One particular avant garde musician that I would like to focus on, Don Van Vliet aka Captain Beefheart from Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band, noticed the lack of women in his audience and chose to address this. In 1972 he proclaimed that he was ‘singing for women’ and wrote an album, Clear Spot, specifically designed to attract women into his audience.

The predominantly male nature of the audience only became a noticeable issue when the music began to become more and more experimental, and the women started to drift away. I asked John French (who drummed and played a key role in transcribing the Magic Band’s music off and on throughout their career) about the Magic Band's audience, and he commented on the ever-decreasing numbers of women spectators as the music became more experimental:

(John French interview, January 2000)

Throughout his career, Beefheart had consciously bypassed the stereotypical misogynist posturing associated with many white blues musicians. His songs were commonly characterised by a determined avoidance of clichés in both the musical structure and lyrical content - instead of bragging about his prowess as a lover and his ability to conquer sexually, Beefheart’s words would become lost in the frenzy and enjoyment of a sexual encounter (Neon Meate Dream Of A Octafish, 1969), or would boast about his good treatment of his lover in all day-to-day respects rather than just in the bedroom. Mike Barnes illustrated this last point, paraphrasing from his Beefheart biography:

(private e-mail from Mike Barnes, May 2000)

The words were rich with poetic imagery focusing on ecological concerns, the bizarreness of human relationships/behaviour and, most frequently, sex. All were delivered with an extravagantly humorous sense of the absurd, intending to stimulate a sense in the listener that things could so easily be different from the joyless, lifeless drag that was ‘normal’ life. Eliot Wald wrote the following description of the Magic Band's best known and most praised album, Trout Mask Replica, in Oui magazine:

(Wald, 1973)

Beefheart’s style of dress was that of a weird, flamboyant dandy, but the effect was very different from Mick Jagger’s dandy look which Reynolds and Press interpret as threatening and dominating rather than eccentric or humorous:

(Reynolds and Press, 1995, 17-18)

A possibly greater paradox, however, is that rock’s misogynistic rebels from Axl Rose to Iggy Pop often appear more appealing to a female audience than those rebelling against such misogyny. The misogynists often have an uncomplicated, overtly sexual image which leaves no room for doubt regarding their intentions, as opposed to the more outré appearance of Beefheart and the Magic Band who would regularly take to the stage with electric toasters strapped to their heads.

It is not sufficient to attribute the shortage of women in Beefheart’s audience as being solely due to their image. While Beefheart’s image was distinct from the dandy-playboy due to its wilfully bizarre affect, there are strong parallels with the image of the musician Julian Cope. Cope's unconventional, though entirely unthreatening appearance has become even more extreme than that of Captain Beefheart but has not deterred a sizeable female following nor diminished Cope’s somewhat discombobulated ‘pin-up’ status.

The album Clear Spot, which was a direct attempt to draw in the women, contained a slightly more accessible form of music than its often discordant predecessors which had sought to fuse free-jazz with blues and psychedelia. Melodies were significantly more evident than on the earlier material, such as Trout Mask Replica, which required considerably more perseverance from the listener before much sense could be sifted from the initially confusing hubbub of shifting time signatures, pounding and complicated rhythms and atonal guitar and saxophone battles. The lyrics on Clear Spot were peppered with positive representations of non-stereotypical women characters, many of which had larger-than-life personalities whose strength and character were strongly emphasised. These women took an active role in the songs’ narrative, and were never objectified in the manner found in so many standard love songs. Instead they were big, bold and had every bit as much fun as the boys. They had also clearly won the respect of Van Vliet, himself a larger-than-life character, who seemed to feel he had met his match:

(from Long Neck Bottles, 1972, Clear Spot)

Beefheart also tried other methods to attract women to his music. John French commented on some of the minor image changes that he tried out at the time:

(John French interview, January 2000)

He proclaimed in interviews that he was ‘singing for women’: 'You've also said that you sing for women. "I do. I sing for men too, but I sing first for women."' (Gubbins, 1974). To try to reinforce this he commented occasionally that women understood his music much more than men and that they did come to listen to him perform live on stage:

This clearly tells us more about Beefheart’s intentions and desires than the actual situation at the time. Interviews were riddled with Beefheart's somewhat unique take on 'women's issues' with him frequently discussing whether all these 'erect male buildings' marginalise women and whether we should build 'female' buildings in holes in the ground instead (c.f. Peacock, 1972; Kent, 1972; Jopling, 1972). Eccentricities such as these were not likely to specifically appeal to anyone seriously interested in feminism, however he was able to elucidate his opinions about issues more likely to concern feminists, such as women being too readily labelled with terms such as 'crazy', 'neurotic' or 'hysterical':

(McKnight, 1974)

This statement is particularly interesting as it demonstrates a depth of thought beyond the all-too-easy, shallow level of "I like women; women are superior to men," which Beefheart has always been fond of saying in interviews (c.f. McKenna, 1988).

John French called into question Beefheart’s interest in feminism, though it is hard to be absolutely certain of where Beefheart stood on this issue:

(John French interview, January 2000)

This notion of 'enjoying the difference' was often verbalised in Beefheart's interviews, though instead of being used as a simplistic criticism of feminism, it was generally directed at those who failed to appreciate women's strengths:

(DiMartino, 1981)

He also greatly appreciated his wife's strength, which he often referred to in very respectful terms, as remembered by drummer and marimba player Art Tripp:

It is important to consider the reasons why Beefheart wanted to attract women to his audience, and in doing so I would like to refer briefly to two accounts from ex-band members and one from a Beefheart-biographer.

Beefheart clearly felt that he had something specific to say to women as well as to men, though it is important to bear in mind that his music never approached any level of widespread popularity and the majority of men overlooked his message as well as women. I asked the Magic Band’s drummer in their later period (1977 - 1980), Robert Williams, why he thought Beefheart had been so keen to attract women:

(Robert Williams interview, November 1999)

This answer suggests that in Williams’ opinion, the women were a mere tool to get the men along, and the men were the real target as they would be better equipped to get a ‘serious grasp’ of the music. In trying to get clarification of Williams’ point, he told me that he was uninterested in the subject and declined to comment further. This, and some of Williams’ other answers, suggest that some members of Beefheart’s band may have been approaching this problem from a completely different perspective from Beefheart. These differences in understanding between band members of the reasons behind their female recruitment drive suggest that the issue may not have been discussed so much during Williams' time in the later-period Magic Band.

John French partly agreed with Williams in his response, suggesting that the band could not afford to alienate women if they were going to earn a living from their music:

(John French interview, January 2000)

Throughout his career, Beefheart instinctively reacted against the way in which he felt his music was perceived. He repeatedly denounced later musicians who had been influenced by him to avoid any association and also denied that his music had been influenced by other musicians. He persistently excoriated any associations made between his music and drug use, despite clear narratives in his songs relating to psychedelic experiences (e.g. Ah Feel Like Ahcid) and accounts from band members that make it clear that drug use was not frowned upon in private (c.f. Harkleroad, 1999).

The writer and Beefheart-biographer, Mike Barnes, feels that his attempt to appeal to women was further evidence of his reluctance at being pigeon-holed:

(private e-mail from Mike Barnes, January 2000)

This is entirely consistent with Beefheart’s whole career, and would explain his proclamations to the press that women understood his music more than men when he knew that they were largely disinterested in his music and whatever it was saying.

Following the album Clear Spot, Beefheart took his attempts to reach a wider audience a few steps further by deliberately softening his music. This move greatly disappointed existing admirers of his music and also eventually lead to Beefheart denouncing the albums Unconditionally Guaranteed and Bluejeans and Moonbeams, encouraging people to return them to the shops and demand a refund. His music returned to the uncommercial and unconventional form it had previously held and no further attempts were made to gain mass acceptance, and no specific attempts were made to make the music appeal to women.

Beefheart eventually gave up music all together (and dropped the moniker 'Captain Beefheart' and became Don Van Vliet once again) as his greater passion for abstract expressionist painting was proving to be far more lucrative. In the world of the fine-arts, he was able to remain true to his artistic vision while also making a living and avoiding the scrutiny of the music press. A painter does not have to confront his or her audience in the same way in which a musician on stage does. Consequently a painter is categorised or pigeonholed more by what s/he does rather than by who is interested in what s/he does, thus Van Vliet would no longer have to be seen as having limited appeal to 'white male nerds'. Subsequent interviews with Van Vliet after his departure from the music industry demonstrated that he was much happier in his new career (c.f. McKenna, 1988; DiMartino, 1993). All these factors point to the conclusion that his attempts to appeal to women were motivated by a financial need to attract a potential audience that had previously been neglected and a desire to avoid being pigeonholed because of his audience. No doubt Beefheart's ego would also have been boosted by the image of himself, virile and pied-piper-like, filling concert halls with women who 'understood' his music while the men waited confused outside.

Proceed To Part 3

Many thanks to George Bullfrog for permission to use his photos