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The lead number on the eccentric Captain Beefheart's debut album, I find it quite a bit more likable than anything from the 1969 album for which he is "famous" (at least among diehard fans of the period), Trout Mask Replica:
Feel free to add links to your favorite Captain Beefheart performances/songs.
To my mind Captain Beefheart and Sun Ra were the great visionary figures in American music in the 60s and 70s; and with both, as someone once said of Sun Ra, they're out to lunch, but I eat at the same place. Of the readily available videos, my favorites are the performance of 'Click Clack' from the early 1970s, which shows Beefheart channeling the hallucinatory power of Charlie Patton; and 'Bat Chain Puller', which is like Screamin' Jay Hawkins reciting Rimbaud. 'Click Clack':
'Bat Chain Puller':
I second Sun Ra as visionary–hoo boy, was he ever!–and musical prodigy. A friend of mine from Birmingham had the honor and great fortune of being able to join the Sonny's funeral as a pall bearer. I also second "Bat Chain Puller" as a high point for Van Vliet. Rapko's description is perfect.
My favorite Captain Beefheart, however, might not be a CB performance. It is Magazine's cover of "I Love You, You Big Dummy."
Terrific comments already on this post.
I share your sense of Trout Mask Replica, but there are other albums that are easier to get into though still wild: for instance Doc at the Radar Station.
My personal favorite is Clear Spot, which contains “Big Eyed Beans from Venus”:
I really like The Spotlight Kid, Clear Spot and Bluejeans… albums.
Click clack is great, as is blabber’n smoke and Grow fins.
I enjoy Trout mask, but prefer the other albums mentioned.
Cheers,
trane
Kandy Korn is the one
Captain Beefheart's early Howlin' Wolf-inspired blues rock is great, and already hints at the Dadaist break to come (I can't imagine Howlin' Wolf ever calling an album “Safe as Milk”: what does that even mean?). But Trout Mask Replica is plainly his great masterpiece. I consider Bat Chain Puller his second masterpiece, made at a time when he was already far more committed to painting than to music. Dean Rowan already shared a clip from that album, so I'll share another favorite, a commercial for Lick My Decals Off Baby that CB somehow managed to get onto Southern California TV stations:
My father and CB, then known as Don Van Vliet, worked together as door-to-door vacuum-cleaner salesmen in Lancaster, California, in the early 1960s. They once tried to sell one to Aldous Huxley. The story goes that when Huxley asked them whether their vacuums were any good, Van Vliet replied: “Yes, they suck.”
Kandy Korn is brilliant! "Orange Clawhammer" on Trout Mask is an a capella masterpiece and a good way in to the rest.
I third the comments re. Sun Ra and Beefheart as some of the greatest American musical innovators but don’t forget Frank Zappa who did a lot to get Beefheart noticed and I think ranks with them as an innovator ( and like them a musical genius whatever that overhyped term means)
But I disagree re. Trout Mask Replica. Most people don’t find that album a great deal of fun to listen to (though as a certified weirdo I do) but it’s one of the unique accomplishments of 20th century music (amazing what can happen when you lock a bunch of musicians in a room for an extended period). A lot of contemporary classical composers are still trying to figure out how he did what he did on that album.
"(amazing what can happen when you lock a bunch of musicians in a room for an extended period)"
Indeed, this approach seems to have been Sun Ra's, too. By the way, reed man Marshall Allen, Sun Ra's second-in-command, turned 100 a few days ago. He continues to perform.
My favorite Sun Ra record–not that I've heard all of them, or even a majority of them–remains his recital of duets with Walt Dickerson, Visions, an hour or so of otherworldly vibes and piano.
So true re. Sun Ra’s MO, though my understanding was that he was a little less autocratic about it than Beefheart, e.g. interviews with Arkestra members seem to indicate a little less trauma than that experienced by the musicians that created Trout Mask Replica. And yes, all hail Marshall Allen ! I saw a great performance by him, energetic as ever, with the Arkestra, at a spry 95 !
Yes, that's quite magical.
Re Trout: the Captain's weird brilliance was the driver, of course, but a lot of credit must go to John French, who painstakingly translated Van Vliet's untutored poundings on the piano into parts that could be played (with a lot of work!) by Bill Harkleroad, Mark Boston, Jeff Cotton and himself.
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