tossed off at random, are not awesome by themselves or even tremendously original. Everything is perfectly enjoyable while it's on, and there's plenty of headbang potential in numbers like ʽI Can't Feel Nothin'ʼ or ʽRaging River Of Fearʼ, but all of these elements had been well exploited before; in fact, the album looks positively archaic for 1972, because this heavy-psycho style was already present on plenty of «nuggets» from the US and UK scenes circa 1969-70 — yet, unlike Blue Öyster Cult, these guys were not smart enough to turn the whole thing onto itself and give it a smarmy, ironic, self-interpretative edge.

They were smart enough to give the songs a slightly paranoid edge: with the exception of a few starry-eyed misfires (ʽThousand Days Of Yesterdaysʼ), the album sounds like the band is perma­nently on the run from something, be it a «raging river of fear» or a «myopic void». This is pro­bably the only angle from which the record could ever be loved by anyone — with enough listens, it can become a «Manifesto of the Impossibility of Escaping», which certainly goes against the common trend in that era's progressive rock. But it is still difficult for me to lock myself onto that vibe, because the ingredients aren't fully adequate to the task; and, for that matter, Rod Evans is just not that good a singer to properly convey paranoidal horror.

Ultimately, the guys from Iron Butterfly are the main winners here, supplying decent riffs, mo­destly energetic solos, and (sometimes) expressive bass lines (Lee Dorman is at his best on the softer numbers, most notably ʽAs The Moon Speaksʼ), and because of their honest work and the general appeal of the record, I give it a thumbs up without too many reservations. But do not really expect some unique forgotten masterpiece — I'd say this is about as good as the actual Iron Butterfly at their best (which, admittedly, happened rarely).