FAST AND BULBOUS!
Dec. 19th, 2010 01:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
defrogSo Don Van Vliet is gone now.
And of course I have to do a post on him, though not for the reason you might think.
See, I’ve only really started listening to Captain Beefheart fairly recently. I’ve known about him for well over 20 years. I knew his most famous album was Trout Mask Replica, and that Frank Zappa (who I’ve been listening to since the late 80s) produced it. It was via Zappa where I first heard him sing (on “Willie The Pimp” and the Bongo Fury collaboration that led to their falling out). And I’ve heard the occasional Beefheart song via compilations and such. Also, Robert Rankin (one of my favorite writers) makes Beefheart references all the time (to include at least one novel title).
But I’ve never really gone out, bought his records and listened to them.
That changed earlier this year when![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
squidboy323 handed me a DVD loaded with almost all of the Beefheart albums on MP3 and said, “Listen to it.”
Which is what I’ve been doing.
And ever since then, I’ve been wondering what took me so damn long to listen to his music.
It’s great, demented stuff, for the most part, though definitely challenging and not for everyone. Even his more “mainstream” albums (Unconditionally Guaranteed and Bluejeans and Moonbeams, both of which Beefheart later disowned to the point of suggesting fans return them for a refund) contain just enough unconventional arrangements to give you something a little different.
Anyway, it’s the kind of blues-based avant garde rock you’d expect from a guy who – according to legend – once explained a musical idea to his band by throwing an ashtray at a hotel wall and saying, “That’s what the drum fill should sound like.” And even though he quit music 28 years ago to focus full-time on painting, I’m glad I got to discover him properly while he was still alive.
This is the part where I embed a sample of his music, and obviously there’s a lot to choose from. And I did consider going with “Sheriff of Hong Kong” for obvious reasons, but I thought I’d go with this track from the Clear Spot album, for that long Lunar Note.
PRODUCTION NOTE: If the headline of this post requires context, listen to this.
Let it float,
This is dF
And of course I have to do a post on him, though not for the reason you might think.
See, I’ve only really started listening to Captain Beefheart fairly recently. I’ve known about him for well over 20 years. I knew his most famous album was Trout Mask Replica, and that Frank Zappa (who I’ve been listening to since the late 80s) produced it. It was via Zappa where I first heard him sing (on “Willie The Pimp” and the Bongo Fury collaboration that led to their falling out). And I’ve heard the occasional Beefheart song via compilations and such. Also, Robert Rankin (one of my favorite writers) makes Beefheart references all the time (to include at least one novel title).
But I’ve never really gone out, bought his records and listened to them.
That changed earlier this year when
squidboy323 handed me a DVD loaded with almost all of the Beefheart albums on MP3 and said, “Listen to it.”Which is what I’ve been doing.
And ever since then, I’ve been wondering what took me so damn long to listen to his music.
It’s great, demented stuff, for the most part, though definitely challenging and not for everyone. Even his more “mainstream” albums (Unconditionally Guaranteed and Bluejeans and Moonbeams, both of which Beefheart later disowned to the point of suggesting fans return them for a refund) contain just enough unconventional arrangements to give you something a little different.
Anyway, it’s the kind of blues-based avant garde rock you’d expect from a guy who – according to legend – once explained a musical idea to his band by throwing an ashtray at a hotel wall and saying, “That’s what the drum fill should sound like.” And even though he quit music 28 years ago to focus full-time on painting, I’m glad I got to discover him properly while he was still alive.
This is the part where I embed a sample of his music, and obviously there’s a lot to choose from. And I did consider going with “Sheriff of Hong Kong” for obvious reasons, but I thought I’d go with this track from the Clear Spot album, for that long Lunar Note.
PRODUCTION NOTE: If the headline of this post requires context, listen to this.
Let it float,
This is dF
