History Music / CaptainBeefheart

Captain Beefheart was the stage name of American avant-garde musician and painter Don Van Vliet (1941-2010, born Don Glen Vliet); a friend, collaborator, and sometime-rival, of contemporary Music/FrankZappa, who he'd known since high school. As the leader of Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band, a band with a constantly shifting membership, he released a dozen albums to highly varied critical review; with ''Music/TroutMaskReplica'' often considered his magnum opus. His highly mutable style incorporated elements of [[NeoclassicalPunkZydecoRockabilly Blues, Psychedelic Rock, Jazz, Rock and Roll, and experimental compositions]].

* IncrediblyLongNote: After the line "Mr. Zoot Horn Rollo hit that long lunar note and let it float" in "Big Eyed Beans From Venus".

* MindScrew

* MoneyDearBoy: After Lick My Decals Off, Baby, the Magic Band's musical output for the next 3 years became more and more conventional in order to make more money, as they were barely making a living off of their previous endeavors. This is especially obvious on the ''Unconditionally Guaranteed'' and ''Bluejeans & Moonbeams'' albums, [[IWasYoungAndNeededTheMoney which Beefheart later disowned.]]

* Music/TroutMaskReplica (1969)
* Music/DocAtTheRadarStation (1980)

** "Ashtray Heart" bashed Music/PunkRock, as the line "Open up another case of the punks" demonstrated. The reason was that Beefheart felt the punks that were influenced by him were flat out copying his style.

* {{Jerk Ass}}: Guitarist Bill Harkleroad (aka Zoot Horn Rollo) and drummer John French (aka Drumbo) have described the Captain as this, especially during the ''Trout Mask'' era. While Vliet did partake in composing the songs, it was usually left to the band to give whatever he wrote some sort of shape, after which they would spend days on end rehearsing while Vliet went off gallivanting. When the album was released, Vliet would take credit for arranging the music without acknowledging the output of the other members.

* AnimalLover: Beefheart liked animals and put a lot of animal imagery in his songs.

[[quoteright:252:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/beefheartdatrs_927.jpg]]

* AnimalLover: Beefheart liked animals and put a lot of animal imagery in his songs.

* IAmTheBand: Van Vliet was pretty much the only permanent member of the band. The duration of membership for the rest of the band depended on how much tolerance they had for his abuse.

** Trains show up with some frequency in his work -- "Bat Chain Puller" is another song on the same subject.[[hottip:*:The song is allegedly supposed to imitate the broken windshield wipers on an old Volvo.]]

Captain Beefheart was the stage name of American avant-garde musician and painter Don Van Vliet (1941-2010, born Don Glen Vliet); a friend, collaborator, and sometime-rival, of contemporary Music/FrankZappa, who he'd known since high school. As the leader of Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band, a band with a constantly shifting membership, he released a dozen albums to highly varied critical review; with ''TroutMaskReplica'' often considered his magnum opus. His highly mutable style incorporated elements of [[NeoclassicalPunkZydecoRockabilly Blues, Psychedelic Rock, Jazz, Rock and Roll, and experimental compositions]].

!! Captain Beefheart provides examples of:

* MultipleChoicePast / ShroudedInMyth: He would deliberately tell a lot of contradictory lies about himself and his life to the press, so nobody's really sure about his real life.

** I'm Glad on Safe As Milk
*** His album Clear Spot was charactised by three - Too Much Time (a radio oriented motown tribute), My Head Is My Only House Unless It Rains and Her Eyes Are A Blue Million Miles (both love ballads).
**** The albums Unconditionally Guaranteed and Bluejeans & Moonbeams took the mood of the three Clear Spot songs and wrote whole albums in their style, something which wasn't very successful.
***** Harry Irene on Shiny Beast. Surprisingly the song had been around since the late 60s.

*** Lennon had two Safe As Milk Bumper Stickers on a cupboard in his house and was photographed next to them.

** There was at least one argument between Drumbo and the Captain that ended with Drumbo ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lick_My_Decals_Off_Baby getting thrown down a flight of stairs]]'', and while recording ''The Spotlight Kid'' he once threw guitarist Bill Harkleroad into a dumpster.

** "Ashtray Heart" bashed Music/PunkRock, as the line "Open up another case of the punks" demonstrated.

** Which may or may not explain why he wasn't impressed when the Beatles got into their psychedelic period -- he'd been writing lyrics like that since the beginning of his career.

** There was at least one argument between Drumbo and the Captain that ended with Drumbo ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lick_My_Decals_Off_Baby getting thrown down a flight of stairs.]]''

* {{JerkAss}}: Guitarist Bill Harkleroad (aka Zoot Horn Rollo) and drummer John French (aka Drumbo) have described the Captain as this, especially during the ''Trout Mask'' era. While Vliet did partake in composing the songs, it was usually left to the band to give whatever he wrote some sort of shape, after which they would spend days on end rehearsing while Vliet went off gallivanting. When the album was released, Vliet would take credit for arranging the music without acknowledging the output of the other members.

->"''With pop hits provin' unlikely, Captain Beefheart retreated to a cabin to shout at his band for months on end. The result was'' '''''TroutMaskReplica.'''''"
-->''ScaryGoRound, [[http://scarygoround.com/sgr/ar.php?date=20070801 on the man himself.]]''

Captain Beefheart was the stage name of American avant-garde musician and painter Don Van Vliet (1941-2010, born Don Glen Vliet); a friend, collaborator, and sometime-rival, of contemporary FrankZappa, who he'd known since high school. As the leader of Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band, a band with a constantly shifting membership, he released a dozen albums to highly varied critical review; with ''TroutMaskReplica'' often considered his magnum opus. His highly mutable style incorporated elements of [[NeoclassicalPunkZydecoRockabilly Blues, Psychedelic Rock, Jazz, Rock and Roll, and experimental compositions]].

Though never achieving the commercial success enjoyed by Zappa, despite their musical similarities, Van Vliet is considered to be highly influential across many genres, with numerous musicians citing him as a major influence -- some examples being punk rock pioneers Music/SexPistols and Music/TheClash, Music/TomWaits (whose career can be easily separated into pre- and post-introduction to Beefheart), SonicYouth, The Music/RedHotChiliPeppers, PJHarvey, Music/TheWhiteStripes and Joan Osborne. He's also well-known for the mythology he created around his band and persona; with most of [[SmallNameBigEgo his comments]] to the media deliberately bearing little connection to the truth, or often reality in general.

* JerkAss: Guitarist Bill Harkleroad (aka Zoot Horn Rollo) and drummer John French (aka Drumbo) have described the Captain as this, especially during the ''Trout Mask'' era. While Vliet did partake in composing the songs, it was usually left to the band to give whatever he wrote some sort of shape, after which they would spend days on end rehearsing while Vliet went off gallivanting. When the album was released, Vliet would take credit for arranging the music without acknowledging the output of the other members.

** Which means that, yes, that is him doing that weird, high-pitched [[SesameStreet Elmo-like]] voice on "[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWNhq0dDr5I Ella Guru]]".

* SomethingBlues: "Dachau Blues" and "My Human Gets Me Blues" on ''TroutMaskReplica'', and "The Smithsonian Institute Blues" on ''Lick My Decals Off, Baby''.

** Trains show up with some frequency in his work -- "Bat Chain Puller" is another song on the same subject.

* StageNames: Not only for himself, but he also created bizarre stage names for many of his band members, including Zoot Horn Rollo, Winged Eel Fingerling, Drumbo, and Antennae Jimmy Semens.

** Early in his career his voice was based on Howling Wolf, but by the time of ''Doc At The Radar Station'' and ''Ice Cream For Crow'', he had fully switched to screeching his vocals rather than singing them. This was a result of both heavy smoking and his developing illness (Multiple Sclerosis, which would eventually kill him). His last recordings, poetry readings from the 90s and early 2000s, are painful listening as his voice just got worse.

** ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lick_My_Decals_Off_Baby He threw John French down a flight of stairs.]]''
* LongTitle: Van Vliet was fond of these; and has at least one or two on nearly every album. Some of the most notable are "I Wanna Find a Woman That'll Hold My Big Toe Till I Have to Go", "My Head Is My Only House Unless It Rains", "A Carrot Is as Close as a Rabbit Gets to a Diamond", and "Making Love to a Vampire with a Monkey on My Knee".

* MultipleChoicePast / ShroudedInMyth: He would tell a lot of lies about himself and his life to the press, so nobody's really sure about his real life.

* SomethingBlues: "Dachau Blues" and "My Human Gets Me Blues" on ''TroutMaskReplica'', and "The Smithsonian Institute Blues" on ''Lick My Decals Off, Baby''

** Early in his career his voice was based on Howling Wolf, but by the time of ''Doc At The Radar Station'' and ''Ice Cream For Crow'', he had fully switched to screeching his vocals rather than singing them. This was a result of both heavy smoking and his developing illness (Multiple Sclerosis, which would eventually kill him). His last recordings, poetry readings from the 90s and early 2000s, are painful listening as his voice just got [[ItGotWorse worse]] .

* FauxSymbolism: Whether this is intentional or not depends on who was was giving the particular explanation of the "symbolism", and when (Van Vliet tended to change his stories practically every time he was interviewed).

* WhatDoYouMeanItWasntMadeOnDrugs: Subverted. Van Vliet claimed this as part of his Beefheart persona; but his claim has been refuted by former band members.

* TakeThat: "Beatle Bones N' Smokin' Stones" was said to have been written in reaction to TheBeatles' "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "A Day In The Life".

* LoveItOrHateIt: Pretty much the standard reaction to any of his music.

** Funnily enough, The Beatles ''liked'' his music!