{"id":1565,"date":"2008-07-15T21:33:55","date_gmt":"2008-07-16T01:33:55","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2010-12-18T13:24:08","modified_gmt":"2010-12-18T17:24:08","slug":"bullshit-on-captain-beefheart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/bullshit-on-captain-beefheart\/","title":{"rendered":"Bullshit On: Captain Beefheart"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"image_block\" style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/media\/blogs\/rth\/trout.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"232\" height=\"270\" \/><\/div>\n<p>With the recent turmoil over who&#8217;s RTH this is I thought I&#8217;d offer myself up as a sacrificial lamb in an effort to bring everyone together&#8230;against me.<\/p>\n<p>Trust me, I realize that I may very well be committing some sort of rock nerd harikari (spelled correctly, looked it up.)  <em>Beefheart<\/em> is god!  Right?<br \/>\n<!--more--><\/p>\n<p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ob1_jkm_dhY?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><br \/>\nNot to my ears.  This is truly an emperor with no clothes as far as I&#8217;m concerned.  I was considering offering this discussion up as <ins>&#8220;What&#8217;s the Deal with Capt. Beefheart&#8221;<\/ins> as a lighthearted attempt to gain some insight as to how to appreciate this blowhard.  But once I started listening to some &#8220;songs&#8221; to use, I just got pissed.<\/p>\n<p>I mean, the shit that went down in Dachau was bad.  Really bad shit.  But almost as bad was this from the Allmusic 5-star album <strong>Trout Mask Replica<\/strong>:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/media\/blogs\/rth\/dachaublues.mp3\">Dachau Blues<\/a><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve tried for crissake.  I&#8217;ve tried.  You can&#8217;t know Mr. Moderator for almost a quarter century and not try.  I have only very recently confessed my very deep dislike for this guy to him.  I know its uncool.  But I can&#8217;t sit by any longer and not let this out.<\/p>\n<p>Allow me to set the stage here.  I am not including <strong>Safe As Milk<\/strong> in this discussion.  I own Milk on wax, haven&#8217;t listened to it in 20 years but recall liking enough.  I think most of ya would agree that post-Milk is the Beefheart of legend.<\/p>\n<p>From Milk and cool as all get out:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/media\/blogs\/rth\/ABBAZaba.mp3\"><strong>Abba Zaba<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Second I&#8217;d like to say that there there are avant-noise-rockers that I dig.  I don&#8217;t know if there&#8217;s a &#8220;genre&#8221; here (if so, enlighten me) but I LOVE both <em>Pere Ubu&#8217;s<\/em> <strong>Modern Dance<\/strong> and <strong>Dub Housing<\/strong>.  I LOVE all three of <em>PIL&#8217;s<\/em> first albums.  I spin all five of these several times a year.<\/p>\n<p>I dig <em>The Residents<\/em>.  Not so much for musical reasons but for their overall thang.  The concept, the films, the Look&#8230;  Even so, I probably spin at least one Residents album per year.  If I hadn&#8217;t lost my <em>Snakefinger<\/em> disc, I&#8217;d probably spin it even more often.<\/p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/euhyF9MJ0rA?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><p><em>Throbbing Gristle<\/em>?  OK.  I dig their &#8220;greatest&#8221; especially <strong>Blood on the Floor<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><em>Tom Waits<\/em>?  Acquired taste?  Perhaps but I&#8217;ve loved <strong>Swordfish Trombone<\/strong> since the first time I heard it.<\/p>\n<p>So by now I&#8217;m hoping I&#8217;ve earned at least a few rock cred points in this category, if it even is one.<\/p>\n<p>But Beefheart?!  It&#8217;s all pop and buzzes to me Ringo.  I don&#8217;t even have any sort of innate respect for the guy.  I know I may simply &#8220;not get it&#8221; but man do I not get it.<\/p>\n<p>Sounds to me like what a bunch of arrogant Dutch &#8220;intellectuals&#8221; would pretend to groove on to impress&#8230;other arrogant Dutch &#8220;intellectuals&#8221; I guess.<\/p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/-4REL5RKN1A?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><p>Maybe the problem is that I never gave Beefheart a try while I was still in the day.  I never sparked one up and grooved on how fuckin&#8217; weird this dude is.<\/p>\n<p>But if the dude rules, shouldn&#8217;t I be able to get into him at any time?  Isn&#8217;t good music timeless?<\/p>\n<p>At the risk of losing a few of the points that I may have gained above, I&#8217;ll admit that I got into <em>The Beach Boys<\/em> waaaaayyy late.  Largely due to my dad being a fan and taking me to see Mike Love&#8217;s Beach Boys in 1978.  Fuck me awful.<\/p>\n<p>Anyhoo, once I opened up and gave <strong>Pet Sounds<\/strong> a fair listen I fell in love.  I suddenly got it and grabbed pretty much everything from 65-71.  So I got into them late is my point but I got into them.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve tried and tried and am trying as I type to get into the Holy Grail known as <strong>Trout Mask Replica<\/strong>.  This fucking thing is so well known as a masterpiece that you can buy it through BMG.  BMG! fer crissake.  &#8220;Normal&#8221; folks that want to try something &#8220;different&#8221; are probably buying this thing and thinking we&#8217;re all bunch of assholes!  This is one of the shittiest albums I&#8217;ve ever heard.  Seriously.<\/p>\n<p>Flame on.  I can&#8217;t argue &#8220;alternate tunings&#8221; or &#8220;7th note scales&#8221; or shit but if you have to resort to that sort of thing, doesn&#8217;t that say something?<\/p>\n<p>I swear to you, I&#8217;d rather listen to <ins>Loverboy<\/ins>. I swear.<\/p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/iUcBvGscpwo?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With the recent turmoil over who&#8217;s RTH this is I thought I&#8217;d offer myself up as a sacrificial lamb in an effort to bring everyone together&#8230;against me. Trust me, I realize that I may very well be committing some sort of rock nerd harikari (spelled correctly, looked it up.) Beefheart is god! Right?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[87,86],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1565"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1565\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}