Party Anthem

[D. N. Vercáriâ]

Captain Beefheart exaggerating on electricity -- the word "lighthouse" is in it.

[andy]

What a strange, strange man was our Mr. Van Vliet. Is that from the Cooder-on-guitar era?

[D. N. Vercáriâ]

Yes, Ry Cooder is strumming his guitar.

[andy]

It's sad about our Captain B. He was undoubtedly a genius, but he sure could scare away some musicians. It might have been the LSD intake, or he might have been an intractable jerk, or both. I mean, just look at the long list of good players he drove away though his bizarre behavior. He beat, intimidated, and tortured (yes, really) the musicians he worked with in the ever-changing Magic Band, and told many lies to the public about himself (dropped out in Kindergarten? Really? No, as it turns out.).

Trout Mask Replica was one of the finest high-quality things I heard when I was 15 or so. It wasn't as good as was Zappa was doing at the time, though, in my ears and my opinion-- I wasn't doing acid at that age, so it was quite a stretch for my young brain to appreciate what Mr. Glen Vliet was doing. His stuff with Zappa is his high point, to me, because Frank knew how to produce him. (See "Willie the Pimp," which is to this day one of my favorite tunes: the whole arrangement is both dirty and wild, regardless of the lyrics or the primitive melody.) (Also, please review Juicy Lucy's cover of it, it's quite delicious, I'll give you five dollars if you're disappointed.)

Okay, so: evil cultish genius bastard, basically, and fundamentally not quite sane. I can understand the link between him and what we're doing, but I surely wouldn't want to advertise it. I'll propose another anthem shortly, for your consideration.

[D. N. Vercáriâ]

As for Juicy Lucy's "Willy the Pimp", I knew and loved it long before I heard the version on "Hot Rats". Still have it on vinyl and love it. :-)

As for Zappa and Beefheart, the "Bongo Fury" album is my favourite.

This was a quick reply, must work now. Something went wrong quite royally, and there are only 3 days left to fix it.

[D. N. Vercáriâ]

Regarding the Captain's alleged dictatorial behaviour, I read some of Bill Harkleroad's (that is, Zoot Horn Rollo's) remarks on this issue. It made me wonder why he and his fellow musicians didn't quit the Magic Band at an early stage of the production of Trout Mask Replica, which was the episode during which Captain B. seemed to have reached an all-time high in being a dick.

On the other hand, if memory serves, in his remarks Mr Harkleroad seemed to have an attitude of complaining a lot about all the missed career opportunities in this life, so I wasn't exactly sure what to make of his stories about the evilness of the evil Captain. I mean, there are gazillions of excellent guitarists out there who never became famous in their entire life. Music business is an extremely hard and unfair business.

[D. N. Vercáriâ]

Mr Harkleroad's complaints about Captain Beefheart:

He took all the money and all the fame.
He wasn't a musician, he was an action artist, if anything. So he actually had no idea what music was about.

After the realease of Trout Mask Replica, the members of the Magic Band became the laughing stock of their families. So the musicians had to beg Captain Beefheart to record an album with real music, thus they could prove they were real musicians. But stubborn as he was, he continued to record, er, not music.

When Captain Beefheart finally gave in, his reputation was already gone with the wind, so albums like "Clear Spot" and "Bluejeans and Moonbeams" couldn't and didn't sell any more.

Eventually the Magic Band fired Mr. Beefheart and started over as Mallard. But in the mean time punk music had become the leading musical style, so Mallard's records didn't sell either.

Indirectly, this could be blamed on Mr. Beefheart, too, because his age-long resistance against real music made them all miss the actual trends in music.

Frank Zappa himself talked about the sometimes erratic behaviour of Captain Beefheart, especially during the recording sessions for Trout Mask Replica. But when it comes to rumours about his alleged cruelty towards his co-musicians, I'm taking this with a grain of salt, after reading Mr. Harkleroad's complaints.

[andy]

I may have mentioned this somewhere before, I don't remember (I probably did, as it's one of the high points of my feeble life)-- I was lucky enough to spend a few hours with Mr. Zappa, and got a tour of his bus (he didn't like to fly, so used a custom bus to get from venue to venue). I wish I'd had sense enough to ask about Beefheart, but I didn't, being a bit overwhelmed by the experience in the first place.

Vliet was certainly musically aware, despite Mr. Harkleroad's calumnies. I'd be willing to accept the proposition that he was not an actual musician, however. He didn't have to be to come up with what he did. He was beyond what we think of when we think of musicians. I suspect that Van Morisson is similar in that regard, and he's also noted as being a semi-cultist weirdo who is quite the fascist with his band (James Brown, too, come to think of it).

Hey, wait a minute: you have "Lie Back and Enjoy It?" I lost my copy in a divorce, and it's out of print nowadays. I want, want, want it. Maybe we could work out a deal in which I borrow it for a day. (Unless it's vinyl, in which case I'm out of luck.)

[D. N. Vercáriâ]

Yes, I have "Lie Back and Enjoy It", on vinyl, in the original sleeves. It was my second "real LP" ever, I have it since 1970 or 1971. By the way, it took quite a while until I learned that they were a British band. From the music on the LP, I'd always been guessing that they must be from the US-American South.

If you were only after some particular Juicy Lucy tunes, such as "Willy the Pimp", "Who do you love" and others, I have a "Best of" CD of Juicy Lucy, too, so there might be ways of "borrowing" that.

[D. N. Vercáriâ]

Talking about "dictatorial" bandleaders in (rock) music, Frank Zappa himself was reportedly a perfectionist, who used to insist on having his music performed exactly like it was meant to be performed.

Back to Captain B.: at a past-"Tragic Band" time he and his band were interviewed in their rehearsal room, and one question was, how he makes his band play his musical ideas. Don Van Vliet thought about it for a moment, then, with a funny facial expression, he said: "I beat'em." And the band members laughed.