Do i need to get any Captain Beefheart?

There are 2 studio albums albums you can definitely do without; another couple of studio albums, half a dozen live albums etc. of varying degrees of legaility (none have Don's approval!), an album that was a joint-venture with Frank Zappa, and an entire boxset which are probably only really for completists; dozens of compilations of which only one (The Dust Blows Forward) does the man and the band any justice whatsoever; leaving only 7 or 8 albums and an EP that you absolutely need.

Don't just jump in the deep end either, or you may find yourself out of your depth.

I'd suggest starting out with either Safe As Milk (if you like '60's music) or Shiny Beast (if you don't) to start with, then Clear Spot / Spotlight Kid, Doc At The Radar Station, Lick My Decals Off Baby (if you can find it!) and last but by no means least Trout Mask Replica.

Ice Cream For Crow and The A&M Sessions are also worth picking up once you've got all of those.

Approach everything else with caution.

My first exposure was Doc at the radar station and i've gone on to get most of the rest of them so that might not be a bad place to start...

You can't go wrong with "safe as milk" which is a startlingly good album.

cause, of course, i have an ashtray heart,
m.

-- Geir Hongro (geirhon...), August 29th, 2003.

stelfox and geir in agreement shockah!

Yeah everybody cites Trout Mask Replica and I admit, I love it. Don't go out and buy it, though. For example I have a friend who owns and loves more Zappa than anyone else I know and he can't stand TMR for more than a couple minutes. Check it out and listen to it before you shell out your hard earned money. Unless it's not hard earned, then buy it to be cool.

Absolutely Julio - but if he just goes into his local CD emporium and picks up a Beefheart title at random then I'd say there was a > 50% chance that he's going to buy a duff one; and even if he picks up one of the good ones, there's a significant chance it'll blow his mind if he isn't prepared for it.

I started with trout mask and didn't get it at first. there is nothing that will really prepare you for it (I'm talking abt recs that can only be purchased through yr local HMV shop here).

Fortunately I still went back for more (in the form of Trout Mask Replica) despite that incredibly un-mind-blowing experience.

I have to say I think TMR made pretty much perfect sense to me the first time I heard it - but I've spoken to enough people (including other total Beefheart nuts) who didn't, to make me wary of recommending it to anyone as a good starting point.

Agreeing with everyone above that Trout Mask is a punishing introduction. It took me another four years to buy another Beefheart record after that one... I loved the Residents 72-80 with zeal by that point, loved the Art Bears, but Trout Mask was too much. You grow to love it, though.

that being said, i recommend side 2 of shiny beast.

DO START with Trout Mask Replica. It's his best album and one of the most forceful, continually rewarding statements of artistic vision of the 20th century.

If you're into Zappa, you won't find it "intimidating" or whatever meaningless adjectives people are ascribing to it. It's just a piece of music. It was the first thing I heard and hey, I'm still alive.

Plus it's the only record of his produced by Zappa.

You'll love it.

But I didn't fling the cd across the room in disgust. I listened a few more times, tried to train my ears, and then one day it just hit me like a ton of bricks. That working through process, that dialogue I had with the record, was one of the most satisfying experiences of my life and was a real enabler in opening me up to whole new vistas of recorded sound.

So I don't get this tendency to recommend only "accessible" (meaningless word) records. I mean, I know nobody really sits down and listens hard to records days, we just sit in front of our computers and listen to shitty mp3s on shitty computer speakers. But Christ, why recommend an artist's lesser works? Why not just recommend that Yaeger start with Bluejeans and Moonbeams. I guess I've always felt that the effect of limited time and resources was to seek out the pinnacle of a given artist's achievement. Then in time, I can work my way through the rest of the catalog.

i always preferred decals (i think zappa's "production" is a pointless insult)

My advice: start with "Ice Cream for Crow" and work backwards!

Thing is, "Bluejeans and Moonbeams" (along with "Unconditionally Guaranteed") are the records Beeftheart instructed his fans to take back to the shops on account of them being rubbish; they're not rubbish, it's just that they've got nice songs on them. Having said that, buying this LP feels really like you're not buying a Beefheart LP, but it is good nonetheless.

Start with what the artist worked his career towards - then go back and learn the history. (Although Doc at the Radar Station is probably "better" whatever that means than Ice Cream for Crow - I prefer Ice Cream for Crow..)

um, Captain Beefheart's "career" is living proof that the idea that you can evaluate an artist in a linear fashion is bonkers!

well, we can't prove it by science ;)

You're right that there isn't much of a production but its still fantastic material that the band had to work with. I think decals is the better record but not by much (and you can easily get 'Decals...' if you're in London actually, I don't know why the fuck I missed it before).

Yeah, I agree Stence -- my suggestion was just because I think that the Crow / Doc / Shiny trilogy gives the casual listener/interested party both a pretty good idea what Cap's all about, and also a less dissonant "way in" than either TMR or Decals.

But point definitely taken on the Zappa thing ... I only mentioned it for the benefit of Yaeger...

The best place to start is the twofer of "Spotlight Kid" and "Clear Spot." "Click Clack" and "Nowadays a Woman's Gotta Hit a Man" are good Krayola intros to Beefheart. "Safe as Milk" is one of the definitive '60s records. 1980's "Doc" is in my opinion the ultimate distillation of Beefheart's approach. "Lick My Decals Off" is marred by bad production but it's the best Captain Beefheart album, despite what Christ-gaw says about "Shiny Beast."

I don't get why people would find "Trout Mask" so intimidating, weird, whatever. I myself could do without some of it, but if you can't get with "Ella Guru" or "Fallin' Ditch" or "Human Gets Me Blues" then it seems to me that you basically don't like blues music. Which seems odd to me, since I grew up with r&b and blues and its various offshoots and, upon hearing "TMR" first time (aware of its reputation as the "weirdest record ever made") had no problem with the angularity, etc. Remove all the preconceptions and don't worry about the lyrics (post-Beat spew that works sometimes and sometimes not) and it's a swinging little record, isn't it? John French? Since I also like r&b rhythm guitar a la Womack and Jimmy Nolen and those guys, the approach on "TMR" seems pretty down-home to me. Geir Hongos of the world are looking for something else, I know--calibrated music with the usual Euro-shit on top, which is fine if you want to eat chocolate in Belgium I guess. Over here, man, we don't believe in that shit. We've had r&b music for a few years now and what Beefheart did ranks up there with James Brown as an abstraction of that whole tradition, just more extreme. I make the comparison deliberately--James Brown got his guys pissed off and worked 'em to death to produce these grooves and then made up some words about hot pants or various American cities he'd been to; Beefheart got his guys pissed off to produce a different kind of groove and then added his words on top. Van Vliet could've been Eric Burdon or somebody like that and he chose to do something else and for that I admire him immensely. Geir, it amuses me to think you're probably thinking that some guy like Peter Gabriel is a real artist with his dinky little takes on Stax or whatever and telling people Tom Waits is better than Captain Beefheart. To use the old-fashioned word for it, you're a total square. Have a snort of some cheap bourbon and maybe do something remedial--Chu Berry or Don Byas might be an easy way into the pool for ya. Good luck.

''I don't get why people would find "Trout Mask" so intimidating, weird, whatever. I myself could do without some of it, but if you can't get with "Ella Guru" or "Fallin' Ditch" or "Human Gets Me Blues" then it seems to me that you basically don't like blues music. Which seems odd to me, since I grew up with r&b and blues and its various offshoots and, upon hearing "TMR" first time (aware of its reputation as the "weirdest record ever made") had no problem with the angularity, etc''

The things I didn't grow up with blues (and apart from howling wolf and a couple of blues compilations i heard off the record library I still find it quite difficult to get into blues for some reason that I never worked out) so that's why i struggled with it for a while, i guess.

Geir is funny! Who knew?

"hide my shield, throw away my lance"

I, for one, think it's an incredible bonus when an album sounds unlike anything else you have ever heard.

If you're scared of this idea, go listen to 'Let It Be', or anything Geir recommends.

If you prefer clowns and charlatans to geniuses, maybe.

Anyway, I've said it before and I'll say it again, but "TMR" works better than "Decals" because it was produced as a rock or r&b record would be and not to be like some Henry Cow-like piece of avant garde chin-stroking frippery - not that I think that "Decals" is a piece of Henry Cow-like piece of avant garde chin-stroking frippery just that the production sucks.

lee perry vs steve albini vs the neptunes vs mutt lange vs ...

something tells me this is a rockist thing!

Yes!! Julio OTM!!

Parts ov this thread remind me ov Borges' comment on thee falklands war - two bald men fighting over a comb.

No, much as I love Tom Waits it must be said: it's an innovator: imitator thing

Well, then, Captain Beefheart has hardly influenced anybody at all but said Waits. And in the case of Waits, it is mainly the vocal style that was influenced by Captain Beefheart.

(cf my long angry war on the word "influence" all over ilm)

"seminal" is ok in the phrase "seminal fluid" (mmmm seminal fluid)

My first was Shiny Beast/Bat Chain Puller. It took a while for me to really, really like it, but right off I thought it was pretty cool. However, it didn't prompt me to buy anything else. A few years later at college, I saw Trout Mask Replica in someone's collection and asked if it was any good. I was informed that it was his "big deal" record and I eagerly put it in and listened to it. It shocked the shit out of me. The person I was with left (I think she didn't really like the album, it was her roommate's). I remember coming out after about 15 minutes and going, "What the fuck is that all about? It's just noise!" and I was kind of pissed off about it. She was like, "yeah, it's pretty noisy" or something.

Years later, of course, I love the album and am not sure why it struck me as so noisy and terrible that first time. Very weird!

i love mirror man, for the jams

i can't believe there are people who don't like unconditionally guaranteed. i heard that this was true somewhere. how could anyone not like that album?