“I’d at all times thought music was too formal,” Don Van Vliet instructed one US critic in 1973. “So I assumed, ‘I’ll get into this and repair it.’”
The repair, by then, was nicely and really on. 4 years earlier, Van Vliet, aka Captain Beefheart, had launched his masterpiece, the avant-rock behemoth that was Trout Masks Duplicate. Recorded along with his Magic Band, it distorted Delta blues, Beat poetry and free jazz via the prism of his personal absurdist creativeness, creating a complete new musical dialogue. It was frenzied and disciplined, visionary but tradition-bound.
The identical contradictions got here to outline Beefheart’s whole profession, by which an astonishing physique of labor was offset by an eccentric character and tales of just about tyrannical management.
Born and raised in Southern California, Van Vliet’s old flame was artwork – portray and sculpting from an early age. Jazz, blues and R&B offered the soundtrack to his teenage years, throughout which he bonded with fellow Antelope Valley Excessive Faculty pupil Frank Zappa. The pair started writing track parodies and B-movie scripts, considered one of these – Captain Beefheart vs The Grunt Folks – giving rise to a brand new alter ego.
In 1964, Van Vliet headed for LA with what turned the primary incarnation of his Magic Band. Debut album Protected As Milk landed three years later, foisting Beefheart’s octave-hopping voice and shamanic blues onto a largely unmoved public.
It was the start of a sample that may frustrate and confound him all through most of his musical life: adored by critics and followers, however shunned by the broader world. Aware makes an attempt to breach the mainstream – 1974’s Unconditionally Assured and Bluejeans & Moonbeams – had been ill-advised.
In 1982 he retired from the enterprise. Within the years that adopted, amid rumours of ailing well being from his secluded enclave someplace within the Mojave Desert, he devoted his time to portray.
“The best way I be in contact with the world may be very gingerly, as a result of the world touches too onerous,” he declared in 1994. He died in 2010, however stays a toweringly influential determine. Amongst those that’ve acknowledged a debt are PiL, The Fall, Pere Ubu, Talking Heads, The Clash, Nirvana, Sonic Youth, and The Black Keys.
As Tom Waits stated: “When you’ve heard Beefheart, it’s onerous to clean him out. It stains, like espresso or blood.”
…and one to keep away from
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