History Music / CaptainBeefheart

--> From Wiki/TheOtherWiki: ''"While playing "Electricity" for a warm-up performance at the Mt. Tamalpais Festival in 1967, Beefheart stopped the song, straightened his tie, and walked off the stage, landing face flat into the grass. He later claimed that he saw that a girl in the audience turned into a goldfish."''

Captain Beefheart was the stage name of American [[AvantGardeMusic avant-garde musician]] and painter Don Van Vliet (January 15, 1941 – December 17, 2010); 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 [[RevolvingDoorBand constantly shifting membership]], he released a dozen albums to highly varied critical review; with ''Music/TroutMaskReplica'' often considered his magnum opus. His [[NeoclassicalPunkZydecoRockabilly highly mutable style]] incorporated elements of {{Blues}}, PsychedelicRock, {{Jazz}}, RockAndRoll, and [[AvantGardeMusic experimental compositions]] and is sometimes seen as OutsiderMusic.

* NeoclassicalPunkZydecoRockabilly: A rare example of an avant-garde musician who liked writing pop songs too. On the commercial end of the spectrum you have songs like "Yellow Brick Road" and "Too Much Time", and on the avant-garde end you have songs like "Flash Gordon's Ape" and "Telephone".

Though never achieving the (marginal) 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), Music/SonicYouth, The Music/RedHotChiliPeppers, Music/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.

* AmbiguousDisorder: It was later revealed that he suffered from paranoid schizophrenia.
* AnimalMotifs: Beefheart liked referring to exotic animals in his lyrics.
* AntiquatedLinguistics: Beefheart was infamous for playing around with words, even during interviews.

* AvantGardeMusic: The genre in which the original blues artist Beefheart ended up.

* {{Blues}}: The genre in which the eventual avant-garde musician Beefheart started off.

* BrokenPedestal: Ever since John French's book ''Through The Eyes Of Magic'' revealed examples of Beefheart's abusive and controlling nature in the group's early career, fans have come to view him as far more flawed than they had previously. At any rate, he's not referred to by the FanNickname of "The good captain" as he once was. With that said, French is quite open about the fact that Don reformed his character over the years and apologised for the way he acted (although still didn't negotiate paying his band royalties).

* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: In his case, more like Early Installment Normalcy. His debut single "Diddy Wah Diddy" is fairly straightforward blues-rock and even managed to get a lot of Top 40 airplay on the West Coast. ''Music/SafeAsMilk'' is also still fairly conventional psychedelic blues-rock. ''Music/MirrorMan'' and ''Music/StrictlyPersonal'' are a bit weirder, but still not that unusual by '60s standards. With ''Music/TroutMaskReplica'', though, the rules went out the window, and he only recorded a few albums after that point that qualify as remotely normal (and he later disowned two of them).

As usual, you can find the basics at [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Beefheart That Other Wiki]].

* OutsiderMusic: While he did have genuine talent, his highly personal and unorthodox way of making music has led many critics to classify him as this.

* OutsiderMusic: Beefheart was deemed an outsider musician by Irwin Chusid, because of his highly personal and unorthodox way of making music, which for some of his career was without any commercial potential.

-->--''Webcomic/ScaryGoRound'', [[https://web.archive.org/web/20100102032403/http://scarygoround.com/sgr/ar.php?date=200708011 on the man himself.]]''

-->'--'Webcomic/ScaryGoRound, [[https://web.archive.org/web/20100102032403/http://scarygoround.com/sgr/ar.php?date=200708011 on the man himself.]]''

* TheBusCameBack: They have a few examples of this.:
** John French left and returned to the group on several occasions, being the only 1960s member to still be with the group at the time of his final departure in 1980.
** Alex St Clair left the group in 1968 and returned in 1973, then left again in 1974.
** Doug Moon left the group in 1967 but guested on Trout Mask Replica's China Pig in 1969.
** Ry Cooder left the group after 1967, but he personally sought out Beefheart in 1978 to sing on his track "Hard Workin' Man" from the Blue Collar soundtrack.

--> [[http://scarygoround.com/sgr/ar.php?date=20070730 "Chooglin' booglin' fish eye helicopter..."]]

** His album ''Clear Spot'' was characterised 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).

** "Suction Prints" from ''Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller)'' is a rewritten version of the ''Spotlight Kid''-era song "Pompadour Swamp", which originally had more sections. One of the other sections (as played on the 1973 tour) was the basis for ''Sue Egypt'' from Doc At The Radar Station.

** Don stated that "Old Fart At Play", "Odd Jobs" and "Hey Garland I Dig Your Tweed Coat" are all based on passages from a poetry book he wrote in the Trout Mask Replica period named "Old Fart At Play". He made an unsuccessful attempt to get the book released in the early 70s, and thereafter decided to use some of the poems as song lyrics.

* RecycledLyrics: Lyrics from Herb Bermann's poems ''Dirty Blue Gene'' and ''Owed T'Alex'' ended up being used in completely different songs to which they were originally intended. Beefheart reused some of the unreleased poem ''Kilimanjaro''s lyrics in ''Ant Man Bee'', most notably the word 'Uhuru'. Bermann's book "The Mystery Man From The Magic Band" shows us that many of Bermann's poems were adapted to song by the Magic Band, some crediting him, and some not.

* HilariousInHindsight: As Mike Barnes notes in his biography, Beefheart anticipated that ''Unconditionally Guaranteed'' would make him the most money of his career up to that point. The album flopped...but because Beefheart had signed to a new label which took far less of a cut and ensured more of a cut by co-crediting his wife as songwriter (he also credited Andy [=DiMartino=], the album's producer), he did, in fact make more money off it than he had off previous albums. However, he didn't care enough to pay his band, who promptly left him.

* TheArtifact: The bizarre image of the band in masked costumes included in the "Strictly Personal" gatefold relates back to the abandoned original double album concept. The first disc would have been credited to Captain Beefheart And His Magic Band and featured their more standard (if odd), material. The second disc would have been credited to "25th Century Quaker", alter-egos of the group that would have contained blues jams. Ultimately, the final Strictly Personal album was a rerecorded compilation of the two discs, with some tracks heavily shortened. A selection of the material intended for the second disc was released as Mirror Man, although it lost its original "25th Century Quaker" connotation.

* BlatantLies: Beefheart's interviews pretty much run on this as time went on (as collected in the book "A Carrot Is As Close As A Rabbit Gets To A Diamond"). Beefheart denied the group's contributions to the songwriting, claiming he did it all himself, managed to get a journalist to believe The Mascara Snake was the drummer on "Trout Mask Replica" (when Drumbo was), and would deny his agreement to the phasing on "Strictly Personal" and the commercial direction of "Unconditionally Guaranteed" to name too. He also spread lies about Frank Zappa to make himself look like the good guy (when often, Zappa was more than patient with him). It's believed that Beefheart initially did these things out of spite, but eventually came to believe his own lies.

* BrokenPedestal: Ever since John French's book "Through The Eyes Of Magic" revealed examples of Beefheart's abusive and controlling nature in the group's early career, fans have come to view him as far more flawed than they had previously. At any rate, he's not referred to by the FanNickname of "The good captain" as he once was. With that said, French is quite open about the fact that Don reformed his character over the years and apologised for the way he acted (although still didn't negotiate paying his band royalties).

* CreatorThumbprint: Vliet was said to have enjoyed candy a lot, which led to the writing of "Abba Zabba" and "Kandy Korn".

* DarkerAndEdgier: Though there were a few similarities, "Strictly Personal" was quite a bleak record in comparison to "Safe As Milk". More evidently, the original "Bat Chain Puller" was a deliberate attempt at this in reaction to the preceding three commercial LPs, though its' replacement "Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller)" is one of his most happy sounding albums. The following LP, "Doc At The Radar Station" was notably dark and angry, and the final "Ice Cream For Crow" only slightly lighter in tone.
* DistinctDoubleAlbum: The original, abandoned concept of "Strictly Personal" was one disc of blues jams credited to "25th Century Quaker" and one disc of psychedelic rock credited to "Captain Beefheart And His Magic Band". This ultimately proved too ambitious and a selection of tracks from both discs were rerecorded as the single album. The blues album can still somewhat be heard though, in the form of "Mirror Man" which was released by Buddah after they left the label (although, the original tracklisting would have been quite different).

* EarlyBirdCameo: The backing music to "The Blimp" on "Trout Mask Replica" is played by Roy Estrada and Art Tripp, members of Frank Zappa's band at the time - it is a rehearsal take of his then-unreleased composition "Charles Ives". Art Tripp joined The Magic Band for the next album "Lick My Decals Off Baby", and Roy Estrada was drafted in for "The Spotlight Kid"'s tour and on "Clear Spot". As a result, performances of "The Blimp" from this period are almost exactly as it was on record (save the lack of "Antennae Jimmy Semens" on vocals), even though this wasn't intended at the time.
* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: In his case, more like Early Installment Normalcy. His debut single "Diddy Wah Diddy" is fairly straightforward blues-rock and even managed to get a lot of Top 40 airplay on the West Coast. ''SafeAsMilk'' is also still fairly conventional psychedelic blues-rock. ''Music/MirrorMan'' and ''Music/StrictlyPersonal'' are a bit weirder, but still not that unusual by '60s standards. With ''Music/TroutMaskReplica'', though, the rules went out the window, and he only recorded a few albums after that point that qualify as remotely normal (and he later disowned two of them).

* EveryoneWentToSchoolTogether: Zappa and Beefheart went to high school together. They met when Zappa's parents had moved to Lancaster, California. Being eccentric people with a shared love for blues music, free jazz and avantgarde classical music brought them together.

* FakeOutFadeOut: The instrumental version of "On Tomorrow" from the Plain Brown Wrapper sessions (as heard on the Safe As Milk remaster), has an extra 3 minutes of avant-garde noises at the end before it eventually returns to a few bars of the main song before ending. By contrast, the Strictly Personal version only uses a short amount of said avant-garde noises before it segues into "Beatle Bones 'N' Smokin' Stones".

* HilariousInHindsight: As Mike Barnes notes in his biography, Beefheart anticipated that "Unconditionally Guaranteed" would make him the most money of his career up to that point. The album flopped...but because Beefheart had signed to a new label which took far less of a cut and ensured more of a cut by co-crediting his wife as songwriter(he also credited Andy DiMartino, the album's producer), he did, in fact make more money off it than he had off previous albums. However, he didn't care enough to pay his band, who promptly left him.

* 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. Drummer John "Drumbo" French was one of the relative constants, playing with the Magic Band on and off throughout the 60s and 70s, and making his final appearance on Doc At The Radar Station, albeit as a guitarist.

* AdaptationDistillation : The [[EpicRocking 20 minute long jam]] "Tarotplane" became the 6 and a half minute long "Yer Gonna Need Somebody On Yer Bond" when they performed it live in 1968. It has more tight structure than the original song, and it's likely it would have sounded like this on "It Comes To You In A Plain Brown Wrapper" had that album come out as originally intended.
* AluminumChristmasTrees : Whilst much of "Orange Claw Hammer" is metaphorical nonsense, a 'cherry phosphate' is indeed a real drink (named for its use of phosphoric acid) which was popular from the late 1800s until World War II. The use of the even-then antiquated phrase in the song symbolises how long the seaman has been away.

Captain Beefheart was the stage name of American [[AvantGardeMusic avant-garde musician]] and painter Don Van Vliet (January 15, 1941 – December 17, 2010); 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]] and is sometimes seen as OutsiderMusic.

->''I may be hungry, but I sure ain't weird...''

-->'--'Webcomic/ScaryGoRound, [[http://scarygoround.com/sgr/ar.php?date=20070801 on the man himself.]]''

** His album ''Clear Spot'' was characterised 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).

** Harry Irene on ''Music/ShinyBeast''. Surprisingly the song had been around since the late 60s.

** "Ashtray Heart" bashed 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.

* EarlyBirdCameo: The backing music to "The Blimp" on "Trout Mask Replica" is played by Roy Estrada and Art Tripp, members of Frank Zappa's band at the time - it is a rehearsal take of his then-unreleased composition "Charles Ives". Art Tripp joined The Magic Band for the next album "Lick My Decals Off Baby", and Roy Estrada was drafted in for "The Spotlight Kid"'s tour and on "Clear Spot". As a result, performances of "The Blimp" from this period are exactly as it was on record, even though this wasn't intended at the time.