That Wasn't A Trout: It's A Carp
This excellent piece first appeared in the December 1993 edition of Mojo Magazine, entitled 'Gimme Dat Harp Boy'
Tom Hibbert once played in a band that supported Captain Beefheart
It was 1971 and what happened was the bass player Rockette Morton come slithering onto the stage with an electric toaster on his head. Already I was sold. Next appeared the pipe-cleaner figure of Zoot Horn Rollo in a Chinaman's hat to conjure some preposessingly unusual noises from his guitar. Finally, this somewhat portly and elderly (so it seemed to us juveniles) gent sporting a black and gold cape ambled forward to the microphone and growled "I'm gonna booglarize you, baby!" Captain Beefheart: what could he mean?
Half-way through Kandy Korn, with Beefheart scampering and scuttling about the place in pursuit of Rockette Morton, my girlfriend, in clogs and a smock turned to me and screamed into my ear (the PA was very loud and rumbling that night) "You don't really like this, do you?" - thus putting an end to a 'beautiful' relationship.
I did like it. I adored it. My boyfriends were of a Deep Purple In Rock persuasion; my girl friends mooned about to Fairport Convention or any flitty female with tresses and a sugary voice (except Melanie). I had strayed from the traditional path, I sniggered proudly. Captain Beefheart. Crazy name, crazy guy! Anyone who could say things like "Fish take care of the scales; as soon as I saw a fish, I realised that they had the scale department sewn up completely" and "I don't like Walt Disney: he gave the wolf capital punishment" was, it seemed, speaking to me directly, encouraging me to be a little different and strange and not squash bees to death with my walking stick: oh, the joys of cocky youth, and that’s before you even got down to the beauteous peculiarities of the music.
The girls didn't like Donnie's basso groaning (or his horrid clarinet squawkings, for that matter) - even though he was, quite clearly, a proto-feminist: Nowadays A Woman's Gotta Hit A Man. He was a poet a visionary, a seer and a fool - and his tunes made no sense whatsoever. Hurrah!
Of course, the next time I saw him, in 1974, he'd 'sold out' completely. On the LP Unconditionally Guaranteed, the songs had proper and rather lazy tunes, and at the Free Trade Hall, Manchester, there was not a pop-up toaster to be seen. Zoot Horn and the rest had deserted him on the eve of the tour, leaving the great one to be accompanied by the rather useless Buckwheat. And thus were the weeds converted to Beefheart (rather annoyingly claiming they had always been 'into' him; Oh, yeah? sneered I. Give us a snatch of Big Eyed Beans From Venus if you're such a God's Golfball, then); and he just wasn't mad anymore.
But how wrong could one be? In 1976 there was Bat Chain Puller (though only on tape, fact fans) horribly/wonderfully reminiscent of Trout Mask Replica. ("That wasn't a trout: it's a carp".) In 1980 there was Doc At The Radar Station, featuring a band - drummer Robin Williams, guitarist Jeff Moris Tepper, bass player Eric Drew Feldman - that Beefheart called "the best batch yet". I saw them at The Venue (with the managing editor of MOJO and his fragrant wife). We're all sitting down in comfy seats these days and rattling on for being "grown up". But still, an evening to remember, the Captain cursing and drawling through Hard Working Man like a fellow possessed.
The last time I saw this hero at mine was in San Francisco, in January1981. I had found myself on a prolonged holiday staying with English friends on the celebrated corner of streets Haight and Ashbury. Well, when you're somewhere as rock-historical as that and there are a few guitars and amplifiers lying about the place, there's only one thing to do, maaan, and that's jam. God, we were awful, but somehow, probably because we had English accents and leather jackets and so could easily be mistaken for father figures of the British 'New Wove', we managed to persuade a promoter into giving us a 'gig'.
We'd be supporting somebody quite famous, we were told; we didn't know who. Until the night. Oh, no. I want out of here. Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band. It cannot be true. It must be some kind of joke. It wasn't. We were. All we could play was some rotten old things by the Monkees and Paul Revere & The Raiders and The Box Tops which is not what the crowd - who had paid handsome sums for tickets - had in mind at all. We scuttled offstage, bowed and miserable. And a strong hand laid itself on my shoulder. I looked up. A man in a top hat. It's him! "You guys were great!" he rasped. "I'll just give you one ward of advice. Never sign to Virgin." And he stalked off.
Needless to say, I never did sign to Virgin. That was the best advice I ever was given. And also, fan to the end, the greatest night of my life...
- Tom Hibbert
