Owed t'Alex

"I like the blues..... but I like aqua marine just as much."


I got myself an addiction.

For the last month, i've played pretty much nothing but Captain Beefheart.

A cursory look at my last.fm page will confirm this. 359 plays in the last three months - and they're just the ones that have been 'scrobbled' (further investigation will uncover that I've played Del Shannon even more, but the truth of it is that i accidentally left Spotify playing his tracks over night after a little too much whiskey).

Now dont get me wrong, i bought Trout Mask Replica in my late teens and played it through maybe 3 times before deciding that it was a little too obtuse even for me. But what's happened i guess over the years is that listening to artists influenced by Beefheart has softened me up to him. The snake-y, yet jagged non-sequitur guitar motifs of  the likes of Fire Engines, Pere Ubu and That Petrol Emotion that entranced me with their originalities were actually direct copies of the great man. See below:



However it wasn't 'Trout Mask Replica' that opened the door for me, but rather a relatively obscure album he made with the Magic Band (mk 1) in the mid 70's called Clear Spot.



Sorry to be all musicianly and everything but the production and the playing on this record are simply in another world, everything is dry and in your face, there's no escape from any of it and that's before the Captain smears his personality over the whole thing. The bit of information that blew my mind (especially as somebody who was only a poxy vocalist who wrote just words and melodies) was that Captain Beefheart composed every single note of these architectures of sound (" I play the drums - I play the guitar - I play the piano. I want it exactly the way I want it - exactly. Any composer, I would think, would want it that way and I don’t deviate at all. Don’t you think that somebody like Stravinsky, for instance, don’t you think that it would annoy him if somebody bent a note the wrong way? Or used a purple bow on a violin, when you want a red bow, or a green bow").



This sort of control over songcraft (apparently he taught the band via piano, sometimes it took him days to convey a guitar line for a section of one song) whilst not only being rare led to some highly combustible scenes between him and the Magic Band. Leading to them leaving in the mid 70's and eventually being replaced by another shit hot ensemble.

The song that is on constant repeat at the moment for me is Tropical Hot Dog Night, where Beefheart (seemingly) has a bit of fun with his encroaching middle-age whilst simultaneously reacting to accusations of him dumbing down his avant-garde leanings for a more accessible sound. Some lines sound so much better when sang by the great man, but ("Tropical Hot Dog Night / I'm playing this song for all the girls to come and meet the monster tonight/ How would you like to be the lucky one to be the monster tonight? / Everything that is wrong at the same time is right / You get to be with me")



Right, I'm off to listen to more Beefheart. I might be some time...



For those with Spotify check this playlist out:
beefheart

Peel slowly and see...

It's the summer of '89 and I'm lying in Darren McNeil's garden. College is over for the year and the holiday spreads out its expanse before us. It's hot, so hot that all the pretence of trying to do something with the day has dissipated. So there we lay, radio 1 blasting out from the kitchen and the sun creating dancing patterns on my eyelids when i heard the advert for that evening's John Peel show.

Now i knew who John Peel was. He was the Liverpool fan who always looked a bit older than the other DJ's on Top Of The Pops. He was also the guy who was supposed to have the really great radio show that the older kids listened to. So, i made a mental note to listen to it that night, which i did, but even better, i stuck a C90 in my system and taped the whole show too. As the nights progressed i started transferring the best tracks onto new C90's ad fin um until i had a bunch of C90's with, hand written on them, "The best of John Peel". I've still got about 20 of these.

The Family Cat, Spaceman 3, Pale Saints, Finitribe, Mudhoney, 808 State, Galaxie 500, A.R Kane, Sonic Youth, Lil Louis, Napalm Death, The Four Brothers. All these bands went from somebody i might have read about in Melody Maker and the NME to being the soundtrack of my life. And that was just the current artists he was playing, it was through John Peel that i heard mind and life changing tracks by the likes of Neil Young, Can, Kevin Ayers, Young Marble Giants, Captain Beefheart, Scritti Politti. The man was responsible more than any other in my life for breeding a wholehearted desire for musical eclecticism and the knowledge that no matter how much great music that i'd heard there was hundred's of LP's out there just waiting to blow my mind.

By the time John Peel died in 2004 i wasn't obsessively listening to his program anymore, he'd been shifted around so many times in the Radio 1 schedule that it was more a case of tuning into his show by mistake, but it was heartening to know that he was still there playing nosebleed techno before Ivor Cutler, going off into flights of fancy and putting records on at the wrong speed.

I got a phone call one night in 1997 from a friend, apparently he was playing a track from Magic Alex (Chica Chica). I ran to the radio but it was too late, if he had played it i'd never hear it, or hear his remark afterwards. This was the days before the internet (or certainly as we know it now) so there was no way i could 'listen again', but if he did play it i'd like to think that it wasn't the worst record he'd ever heard...

So here's three songs i heard that summer. Firstly i can distinctly remember that first show and one of the hightlights was this track from A.R Kane, Crack Up. Still gets a spin this one on the odd occasion, if the crowd seems in any way discerning.

13 Crack Up.mp3


Secondly, Can was probably the biggest discovery for me that summer and this song 'Dizzy Dizzy' was the first track i heard. Not my favourite, but every time i hear it i expect to hear John Peels voice at the end saying, "well that still sounds as good as ever"


Track No01.mp3


And lastly, it'd be quite obvious to post a Fall track here, but in all honesty i'd already got a fall album by that time in my life and anyway this Captain Beefheart track was the true soundtrack to those hot late nights.


05 - My Head Is My Only House Unless It Rains.mp3


Till next time folks...