I’ve always tried to avoid taking a train-spotter approach with this site over the years (not that you would think it from my blog entries) – it would be an easy road to travel with an artist like Captain Beefheart who seems to attract obsessive detail-noters. However, we at beefheart.com are endlessly amused by the frequency that Captain Beefheart rolls of the tongue of musicians and journalists, some using it to gain reflected credibility, others to provide an all-too-easy frame of reference, instant but ultimately meaningless. Others, of course, just love him too.
In the absence of any real Beefheart-related news, here are just a few recent ones from the web, all from the last couple of weeks:
Los Lobos interview from Cleveland.com [now removed]:
When Los Lobos’ David Hidalgo turned 50 earlier this year, he decided to heed the advice of his friend Captain Beefheart. “I talked to him one time, and he said when he turned 60 he just started dropping the zero,” Hidalgo says with a laugh. “I figure that’s a good idea.”
I spoke to Rod Hull and Emu once but I probably wouldn’t describe them as friends, though I do, of course, talk about it at every opportunity.
Review for Agnostic Mountain Gospel Choir:
It’s never wise to compare yourself to other bands, especially when they’re stand-alone geniuses like Tom Waits and Captain Beefheart. It’s kind of like saying your car is a cross between KIT and Airwolf – if it doesn’t have vertical lift and give me advice on women, I’m going to be a little disappointed. So when the Delta blues and mountain music-inspired Agnostic Mountain Gospel Choir named the aforementioned pair as bedside companions, I was inclined to put my hand on my gun when I walked into the saloon.
Not only do the Agnostic Mountain Gospel Choir have a great name, their music really kicks the sawdust too. The above reviewer is won over and even goes on to compare them with RL Burnside. Check out the mp3 samples on the AMGC website.
Interview with Mark Mothersbaugh from Devo (from Akron Beacon Journal online [now removed]:
It’s kind of fun to play on the same bill with (younger bands). I feel like we are in a place now for those bands where guys like Captain Beefheart and Chuck Berry were for me when I went to see them at Kent State or the Draft house and tried to get backstage to see them.
If that quote came from anyone other than Devo I’d have to put a snide comment in here. It entertains me greatly to think that Beefheart + Chuck Berry = Devo.
As Captain Beefheart once said, “A squid eating dough in a polyethylene bag is fast and bulbous.” This also applies to TDS.
Unless a squid eating dough in a polyethylene bag has a tendency to light its farts and urinate on itself when on stage then this comparison is as spurious as they come. If you’re as bored and curious as I was you can see some alarmingly strange video clips of Three Day Stubble in action on their website.
Spongebob Squarepants meets Captain Beefheart in a bowl of Green Jelly
Forget Captain Beefheart vs the Grunt People, I want Spongebob Squarepants vs Captain Beefheart. If the Beatles, Josie and The Pussycats and Gorillaz can have their own cartoon, why not the Magic Band? In fact, such a thing is hopefully not too big a stretch of the imagination. As soon as the artist has completed this mammoth task, beefheart.com hopes to bring you the comic strip version of Zappa’s Captain Beefheart Meets The Grunt People. More news about that as I get it – suffice it to say, the previews have been excellent.
Finally, to end this shameless display of rock-snobbery, I thought it worth referring to an ironic entry in the recently published Rock Snob’s Dictionary: An Essential Lexicon of Rockological Knowledge which tells us that the brilliance of Trout Mask Replica “will reveal itself after you’ve listened to it 6,000 times or so.”
If it’s this good already after just one or two hundred listens, I can’t wait.
Ive always said that you have to listen to Trout Mask six times to get it, but then all other music is ruined for you.
I’ve always loved Captain Beefheart but I didn’t get into Troutmask until about a year ago. Before that my favorite album was “Doc at the Radar Station”. anyways a friend of mine is really into Troutmask and played “Sweet Sweet Bulbs” for me and I realized ther really isn’t much distance between “Troutmask Replica” and “Clear Spot” or any of the other more accessible Magic Band albums. The great songwriting is there with gooey bells on.