CAPTAIN BEEFHEART

The thing I really like about Captain Beefheart is that he's an artist. Straight up, no messing around, a pure artist. He ain't in it for the money, he ain't in it for the entertainment, he certainly ain't in it for the fame - he's just in it for the art. He does art for the sake of art and nothing less. He doesn't inject his personality into everything he does. Indeed, as opposed to someone like Neil Young I don't even have the first clue as to what Don Vliet (the man behind the naval rank) is even like as a person. And the whole point is I don't need to. All we have is the art created by the pseudonym "Captain Beefheart" (apparently named after a rather unpleasant party trick). The music produced by Beefy is notoriously challenging and difficult and if you're not the sort of person prepared to show a little patience then it is fair to say that the Captain is not for you. Rather like Tom Waits (who was strongly influenced by the good Captain) the music produced by Van Vliet is a deliberately artistic melting-pot of classic influences, such as surrealism, all bound together by the deconstructuralist ethics of post-modernism. Beefheart is not to be discussed in the pages of Rolling Stone or Smash Hits. Instead, art students should be taking classes on him alongside the likes of Picasso, Dali or James Joyce. The other good thing about Beefheart is that he is, technically, a genius. His IQ is of genius level and he was apparently a child prodigy, both in artistic and academic terms. As it happens, I'm less than keen to call him an artistic genius in the generally accepted interpretation as the works of art he produced only sporadically match up to those produced by the likes of Bob Dylan or Miles Davis but there should always be room in music for someone as intelligent as Beefheart (please excuse the snobbish overtones). Part of the reason I admire Trout Mask Replica so much is just because it could only have been made by a natural genius. The level of thought, intricacy and complexity could simply not have been achieved even by someone more talented in general musical ability. Even if you don't like the Captain you'd be hard pushed to deny both his influence and his relevance. Some people even claim he was "anti-music" and I admit he was against the traditionalism of generic songwriting. He simply didn't write songs like he was supposed to and that is a large part of what makes him so great. He was a visionary, not from a love of music necessarily, but just from a love of pure art.

Of course it would be unfair and probably negligent not to mention Beefy's backing band - The Magic Band. I haven't made a list of their members as the line-up changed a fair bit and they mostly used pseudonyms themselves in any case. That said, the Captain was certainly lucky and/or efficient in that the Magic Band members were nearly all as weird and as eccentric as himself and therefore able to translate the muddles in his mind into muddles in the studio. At times they were a little traditional (Safe as Milk) or just plain unimpressive (Doc at the Radar Station) but for their pinnacle of Trout Mask Replica they were really cooking. The complex, zany interplay of TMR is absolutely astonishing and one of the most amazing, individual musical recordings in the known universe. It isn't that they can't play but then it isn't exactly that they can play either. It is the something in between that just makes it equals parts bemusing and beguiling. The influence on art-rock and particularly the punk generation is absolutely immense and, in a way, may be second only to the Velvet Underground in the underground influence stakes. Captain Beefheart's actual career is also absolutely unique in that he is one of the very, very few artists to actually voluntarily retire from music and never return. He quit the job after 1982's Ice Cream for Crow and went to live in the desert with his wife whilst still painting. Apparently he is also a really great painter but, obviously, I don't know jack shit about that. All in all, one of the most unique artists ever. Well, apart from the similarities with his friend and colleague Frank Zappa. Indeed, I should mention that the only reason that I've covered Beefheart before Zappa is because his albums are much cheaper. That really is the only reason.

From: Peter Deuel

I use to be like you, I thought the Captain was great! Yup, an artist for art's sake! What a bunch of crap! He's nothing but a very bitter, jealous person. He represents the dark side of any musical force. If he is remembered in history as a genius then our musical future is in deep trouble. Not that I care for the crap being produced today but there are many thoughout time who are better artists, who may have made money but didn't do their art for that reason, who have and will continue (dead or alive) to contribute much more to music then the Captain. I finally destroyed everything I owned related to him, I felt he was such a negative influence to me and a loser. My life has turned around since I have removed the influence of his music in my life and I am positive about myself and others again. To me he is an artist in the sense a woodpecker is a carpenter.

Bizarrely enough, the Captain's 1967 debut was probably not the wackiest, most far out debut release of that year. If you played this and Pink Floyd's Piper at the Gates of Dawn, for example, to an unfamiliar listener I'd give at least even odds that the latter was picked as the more eccentric and generally weirder album. Of course, that doesn't tell the whole story as by the early seventies the good Captain was releasing the mind-melting Lick My Decals Off, Baby whilst the Floydsters were pushing towards more conventional prog rock territory. Furthermore, as thousands of second-hand record shop frequenters will tell you, there is nothing quite as inaccessible as Trout Mask Replica (although I'd be personally tempted to put Miles Davis' Bitches Brew even higher in that respect - what the hell is that album?). Anyhow, there is of course a unique twist given to most of the tracks on here ("Electricity" being the furthest out) and Beefheart's vocals already sound like a mad scientist doing a Howlin' Wolf impersonation but it is still just a twist of eccentricity - the extreme was yet to come. Probably this is down to two factors. Firstly, of course, Beefo didn't really have a set idea of exactly how far he wanted to go in his deconstruction of musical traditions. Secondly, the Magic Band are not particularly magic for most of this album and, indeed, it is mainly Vliet's vocals that retain the authenticity. Bizarrely, a young Ry Cooder actually plays on some of the tracks but he was clearly at odds with the Captain's aesthetics and never signed up to the Magic Band full time. Although it did come out a year later and with the music scene extraordinary developed in such a short space of time this album easily surpasses Frank Zappa's Freak Out! as an unconventional debut. The Captain does repeat Frank's pastiche of teeny bopper music with the parodic "traditional" numbers "Call on Me" and the prom ballad "I'm Glad". Clearly the Captain's vocals are at odds with their general sound but, unlike Zappa, the lyrics also retain the traditional aspect meaning they don't come across as particularly clever. Still, "Call on Me" is certainly a decent enough sixties-styled rocker. I've never been a huge fan of Freak Out! as it feels inauthentic as if it is more a comedy record than a proper work of art. There are no such doubts with this release, thankfully, and the likes of "Dropout Boogie", "Abba Zabba" and the excellent "Electricity" (complete with one of the first ever uses of a theremin) are all the sort of zany songs that only the Captain could conjure up. Still, much as I dip towards self-contradiction, some of the best numbers are those that are semi-conventional in structure but with the Captain's mark indelibly left on proceedings. "Zig Zag Wanderer" is a relentless charge of a rock'n'roll song with Beefheart barking out his surrealist lyrics at a frenetic pace. Album opener "Sure 'Nuff 'n Yes I Do" begins a cappella before diving into another contorted college rocker, r'n'b performed by a man with his eye on something greater. Perhaps the best of the bunch, though, is the growling blues of "Plastic Factory" which shows the Captain's heart was always most set in the ways of the old bluesmen but, of course, inflicted with his eccentric stylings which generates an excellent duel between the wailing harmonica and his yelping bluesy vocals. I could live without the goofy, eccentric r'n'b of "Where There's Woman" and "Grown So Ugly" but the album ends with the intriguing "Autumn's Child". The verses are a rather unconventional affair but when the eerie section arises seemingly out of nowhere one can't help but be impressed. Typically, and unsurprisingly, this album did not perform particularly well as a commodity, although I believe John Lennon initially championed it (as well as John Peel, of course). Buddah's remaster throws on the rest of the tapes from The Mirror Man Sessions so we get some alternate versions of "Safe as Milk", "On Tomorrow" and "Trust Us" as well as some instrumental tracks and the lengthy "Korn Ring Finger". You can read the Mirror Man story in the next review but it is interesting to note that Beefheart had been sitting on Shiny Beast's "Ice Rose" (called "Big Black Baby Shoes" on here) and Ice Cream for Crow's "The Witch Doctor Life" ("Dirty Blue Gene", a title which was of course reused on Doc at the Radar Station) for some time. It is a nice gesture, of course, but I can't help but feel they would have been better making The Mirror Man Sessions a double CD compilation. Anyway, Beefheart's debut is one of his strongest albums and an almost accessible exhibition of his eccentricity which comfortably set the foundations for ultimately something even greater.

If it is a story you seek then it is a story I shall give. The story of the good Captain and the Mirror Man. To be honest, I'm just regurgitating mostly what I learnt in the sleeve-notes so I'll make this brief. Essentially, for his second album Beefy decided he wanted to make it a double album with a "live" performance on the first record and more conventional (by his standards) numbers on the second. It was apparently to be titled It Comes to You in a Plain Brown Wrapper, the intended cover art for which ended up being used for the butchered Strictly Personal. Unfortunately, some way through the recording Beefheart was thrown in jail for a small period of time after the filth presented him with trumped-up, tenuous drugs charges and, upon release, was told that Buddah had gotten cold feet over the whole project and were ditching the tapes and releasing Beefheart and band from their label. Undeterred, Beefheart re-recorded some of the material (the non-live stuff) which went on to become the Strictly Personal album released on Blue Thumb records. Unfortunately for Beefy his producer, Bob Krasnow, re-mixed the album whilst the Magic Band were touring in the UK adding all kinds of spurious, inappropriate and now incredibly dated studio embellishments. Now apparently Beefheart did not mind it straight away and still sanctioned the new release but it is patently clear in retrospect, to both Don Van Vliet (as he is now called, I guess) and myself, that, as an official follow-up to Safe as Milk Strictly Personal is a bit of a mess. Obviously, I'll save my specific criticisms of that album until the next review (otherwise, what would I have to say?) but it is immediately clear from my ratings that Buddah's subsequent release of the original tapes is the preferable alternative sophomore release by the Captain. Some of these recordings actually first saw the light of day as the album Mirror Man released by Buddah in 1970. When remastering Safe as Milk, though, it obviously occurred to the good people at Buddah to properly document the original sessions and so released all the complete takes of this stuff on one CD, er, this one. As I've said, the left-over stuff was appended to the CD remaster of Safe as Milk. Sticking roughly to the Captain's original plans it begins with the three "live" tracks (live-in-the-studio is more accurate) all of which are essentially lengthy blues jams with plenty of improvisation from the Captain both in his stream-of-consciousness surrealist lyrics and vocals and his wailing harmonica and squealing saxophone playing. Both "Tarotplane" and "Mirror Man" go on for almost twenty minutes apiece with nasal saxophone playing on the former and fractured vocals most prominent on the latter. "25th Century Quaker" is somewhat shorter (basically half the length) and, although it starts strongly, it does peter out a little more than the other two. It is hard to claim they are absolutely superb throughout but they are fascinating and, of course, for the time pretty ground-breaking. Ultimately your enjoyment is going to depend on your patience and general tolerance of the Captain's most challenging escapades but I give 'em the tentative thumbs up. They were not re-recorded for Strictly Personal but, curiously, they did form the bulk of the original Mirror Man album. What we are left with, then, with the exception of the unremarkable "Moody Liz", is better produced and arguably better performed material from the Strictly Personal album. The only song modified much is "Kandy Korn". Whilst it maintains its quaint poppy melody it branches out far beyond the subsequent version into an eight minute instrumental but with much more variation than the free-form blues jams that open the record. "Trust Us" is an excellent extended rocker, with Beefheart revelling in the creepy side of psychedelia and, in doing so, reflecting some of Frank Zappa's early songs with the Mothers of Invention. Certainly, it is intentionally ironic that when singing "you've got to trust us, when you need a friend" the Captain sounds like the most sinister and least trustworthy person ever. It reminds me of that snake singing "Trust in Me" in Disney's The Jungle Book although Beefheart's actual aim was probably to spoof the hippy "gurus" of the time. Probably the best version of a Strictly Personal song is the delta blues of "Gimme Dat Harp Boy" which retains its power and authenticity - sounding like something some old black fellow sings out in the swamps. Obviously, this album can not really be reviewed in isolation so I suggest we press ahead with its counterpart and the album that was initially taken as the Captain's official second album - 1968's Strictly Personal. The final word to be said is that much of this stuff, the blues jams in particular, make it clear Beefheart didn't take long to start looking for his extreme approach to music and, pretty soon, he found it.

Anyone who claims production is not important should be directed straight to this album. To be fair, there are probably some other albums that have suffered even more from terrible production. In its original mix Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreaker's LAMF, arguably one of the greatest punk albums ever, was apparently absolutely ruined by poor mixing and thus rendered essentially useless for twenty years until it finally received its proper mix. Obviously there is no point in remixing this album as The Mirror Man Sessions exists as a superior replacement anyway, and the production of this album still isn't that bad. It is still listenable and the songs just about shine through, like diamonds in the proverbial rough, to paraphrase Beefheart himself referring to this album. Of course, no-one's saying production can do much, if anything, to improve bad songs (you can't polish turds, as one likes to say) but to just dismiss production as an irrelevance when talking about albums is exceptionally short-sighted. From a personal point of view, I'm no fan of over-the-top production fests and even the Beatles' innovations in production (around the same time this was released, I hasten to add) were to the benefit of the music, keeping things crisp and clear, rather than drowning anything out in a Phil Spector style wall of sound (I'd prefer it if no-one mentioned Let it Be at this point). Anyway, with people at the time just coming round to the potential of production and studio wizardry (thanks largely to the Beatles) it was perhaps not an unexpected decision to try to get Beefheart in on the act (can't be having the likes of Pink Floyd looking more eccentric than that zany Captain, can we?). Unfortunately, as I've made abundantly clear, it was not a very good idea. In general, the whole thing sounds muffled with no real distinction between the various instruments. Of course, that must have been somewhat similar to the original mix and, at times and if we're being generous, it does sound like a muddy delta blues dish-water mix of twanging steel guitars, wailing harmonica and yelping, grizzled blues vocals. The main problem with the production is, of course, those silly dated effects that Bob Krasnow tacks on to most of the songs. Most prominently, he likes using phasing where the music switches from speaker to speaker in stereo mode. The fact is, of course, most of Beefheart's brilliance has nothing to do with production tricks and his best albums are all pretty much authentic in just capturing the instruments as clearly as possible. In fairness to Krasnow and even Beefheart himself when he sanctioned the release of this album, you've got to remember the circumstances in which this was released. It was only his second album and, given most of this stuff is only a slightly more progressive take on the eccentric blues of Safe as Milk, they can be mistaken for not really knowing where Beefheart's career was to go (after all, he was breaking new ground all the time) and how anachronistic these production effects were to become. Thankfully, the Captain did make his mark well and truly on the next release and, in the end, perhaps the produced mess of this album forced the Captain into going back to basics with Frank Zappa at the helm and, in doing so, created one of the most intriguing and flat-out amazing albums ever. Although it does kind of tower over his catalogue we mustn't let you-know-what dominate everything and so, with our sights back on this release, you will not be surprised to learn that most of the material just sounds like the Mirror Man stuff but less well produced. There are a few new tracks on here, although "Son of Mirror Man - Mere Man" is basically an excerpt from the rambling original. "On Tomorrow" is decent enough and "Ah Feel Like Ahcid" opens this album pretty much the same as his debut with a cappella blues yelping, based prominently on Son House's "Death Letter Blues" (which you hipsters will probably know as a White Stripes' song, these days), but, unlike "Suff 'Nuff 'n Yes I Do" it fails to develop into much of a song. Oddly, it is also reprised twice on the album, fading back in at the end of "Trust Us" and after "Kandy Korn" at the very end of the album. So, in summary, if you haven't worked it out yet, you should probably buy The Mirror Man Sessions ahead of this album (particularly if you've also got the Safe as Milk remaster). Of course, the songs are still good and if the previous compilation didn't exist I would presumably be less critical (although I'm not sure if I'd give it a higher mark). Production aside, it is clear that the Captain was looking to expand upon his eccentric reading of blues and r'n'b and, although those twenty minute jams didn't quite work out, thankfully the wackiest cowboy around was about to get even wackier...

Also a tin teardrop. In the late sixties Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band boarded themselves up in a house for near enough a year whilst legend has it that within those walls he composed this entire album in twelve hours. Myth or legend, the simple fact is that the reputation of this album cannot be ignored by anyone with an interest in rock music ("popular" would be the wrong word) or, indeed, twentieth century art. In the latter's case this album is the 'Ulysses' of the music world. One man could spend his whole life studying it and still not come close to fully understanding it. Or even working out just to what extent we are supposed to understand it. It is therefore unsurprising to learn that many people simply throw in the towel. You don't buy Trout Mask Replica as a present to somebody on the off-chance that they'll like it. One must actively choose to encounter it and so many get burnt that it is a choice that cannot be made lightly. Judging by my experience on ebay I'd estimate about 50% of copies of this album end up in second hand bins looking for a new home, like hyperactive puppies that suddenly don't seem so cute when you've taken them home. I'm generally unimpressed with people that take challenging records back to the shop because they didn't love it on first listen - if that was all music was MTV would become our Bible - but I'll make an exception for this album. If you're not really patient and really tolerant then you're just wasting your time and the efforts of the good Captain. In short, this album is a trial of error. It is music that has been put through a blender and then had the remaining parts pieced together, not by Dr. Frankenstein, but by the very monster that he created. What masquerades as an actual album on here is a mammoth twenty eight tracks (songs would be too strong a word) spread-eagled across four sides of vinyl and even, on CD, reaching the maximum running time of eighty minutes. From the semantics alone you can see it does not make for easy listening. Such is its almost comical aspirin-induced inaccessibility you do get the most from it when you are already familiar with the Captain's general shtick (the more concise Lick My Decals Off, Baby or Ice Cream for Crow are more than useful in that respect) but there is still plenty to take home even in isolation. I've always held that the best place to start with an artist is their best album and even here I think it is acceptable to begin your Beefheart experience with this mammoth milestone - if you absolutely hate this album I cannot see how you'd positively like, as opposed to tolerate, anything else he did - just be aware that the "study" of it will usually require additional Beefheart experience. This truly is a bottomless pit of artistic genius - it isn't just deep, it's depthless. For the majority of the album over a frenzied assault of garbled instruments, each playing a different song, Beefheart bellows out his own special tune, one of incomplete sentences and dazzling word-play. You cannot even understand what each musician (used in the loose sense) is playing, let alone how it can all sound so disparate and achieve such unity at the same time. This album is a whirlwind of musical ambiguity - it is fractured yet repetitive, unique yet cyclical. There simply is nothing else like it. It would be almost sacrilegious to describe and evaluate individual songs, as if it was some mere compilation, but suffice to say the majority of them take off from a similar approach of sounding like a fork in a washing machine but yet each sound so different in comparison (another ambiguity). Sometimes Beefheart plays his saxophone, usually backwards, and some of the tracks are either all instrumental ("Hair Pie", "Dali's Car") and therefore a showcase for the brilliant interplay of the Magic Band or all spoken-word ("The Dust Blows Forward 'n' the Dust Blows Back", "Well", "Orange Claw Hammer") which allow Beefheart to show off even more of his beguiling beat-poetry. "Frownland", "Ella Guru" and "When Big Joan Sets Up" all revel in the Magic Band's loose-but-tight interplay whilst the Captain treads the thin line between madness and insanity. To emphasise the variation in mood on here the coruscating, vicious rocker "Moonlight on Vermont" and the rumbling doom-laden (not to mention ludicrously wonderful) "Dachau Blues", for instance, are brilliantly off-set by the playful pop of "Sweet Sweet Bulbs". If I'm being brutally honest, even though this clearly is one of the greatest albums ever released, the ebb and the flow can drag a touch, usually in the middle third. However, all sins, no matter how insignificant, are forgotten with the startling close to the experience. "The Blimp (mousetrapreplica)" on one of the most far out albums ever is as far out as it gets. Over a telephone line Beefheart, presumably pumped up by some combination of chemicals, rants and raves uncontrollably to Frank Zappa (who is on the other line) about "the blimp" before finally regaining control of himself at which point the whole ridiculous episode is played out by some surreal, soothing jazz. "Old Fart at Play" is almost as brilliant with Beefheart, having calmed down a little, narrating the tale of the construction of the very same trout mask replica. The album ends with perhaps the most coherent groove the Magic Band manage to conjure up on "Veteran's Day Poppy" which could be seen either as an antidote or an apology. Not that the Captain and co. need to say sorry for anything. Those patience-less people who take this back to the shop are the ones that should be apologising if it weren't for the fact that they are only depriving themselves. It ain't an easy listen, even difficult seems too weak a word, but it is rewarding. Patience reaps its own benefits. Furthermore, once you've got it you won't need to bother with any other albums. This astonishing piece of work IS a record collection all on its own. You could live and die inside this album.

From: Jeff Anonymous

Your review of Trout Mask Replica is a piece of crap. You come across as a preachy fanboy fuckhead. A 'review' doesn't constitute raving on and on about the album ad nauseum. Absolutely terrible.

From: ddickson@rice.edu

Oh, lighten UP, Jeff Anonymous. But seriously, Jack, you've gotta be weird to like this album as much as you do. I gave it a chance, and I can tolerate the style, but the fact remains: For me, all the songs on this album sound the FRICKIN' SAME. You know, the guitars clatter and spang, the drums go all over the place, and the lead guy howls, groans, and screams something out of Kerouac's worst nightmares in a completely different tempo. That's cool for six or seven songs, but when you have over twenty of these things that set the SAME toneless mood, have the SAME minimal arrangements, and the SAME unintelligible vibe for over an HOUR in no discernable order, you're not a happy camper. I give it a high six--at least some of the songs are catchy, like "Moonlight in Vermont", and "The Blimp" is hilarious as hell. At least this is better than the goddamn Pixies, who took this vibe and actually tried to make it the defining style of alternative rock. Sweet Mother of Jesus.

From: Chris Bright

As far as I'm aware, the vocal on "The Blimp" is actually Antenna Jimmy Semens (one of hs guitarists) reading the Captain's lyric, over the telephone as you say.

From: Charles Evans

Having just encountered "Sweet Sweet Bulbs" for the first time I needed to confirm that the whole exercise was not a piss-take. Clearly it wasn't. Having discovered the lyrics, I would suggest they bear scrutiny even without the stupendous discordance which accompany/augment them.
First hearing can be described as incredulity-inducing. The third and fourth hearing confirmed my views upon hearing the song for the second time. Superb!
I am now ploughing slowly through the rest.
Thanks for your help in this difficult time.

There are many injustices in the world. You know, human rights being trampled, ethic minorities being persecuted, the various ones perpetrated by the police every day, some shitty bank deciding I wasn't good enough for their graduate scheme (I ain't gonna give them free publicity by naming them), Steven Gerrard playing for Liverpool rather than Everton. In short, a lot. But none of them come close to the fact that this album is no longer available on CD. Well, we will call it a class action as there are, of course, loads of other great underground albums that are not available on CD (thankfully, Neil Young finally saw sense in that respect recently). Of course, unlike with Youngy, the Captain has not refused to issue this on CD and, although I don't know the details, I imagine it is something to do with a conflict over rights to the recordings or something. Either way you suckers are being denied what is almost certainly the Captain's second best album. Of course, the sensible thing to do is to follow my lead and download the complete thing using one of those file-sharing programmes. Bizarrely, this album was initially pressed on CD, but only for a few months, meaning you can get second hand copies of it. If you fancy paying upwards and over £100 for them that is. So, in short, just download yourselves a copy of this album as there is no possible reason, ethical or otherwise, not to do so. This album is often hailed as a more concise Trout Mask Replica and I heartily agree with such sentiments. It is only 40-ish minutes long and the arrangements, songwriting and musicianship are still utterly wacky and challenging but, mostly, just that little bit more coherent than the previous monstrosity. Indeed, if you're a cheap, cautious bastard then the best course of action to acquaint yourself with Beefheart might be to just download this album and then see if you fancy getting the Mask afterwards. Stylistically, as well as the conciseness, the Magic Band have been tinkered with a bit. Obviously I don't have any sleeve-notes to refer to so I don't know which of the bizarrely-named crew have moved on and which bizarrely-named musicians have replaced them but it is clear that, firstly, there is only one guitar in use and, secondly, someone has started playing what sounds like a xylophone but which might be called "vibes". Thankfully, the lack of guitar interplay is actually barely missed, if at all, as the guitarist is still able to conjure up fractured grooves and aggressive staccato. There is still what sounds like a chimp behind the drum-kit and the Captain gets more mileage out of his saxophone with the majority of tracks featuring him gleefully squealing away, adding infinitely to the sonic carnage. His vocals are also at their most impressive, even if he rarely sang like this either before or after, with him affecting all manner of silly tones, groans, and moans. And, of course, the lyrical word-play is typically brilliant. In short, the Captain and his Magic Band are still on blistering form. Furthermore, they have not just rehashed TMR but moved on just enough to almost achieve a second consecutive masterpiece. The rollicking, playful but decidedly disreputable duo of "Doctor Dark" and "I Love You, You Big Dummy" perfectly encapsulate the frenzy of the album. It is also noticeable that they sound that little bit more structured than the similarly inclined Trout Mask numbers but still wacky enough to offend anyone seeking some light relief. The likes of "Bellerin' Plain" and "Petrified Forest" are the most anarchic numbers on the album with Beefheart's bizarre brilliance stamped all over them. "Woe-Is-Uh-Me-Bop" and "The Smithsonian Institute Blues (or the Big Dig)" are the closest to "normal" songs with almost conventional, albeit warped, melodies. The stand-out track on the album, though, is probably the startling "The Buggie Boogie Woogie". Against a shuffling, bluesy rhythm Beefheart begins grumbling his lines before raising his voice into an intense cry about "what this world needs is a good two-dollar room and a good two-dollar broom". It is certainly a stunning track and an instantly memorable one. There are three instrumentals, two acoustic guitar solos ("Peon", "One Red Rose That I Mean") and one free-jazz saxophone one ("Japan in a Dishpan") and it is particularly fun to hear the Captain's Mr. T impression on "Space-Age Couple" - ten years before Mr. T was even famous. I guess that just shows what a visionary artist the dear Captain was. There ain't many different ways to put this but it is essentially a crying shame that this album is not widely available. It is utterly essential to the Beefheart experience and a near-masterpiece of his unhinged ramblings and intoxicating creations. Rest assured, when I become really rich and start up my own record company this is one of the first albums I'm going to buy the rights to. This needs to be heard.

From: Heather Noecker

I'm actually writing in regard to your Captain Beefheart review of Lick My Decals Off, Baby. Not because I disagree. I think it is a tremendous record and I'd like you to let it be known on your site that a few (four to be exact) of the tracks from this classic are included on the somewhat recent release of the Captain Beefheart anthology box set The Dust Blows Forward. I suppose you already gave the best advice for obtaining this album (download it), but if one is unwilling or unable to do so, this anthology set is also a good option especially since it does contain other greats from Troutmask, The Legendary A&M Sessions, etc. Personally, I was lucky enough to find LMDOB as a used cassette copy which has since expired (god rest its soul), but it was great to hear the album in its entirety while it lasted. Hopefully someone will take the initiative someday to get this badly needed album reissued on CD...

If Lick My Decals Off, Baby not being available on CD is one of the great injustices in the world then one of the most bizarre things in the world must be the sleeve-notes to this 2for1 CD compilation with Clear Spot. Although both were released in 1972 Pete Johnson summarises the story behind the Captain's career and, more specifically, these two albums, for which he explicitly states that Clear Spot was released first and The Spotlight Kid afterwards, later in the year. Now I admit I cannot find conclusive proof but most other sources that I've checked very definitely suggest the contrary - that this album was released first. The actual CD also suggests this came first given it is prior in the running order to Clear Spot. So the big question remains: why on earth did the record company choose to include sleeve-notes that included FALSE information about the material on here? How on earth can this man be considered a good choice to write about them if he doesn't even know in which order the two albums were released? Personally, I find it quite incredible. In contrast to the wacky decisions of the record company drones the irony is that these two albums are actually two of Beefheart's most straightforward, the latter in particular. With regards to this album, Johnson reckons the self-production on Beefy's part was a mistake and the album as a whole sounds jaded and uninspired. Presumably Beefheart was exhausted after putting all that effort into Clear Spot earlier in the year, eh? Anyway, although Clear Spot is generally regarded as the superior album I think I just about give the nod to this release. There are still the elements of wackiness from Decals and the xylophones are still around (more evidence that this album came first) but this album is certainly far less manic. Indeed, I imagine it is meant to be Beefy's homage to the blues veterans as he adopts his best growling Howlin' Wolf vocals basically throughout and lot of the material is plodding and ominous (in a good way). He also uses his trusty harmonica more on here, instead of the squealing saxomophone. The guitar interplay obviously isn't up to TMR's standard but there are still plenty of tricks in the arrangements to make this a typically intriguing Beefheart experience. "White Jam" starts out as a mournful piano ballad but unexpectedly twists itself round into a typically quirky romp, with Beefheart's vocals going from grizzled blues to a throaty whine. Similarly, the title track is a mutated blues/country crossover (much like some of the Safe as Milk numbers) and "Alice in Blunderland" is a standardly off-kilter instrumental. Like I was a-sayin', though, most of the tracks are essentially blues based. "Blabber 'n Smoke" and "There Ain't No Santa Claus on the Evenin' Stage" ("ho ho ho") are both slow, mournful blues songs with the former rather maudlin and the latter demonically droll. "When it Blows its Stacks" and "Click Clack" are also relatively similar in that both rely on a simple rhythmic beat over which Beefheart can unleash his unique beat-poetry. The latter is regarded by both Pete Johnson and myself as the best track on the album as the furious pace of it really is evocative of a mad-cap train ride, perhaps documenting the protagonist's journey to New Orleans, chasing after his girlfriend. "Grow Fins" and "Glider" are also good songs, again both are blues-based but with more prominent harmonica than the rest of the bunch. The former contains the brilliantly delivered kiss-off "I think I'm gonna grow fins and go back into the water again" indicating the mad ol' Captain was not human after all. But, of course, we all knew that anyway after hearing Trout Mask Replica. His career has hardly been a model of consistency but he was canny enough to change direction after Decals and, as a homage to the genre that inspired him, this album easily holds its own in his catalogue. Now if only we could figure out when it actually came out...

Assuming that this album did indeed succeed The Spotlight Kid (both in terms of writing and release) it is clear that Beefheart had very definitely started leaning towards a much more commercialised style of music. Ted Templeman was brought in to produce (I know him from Van Halen's subsequent albums) and the ridiculously erroneous sleeve-notes are at least sporadically correct in that Pete Johnson is right to point out that this is better produced (from a technical point of view) in that the sound is a lot clearer and Beefheart also does sound more energetic and zestful than on the last album. Of course, that ain't a criticism of the previous release - the whole point of The Spotlight Kid was that it was meant to sound grizzled and aged in order to ape Beefheart's veteran blues inspirations. Still, the sound and style of this album definitely makes it the more immediately accessible - perhaps even out of Beefheart's entire catalogue. Over time the gloss does wear off a little, as some of the songs come to appear rather inconsequential, but there is still plenty of good stuff on here. Enough, indeed, to show that Beefheart didn't have to always be off his trolley to produce good music. I always say, though, that Beefheart at his absolute best is when he is at his most extreme. Plenty of quirky artists could produce an album like this one - only one could have come up with Trout Mask Replica. It is still apparent, though, that Beefheart had his hyperactive muse on his shoulder as, despite the streamlined nature of the arrangements and production, there is still something definitively off-beat about the majority of this album. The Magic Band's grooves tend to be a little more conventional and less anarchic but such an economical approach to songwriting still produces interesting enough music. Groovers like the opener "Low Yo Yo Stuff", the madcap "Nowadays a Woman's Gotta Hit a Man" and the pulsating title track are hardly as unpredictable as TMR or Decals but they still succeed on a different, more conventional - perhaps even commercial, level. Furthermore, with the soulful acoustic ballads "My Head Is My Only House Unless it Rains" and "Her Eyes Are a Blue Million Miles" the Captain might even have succeeded at seducing the house-wives as both songs are the sort that you'd never normally associate with the man behind the Trout Mask Replica. Furthermore, the Captain reaches almost complete normality with the Stax-pastiche soul number "Too Much Time". The utterly conventional instrumentation smacks of the anonymity of session men but the Captain manages to salvage such a "sell-out" with a droll yet energetic performance. If you're not willing to laugh along with Beefy, though, then you are hardly likely to be over-impressed. The spoken word parody in the middle is always pretty amusing, though - "sometimes when it's late and I'm a little bit hungry I heat up some old stale beans, open up a can of sardines, eat crackers and dreams of somebody to cook for me". The album ends at its weirdest, though, with the utterly bizarre and beguiling "Big Eyed Beans From Venus" which is easily the furthest this album veers back to former territories with an unpredictable, almost threatening, arrangement and typically nonsensical beat-poetry from the Captain. The finale is the spoken word coda, "Golden Birdies", with one of the wackiest punch-lines to any album ever (quoted above). Indeed, the album's end is rather misleading as the rest of the album is far more conventionally minded. As a result, the likes of "Sun Zoom Spark" and the disdainful "Crazy Little Thing" are much ado about nothing, although the biggest culprit in their downfall is presumably a lack of songwriting inspiration from the beaten brow of Mr. Van Vliet. Unsurprisingly, despite the Captain's refreshed intentions, this album failed to make much of a commercial impact and he was apparently getting pretty disillusioned with the whole industry (particularly as the early seventies was when artists were starting to really clean up in the financial sense). Of course, I seriously doubt whether Beefheart could ever be the voice behind a top 40 hit and, the fact is, we'd hardly want him to be. Still, Beefheart's misfortune also became our misfortune as the dear ol' Captain completely lost the plot for the next few years.

There's something deeply ironic (or at least inappropriate) about the worst album I own proclaiming "100% pure and good" on the cover. As I see it, it is barely conceivable that this album could be any more rotten and insipid. To be perfectly honest, pinning this nauseating failure simply on the fact Beefheart wanted to make money seems both unfair and inaccurate. He MUST have known he wasn't going to be making a cent off this pile of crap the minute he bothered to amble into the studio to record the "songs". He can't blame personal circumstances, such as pleading depression or some such mental condition, as he had just got married (and remains so to this day) and, indeed, Jan Van Vliet is actually responsible for co-writing most of the songs (whoops). My personal guess is that Beefheart was simply bored. He'd put his all into some great, revolutionary master-works and what had he earned for his troubles? Nothing. So he thought "fuck it - I'll release an album of pure shit 'cause it is not as if I'm going to make any LESS money from it". And the sad thing is, he was basically right. If great, visionary art was being ignored by the punters, perhaps negligent exercises in lethargy would make more of an impact. Obviously, in retrospect, Trout Mask Replica must be selling more copies than this sorry excuse for an album but, at the time, we can hardly fault Beefy for losing his patience and motivation. All bad albums raise the question as to whether the artist actually knows his album is terrible when he releases it and in this case I would suggest the most accurate reply is that Beefheart simply didn't care. If the record buyers are telling him Trout Mask Replica or Lick My Decals Off, Baby are not worth the money then perhaps they might actually want to listen to something as bad as this. Of course, as I mentioned in the review above, Beefheart simply could not become a pop star. He could work as hard as he liked for as long as he liked - there is simply no pop song in the mind of Don Van Vliet. So what this album effectively consists of is what Beefheart thinks pop songs sound like. Obviously he is still eccentric ("Sugar Bowl", "Full Moon, Hot Sun") but, put it this way, I ain't laughing. It is hard to tell what has happened to the Magic Band as Zoot Horn Rollo, Rockette Morton and Alex St. Clair are all still on board but, like the Captain, they simply don't seem like trying. Is this really the same group of people (more or less) that were responsible for Trout Mask Replica? They sound so anonymous they might as well be session men (and I wouldn't bet against that being the case). This entire album is so lethargic, so tired, so bored that it is dreadfully apparent that no-one could be arsed with it. Like I said, I guess that is a result of such long-standing commercial alienation. Beefheart's marriage is obviously playing on his mind quite considerably too, as many of the lyrics are completely unambiguous love songs; utterly devoid of his patented surrealist ramblings. Obviously I don't begrudge him his happiness and if he wants to write some sappy love songs with his wife I'll let that pass. It would have been nice, though, if these unambiguous love songs had actually been, you know, OK. Instead, for the most part, they are absolutely dreadful. "I've Got Love on My Mind" is provocatively poor (I'm not much of a musician but I could surely write something better in an afternoon). "New Electric Ride" redefines lethargy and "Lazy Music" sure is lazy. Indeed, the only redeeming feature in the whole package and the ONE song that might be classified as a keeper is the closing "Peaches" which, at the very, very least, has a bit of energy about it. Everything else is nothing short of a disgrace. I'd be tempted to let the Captain off the hook, given the sleights he has encountered and the disrespect of ignominy forced upon him, but I can't shake the thought that I actually paid £6 for the "honour" of reviewing it. I really think the record company - this was his first release for Mercury by the way (poor bastards) - should package this as a 2for1 with Bluejeans and Moonbeams for a knock-down price just to minimise negligence on their part. Indeed, although I usually hate seeing albums slip out of print, it is an absolute scandal that Lick My Decals Off, Baby should be unavailable, whilst this pile of manure is healthily stocked in most major retailers. Amazingly, this album sounds worse every time I listen to it. And there's not many albums you can say that about.

Surprisingly, the Captain's hotly-anticipated follow-up to his previous main-stream masterpiece is widely regarded as being even worse. Personally, I find such accusations rather unwarranted. Sure, he still ain't that arsed (although he has at least come back from his honeymoon) and, sure, half of this album still is absolute crap but - shock! horror! - the other half actually consists of OK-ish songs. Apparently some of these songs are actually left-over material from Unconditionally Guaranteed but I don't remember precisely which songs. It is probably fair to assume, though, that it is the really, really shitty ones. Given the previous release took the Magic Band to the very extreme of their incredibly intricate playing and mind-blowing proficiency Beefheart promptly sacked the lot of them, recruited a bunch of no-marks but still insisted on calling them The Magic Band. Indeed, the general uselessness of the new band is perhaps reflected by the fact that Beefheart couldn't even be bothered to give them wacky pseudonyms. In short, ignore the fact that this is credited to Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band and think of it instead as Captain Beefheart and some cheap-as-chips session men. At least Don must have partially realised quite how insipid his "main-stream" numbers were as most of this album does show some sign, albeit not a strong one, that he was looking to return to his original blues-based eccentricity. Album opener "Party of Special Things to Do" and "Same Old Blues" - a John Cale song and maybe the only cover the Captain ever performed on record - are both decent enough bluesy rockers, with the former somewhat quirky and the latter suitably ominous. Surprisingly, two of the main success stories on this album are actually the closest he came to writing his elusive pop songs and both maybe might have appealed to your average pop picker. "Observatory Crest" is clearly the best song on the album with the session men offering a subtle enough backing and the Captain singing some pretty lyrics about... well, something nice. Like I said, it is a fairly conventional melody but it does a decent job and the Captain's vocals are even agreeable enough. The title track, which ends the album, is also a pretty nice folky pop song with a pleasant melody and vocals. The only real problem is the rather dated synthesisers that do their best to mar an otherwise acceptable end to what is, all told, only a sporadically acceptable album. For some reason, the Captain has decided he wants to experiment with keyboard-driven funk so we get some truly terrible Stevie Wonder knock-offs like "Pompadour Swamp", "Rock'n'Roll Evil's Doll" and the so-terrible-it-would-be-funny-if-Beefheart-wasn't-such-a-great-artist "disco" instrumental "Captain's Holiday". NEVER before have I heard a piece of music so obviously tossed-off without a second's thought as the latter. It is a full six minutes, too, which all too clearly shows that Beefheart could only motivate himself to write about three proper tunes for the whole thing (don't forget one of the best tracks is a cover). That said, "Captain's Holiday" is not actually credited to Beefheart at all and there is a rumour doing the rounds that he didn't even know anything about it. Apparently the track was just chucked on by the record company which sadly shows Van Vliet really was past caring about his recording career at that point in time. Unfortunately, the sick joke isn't even over as the album drags towards its close with the laughable ballad "Further Than We've Gone". Beefheart's strained, tuneless wails are either deeply sad or deeply funny and the extended guitar solo only reinforces the looking-at-a-car-crash type experience. It is all very well making your way through this album, picking out the odd decent moment amongst the sheer, unadulterated dross, but make sure you don't stop to remember that this is the work of the genius that was responsible for Trout Mask Replica. It is not even as if it is the eighties, when most of his peers committed their gross indecencies. This is 1974! He should surely be at his peak but yet we're left being perversely thankful that his latest album isn't quite as bad as his previous release. That's no state for the Captain to be in. No sir, no state at all.

After the deserved failure of Unconditionally Guaranteed and Bluejeans and Moonbeams I believe the Captain seriously thought about knocking the whole thing on the head and going back to selling vacuum cleaners (he apparently once sold one to Aldous Huxley who wrote one of my all-time favourite novels, Eyeless In Gaza). Thankfully, somewhere along the line he got back into touch with his old chum Frank Zappa (they'd fallen out after Trout Mask Replica) and together with his help the poor down-on-his-luck Captain tried and succeeded in rediscovering his muse. As far as I can remember, as well as collaborating on Bongo Fury, Beefy re-enrolled some of the original Magic Band members and, with Frank's help, recorded a full length album called Bat Chain Puller. Unfortunately, some complicated legal wranglings meant Beefheart was AGAIN denied the chance to release his new album (recall the mess over his prospective second album back in 1967/8). Apparently Bat Chain Puller consisted of a fairly equal mix of tracks that ended up being spread over his final three albums. Beefheart finally managed to get an album out a couple of years later, by which stage most of his Magic Band had deserted him again, with an altered track-listing and a slightly different title (with the Bat Chain Puller element retained in parenthesises). So was the four years gap worth the wait? Could this album possibly live up to the expectations generated from being the follow-up to the peerless Bluejeans and Moonbeams? Or, more pertinently, was Beefheart finally on the comeback trail? Well, what do you think... THE CAPTAIN IS BACK!!! He did not go down with his ship after all and, instead, made a miraculous recovery. The most noticeable thing about this album is the sheer energy involved. Even with the fact he had to re-record many of these songs the Captain still sounds back to his manic best with a newly-adopted Magic Band to match. Just listen to Beefy's breathless run-through of "You Know You're a Man" and try telling me this ain't a man having fun again. The new look Magic Band isn't quite a match for the 1969 version but there's no doubt they succeed in capturing the essence of the Captain's compositions and approach. There's much more of a brass presence with many of the numbers featuring quirky blasts of brass-fuelled mayhem. "Tropical Hot Dog Night" is a calypso-styled pop song that is amazingly successful (given the massive room for disaster) and the instrumentals "Ice Rose" and "Suction Prints" have a jazzy flavour to them, although still obviously the work of the mad old Captain (don't forget, "Ice Rose" was twelve years old at this point). The pun-tastic "When I See Mommy I Feel Like a Mummy" and "Owed T'Alex" are both ominous, bluesy rockers with fascinatingly off-beat elements of the Captain's original shtick that made him so great in the first place. It is often pointed out that this is the most successfully commercial-sounding Beefheart ever got and certainly it is the greatest blend of accessibility and incomprehensibility in the Captain's catalogue (a touch more so than Clear Spot, which leaned a little too much towards the former). I don't hold onto the theory, though, that this is his strongest overall album as there are still some moderately unimpressive numbers. In short, if this is the best the Captain got then he was not such a fantastic artist overall (although still a good one). He NEEDS Trout Mask Replica to be the best if he is to be considered one of the true greats (although, even so, I'm not exactly sure that he is). Anyhow, there is also a little less absolutely classic material on here (although it is admirably consistent) with the witty 30's-styled pastiche "Harry Irene" (about two lesbian nuns that own a bar) being the most memorable composition. Like Clear Spot the album ends with a short passage of surrealist beat-poetry this time about an ape ("Apes-ma") who gets old and useless. Apparently it is a metaphor for the way the human race is mistreating the environment but I find it strangely sad in any case. Just considered as a microcosm it is something like "Apes-ma" that shows the Captain was back in form and back to his best. The whole album oozes with confidence and energy, as if he was desperately keen to make up for lost time and the lost fans, and, as such, is an excellent comeback vehicle. Move over Elvis, there's a new comeback king in town. (And, yes, I'm aware that Elvis did literally move aside, in that he died, during the Captain's comeback.)

As comebacks go, that was something of a short one. It is hard to say exactly what went wrong but Beefheart again seems to have run out of inspiration. It is not quite as if he was again bored with the whole thing, as he does put some effort into his vocals (although time has ravaged his once unique voice) and the lyrics are back to their usual incomprehensible obscurity, but there is definitely something uninspired about the whole package. It is almost as if the Magic Band (consisting of roughly the same members as the previous release) are struggling to find their way but nearly always falling short. Of course, one can only speculate as to whether that is due to poor instructions from Beefy or rushed and unimpressive songwriting and arrangements. Certainly I'd venture that both Beefheart and the Magic Band are firing a fair few blanks. It doesn't help that Van Vliet's vocals are both flat and strained, sounding like a shadow of his former self, and the Magic Band are doing him no favours either with arrangements and playing that you might even be tempted to label as generic. The only noticeable change is the rather awkward presence of a mellotron which pops on a few tracks to no great effect. I certainly fail to see how it adds anything to the experience (apart from, perhaps, the album closer "Making Love to a Vampire with a Monkey on My Knee"). Take the one guitar assault of "Sue Egypt" as an example of the uninspired arrangements and tiresome instrumentation. The guitarist simply fails to be either particularly coherent or unique and it is absolutely no comparison to the brilliant single guitar attack of Lick My Decals Off, Baby. Similarly but in contrast, the simplistic "Run Paint Run Run" essentially rests on a stupid chanted chorus which shows a definite lack of inspiration and/or effort on the Captain's part. In short, it reeks of Beefheart going through the motions and given this was supposed to cement a glorious artistic come-back it becomes even more disappointing. It is semi-interesting to note, I guess, that Beefheart has abandoned his previous allusions to a more commercial style as nothing on this album even comes close to the accessibility of Shiny Beast. The most coherent track on the album, and probably the best, is the album opener "Hot Head". The groove is simplistic but quite infectious and it almost seems like the Captain actually put the effort into making it a good song. The other composition that most obviously reflects some kind of care and attention is the longest track on the album - "The Sheriff of Hong Kong". Thankfully the Magic Band actually do something remotely interesting with a complicated, interweaving oriental theme that impressively reinforces Beefheart's Far East imagery. Nothing else on the album really matches the quality of those two but of the half-arsed zany numbers "Dirty Blue Gene" and "Best Batch Yet" are, at least, the two most manic, even if both are still unimpressively structureless. At times this album really does seem like the band are playing in the dark or even like they've only just met each other. I guess that kinda sums up the failure of this album in a way. Whereas Trout Mask Replica sounded like a bunch of strangers playing different songs it still managed to sound so coherent whereas this just sounds like an unmitigated mess. I imagine that after the commercial-styled accessibility of Shiny Beast Beefheart wanted a return to his more extreme roots but, sadly, he altogether fails to achieve it on here. It IS pretty angular and obtuse, of course, but only in a rather strained and thoughtless manner. Clearly Beefheart was not entirely satisfied with his continued involvement in the music scene and it is perhaps rather indicative that he probably put more effort into painting the album art than writing the actual music. Still, at least he did bow out on a much more respectable note. Oh, and I believe "Making Love to a Vampire with a Monkey on My Knee" features the only ever use of a lyrical profanity by Beefheart. Or at least the most gratuitous use anyway.

So if the Captain had effectively come to the decision that he was to give up on the music industry after all he at least made sufficient effort to ensure he went out on a high. Sure, this ain't one of this absolute best albums but it is still a perfectly respectable way to end such an intriguing, if inconsistent, career. Obviously I can't get inside his mind but I would venture that in looking to wrap up his career Van Vliet looked back to what his greatest achievement was and sought to offer one final reprise. In this way, second only to Lick My Decals Off, Baby, this album is the one in Beefy's career that best recaptures the unhinged anarchy of Trout Mask Replica. Sure, some of this album is a lot like Doc at the Radar Station ("The Host, the Ghost, the Most Holy-O" being a better version of "Run Paint Run Run", for instance) but there are some songs on here that are almost as brilliantly far out as his heyday. The intense rhythmic onslaught of "Hey Garland, I Dig Your Tweed Coat" supports some of Beefy's most brilliant surrealist poetry ("it has gotten quite cold, I've decided I can't sell you my coat") and "The Thousandth and Tenth Day of the Human Totem Pole" is pure insanity, beginning as a tale about the general dissent of a group of people forming the world's largest human totem pole before descending into anarchic free jazz saxophone squealing by Beefheart. Clearly, on description alone, you can tell it is not a million miles away from the insane genius of the TMR-Decals double-bill. Given the uninspired mess of most of Doc at the Radar Station it is certainly a welcome relief that the Captain did manage to match his former glories one last time, for posterity's sake. No doubt the improvement in the arrangements and playing stems from the fact the Magic Band are rejigged one final time and with Gary Lucas having a much more involved role than last time (the incomprehensible guitar instrumental "Evening Bell" is all his own work). The basic fact is that it is nice to see the Captain obviously enjoying himself again and taking the time and care to write some really interesting songs. He has also made the most of his ailing vocals by refraining from singing too much and, instead, essentially narrating his way through many of the songs. The result of this is that he obviously paid more attention to the lyrics themselves and therefore most are delightful bursts of his trade-mark surrealist beat-poetry. Combined with the disciplined anarchy of the Magic Band it is not hard to see the all-too-welcome parallels with Trout Mask Replica. Obviously his mind isn't quite on fire in the same way but, as I keep stressing, he has still got "it" to a satisfactory degree. Indeed, on this evidence, it is perhaps a little disappointing that he saw fit to jack it all in after this release. On this form the good Captain might have become one of the very, very few artists to have started in the sixties who continued to make good albums in the eighties. Still, there is something inherently satisfying about bowing out on a positive note and, added to the fact it was a conscious decision to do so, there are few grounds for complaint. The Trout Mask Replica comparisons are not over, either, as "'81' Poop Hatch" is a purely spoken word piece, much in the style of "The Dust Blows Forward", and the delightfully anarchic "The Past Sure Is Tense" and "Ink Mathematics" could easily have been out-takes from Decals. In fact, given the Captain's keenness to use all his ideas, no matter how old, that is hardly an inconceivable proposition. It should be recalled, of course, that the music for "The Witch Doctor Life" appeared as a bonus track on Safe as Milk. It isn't all retrospective, though, and the motoring groove of the title track is very definitely a "late era" trademark. Overall, though, this album is a good encapsulation of all the best facets of the Captain's approach. In fact, perhaps the best thing about this whole album, when compared to Doc at the Radar Station and particularly Unconditionally Guaranteed, is the fact that the Captain just sounds so dignified. He does sound his age (getting on for 40) but only in a good way and, thankfully, none of the wackiness comes across as at all forced. Don't let the fact that he chose this album to be his last overshadow the fact that it is actually really good. Quite simply, if you like Captain Beefheart you'll like this album. At the time of writing, it is highly unlikely Van Vliet will ever come out of retirement (he is rumoured to be dying from Multiple Sclerosis) but there's no doubting he has left quite a formidable legacy. It might be inconsistent but it is somewhat reassuring to think that he finished, fifteen years later, almost as well as he started. Fast 'n' bulbous indeed.

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