Written by Robert Palmer,\u00a0The New York Times, September 1982. <\/strong><\/p>\nDon Van Vliet, who is better known as Captain Beefheart, is still in the forefront of rock\u2019s avant-garde, more than 15 years after the release of his first album. Although he has polished his music and changed the personnel of his Magic Band a number of times since the mid-1960\u2019s, the broad outlines of his style were already in place the first time he entered a recording studio. They include fractured rhythms; dislocated country blues riffs; disjunct melodies and passages of counterpoint that sometimes recall Stravinsky; extravagantly gruff singing and croaking, and occasional bursts of clattering noise.<\/p>\n
\u201dIce Cream for Crow\u201d (Virgin\/ Epic), the 12th album by Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band, represents a return to Beefheart basics after the expansive use of synthesized orchestral effects and borrowings from Chinese opera on \u201dDoc at the Radar Station\u201d (1981).<\/p>\n
The title tune is being released as a single, Mr. Van Vliet\u2019s first since the mid-60\u2019s \u2013 and could actually get some airplay. It is a Beefheart blues, with whining slide guitars and a hoarse, urgent vocal. The lyrics, which sound like a Carlos Castaneda \/ Don Juan adventure and are spotted with cryptic instructions like \u201dlight the fire piano,\u201d aren\u2019t exactly typical blues fare. But here, and on the rest of the album, Mr. Van Vliet proves once again that when it comes to capturing the feeling of archaic, Delta-style blues, he is the only white performer who really gets it right.<\/p>\n
Don Van Vliet was born in Glendale, Calif., in 1941. As a teenager in Lancaster, Calif., he had his own local television show and was recognized locally as a painter and a sculptor. One of his best friends was his fellow student, Frank Zappa.<\/p>\n
The first appearances by Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band coincided with the widespread use of LSD in Southern California, and drugs may have \u201dled\u201d a number of his early fans to \u201dget into\u201d the music. But Mr. Van Vliet insisted that his singular music was not drug-inspired.<\/p>\n
Sitting in the Manhattan living room of the guitarist Gary Lucas, who is the Magic Band\u2019s newest member, Don Van Vliet shut his eyes, squinted, and said, \u201dIt\u2019s going to ring.\u201d The telephone rang as if on cue. Mr. Lucas laughed nervously and said that sort of thing happens all the time.<\/p>\n
Mr. Van Vliet said his family was from Louisiana, and various relatives went west to visit the Van Vliet household when he was growing up. In particular, he remembered an uncle who was a kind of singing evangelist, a free spirit who had spent a number of years roaming the countryside, preaching the gospel and accompanying himself by playing guitar with a slider.<\/p>\n
Could that uncle have been a musical influence? \u201dOh, absolutely,\u201d Mr. Van Vliet said. It certainly made sense; that natural, unforced feeling for rural blues had to come from somewhere, and it came from rural gospel music, which is musically identical to blues.<\/p>\n
After talking at some length about C.S. Lewis, one of his favorite authors, Mr. Van Vliet mentioned his admiration for Stravinsky. That was no surprise. His complex rhythms and difficult melodic intervals are evidence of a Stravinsky influence, and that influence is particularly evident on the new album.<\/p>\n
In the past, Mr. Van Vliet\u2019s complex, brittle arrangements and the splashy playing of his various drummers tended to disguise the classical severity of his original ideas. On \u201dIce Cream for Crow,\u201d the stripped-down instrumentation and the absense of decoration in Cliff R. Martinez\u2019s sparse drumming serve to emphasize the classicism of the melodies and rhythmic patterns.<\/p>\n
Until recently, nobody sounded anything like Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band. But during the last few years, avant-garde rock units as disparate as Pere Ubu, The Fall and Public Image Ltd. have been making music that sounds something like the Magic Band. Perhaps that\u2019s why the music on \u201dIce Cream for Crow\u201d sounds a little more familiar on first listening than any previous Captain Beefheart album. But it probably isn\u2019t the only reason.<\/p>\n
The Magic Band\u2019s new guitarist, Gary Lucas, doesn\u2019t sound as thoroughly self-taught as his predecessors. He brings a certain polish to his playing of Mr. Van Vliet\u2019s finger-flexing compositions (especially on the solo guitar showpiece \u201dEvening Bell\u201d) that connects it, however tenuously, to more conventional music. And Mr. Van Vliet has chosen to work with some familiar musical components this time out, like the ringing, major-triad consonance of the guitar parts on the instrumental \u201dSemi-Multicolored Caucasian.\u201d<\/p>\n
This relatively melodious side of Mr. Van Vliet\u2019s music has rarely been displayed so winningly. It contrasts provocatively with the squabbling saxophones and all-out noise attack of compositions like \u201dThe Thousandth and Tenth Day of the Human Totem Pole,\u201d making \u201dIce Cream for Crow\u201d the most varied and, on the whole, the most accessible of the hard-core Captain Beefheart albums. (Some early attempts to make the Captain\u2019s music more palatable to the masses have not been granted a place in the Beefheart canon.)<\/p>\n
It may not sell in impressive quantities; Captain Beefheart albums never have. But anyone who is interested in rock\u2019s limits and possibilities, and in where the music might be going, will want to hear it.<\/p>\n
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Obituary<\/strong><\/p>\nWith a growling bass voice, that whooped and hollered in the manner of one of his earliest heroes, bluesman Howlin\u2019 Wolf, Captain Beefheart became a hugely influential figure in rock music.<\/p>\n
Artists like Tom Waits, Mark E Smith of The Fall, John Lydon of Public Image Limited and Nick Cave are among those who have cited him as an influence.<\/p>\n
Later, under his real name Don Van Vliet, he became an acclaimed painter.<\/p>\n
He was born in 1941 in suburban Glendale, California, where his father drove a baker\u2019s van. He was an only child, and his grandparents lived next door. His family indulged his artistic talents \u2013 he was sculpting from the age of four.<\/p>\n
As a teenager, he discovered the blues along with childhood friend Frank Zappa, who was to remain a friend, and rival, throughout his life.<\/p>\n
Together, in Lancaster, California, in the Mojave Desert, Zappa and Van Vliet came up with the name Captain Beefheart and the latter formed a blues band, His Magic Band, in the mid-1960s.<\/p>\n
Though the band\u2019s title remained with Beefheart over two decades, the band\u2019s membership was to change frequently.<\/p>\n
After establishing themselves with a small but devoted following, the band, augmented by a 20-year-old slide guitarist named Ry Cooder, made their first album, Safe as Milk, in 1967.<\/p>\n
Although blues-inspired, the album reflected the era of psychedelia by its surrealist tendencies. It also hinted at the avante-garde that was to become Captain Beefheart\u2019s trademark.<\/p>\n
One of the many Magic Band line ups Various record labels wanted to establish Captain Beefheart as an American alternative to the British blues bands of the 1960s or as a pop band to rival The Beatles.<\/p>\n
But Van Vliet would not allow them to curb his artistic expression and there were frequent fallings out.<\/p>\n
Many fans regard his masterpiece to be the 1969 album, \u2018Trout Mask Replica\u2019, a dadaist blend of blues, free-form jazz, rock and beat poetry.<\/p>\n
Sometimes manic, always unpredictable, the album was at first deemed as impenetrable. Yet, to its supporters, it showed itself to be a complex mix of metaphor and use of wordplay. \u201cA verbal prankster\u201d was how British DJ John Peel described Beefheart.<\/p>\n
The album was produced by Frank Zappa who gave his friend full artistic rein.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf it had been produced by any professional, famous producer,\u201d Zappa said later, \u201cthere could have been a number of suicides involved.\u201d<\/p>\n
John Peel described Beefheart as being \u201d driven in pursuit of his music to the borderline between imbalance and genius.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018Trout Mask Replica\u2019 is considered his masterpiece He suffered constantly from anxiety attacks. For \u2018Trout Mask Replica\u2019, he kept his musicians in a house for the eight months it took to write the double album, only allowing them out once a week to get groceries.<\/p>\n
There was very little money with which to buy anything but the most basic of provisions. The conditions were described by one band member as \u201ccult-like\u201d.When Zappa eventually got to record the album, it took less than five hours. The lyrics were nonsensical and surreal, and the band members were given nicknames like Mascara Snake, Zoot Horn Rollo and Rockette Morton.<\/p>\n
The album dispensed with a regular rock beat, constantly changing its songs\u2019 time signatures. \u201cI don\u2019t like hypnotics,\u201d said Beefheart, \u201cI want things to change like the patterns and shadows that fall from the sun.\u201d<\/p>\n
His next album, \u2018Lick My Decals Off, Baby\u2019 was equally experimental in nature, but subsequent offerings such as \u2018The Spotlight Kid\u2019 and \u2018Clear Spot\u2019 were far more commercially viable.<\/p>\n
Beefheart\u2019s often errant behaviour caused no end of problems with record companies and, in the 1970s, he became embroiled in various legal disputes which precluded his ability to tour. This deprived audiences of one of the finest live acts of the era.<\/p>\n
He also proved too hard a taskmaster for many of the band members and there was constant to-ing and fro-ing.<\/p>\n
His next two albums \u2018Unconditionally Guaranteed\u2019 and \u2018Bluejeans and Moonbeams\u2019 were derided by fans as being too commercial, but the later \u2018Doc At The Radar Station\u2019 and \u2018Ice Cream For Crow\u2019 were acclaimed.<\/p>\n
He gave up music in favour of abstract art. Throughout his music career, Captain Beefheart kept up a prolific output of sketches and paintings. He was eventually persuaded that if he was to be taken seriously as an artist and not regarded simply as a musician who paints, he should give up music.<\/p>\n
He returned to his home near the Mojave Desert in southern California and became reclusive. He became more and more renowned as an abstract expressionist whose work, like his music, is regarded as original innovative. It fetches high prices.<\/p>\n
Eventually, Captain Beefheart \/ Don Van Vliet was unable to paint after contracting multiple sclerosis.<\/p>\n
His work, whether in music or drawing, was never mainstream and only ever gained a relatively small following, but he was a larger-than-life character who pushed the boundaries of his art in a way which influenced many who followed in his wake.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ice Cream For Crow \/ The Host The Ghost The Most Holy O \/ Semi Multicultured Caucasian \/ Hey Garland I Dig Your Tweed Coat \/ Evening Bell \/ Cardboard Cutout Sundown The Past Sure Is Tense \/ Ink Mathematics \/ The Witch Doctor Life \/ 81 Poop Hatch \/ The Thousandth And Tenth Day […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-links-downloads"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/killyourpetpuppy.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/killyourpetpuppy.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/killyourpetpuppy.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/killyourpetpuppy.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/killyourpetpuppy.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4900"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/killyourpetpuppy.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4900\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4902,"href":"https:\/\/killyourpetpuppy.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4900\/revisions\/4902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/killyourpetpuppy.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/killyourpetpuppy.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/killyourpetpuppy.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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