Complete genius, Big Eyed Beans and Nowadays A Woman celebrate the neurologically damaged, the hobo, the meths drinker - because ‘we’re people too’. Play also Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring (visceral) and Ravel’s Alborada del Gracioso (preferably original piano version) - romanticised. Big Eyed Beans is the Primal Scream, the true existential Gestalt. Art Tripp is truly great but John French deserves better
Phil Daly check out beans barton and the bi peds. Outta houston. They opened a beefheart zappa show in early 70 s. He was bruiser barton and the dry heaves then. Now retired i saw 100 s of shows. Check out cd s
When I saw them play the long lunar note in the Tower Theater a fuse must have blown out cause everything on stage went dead-for about 15 minutes. When they got the electric back on and began again, they picked it up precisely at the long lunar note. And the whole place went wild.
Ties up with the story I heard ..... the night after the 'Stone the Crows' Lesley Harvey guitarist died onstage of electric shock ... the good Captain came onstage and recited the words to 'Electricity' without any backing music. The guy is/was a legend.
Clear Spot still the greatest American rock album ever made. I first heard this when I was 15 years old I'm now 59 it still wipes me out. Big Eyed Beans From Venus is the killer cut. RIP Captain Beefheart never to be forgotten.
punkpoetry this is beefheart's best "accessible" album, decals is his best experimental album. i agree that decals is one of the best albums ever made, but you cant compare it to this album at all, its so different and has completely different qualities
Good call handymandan. But I am still beholden to Clear Spot an album that left an indelible impression on this sheltered 15 year old all those decades ago. I recently picked up a copy of Trout Mask Replica, not sure what to do with it?
you know what I want, I want Alexa or Siri to have Captain Beefheart's voice and when I ask them to find and play me so and so, he just goes and puts on one of his random tunes. Then tells you you are a hamburger ~Trooper
The best tune ever in my book. The moment the lunar note floats out and the band kick back in is my rock and roll going to heaven moment. impossible to play it loud enough. Great to see so many like minded souls. The Captain simply rules.
Totally agree that this is THE greatest song ever recorded ! No matter what way you hear it! You still get attacked by another unexpected element in the track : musically or rhythmically, you become undone again! and start anew ! Analysing it wouldn’t do you any good . Because it is simply NOT of this world !
I dare say he had a stronger constituency in UK than anywhere else. I was privileged to be present on all his visits to 1970s Britain. Shame I was too young to have witnessed his 1968 visit. I read that he was a stern taskmaster to his musicians - but hear the result ! - They should all be proud.
I was a schoolboy in the UK doing my 'A' levels when this came out. I used to try and get my homework done by ten so that I could listen to John Peel. Imagine my emotions when he first put this on!
I think Peel chose that track for his '40 tracks I would like to play at my 40th birthday party', which was in 1978, I think. I was a uni student at the time, and managed to record the top 33 of the 40 off the radio on a C120 cassette. Still got it, and it still plays - just!
I used to sneak my mother's transistor radio - it was the only one in the house - into my bed, hide it under my pillow and fall asleep listening to John Peel's radio show, with the volume set to 'zero' - headphones were the stuff of fantasy... Clear Spot had just been released, Peel played some tracjs. I heard Mr Zoot Horn Rollo playing that long lunar note... and to this day, it's still my all time favourite LP.
Wonderful guitar work on this song and the entire Clear Spot album. The Magic Band long suffered under the Captain and should be recognized equally for his great music.
When I read Beefheart's biography some years back, there was a passage that told of a visit he made to Emergency Receiving, wigged out on acid. Seems one of his band members made sweet potato pie, but there was an overabundance of sweet potatoes. He put them in an upper cabinet in the kitchen and forgot about them. Some time later the Captain opened up the cabinet. By this time the sweet potatoes had done their thing, sprouted long leafy tendrils, which all came spilling out when the cabinet door was opened. The Captain freaked. Arriving at ER in the middle of the night, the orderly said, "Let me guess. Creatures from outer space?" The Captain: "Yes! How did you know?" Turns out it wasn't his first visit there for such things.
I get what the Captain was freaked out about, 1971 sat in a mucky squat with only a tin of sardines to eat between 4 of us, it was hard to see through the hallucination of live tinned sardines but yer knew it wasn't really happening and yer was hungry so yer cracked on!
I saw the Capt. and the Magic Band do this live in Chicago in 1972--front row seats. There are no words--one of the greatest concerts I've ever been to. Together, Zoot Horn Rollo and Rockette Morton could've clawed their way to the center of the earth with their perfectly in-sync guitar work. (ZHR's gold lame cutoffs were pretty cool, too.) At times, Van Vliet's voice was rumbling lower than Roy Estrada's bass. He did an acappella version of a John Lee Hooker blues that brought the house down.
BEBFV,.... from Clear Spot ...this was a life changing moment for me, as a 16 year old kid, and STILL to this date.....NOTHING has ever came close to this, it was like getting the keys to the SONIC UNIVERSE,it was that STARK, i've never recovered from this , and frankly .... I dont want to !
It was/will be, recorded in 2067! The Captain was/will be, one of the first Time Ship Captains from the Mojave Desert to record 2040s style Retro Music! Fast and Bulbous.
Bought the vinyl 40 yrs ago but haven't listened to it at least 35 yrs. My 20 yr old daughter recently played some John Frusciante tunes for me. Tried to find some info about him and read that one of his main influences was Zoot Horn Rollo. This song came back to my mind immediately, so I played it for her and she was quite amazed. She had never heard of the Captain. These days I'm letting that long lunar note float on my CBG...
I’m always totally spellbound by the drumming and the guitar work. Oh and the voice and the bass. Luckily I saw them in Stevenage UK. Live they were superb.
I wish there where bands like this to day but no and there never will first herd captain beefheart 1970 no band can do that and never will R I P Captain
Where'd we be without this band - the guitar on this track is fucking primal, total essence of bluesicality and the drum attack is mesmerising as for Don well he is the Don of all he commands which at this point was pretty much the magical universe.
One day we met Victor from California ,who said he follows the man with the white turban ,who gave us those funny little clearlights. We took them and heard this album ..., this wonderful music .Still goose bumps , man...
This is ,,,, THE greatest rock music track ever recorded in western music bar non ,,, light nears ahead of its time , this is ART and changed my life, Van Vliet was a genius RIP
The insanity that was / is big eyed beans from Venus : arguably the definition of Don Van Vliets genius : coming this bands history is still sending out shockwaves 51 years later !
What can I say that hasn't already be said...I need a girlfriend who likes the Captain. To quote from the song Clear Spot...."Just can't seem to find my kinda folks havin' fun"
You're lucky she stayed. I heard of one guy whose girlfriend left him because he repeatedly played the song Bat Chain Puller until she lost her shit. If you're lucky enough to find a girlfriend that digs Beefheart, hang onto her with both hands.
You don't have to go out and get 'em... they'll flow with you... made me go out and get a few for myself, and I was so happy! what else could I do in '72?
For me it's this and Sue Egypt, but Kandy Korn & Veterans Day Poppy are perfect, then there is Autumns Child, too many perfect songs in his catalog. Orange Claw Hammer w. frank on guitar gets me too.
The best rock n roll band in the world, Don with 4 and a half octave of range and a total maniacal genius, with THE Magic band Harkelroad with ridiculously long fingers pulling chords not many can replicate, and with the captain insisting that the same riff was shared by the 2 guitarists. And French on drums, whom transcribeb al Van Vliets ideas into musical script then hopped on to the drum stool to do things that, today they usually need 2 drummers to replicate. They had new ideas, they were geniuses. Normal people still don't begin to understand them.
Totally agree Kieran, Art Tripp, John French and Robert Williams were incredibly original, inventive drummers and were a huge part of Beefheart's sound - love it!
I loved the sheer insanity of the Capt. on every album and I have them all,and multiple copies.The chances you take with 12 bar blues is endless ,if you're willing to step out of line.
I remember seeing the Captain perform on Saturday Night Live. They performed "Used me Like a Ashtray Heart" and "Hothead". At the end of one of their songs, someone in the audience yelled *$HIT!!!* I had a cassette deck connected and saved the audio (back then VCRs were extremely expensive). The Captain is always a treat.
"these guys from the doors wrote a song about being strage..." Let's give them an education about STRANGE", the captain said, got his band assembled with notes on gray paper written in blood.
