
Captain Beefheart Radar Station - brudgers
http://www.beefheart.com/
======
briga
A lot of people listen to about 30 seconds of Trout Mask Replica and then
immediately write off Van Vliet's music as unlistenable twaddle, just weird
for the sake of being weird. And it certainly is weird music--but when you
really start listening to the album you start to discover a twisted inner
logic to every atonal guitar shreik and weird drum beat. It all comes together
to create something pretty unique in the world of music. Captain Beefheart
wasn't making rock music--he was reinventing what music could be. There are
few artists today who would dare to release something so blatantly off-kilter.
Love it or hate it you can't deny it's in a league of its own on the
creativity scale.

For some more traditional blues jams I love his Mirror Man Sessions. Not quite
as revolutionary, but it shows a different, more listenable, side of Captain
Beefheart that might be a gentler introduction to his work.

~~~
frikk
You know, I've found Frank Zappa's music to have a very similar property.
Namely that there's a deep creative structure that winds through Zappa's
music, especially across entire his longer compositions. For example, in
"Willie The Pimp", there's a massive guitar solo towards last half of the
song, that gets continually teased and played with earlier in the track. There
have been other examples where I've caught "teases" to guitar solos on a track
early in an album, that doesn't actually show up in full maturity until later
inthe album.

I can only imagine that what I recognize as a singular theme is in reality
much more broad (in so much as we can even define it), given Zappa's
composition ability and musical prowess. There's so much to discover that lies
under the surface of result of his creative process. I think Zappa gets a lot
of credit because in general his music is more approachable (but still has
plenty of weirdness across his almost 100 album discography).

Anyway, where I'm going with this is that Zappa and Captain Beefheart went in
together on Zappa's "Willie the Pimp", on the "Hot Rats" album which is one of
my favorite albums of all time. Interestingly enough it's the only song on the
entire album that features vocals, which is noteworthy on its own. The vocals
are provided by none other than Captain Beefheart himself. The vocals are kind
of strange and certainly provide a unique component to the track.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xr256gta2Qw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xr256gta2Qw)
(Willie The Pimp) -- if you listen to that guitar work, there's so much to
unpack just in that one track. It's self referential on many levels, and I'm
sure I'm missing most of it.

~~~
hurpaDurpa
Well, it's fun to notice and appreciate those kinds of things, and to the
analytical mind of a rational optimist, that wants to believe everything as
carefully planned and premeditated, and released as profound craftsmanship and
perfected design, to uncover something like that is probably profoundly
enthralling.

There's an alternative reality, known to anyone who has made art for art's
sake though, and especially if you've spent years making purposeless art with
no consequence in the outcome of whether a work declared as "finished"
actually needs to be "good."

When you sit around all day, pouring and extruding your unfiltered stream of
consciousness into realized tangible forms that you can pick up and hold, or
record and play back, you're left with this huge backlog of scrap left on the
cutting room floor. Taken out of context, some of it is artful, and "good
enough" to stand on it's own, but doesn't belong in the "finished" piece.

But when you find a couple of rhyming chunks, you can take that leftover
flotsam and fold it into a subsequent piece, recycling throwaway outtakes as
part of some other whole, to enrich it.

In that sense, those kinds of matching details aren't actually planned. It's
just opportunistic reuse of leftovers to enrich and go along with something
that _was_ planned.

Example: sometimes you're forced to produce "things," and so due to external
expectations you make a bunch of "stuff" but because you weren't motivated,
90% of it is trash. But you don't throw it away, because it still possesses
recognizable style. So you throw it in a box and let it collect dust. Then
weeks or months or years later, when you need filler, you dig some matching
trash out of the dustbin, and cobble together some cruft to patch some holes
and gaps, where the daylight is peaking through on your finished piece. Now,
that illusory facade enriches your intended work all the more.

This is a technique common in "art" that impresses people who've never had a
chance to make a thing for it's own sake, without said thing having to require
practical utility or actually "work" in any appreciable way.

It's the art student's corollary to the academic version having to write 1000
words for a grade, and 900 of those words are rambling drivel, or having to
publish N research papers a year, so you throw together a backlog of p-value
hacks that _seem_ interesting but prove nothing and indulge in pointless,
speculative editorialization as science.

At the core of all the work, you either like the sum total of everything, or
you don't, and in general, you're picking up what that guy is putting down
overall.

But as with all disciplines, in every field, people have to make frankenstein
monsters out of filler bunny all the time. Any artist worth their salt is
always trying to operate from the space where they can unspool as much of
their style as possible, with total freedom and unlimited resources, because
they know that even on the days when they aren't hot, some of the junk they
make, can still serve as decorative paper mache fodder.

------
steve_gh
Don Van Vliet and his bands were unique talents. Some of the music is
challenging, some is surprisingly accessible. Some might even evoke the
response "what's all the fuss about" \- because it entered the consciousness
of so many other musicians, and they reinterpreted it, and made it part of
"normal". There is bluesy Beefheart, soulful Beeheart, and jazz-inspire weird
Beefheart.

"Clear-Spot" and "The SpotLight Kid" are a good starting point. In the UK they
can be found packaged together as a single CD.

Enjoy!

------
the_solenoid
There is a documentary floating around about Captain Beefheart. These guys and
their contemporaries (just look at the list of band members and collaborators)
ended up being some of the most respected folks in music.

My parents loved the music, so I got a lot of exposure as a kid. I kind of
liken it to listening to a new language: some of the ideas are that different.
It can be jarring, but I think anyone who loves music should just give all the
albums a few listens.

------
fanspeed
Type Beefheart into youtube and you'll typically get TMR and Safe as Milk at
the top (depending on your location and profile). There's 0.75 of one good
track on Safe as Milk and TMR is merely a sketchbook compared to the
masterpieces to come.

Let's go:

* Shiny Beast

* Lick My Decals Off, Baby

* Doc at the Radar Station

* Ice Cream For Crow

These are, unconditionally, guaranteed, the best Beefheart albums

~~~
grasshopperpurp
I have a real soft spot for Autumn's Child, and I also really like Call on Me
and I'm Glad; plus, you get some awesome Ry Cooder moments on Safe as Milk.

But, you've nailed my favorite Beefheart period (Shiny Beast-Ice Cream for
Crow), and Shiny Beast stands apart as my favorite (The Floppy Boot Stomp,
Tropical Hot Dog Night, Bat Chain Puller, Apes-Ma, etc.). During this period,
his work had a balance and maturity - without sacrificing much of his
quirkiness.

------
ggm
From 2013 at the latest. Is something new here? Or.. should I just go home,
and do my washing.. (got those Smithsonian institute blues, those Smithsonian
institute blues)

~~~
arnvidr
Probably nothing new here, but giving some attention to what has been for many
years the best Beefheart resource online seems fine.

------
Graham24
I used to listen to Beefheart on The John Peel Show.

~~~
ggm
Me too. I phoned in a request for China pig. He played it!

------
fish_taco_man
Observatory Crest is underrated.

------
sargun
Why is this a radar station?

~~~
dang
It's a reference to
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doc_at_the_Radar_Station](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doc_at_the_Radar_Station).

~~~
xellisx
The site sort of reads (to me at least) like it's a classification of the type
of site it is, like "XYZ Pod Cast".

~~~
dang
No doubt that's why they put it that way, but it's not literal and doesn't
need to be.

------
nvr219
frank zappa for the win

------
wyclif
My fave Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band listens are:

 _Safe As Milk_ (features a young Ry Cooder on guitar)

 _Trout Mask Replica_

 _Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller)_

 _Lick My Decals Off, Baby_

 _Clear Spot_

~~~
grasshopperpurp
I believe it was in the liner notes for Safe as Milk that I read John Lennon
had something like seven copies and that it was his favorite new album at the
time of its release.

Cooder has some interesting stories about why he parted ways with Vilet.

~~~
wyclif
One of the reasons Lennon had seven copies (besides liking the album a lot)
was that I think it included stickers:

[http://www.beefheart.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/john-
len...](http://www.beefheart.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/john-lennon-sam-
sticker.jpg)

