Friday, August 21, 2009

Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band- Grow Fins - Sure 'Nuff n Yes I Do!



Don Van Vliet was born Don Glen Vliet on January 15, 1941.
We should re-title this particular box set and call it "Painting with Music".
This set of 5 discs will set you up with the best material from
1965-to the mid 1970's and early 80's.
Where do you start with Captain Beefheart? He's a musician,
and a painter, a sculptor, and probably 3 other things. He had a
band of revolving musicians,much like his pal, Frank Zappa had.
The music? well, it's jazz,it's blues, it's psychedelic, it's experimental,
much like his paintings, and it's all over the place. Why be one thing?
Why not invent something no one else does? Well, success never
came with chart hits or huge sales in large numbers,but there was
plenty of artistic success. There's material on here from the early
A & M records period, from the first album, Safe As Milk,
the classic album you ought to own. Then there's more material
from we'll call it, the Buddah records years, and finally a large
chunk of Trout Mask Replica, his opus, which was released in
June of 1969 on Zappa's Straight label. Much of the rest is of this box
is early to mid 70's period Beefheart,which is a variety of sound
paintings. What other way can you describe it? Well,
BBC Radio DJ John Peel stated:

"If there has ever been
such a thing as a genius in the
history of popular music,it's Beefheart.I heard echoes of his
music in some of the records I listened to last week and I'll
hear more echoes in records that I listen to
this week."

The White Stripes have released an EP as a kind
of dedication
to the Captain, including
'Party of Special
Things to Do' and 'Ashtray Heart',and there's
this wonderful CD/LP compilation called Fast 'n' Bulbous
A Tribute To Captain Beefheart (from 1988) And it features:
XTC,Sonic Youth,the Membranes and many more. I'm certain,
this set could light your Beefheart fuse and set you off listening to
more,so that's why I'm posting it. I'm just going to tell you,
to please be open minded and don't think all great music has to
be a hit record,or too rigid, conforming, and 4/4 time.
I'll post a couple and you stay tuned, for more if you wanna.

Captain 1

Captain 2





2 comments:

The Bomber said...

Ouh yeah...
this is goooood.
Great post

Timmy said...

Beef is THE man. He's absolutely one of the outstanding trailblazers of Blues/Rock music & an ingenius musical mind that shows it's light across time.