CAPTAIN BEEFHEART

3.5 stars. Of the five Beefheart albums I own this 1980 release is for sure in my top three of those along with his previous album "Shiny Beast(Bat Chain Puller)" and his debut. The man had this creative freedom to make whatever music he felt like. He is the arranger, composer and producer plus he did the cover art. And yes like Zappa he was not fun to work with. Not exactly people persons.

His albums have a "sound" to them, don't they? Bluesy with Beefheart's unmistakeable vocals. I'm not big on his humour, and the last track on this album is a great example of that. The big surprise for me on this record was hearing mellotron, so I thought. And looking it up on Planet Mellotron and seeing there was mellotron on four tracks here. A bonus. Two instrumentals? Another bonus. Top three include "Best Batch Yet", "Hot Head" and "Ashtray Heart". Turns out that I'm just not a CAPTAIN BEEFHEART fan. My apologies to his fans for my opinions at least, especially when they aren't very favourable. A talented individual, just not my music.

3.5 stars. For me this is a top three CAPTAIN BEEFHEART album along with the followup to this "Doc At The Radar Station" and that 1967 debut "Safe As Milk". It's hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that both Zappa and Beefheart were almost as old as my parents. They were the older guys amongst the youth in the seventies when it came to musicians and rock. Heck CAPTAIN BEEFHEART & HIS MAGIC BAND formed in 1964! So he's getting close to 40 here when this record was released in 1978.

Zappa was smart as he always had this desire to play complex instrumental music and then use his immature lyrics over top. None of the instrumental stuff by Beefheart would be considered complex by any means. In fact the focus is so much on his vocals, to a fault. His voice is always the most dominant sound on his albums. I get to about track nine of the twelve here and I'm done listening, tired of his voice. And I like his voice, it has character.

My previous album by him to this 1978 release was "Lick My Decals Off, Baby" from 1970. So eight years and five albums later and this was actually a treat compared to that 1970 release. Still talking about his big toe of course. Or "the monster" as he calls it on here. How about "Tropical Hot Dog Night"? Man I live in a different world. Again we get bluesy music and vocals dominating the album. But when "Tropical Hot Dog Night" turns out to be a top three you know this is far from essential listening. Some rockers on here like the opener and "You Know Your A Man" but the title track might be my favourite over all. "Owed T' Alex" is another powerful piece with harmonica helping out.

When it comes to experimental music from the deep south, THE RESIDENTS blows this band to smithereens in my opinion. Not close.

My first album by CAPTAIN BEEFHEART was of course "Trout Mask Replica", which was enough to send me running into the hills. Almost 80 minutes of relentless, experimental music and vocals. There would be some considerable time go by before I would venture back into this band's music. "Lick My Decals Off, Baby" is in a sense the perfect followup to "Trout Mask Replica" as we get a lot of the same boxes being ticked, but this latest one at half the length and being a little less intense and experimental, generally means higher ratings for this one over that legendary previous record.

"Trout Mask Replica" had several Zappa musicians on it, and while that's not the case here, we do get a new drummer in Arthur Tripp who was part of THE MOTHERS OF INVENTION. The album cover says a lot doesn't it? The classy writing of a title that has no class. The band in tuxedos of course. High class music? No! This is the album where the lyrics become much more about sex, and are so dumbed-down. Yes a lot of lyrics about the Captain's big toe, sex on the brain, I get it.

Of the first four albums this is my least favourite with the debut easily being my favourite of those. It wouldn't be until "Shiny Beast(Bat Chain Puller)" from 1978 and the followup "Doc At The Radar Station" from 1980 that the 1967 debut gets bettered. In my opinion. I've mentioned before that I like Beefheart's vocals but man there's way too much of them in general, I get tired of them before that album ends, that's for sure. A lot of short and experimental tunes that are quite bluesy. Fifteen tracks worth 40 minutes and this was CAPTAIN BEEFHEART's first release of the seventies. A tough listen.

3.5 stars. It's been almost 5 years since I first spent time with the Captain's debut from 1967. The album cover screams the 60's with the hair style of the boys, and wearing suits of course. The music is very bluesy and psychedelic sounding with Beefhart's vocals dominating the album. My first experience with CAPTAIN BEEFHEART was that song on the "Hot Rats" album, but my first album by him was "Trout Mask Replica" which was difficult to say the least.

While this comes across as rough and dirty sounding, the music is accessible for sure. The closer "Autumn's Child" might be the most adventerous piece on here but mostly we get a vocal/guitar led album that can be quite catchy. Speaking of guitars, we get Ry Cooder and Alex St.Clair taking care of that, but the bigger surprise for me is how prominent the bass is, especially on "Zig Zag Wanderer".

With twelve tracks under 34 minutes we get a lot of 2 plus minute songs, as in eight of the twelve. It seems like a lot about this record could be described as a product of it's time. I was reminded of Zappa on a couple of songs like "Dropout Boogie" and "I'm Glad". "Yellow Brick Road" is a foot stomping affair with twangy guitars. My favourite track though is "Electricity" and perhaps the most psychedelic sounding one at that. There's theremin on it that comes and goes. Lots of harmonica on "Plastic People".

What I'm finding with Beefheart's albums for the most part is that the vocals dominate and I just get tired of them. I like this one quite a bit though.

Blues psychedelic slamming jams, with the best vocalist of experimental rock music - links to traditional roots guitar music and the future of the genre. The production aspects don't ruin the songs as Don Van Vleit felt at the time. The band is experimenting with the deconstructed rock elements which would take centre stage on the more famous follow up. John French' drums rumble on like a New Orleans jazz drummer on acid, lots of slide guitar and some harmonica at times. The copy I have is the 1971 Sunset Records vinyl reissue, not the best version in terms of art work. And of course there's alternative versions on the Mirror Man and It Came In A Brown Paper bag releases which add to the enigma of this era. Strong recommendation for any fan of psychadelic or experimental rock

Trout Mask Replica is one of the most divisive albums of all time, it is a love it or hate it situations, but the reasons to loving it or hating it are mostly the same.

Just by seeing the cover you can know that this is not going to be pop, jazz, or even psychedelic rock, you can only be confused but also amused by just looking to the bizarre and grotesque cover.

And yes, this record is bizarre and grotesque, and the music really is like that, mixing free form jazz, delta blues and avant-garde, along with some outsider flavor, making this odball record. It should be noted that this record is not just random playing, the Captain and Drumbo actually wrote and arranged this show, and it must be hard to consciously write like that.

The music is very raw, and every instrument sounds like it is playing its own thing, and this might be off puting and disorienting for most people, but the fun relies on identifying and trying to figure out what is going on. Polyrhythms and Polytonality are all over the place on this record.

The best part in my opinion is the whole Captain performances, they are... hilarious, his raspy voice is so entertaining, and don't start about his lyrics, most notably "Pachuco Cadaver" with the classic "fast and bulbous" skit that appears on the album and has been a meme since the 60s, and "Pena" where the Captain just screams randomly, what was he thinking? We don't know but I always want to cry of laughter when I listen to it.

When people talk about the greatest records of all time they mostly only recognize records with more serious themes like those in Pet Sounds or What's Going On, but non-seriousness and jokes are also important, as this album is like the greatest joke of all time.

Assimetrical and abstract, bizarre and grotesque are just a few words that can describe this masterpiece.

EXTRA: The negative reviews of this record are as hilarious as this record, love reading to them.

Having escaped the urban pressures of the Los Angeles scene at an early age, the parents of Dan Van Vliet who would become better known as CAPTAIN BEEFHEART found much of his creative inspiration in the Mojave desert highlands near the town of Lancaster, CA where he became obsessed with the blues sounds of Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Son House and Robert Johnson but was also equally intrigued by the avant-garde nature of jazz artists such as Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk and Cecil Taylor. After developing his own musical skills and began to play on his own he would also become one of Frank Zappa's greatest partners in crime on the eccentric R&B music scene in the mid-60s before eventually creating some of the wildest unclassifiable albums ever to hit the rock music world.

For anyone who has only exposed themselves to the mind bending freakery of albums like 'Trout Mask Replica' it may come as quite a shock when coming to this debut album that was at the time of release an official project of CAPTAIN BEEFHEART & THE MAGIC BAND. The BAND part of the equation remained a rotating cast of musicians who would come and go on the various albums throughout BEEFHEART's career. The good CAPTAIN spent his years leading up to this debut releasing some rather safe if not bland singles based entirely on blues rock for the A&M record label but it wouldn't take long for the CAPTAIN's eccentric irrepressible ways to come to the surface and cause tension which would lead to a complete meltdown. The dramatic event was triggered by what to put on the debut album affectionally titled SAFE AS MILK. While A&M wanted more cute and cuddly blues songs with a rock veneer, the good CAPTAIN simply insisted that some of his more experimental tracks find their way onto the album, specifically the amazingly electrified 'Electricity' which redefined the experimental possibilities of blues rock.

The label refused and BEEFHEART was forced to scope out a plan B which resulted in a 1967 release on the New York City based Buddha Records which favored a more diverse genre selection than many others as they included everything from the Bubblegum pop of Ohio Express and 1910 Fruitgum Company to the folk rock of Melanie and the soul of Gladys Knight & The Pips. Having seen the tides changing they took a chance on BEEFHEART's mix of blues with slightly off-kilter elements but in reality SAFE AS MILK as the title suggests is perhaps the most accessible album by the good CAPTAIN at least before the pathetic attempts to go commercial in the mid-70s. In the process of finding a new home for his recordings, BEEFHEART recruited the musical cast of Alex St. Clair Snouffer (guitar, bass, percussion), Jerry Handley (bass), John French (drums) and a young 20 year old guitarist Ry Cooder who was just getting his feet wet in the music biz.

This was the period before the good CAPTAIN really found his true calling by creating twisted gnarled blues tracks that were part jazz, part progressive rock and just part unexplainably weird. SAFE AS MILK requires no conditioning to enjoy and displays the period where not only was BEEFHEART coming of age and feeling comfortable in his skin but also showcased the tension of being expected to perform according to a label's whims while sneaking in some poetic license to let loose once in a while. The album was grace with ballsy guitar riffs influenced by the Delta blues of Mississippi along with harmonic musical structures that include rhythmic guitar slides, harmonica and BEEFHEART's grizzled vocal deliveries. It also exudes an instant attraction albeit not too distant from the influences from whence the influences were derived. Perhaps the most derivative of any BEEFHEART album, SAFE AS MILK nonetheless encapsulates some distinct escapes from the status quo.

Firstly the wild and brilliantly electrified 'Electricity' sounds as explosive as Arthur Brown's 'Fire' with its overconfident delivery of unconventionalities that included a theremin and stylistic approach that resembles danceable electronic music of the future more than the classic blues styles. While A&M deemed the track too negative and weird, the track has remained one of BEEFHEART's most identifiable earlier songs. Another interesting fact about SAFE AS MILK was that the instruments were staking out their own territorial claims instead of being subordinate to the other. The drums were independent of the bass line and the guitar tracks were finding ways to exist within the confines of the songs yet taking liberties. All in all the tracks like 'Abba Zabba' were adding African drumming and ethnic flavors which altered the bluesy natural flow and thus aspects like these were finding SAFE AS MILK as a pivotal step for the strange new twists and turns that were just around the pike.

SAFE AS MILK seemed like it lived up to its title too much for my first few experiences with this album. There are points where it is nauseatingly bland with the throwaway track 'I'm Glad' topping the list, a song so gag inducing that would've even made Leslie Gore throw it in the trash. Not only is the overwrought winey ballad clearly demonstrative of why BEEFHEART's vocal abilities were designed for more adventurous and less melodic realities but the track ruins of the flow of an otherwise fairly good bluesy rock album. While the more experimental tracks like 'Electricity' clearly steal the thunder of the otherwise pleasant but fairly traditional sounding tracks, the album still is a decent grower even if the continuity seems a little stilted. In effect this is an album that is a collection of tracks that seem to have been created under different conditions than an album that flows neatly from beginning to end but after many listens the album kinda sinks its hooks into you once the ear worms burrow themselves in. Personally i prefer the unleashed madman BEEFHEART to come but i can't deny this is a really fun 'normal' album by master of experimental blues.

Well I assure you sir, this thing sucks (Don Van Vliet on selling a vacuum cleaner to Aldous Huxley)

Of the many albums that sit gathering dust, undisturbed in the rack yet are routinely adored by their house proud owners, it is perhaps Trout Mask Replica that best represents the disingenuous litmus test for hipster candidates of 'high' office everywhere. What's odd about its assimilation into the pantheon of 'maverick genius' constructions is that it's not even a rock album at all but rather, a free jazz inspired stream of consciousness 'f.u.c.k the lot of you' diatribe that has more in common with a Cecil Taylor arranged 'To Have Done with the Judgement of god' by Antonin Artaud than an unrequited love letter to any Howling Wolf. That's hardly a picnic with your childhood sweetheart and s.h.i.t.s.u puppy of course but it's still unnerving how far removed from the predictable lumpen plod of rawk (psychedelic, blues or otherwise) this album deviates at its furthest outreaches.

And therein maybe lies the key: Most rock fans including your reviewer get rather uncomfortable when their steady diet of cyclic rhythms and anticipated releases from harmonic tension are not resolved in a timely fashion. Listening to such music is tantamount to a delicately balanced guessing game. If I guess correctly what's coming next too often, I'll get bored and lose interest: If I cannot discern any anticipated patterns I'll dismiss the music as too chaotic or random as too few of my guesses turn out to be correct. That's probably why I heartily loathe Cecil Taylor, John Zorn, Ornette Coleman, Albert Ayler, Pharoah Sanders, et al as such aesthetic considerations are completely irrelevant to their art. This says more about my limitations as a listener and failing to understand the stimulus to hand but all the same, I want to like this malarkey but erm....am unable. We're also habitually guilty of confusing texture with content e.g. there might be a sax on Brown Sugar but that doesn't make it any closer to Jazz than Rock. The textures at play on Trout Mask Replica have lured many an unwary critic into believing that the electric slide guitars, amped bass and drums menu is consistent with a delta blues themed psychadelicatessen and are invariably frustrated when the Captain and his troops steadfastly decline to serve up such a dish. The only place where texture and content are in accord is perhaps on Hair Pie Bake 1 where Beefheart's solitary soprano sax is redolent of the sort of uncharted musical landscapes of Anthony Braxton. It also explains why so few echoes of Beefheart are present in the music of his avowed wannabees, disciples and acolytes from within the republican realm of rawk like the Residents, Devo, Pere Ubu, Tom Waits, the Fall, PIL etc. The cynical among us would hazard that this is just egregious name-dropping which also lassos Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Sun Ra and anyone else who was considered a bit 'out there' but has crucially just died into the R'OK Corral.

The best Captain Beefheart impersonation I have ever heard is probably from Edgar Broughton circa Sing Brother Sing in 1970 but here's the rub, the unwitting approximation by a completly sh*t faced English actor Oliver Reed on Michael Aspel's chat show from 1984 comes a pretty close second. You are cordially invited to check out the 'You Tube' footage at your leisure. Tread very carefully when using 'derangement of the senses is the gateway to wisdom' as an educational paradigm kiddies. (The playgrounds of the US are littered with casualties on a daily basis)

Don Van Vliet's lyrics are at best, inscrutable surrealistic glossolalia and at worst, when they even approach bad beat poetry, crassly and glibly asinine:

Dachau blues, Dachau blues those poor Jews Still cryin' 'bout the burnin' back in World War Two's One mad man six million lose Down in Dachau blues, down in Dachau blues

We know that the good Captain enrolled as an art major in his youth but dropped out after less than 12 months. Draw your own conclusions if you will but thwarted artists with distinctive facial hair have never done the world many favours.

It seems that like Mark E. Smith of the Fall, the Captain ran his erstwhile Magic band circa 1969 similar to a dark satanic mill owner where dissent was treated with ridicule, physical violence and privation in no particular order. The published testimonies of band members appear to attest to the rather unpalatable conclusion that their Don was an uber controlling c.u.n.t of Mansonesque proportions. Revisionist apologists for this alleged behaviour start to sound like those clueless soccer pundits defending a leg breaking tackle who posit that 'without his underlying psychopathic and sadistic nature his talent would have been thwarted by mediocrities' Try telling that to the lads when they've been neither paid or fed for their unaccredited efforts and have to play a man down after their captain's red card for hacking down his own team. (Apologies for milking the footie metaphors there a tad)

I've also never understood why Zappa's mix is so heavily weighted in favour of Beefheart's vocal as most of these conspire to practically drown out the music and only serve to make prolonged listening a considerable chore. That's a shame as all told, there is much innovation and prescience buried in the bowels of this frankly appalling production to warrant a deeper appreciation of the creative input of the assembled Magic band.

There is some speculative evidence to suggest that the Captain refused to record his vocals using traditional headphones and therefore his delivery is commensurately out of sync with a backing he could only hear via the latency of speaker bleed. Being out of time deliberately would at least require some effort methinks? Anointed if you do, anointed if you don't. (He can't lose)

Long story short: This album doesn't belong on any Progressive Rock appreciation site. It is too far removed from such narrow evaluation criteria

After revisiting Trout Mask Replica, I've gained a new appreciation for this album and the role it played in my life.

This album helped me realize I was attracted to things that were dense, abstract, off-kilter, absurd, innovative, and from left field. Beef and his buddies gave me a chance to connect with my weirdness in a way no other outlet could.

In the movie The Artist Formerly Known as Captain Beefheart, Matt Groening is interviewed and he mentions in his youth he went to a Beefheart concert and 75 of the weirdest people in the weirdest costumes were there. Before performing, Ed Marimba came on stage with a toy light up gun softly chanting "ray gun, ray gun" over and over.

I love that stuff and would have fit right in. These guys turned the blues on its head and, for all their weirdness, really created art here.

You should really check out that hour long movie if you like Beef, as the back story and interviews with Drumbo and Frank about this album are priceless.

I think Frank was resentful this album caught traction with a segment of the population. In fact, one listen gives the discerning listener the seeds of punk, new wave, experimental, industrial, and alternative rock in all its forms. Beefs reach far exceeded Franks grasp in my estimation. And according to Frank, he had very little to do with making the music. He just got out of the Captains way.

A timeless masterpiece for me, I can see how "normal" people don't quite grasp it - one star, no way in holy hell. Pachuco Cadaver is worth three stars alone.

Here, Captain returns to the troubled waters of " Trout Mask Replica", but not exactly. He now seems to have come in terms of how difficult is running all the time through the hills punching yourself like a madman...at least, he found his own cave now, living peacefully with snakes and lions for the rest of his life. Or maybe, its because he got rid of Zappa, doing the production duties on "Lick..." by himself. It was his favourite also and who am I to disagree ? More jazzy than the previous one and more safe...but not safer than "Safe". If you ask me, I am a Rock fan so I might like "Trout..." slightly better over this one because of the battlement between the two guitars there... All the same, it depends on the weather. Then again, I pick "Safe..." from both that albums.