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Review: Rare Captain Beefheart Concert Recording
It seems that even the bootleggers had a hard time pinning down the legendary Captain Beefheart (a/k/a Don Van Vliet) since there seems to be a lack of the artist’s live material available for purchase. There are a handful of European shows of dodgy legal (and sonic) provenance released via fly-by-night labels, a misbegotten effort that did little to extend the good Captain’s musical legacy.
Rhino Handmade had a nice little 1978 vintage radio broadcast available on a limited basis, but there were no authorized live records released during Beefheart’s major label career that I’m aware of…and since the few Beefheart boots and semi-boots appear and disappear without warning, there’s not much available for the collector to spend their hard-earned coin. Thanks to Gonzo Multimedia, however, fans of the Captain have reason to rejoice with the May 13th, 2014 (U.S.) release of Harpo’s Detroit Dec 11th 1980, a 17-track live recording from the infamous Motor City venue and a show that the Reverend likely attended (mass beer consumption has dulled otherwise vivid memories of many Detroit nights).
Captured live on tape during the 1980 tour for their Doc At The Radar Station album, Captain Beefheart & the Magic Band at the time included guitarists Jeff Moris Tepper and Richard Snyder, bassist Eric Drew Feldman, and drummer Robert Williams. While the set is heavy on material from Radar Station, comprising six of that album’s twelve songs, it also includes such Beefheart favorites as “Abba Zabba,” “Safe As Milk,” and “Bat Chain Puller” as part of the set list.
Growing up north of Los Angeles in the desert community of Lancaster, California Van Vliet found a kindred spirit as a teenager with fellow musician and oddball Frank Zappa. He began performing as Captain Beefheart in 1964, joining the existing Magic Band line-up that had been formed by Alexis Snouffer in 1965. Captain Beefheart & the Magic Band released their critically-acclaimed debut album Safe As Milk on the Buddah Records label in 1967, but Buddah execs shied away from that album’s follow-up, Strictly Personal, which was subsequently released in 1968 by producer Bob Krasnow’s Blue Thumb Records.
The third time’s a charm, as they say, and after being dumped by both Buddah and Blue Thumb, Beefheart and crew were signed to Zappa’s Straight Records, where they were provided complete artistic control, resulting in the classic 1969 album Trout Mask Replica. Beefheart and one form or another of the Magic Band would record a total of thirteen studio albums before Van Vliet retired from music after the 1982 release of Ice Cream For Crow. Van Vliet turned to painting as his chosen form of expression, a career that proved to be more commercially successful than music, and in which he was equally as influential.
Read on...
Don Van Vliet (born Don Glen Vliet; January 15, 1941 – December 17, 2010) was an American musician, singer-songwriter, artist and poet known by the stage name Captain Beefheart. His musical work..
Don Van Vliet (born Don Glen Vliet; January 15, 1941 – December 17, 2010) was an American musician, singer-songwriter, artist and poet known by the stage name Captain Beefheart. His musical work..
Review: Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band Live From Harpo's 1980 Gonzo 2014
Thursday, May 22, 2014
Review: Captain Beefheart Live Portugal review translated
https://vianocturna2000.blogspot.pt/2014/06/review-harpos-detroit-dec-11-1980.html
Thursday, June 26, 2014
Review: Harpos Detroit Dec. 11, 1980 (Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band)
Harpo's Detroit Dec 11th 1980 CD - £9.99 |
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Lunar Notes - Zoot Horn Rollo's Captain Beefheart Experience Book - £9.99
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Review: CAPTAIN BEEFHEART: US Review
https://www.thatdevilmusic.com/2014/07/cd-review-captain-beefheart-magic-bands.html
Friday, July 4, 2014
CD Review: Captain Beefheart & the Magic Band's Live From Harpos 1980
The Magic Band
Taking on the stage name Captain Beefheart, Van Vliet hooked up with the Magic Band, a Los Angeles-based R&B outfit. Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band (as they were originally billed) recorded a couple of bluesy but unconventional singles for A&M Records that got them dumped by the label. After the Captain shook-up the band’s line-up and brought in guitarist Ry Cooder (then of blues-rock outfit Rising Sons), they recorded the Safe As Milk album for Buddah Records in 1967. Displaying a heavy blues influence, the album would nonetheless offer signs of Beefheart’s future musical amalgam of psychedelic rock, blues, improvisational jazz, and avant-garde experimentation that would result in 1969’s Trout Mask Replica, an album of such enduring weirdness and timelessness that it has influenced countless songwriters and musicians to follow, from Tom Waits to Sonic Youth and beyond.
Beefheart recorded thirteen albums with the Magic Band between 1965 and 1982, when he hung up his microphone for a life of creative contemplation and visual art, a rare case of an influential musician making the leap into the art world, where Van Vliet’s drawings and paintings demanded premium pricing and were exhibited in galleries and museums worldwide. During his tenure at the head of the Magic Band, however, Beefheart’s artistic temperament earned him the reputation of being a real asshole. A strict bandleader and notorious cheapskate, Beefheart kept his bandmates in perpetual poverty and frequently abused them verbally and, sometimes, physically.
Captain Beefheart's Live From Harpos 1980
Still, due to his recognized genius, Beefheart was able to recruit and keep a number of extremely talented musicians in his Magic Band through the years. Such was the case as illustrated by Live From Harpos 1980, an invaluable document that captures a remarkable performance by Beefheart & the Magic Band at Harpos, a longstanding Detroit concert venue, in December 1980. Touring in support of the Doc at the Radar Station album, which was released in August 1980, the Magic Band that backed up Beefheart in the Motor City included guitarist Jeff Moris Tepper, bassist Eric Drew Feldman, and drummer Robert Arthur Williams, all of which had also appeared on 1978’s Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller)album. The line-up on this cold night in Detroit was rounded out by guitarists Richard Snyder and Jeff Tapir/White.
The Reverend attended this show at Harpos; I frequently haunted the club (as well as the New Miami) after getting off work from the Trailways bus station in downtown Detroit. Since it began hosting rock ‘n’ roll shows in 1973, Harpos had become a worthy heir to Russ Gibbs’ legendary Grande Ballroom, hosting shows by artists as diverse as Ted Nugent, Mitch Ryder, Johnny Winter, Cheap Trick and, yes, Captain Beefheart. The club moved more towards heavy metal in the 1980s, and rap/hip-hop in the 1990s (including legendary Goth rapper Esham, the real “Motor City Madman”); best I can tell, they’re still rockin’ at Harpos today. I probably got to the club late; as I wouldn’t have left downtown until midnight, but I wasn’t going to pass up the rare opportunity to catch Captain Beefheart & the Magic Band perform live, even if I don't remember much of it today (after the beer-fueled decade of the '80s).
The set list for Live From Harpos 1980 is appropriately heavy on material from Radar Station, comprising six of that album’s twelve songs, including a growling, snarling performance of “Hot Head” that features some stellar guitarplay with shotgun solos, and Beefheart’s mesmerizing vocals dancing sloppily atop a fractured, circular rhythm. “Ashtray Heart” is of a similar construct, with Beefheart’s scatting vocals be-bopping alongside a syncopated soundtrack and squalls of razor-sharp guitar. The sagely-titled “A Carrot Is As Close As A Rabbit Gets To A Diamond” is an enchanting, all too brief instrumental with guitars intertwining to create an elegant, classically-oriented soundscape that is atypical for the Captain and his band.
Bat Chain Puller
Among its 17 songs, Live From Harpos 1980 also includes several choice cuts from across the band’s storied career. The Delta blues-influenced “Abba Zabba” is a throwback from the Safe As Milk album, a dark-hued stomper with tribal rhythms and the Captain’s best raspy, Howlin’ Wolf styled sandpaper vocals. “My Human Gets Me Blues” dates back toTrout Mask Replica, the song a nifty lil’ slice o’ jump ‘n’ jive with surreal, seemingly stream-of-consciousness lyrics and a cacophonic symphony as a backdrop. Originally recorded to appear on an unreleased (until 2012) album of the same name, “Bat Chain Puller” landed on Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller); its performance here is all right angles, with raw, primal, often-screamed vocals and jumbled instrumentation that often works at cross purposes with itself.
Also from Shiny Beast, “Suction Prints” is the sound of collapsing buildings, with Beefheart’s tortured saxophone up front, barely escaping from the instrumental barrage of squealing guitars, madcap drumbeats, and thunderous rhythms. In the best Beefheart tradition, it sounds like it was created by a brace of insane criminals who broke out of the asylum and found refuge in a recording studio, each inmate taking out their hostilities and fractured obsessions on the innocent instruments.
The Reverend's Bottom Line
The sound on Live From Harpos 1980 is a notch above bootleg quality – hollow, muddy, slightly distorted, and with a bit of echo – most of which is par for the era in which it was recorded, some of which is due to the provenance of the original tape, no doubt (sounds to my ears like a good audience recording). Since Captain Beefheart & the Magic Band never released a live album during the nearly two decades of their existence, however, and as there are only a handful of readily available live Beefheart albums to be found, Live From Harpos 1980 is a welcome addition to the artist’s canon. The performances are singularly abrasive, and thoroughly entertaining, if you’re of a similar mindset (and evidently a small number of us fellow travelers are in that odd position). Captain Beefheart isn’t for everybody, but he might just be for you! (Gonzo Multimedia, released May 13, 2014)
Harpo's Detroit Dec 11th 1980 CD - £9.99 |
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Lunar Notes - Zoot Horn Rollo's Captain Beefheart Experience Book - £9.99
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Review: Captain Beefheart: Live UK review
Harpo's Detroit Dec 11th 1980 CD - £9.99 |
![]() |
Lunar Notes - Zoot Horn Rollo's Captain Beefheart Experience Book - £9.99
|
Review: Capt Beefheart: Detroit Live US review
Appreciate it, yes: I know of quite a few of my friends (certainly not a cross section of American pop music fans) who own Beefheart’s classic Trout Mask Replica. I have an original vinyl copy myself. But neither they nor I play our copies all too often. Beefheart’s music is challenging at best, making few if any concessions to musical convention. Beefheart’s music can be described as a sort of wild, unhinged free jazz/blues hybrid, often featuring the man’s growling vocals (he reportedly had a five-octave range), along with his saxophone. While his band lineup (generally dubbed The Magic Band) followed the standard rock configuration, Beefheart’s music can’t be called rock, not by any reasonable understanding of the term. That said, Beefheart’s critical reputation is stratospheric.
Review: Detroit Live US review
Appreciate it, yes: I know of quite a few of my friends (certainly not a cross section of American pop music fans) who own Beefheart’s classic Trout Mask Replica. I have an original vinyl copy myself. But neither they nor I play our copies all too often. Beefheart’s music is challenging at best, making few if any concessions to musical convention. Beefheart’s music can be described as a sort of wild, unhinged free jazz/blues hybrid, often featuring the man’s growling vocals (he reportedly had a five-octave range), along with his saxophone. While his band lineup (generally dubbed The Magic Band) followed the standard rock configuration, Beefheart’s music can’t be called rock, not by any reasonable understanding of the term. That said, Beefheart’s critical reputation is stratospheric.