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ashetlandponyCaptain Beefheart has died...
I'm so stunned, I don't even quite know what to say yet.
Most people have probably never heard of him, but Don Van Vliet was one of the most influential American musical artists of the 20th century.
He was also my neighbor. Sort of. He lived 6 miles away in Trinidad, California, where I studied my otters for two decades, and his house was right next door to my friend Sara's.
I almost feel like I grew up with Captain Beefheart. He was an extremely early musical influence on me. I discovered him in 1971, right after Zappa, who was my inspiration after The Beatles. In fact, Zappa and Beefheart actually did grow up together, in Lancaster, California, in the 1950s. Just two apparently ordinary teenagers playing instruments in a garage, who both went on to change the contemporary musical world as we know it.
I saw Beefheart and Zappa in concert together on April 11, 1975. Fucking blew me away.
Trout Mask Replica. Beefheart's magnum opus...
Rolling Stone ranked it #58 on their list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time." It was pure Dada/Surrealist rock. Produced by Frank Zappa, TMR is highly discordant and almost unlistenable at first, until you really pay attention to the incredibly complex arrangements and anarchistic rhythms and time signatures. And Beefheart's voice – apparently atonal and random, yet with a power and range I don't think I've ever heard the equal of. He sounded like an completely manic, lunatic black blues singer who'd just snorted a whole gram of coke. Absolutely unique...
This pretty much exactly mirrors my own experience with TMR:
Beefheart's worsening multiple sclerosis forced his retirement from the music business in 1982. That's when he moved to Trinidad, and began in earnest his second artistic career as an expressionist painter. Beefheart had very craftily created an urban legend that he had retired back to the California high desert where he grew up. In reality, though, he lived the rest of his life in a quiet, secluded redwood forest grove overlooking beautiful Trinidad Bay.
In 1999, an Australian friend visited me for a few days. After otter-watching, we went to visit Sara. Tim was a big avant-garde music fan, and I had told him that Captain Beefheart was Sara's neighbor. I could tell he was dubious.
When we arrived at Sara's, I parked my car next to Beefheart's back fence. Their bathroom window was open. When we got out of the car, suddenly, from inside, came a booming, raunchy voice shouting: "GET THAT FUCKING THING OFF MY LAP!!" Tim, of course, instantly recognized the unmistakable tonalities of Beefheart's voice. I don't recall that we said anything, we just laughed out loud at what we'd just heard. Yep, that was Captain Beefheart alright!
I'm so stunned, I don't even quite know what to say yet.
Most people have probably never heard of him, but Don Van Vliet was one of the most influential American musical artists of the 20th century.
He was also my neighbor. Sort of. He lived 6 miles away in Trinidad, California, where I studied my otters for two decades, and his house was right next door to my friend Sara's.
I almost feel like I grew up with Captain Beefheart. He was an extremely early musical influence on me. I discovered him in 1971, right after Zappa, who was my inspiration after The Beatles. In fact, Zappa and Beefheart actually did grow up together, in Lancaster, California, in the 1950s. Just two apparently ordinary teenagers playing instruments in a garage, who both went on to change the contemporary musical world as we know it.
I saw Beefheart and Zappa in concert together on April 11, 1975. Fucking blew me away.
Trout Mask Replica. Beefheart's magnum opus...
Rolling Stone ranked it #58 on their list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time." It was pure Dada/Surrealist rock. Produced by Frank Zappa, TMR is highly discordant and almost unlistenable at first, until you really pay attention to the incredibly complex arrangements and anarchistic rhythms and time signatures. And Beefheart's voice – apparently atonal and random, yet with a power and range I don't think I've ever heard the equal of. He sounded like an completely manic, lunatic black blues singer who'd just snorted a whole gram of coke. Absolutely unique...
This pretty much exactly mirrors my own experience with TMR:
Cartoonist and writer Matt Groening [The Simpsons] tells of listening to Trout Mask Replica at the age of 15 and thinking "that it was the worst thing I'd ever heard. I said to myself, they're not even trying! It was just a sloppy cacophony. Then I listened to it a couple more times, because I couldn't believe Frank Zappa could do this to me – and because a double album cost a lot of money. About the third time, I realized they were doing it on purpose; they meant it to sound exactly this way. About the sixth or seventh time, it clicked in, and I thought it was the greatest album I'd ever heard."
Beefheart's worsening multiple sclerosis forced his retirement from the music business in 1982. That's when he moved to Trinidad, and began in earnest his second artistic career as an expressionist painter. Beefheart had very craftily created an urban legend that he had retired back to the California high desert where he grew up. In reality, though, he lived the rest of his life in a quiet, secluded redwood forest grove overlooking beautiful Trinidad Bay.
In 1999, an Australian friend visited me for a few days. After otter-watching, we went to visit Sara. Tim was a big avant-garde music fan, and I had told him that Captain Beefheart was Sara's neighbor. I could tell he was dubious.
When we arrived at Sara's, I parked my car next to Beefheart's back fence. Their bathroom window was open. When we got out of the car, suddenly, from inside, came a booming, raunchy voice shouting: "GET THAT FUCKING THING OFF MY LAP!!" Tim, of course, instantly recognized the unmistakable tonalities of Beefheart's voice. I don't recall that we said anything, we just laughed out loud at what we'd just heard. Yep, that was Captain Beefheart alright!
