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"...Came Upon A Tornado..."
Few artists can genuinely
have the mantle of genius festooned around their mad foreheads in a garland of
Californian daisies – but Captain Beefheart is one of them. His 1967 debut is
still a bit of a beast to digest in 2015 – but my admiration for it and him
only grow as the years pass. Nothing about this album is "safe" let
alone a comforting and warm glass of milk come those night-time tremors - which
is of course what makes it so good and groundbreaking. Here goes with the Abba
Zaba and the Dropout Boogie...
US released June 1999 (September
1999 in the UK) – "Safe As Milk" by CAPTAIN BEEFHEART and THE MAGIC
BAND on BMG/RCA/Buddha Records 74321 69175 2 (Barcode 743216917525) is an 'Expanded
Edition' CD Remaster with Seven Bonus Tracks and breaks down as follows (71:13 minutes):
1. Sho 'Nuff 'N Yes I Do
2. Zig Zag Wanderer
3. Call On Me
4. Dropout Boogie
5. I'm Glad
6. Electricity
7. Yellow Brick Road [Side
2]
8. Abba Zaba
9. Plastic Factory
10. Where There's Woman
11. Grown So Ugly
12. Autumn's Child
Tracks 1 to 12 are his debut
album "Safe As Milk" – released September 1967 in the USA on Buddah
BDM 1001 (Mono) and Buddah BDS 5001 (Stereo) and February 1968 in the UK on Pye
International NPL 28110 (initially in Mono only). A Stereo version finally
showed in 1970 in the UK on Buddah 623 171 – this CD Remaster uses the STEREO
mix.
BONUS TRACKS:
13. Safe As Milk (Take 5)
14. On Tomorrow
15. Big Black Baby Shoes
16. Flower Pot
17. Dirty Blue Gene
18. Trust Us (Take 9)
19. Korn Ring Finger
Tracks 13 to 19 are all
Previously Unreleased, Recorded Oct to Nov 1967 with Alex St. Clair Snouffer
and Jeff Cotton on Guitars instead of Ry Cooder. Captain Beefheart, Jeff
Handley and John French as per the LP line-up.
The 12-page booklet (in a
rather dull black and white) has a history of the album and the genre-bending
talents of Don Van Vliet of Glendale, California (alias Captain Beefheart)
written by JOHN PLATT with help from Mike Barnes and Gary Marker. There are
reissue credits and a repro of the 'Baby Jesus' bumper sticker. On the rear of
the booklet there’s a gorgeous colour photo of the band as a four-piece – Alex
St. Clair Snouffer (Guitar), John French (Drums), Captain Beefheart (Vocals,
Harmonica and Bass Marimba) and Jerry Handley (Bass). There are also long notes
on the CD Bonus Tracks ("Mirror Sessions" outtakes etc).
The remasters are by ELLIOTT
FEDERMAN and come with a warning that "sonic imperfections exist due to
the condition of the master tapes". He’s unfortunately proven right about
this. Some tracks are fantastic – others very hissy and even corrupted in the
top end. There’s also a very definite audio chasm between the album and the
bonus tracks – the LP has its rough moments but the Bonus tracks (later 1967
recordings for the second album done just a month after the release of
"Safe As Milk") are fantastic sounding - and in truth would probably
have sat better as "Trout Mask Replica" outakes. It’s a case of
taking the rough with the smooth – but luckily because there isn't that much
rough - I'd say they’ve done a superb job with what they had...
It opens with the Howlin’
Wolf/Johnny Winter guitar blues of "Sure 'Nuff 'N Yes I Do" - a
genius hybrid track with ex Rising Sons guitar wizard RY COODER providing lead
guitar. We then get into real Beefheart songscapes with the decidedly rough
recording of "Zig Zag Wanderer" – a jagged irksome little monster
like the "adaptor...adaptor" distorted guitar chug of "Dropout
Boogie" (both tracks benefitting from the percussive drums of Milt
Holland). Unfortunately there are heavy hiss levels on "I'm Glad"
where Don comes on like some Street Corner vocal group pleading "so sad
baby". But as always with the Captain - he can blindside you with how
pretty a song he can write when he stops pushing the musical boundaries with
the rest of the album. The Byrds-ish "Call My Name" could have been a
single too with its "free love" coda ideal for the time.
But if one track practically
defines the jagged songwriting strangled-vocals genius of Captain Beefheart it
would be the stunning "Electricity". Described as a variant of
'Blues' by some more scholarly than I – it comes at you like a sonic beast from
another world and could only be a product of the hyper-inventive
super-productive and mad-as-a-dingbat-on-acid 60ts counter-culture. Throughout
its jerk-rhythms and weird-sounding guitars - Sam Hoffman plays a thing called
a 'Theremin' - an early variant of an electronic Moog instrument that had been
used to create those scary outer-space noises in films like "The Day The
Earth Stood Still". Combined with Beefheart giving it his best strangling-a-cat
voice – its astonishing stuff even now. Pye actually reissued
"Electricity" in June 1978 as a British 7” single on Buddah BDS 466 -
the audio bosom-buddy B-side to "Sho 'Nuff 'N Yes I Do". Not sure if
either was entirely Thursday night 'Top Of The Pops' material but I’d pay good
money to see Pans People do an interpretive dance routine for either (yum
yum).
Speaking of singles - Pye UK
tried the jaunty Side 2 opener "Yellow Brick Road" b/w "Abba
Zaba" on Pye International 7N 25443 in January 1968 but not surprisingly
it tanked and is now a £50-plus rarity (Taj Mahal plays percussion on
"Yellow Brick Road"). His fantastic Bluesy Harmonica gives the
brilliant "Plastic Factory" a real Paul Butterfield edge. "Where
There's Woman" and "Grown So Ugly" are suitably touching and
poisonous at the same time but the album finishes on a total winner. Russ
Titelman plays guitar while Sam Hoffman twiddles his Theremin on the brilliant
Side 2 finisher "Autumn's Child" – a song where you actually feel
like you're listening to a new kind of music being created as you listen.
The BONUS TRACKS are part of
the "Mirror Sessions" which were essentially going to be a
double-album follow-up for Buddah Records (their 2nd album). Parts of it turned
up on the "Mirror Man" LP issued by Buddah in May 1971. "Trout
Mask Replica" fans will love the near seven-minute guitar instrumental
rampage that is "On Tomorrow". Even better is "Big Black Baby
Shoes" – another five-minute sliding guitar instrumental which is
discordantly musical in that way only Captain Beefheart can be. "Flower
Pot" is brilliant too and my fave bonus amongst the seven – the band
boogieing in that jagged "Trout" way through four minutes of
Beefheart Funk.
The equally good/strange "Strictly Personal" would follow in 1968 and the epoch-making game-changing double "Trout Mask Replica" in late 1969 – but this is where all that discordant yet melodious jerky-motion started.
An animal-sculpting child prodigy TV star at the age of 10 – Don Van Vliet was always a bit special and a just bit bonkers in the temporal lobe area. Captain Beefheart famously walked off stage once and collapsed into the grass face first – later claiming he stopped the band mid-song (fixed his tie first before he left stage) because he saw a woman in the audience turn into a 'goldfish'. Now that’s my kind of visionary...
The equally good/strange "Strictly Personal" would follow in 1968 and the epoch-making game-changing double "Trout Mask Replica" in late 1969 – but this is where all that discordant yet melodious jerky-motion started.
An animal-sculpting child prodigy TV star at the age of 10 – Don Van Vliet was always a bit special and a just bit bonkers in the temporal lobe area. Captain Beefheart famously walked off stage once and collapsed into the grass face first – later claiming he stopped the band mid-song (fixed his tie first before he left stage) because he saw a woman in the audience turn into a 'goldfish'. Now that’s my kind of visionary...
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