Captain Beefheart. The Dust Blows Back.

I heard the news today oh boy. The Captain passed away on Friday, aged 69.

I usually feel like I am pissing in the wind, when I try to convince people that he was one of the most important musicians to grace the contemporary music scene since the 1950's. It is good, and reassuring therefore, to see that tonight when I spent an hour seaching the net, to see tributes galore. Also to see that the press belatedly admit his influence on disparate musicians across the globe and the years.

I have no idea what I did last Wednesday, but I recall with clarity hearing the man/ magic band for the first time, on my Stella radio, courtesy of his UK envoy John Peel on his Sunday radio show. The track was Sure 'Nuff & Yes I Do from the album Safe as Milk. It tapped into my recently realised fascination with blues ~ particularly the stuff featuring harmonica and slide guitar. The cement hardened a week later, when Peel played Electricity, which I remember hearing on the same radio, sat in a field somewhere here in the Black Country. Clent? That track connected with the underground stuff we were also listening to. Possibly even more than hearing Sonny Terry, he made me want to play blues harp when I was about sixteen. We are back in 1967/8 now. I have had a bash at playing drums in recent years with limited success - and it is obvious that the drummer John "Drumbo" French laid down my patterns.

" Beefheart Through the Eyes of Magic". I had returned to  reading this this week ironically enough, having set it aside to read the Keef biog. Another great ~ really great, read is " Lunar Notes" by Bill Harkelroad who was Zoot Horn Rollo in one of the best manifestations of The Magic Band. His stuff on Clear Spot is just ace.

Beefheart was - according to the written accounts, something of a bully, but what he managed to create by telling the musicians what he wanted was extraordinary. Via numerous line-ups he managed to fuse blues, poetry and jazz. I also think he was funny. A factor missing from a lot of accounts. Peel related that when he drove the Captain to Kidderminster for a gig (now commemerated by a blue plaque: see John Combe's excellent book http://www.kidderocks.com/) the Captain said that he needed to stop to talk to a tree and  it is uncertain whether this was true ~ or more likely that he needed a piss. Also saying that he asked for dressing rooms to be cleared so that he could levitate. Priceless.

Trout Mask Replica is always quoted as the masterpiece. It is , but to a lot of people it is difficult listening. It should be heard with the story of it's making in mind. However with a rock /blues brain in-gear, buy Clear Spot ( which may be available still with The Spotlight Kid) if you don't know the man's music.  Click Clack is the pre-set sound in my head. Here is a live version.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2ZMOKLsiuY

I only saw him once. Birmingham Town Hall.With the band on this video. The sound was awful!. I dragged along some non-believers, and was given a lot of grief later.

I think that if there was a way of monitoring the number of times tracks were played at home, then my running order would put Big Eyed Beans From Venus, Click Clack, Bat Chain Puller  ~ oh shit and the rest, at the top of my heap. Don's Howling Wolf voice has only been matched (?) by Tom Waits who has been heavily influenced by both, and by Ian Siegal ~ I think.

I am so glad  that he and the musicians he played with hit that long lunar note, and let it float. Maybe the dust blows forward as well.

Thanks for the mark you left Don.