Secret History of Rock. The Most Influential Bands You've Never Heard (16 page)

ABSURDISTS AND ECCENTRICS

Somewhere along the line of rock history a small, rebellious contingent stopped making music that conformed to a steady beat, grooved on a fluid melody, and made any sort of lyrical sense. Not surprisingly, the most radical of these convention-twisters were largely overlooked. But while the most committed bizzaros never had a hope of impacting mainstream tastes, the sounds they introduced have slowly been adapted and assimilated into rock through the music of bands they influenced.

In terms of breaking new ground with the structures and arrangements in rock, Captain Beefheart is the man who launched a thousand skronky and jagged rock bands. Two of his most accomplished pupils, Pere Ubu and the Residents, would further spread the word with their own uniquely perverse music. And somewhere on the side there’s Red Krayola, a colorful footnote to psychedelic art rock whose flirtations with the absurdist avant-garde go back even further than Beefheart’s. Red Krayola, in the end, may prove to be the missing link in the progression from early Dadaist shenanigans to austere ‘90s post-rock.

CAPTAIN BEEFHEART

Don Van Vliet (Captain Beefheart) [LA Times, 1971]:

My music isn’t that much different from the music that’s in [people’s] minds. Because I conceive it so naturally, it’s bound to be in their minds. Sooner or later, they’ll catch on; they’ll learn to enjoy it without understanding why.

Captain Beefheart’s take on American music endowed the blues with an entirely new palette of colors and offered art rock some emotional roots. With his irregular rhythms, peculiar melodies, and all-around perversity, Beefheart is the father of surrealist rock. As such, he’s an important reference point for many of the bands scattered throughout this book – the
Residents
,
Public Image Limited
,
DNA
,
Half Japanese
, the
Minutemen
– and his influence includes just about anyone who’s broken away from steady rock beats, traditional tonality, and literalist lyrics. Songwriters quote his absurd lyrics (P.J. Harvey, Aztec Camera), singers imitate his gruff Howlin’ Wolf voice (Tom Waits), and bands adapt his herky-jerky arrangements (Talking Heads, Sonic Youth). Still, no one sounds quite like the man born Don Van Vliet outside Los Angeles in 1941.

David Yow, Jesus Lizard:

I really dig his shit, man. There are times I’ve tried to write a song and have not been able to come up with something I like. And I kind of go, “Welt, gee, what would the Captain do?”

Van Vliet’s creative genius was evident early on. He was a recognized sculptor by the age of 4; by 13 he’d been offered scholarships to study art in Europe. Declining the invitations, Don’s parents moved him to Lancaster, California, in the Mojave Desert, where among his schoolmates he found kindred eccentric in a young Frank Zappa. By the time they graduated from high school, Zappa and Van Vliet – who by then was playing saxophone and harmonica – intended to form a band and make a movie. Neither the band (the Soots) nor the movie (Captain Beefheart Meets the Grunt People) ever materialized, and Zappa soon left for Los Angeles to form the Mothers of Invention. In 1964 Van Vliet, renamed Captain Beefheart, formed his own group, the Magic Band.

The original Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band was a fairly straightforward blues and R&B group, though their outrageous outfits and antics earned them local attention and ASM Records released their cover of Bo Diddley’s
Diddy Wah Diddy
in 1965. An album was to follow the next year, but as Beefheart’s eccentricities started to show, ASM rejected the band’s new recordings as “too negative.” Collected as the album
Safe as Milk
, these songs were finally released on a smaller label in 1967. The record features a young guitarist named Ry Cooder, who would go on to play with Eric Clapton and the Rolling Stones as well as record albums and movie soundtracks on his own. Other Beefheart sidemen would go on to play with acts such as Red Hot Chili Peppers, P.J. Harvey, Frank Black, and Joan Osborne.

Beefheart encountered more record company problems with his second album, 1968’s
Strictly Personal
, and might have given up on music altogether had not his old friend Frank Zappa re-emerged to offer him a contract – and complete artistic control – with Zappa’s own label, Straight Records. Beefheart wrote 28 new songs in 8 1/2 hours, then assembled a new Magic Band with exotically named “musicians” such as Zoot Horn Rollo, the Mascara Snake (Beefheart’s cousin), and Antennae Jimmy Semens. What came out after eight months of rehearsing and recording,
Trout Mask Replica
, was radically different from anything that had been attempted in rock. It was immediately acknowledged as the work of a musical visionary.

Chris Cornell, Soundgarden:

He’s definitely influenced me lyrically, just thinking about the color and depiction of an idea without being straightforward. In fact, when I’m sitting around writing lyrics and having trouble getting into the flow, I’ll always grab the CD booklet to
Trout Mask Replica
and read some of it. It’s not trying to get someone else’s rhythm and copying it. Just listening to any record that you’re influenced by opens up the possibilities that your brain can close to you. You forget what you can get away with.

Though clearly influenced by Ornette Coleman’s free jazz,
Trout Mask
was a rock album and had absolutely no improvisation. Beefheart, who composed each instrument part either on piano or in his head, dictated exactly how each musician should sound. Whatever training the Magic Band had, it needed to be unlearned to grasp the music in Beefheart’s brain. With songs full of clashing rhythms, relentless dissonance, and asymmetric riffs – and complemented with some of his most inspiringly grotesque lyrics –
Trout Mask
is often difficult to sit through. At its most successful (for instance in songs like
Pachuco Cadaver
), the instrumentation seems to move in all different speeds and in all different directions, yet makes some sort of twisted sense.

David Byrne:

Trout Mask Replica
was a huge influence. It’s just an amazing piece of work. At first, it sounds like two different bands playing in the same room or something. Then when you listen to it closer you realize everything is organized and worked out. There’s no accidents here. The whole thing is orchestrated. It has all the rock and blues textures, but totally reinvented and made fresh again.

With the next year’s
Lick My Decals off, Baby
, Beefheart and his Magic Band created another absurdist masterwork, with perhaps even more confidence and control than in
Trout Mask
.
Decals
, though, marked the end of Beefheart’s most extreme period of musical dementia, and with two records in 1972 – the blues/rock-oriented
Spotlight Kid
and
Clear Spot
– Beefheart offered a somewhat more commercial sound.

Despite Beefheart’s change of emphasis, his albums were still too eccentric to achieve more than moderate sales. Increasingly frustrated, Beefheart next made two records that aimed directly at a pop audience.
Unconditionally Guaranteed
and
Bluejeans and Moonbeams
were widely regarded – even by Beefheart himself – as his worst records. Unable to make a decent living with the Magic Band, in 1975 the Captain toured as a vocalist with Zappa’s group (he appears on Zappa’s
Bongo Fury
live album).

Curt Kirkwood, Meat Puppets:

Beefheart was a major influence, more than an influence. Conceptually, where would I be without that? It’s not so much the style, but where it gets you. But in Beefheart’s case, the medium is so intense it’s no surprise when you get where you’re going with it.

Surprisingly, as younger Beefheart-inspired bands like Talking Heads and B-52’s were emerging, the Captain was on the verge of a second career peak. In 1978, he formed a new Magic Band and released
Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller)
, a stunning wake-up from Beefheart’s mid-‘70s slumber. Full of burning blues licks, stuttered rhythms, and vital singing, the album integrated the best elements of past records to create a sound that was both accessible and engaging. In the early ‘80s, Beefheart produced two more bright and energetic records. Even more off-center than
Shiny Beast
, these albums completed a most unusual career arc – from aggressive weirdness to somewhat uninspired product and back to a challenging angularity that fit right in with the most dynamic post-punk groups.

Joe Henry:

When I was making the last record we talked about Beefheart a lot. Not that I was trying to make a record that sounds like him, but I really like his treatment of sounds and where he puts them. I always think of mixing not as an incidental thing you do to wrap up a project, but as one more color on your palette.

In 1982, Captain Beefheart retired from music and, with his wife, moved back to the Mojave desert. Having developed a reputation over the years for his paintings (which appeared on many of his record covers), Beefheart became Don Van Vliet once again and dedicated his time to visual art. While his records still haven’t reached a large audience, his paintings now bring thousands of dollars apiece. Rumor has it that Van Vliet is terminally ill. But even if we never hear music from Captain Beefheart again, his overwhelming influence on modern rock means that it will be almost impossible to miss the sounds of his musical children and grandchildren.

Lou Barlow, Sebadoh / Folk Implosion:

I know with Folk Implosion, John [Davis]’s guitar playing is pretty influenced by Beefheart, those kind of stuttering rhythms. That guitar style is actually the precursor to stuff like
Gang of Four
, so I was probably more influenced by things that were influenced by Captain Beefheart. I don’t even think I’ve fully realized his influence, but it’s going to continue to inspire me in the future.

DISCOGRAPHY

Safe as Milk
(Kama Sutra, 1967; Unidisc, 1992)
.

Strictly Personal
(Blue Thumb, 1968; Liberty / EMI UK, 1994)
.

Trout Mask Replica
(Straight, 1969; Reprise, 1970)
; Beefheart’s breakthrough as a musical visionary, a double-album from another planet.

Lick My Decals off, Baby
(Straight, 1970; Rhino, 1991)
; a slight refinement of
Trout Mask
’s approach, with equally (if not more) successful results.

Mirror Man
(Buddah, 1970; Unidisc, 1992)
; features four bluesy, jam-filled songs recorded in 1968.

The Spotlight Kid
(Reprise, 1972; 1991)
; a record of fairly straightforward blues-rock, now available on one CD with
Clear Spot
.

Clear Spot
(Reprise, 1972; 1991)
; a more pop- and rock-oriented record.

Unconditionally Guaranteed
(Mercury, 1974; Blue Plate / Caroline, 1990)
; an even deeper dive into the mainstream, with mixed results.

Blue Jeans and Moonbeams
(Mercury, 1974; Blue Plate / Caroline, 1990)
; a record widely regarded as Beefheart’s lowpoint.

Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller)
(Warner Brothers, 1978)
; a second career peak, incorporating the best elements of his most challenging and most accessible work.

Doc at the Radar Station
(Virgin, 1980; Blue Plate / Caroline, 1990)
.

Ice Cream for Crow
(Virgin / Epic, 1982; Blue Plate / Caroline, 1990)
; the final album, that ended Beefheart’s career on a decidedly high note.

The Legendary ASM Sessions
EP
(ASM, 1984)
; featuring five songs from 1965, these are Beefheart’s earliest available recordings.

I May Be Hungry But I Sure Ain’t Weird: Alternate CB
(Sequel, 1992)
; the restored version of
Strictly Personal
, which was altered by producers against Beefheart’s wishes.

TRIBUTE:
Fast’n’Bulbous. A Tribute to Captain Beefheart
(Imaginary, 1988)
; a tribute album in days before it was so common, these covers by Sonic Youth, XTC, and others celebrate a musical mind truly deserving of it.

THE RESIDENTS

Micky “Gene Ween” Metchiondo, Ween:

We owe a lot to them... I’d never heard anything as fucked up as the Residents that wasn’t just experimental or avant-garde for the sake of being that way. Those guys were just wicked, and so mysterious. Originally we tried to cop a lot of that from them. There were no pictures of us or credits on our records. The whole “Gene Ween” and “Dean Ween” idea came from the Residents. We were influenced as much by the Residents as any other band in the world.