#almost captures my eclectic music taste

[tarabyte3]

Thank you for the tag, @tarrenterror25 !

Rules: Shuffle your Spotify "On Repeat" playlist and post the first 10 tracks.

Pour Vous - Scorpio

Right Away, Great Captain! - I Am a Vampire

The Raveonettes - I Wanna Be Adored

Hozier - Shrike

AG - Terrible Thing

Ramsey - Daddy

Brand New - Lit Me Up

Lord Huron - The Night We Met

John Coltrane - My One and Only

Vaults - Lifespan

Tags for anyone interested in playing: @jynskassa @celestianstars @gaygingersnaps @squidlywiddly87 @notyouraveragesofia @weirdsociology @dissociativesworld

[iliveforyouilongforyouvesuvia]

Since request are open, I have a question, do you have any personal voiceclaims for the M6? :) Have a new day or night too

-🦞

The Arcana HCs: Voiceclaims

~ Hello again, venerable lobster :)

The original creators gave brief descriptions of what the M6's singing voices sound like in an ask arcana post about karaoke. My taste in music is rather eclectic, so I'm apologizing in advance in case I can't think of a song/singer that works super well for them. I tend to make up scenarios for songs instead of thinking of specific characters so all song assignments were made in the last hour ...

- brainrot ~

Julian

Jeff Goldblum

The developers said it themselves. Julian's voice and mannerisms are heavily based off of Jeff Goldblum characters. If you want to know what he sounds like, find a clip that has Jeff Goldblum singing in it

That aside, he has a "limited singing ability" and tends to "talk-sing" through songs, but is "great at duets"

Asra

Described as having an "airy, intimate voice," but is bad at karaoke because they don't get off of the couch

I know it might feel like this song just got finished being overplayed, but considering that he's a polyglot this song and voice and the lyrics just fit him so well:

Shinunoga E-Wa by Fujii Kaze

Edited to add: Vanilla Twilight by Owl City. It's literally them

Nadia

"a silky voice with impeccable vibrato ... but she only sings karaoke alone in the bath." Maybe she'll make an exception for MC

This song and voice don't quite capture the vibrato part, but the warm tone, alto pitch, and commanding power really scream Nadia. She did lead an army into battle! (Muriel's route)

Queen of Kings by Alessandra

Muriel

"a gravelly grumble that he is convinced is useless for singing"

This is with the assumption that he one day gets a moment completely to himself and just lets it all out. Considering how he was the first to know what was coming, I feel like this song sung with this kind of voice almost embodies him

The Sound of Silence (covered) by Disturbed

Portia

"a throaty, powerful voice. She brings the house down"

She goes for ballads, apparently, and seems to be an alto considering how she "squeaks on the high notes." If I listen to this with my eyes closed it's like she's in the room with me

Babooshka by Kate Bush

Lucio

"an overdone musical theater voice but he is tone deaf"

In a different ask arcana, the creators assigned him the song Victorious by Panic! at the Disco. I can only briefly imagine how easy it would be to sing that song badly. Which is why I unfortunately don't have any songs or voices to suggest.

"he will shout out the high notes and power through the rest"

[m1ckeyb3rry]

TODO THROWING HIMSELF AT Y/N LMAOOO im crying the idolization is so funny

Ok the little friendship with todo thing is funny and cute in a this-is-kinda-weird way LMAOO I’ve never seen a work that incorporates Todo as a friend of y/n this is very entertaining to read LOL

Gojo singing Taylor swift is so real LMAOOO

Ok time skip because I got lost in reading LOL but “you’re a freak” “you’re a girl” BRO??? That’s so Naoya you captured him so well but also I CANT it’s almost TOO naoya but y/n todo unlikely friendship????

Ok got to shibuya and WOW wasn’t prepared to cry!! You’d think that after reading the manga like twice and seeing everything that’s happened you’d be desensitized to the angst in jjk but NOPE!! This just brings me back to when I first read through the shibuya arc oh god Im gonna need some goofy soccer boys after this….also you know its bad when i read Kurusu as Karasu LMAOO

Ok but NOOOOOO TULLIA???? Crying fr but also seeing all the complexities and hardships y/n has to go through….all the drama and complications with the clan heads and higher ups and seeing her own decisions >>>> y/n giving up fighting makes me feel slightly conflicted ngl but that’s the nature of jjk (haha! Ha…) either way beautifully written I spent like the entirety of the day reading all this

By the photo album was the last straw HEBFLISHSS now I remember why I dropped jjk im not built for pure angst like this (also I have no idea what’s happening in the manga rn but that’s besides the point)

Ok THANK GOD Y/N IS NOT DEAD just finished and WOW that was a ride “cool story bro” indeed…ok but in all seriousness seriously beautifully crafted and so well developed I loved how each facet of y/n’s background as also touched on and delved into during the progression of the story…..I’m never getting over Gojo’s death though this just transported me back to jjk era and made me so emotional (in a good way) LMAO thank you for your service once again o7 I can guarantee you Yuta nation was well fed with this series!!

-Karasu anon

NDDJDHSHS TODO + Y/N HAVE THE BEST FRIENDSHIP i also really haven’t seen many stories where todo is friends w the mc especially not in a serious way — either he’s there as comedic relief or the mc hates him!! and while he’s def comedic relief in pi he and y/n also clearly respect one another and they have some serious moments hehe i love them sm

gojo the swiftie 😫 i do not think that man would have an eclectic music taste truly it’s whatever is on the radio for him 😭

the y/n and naoya beef is insane but i hate him so it only makes sense my girl does too!! plus she loves maki and considering what naoya has done to maki it would make zero for sense for them to get along even slightly

POMEGRANATE INK SHIBUYA CHAPTER MY BELOVED it’s like one thing after another w that chapter truly one of the most insane things i’ve written…i really liked the way it turned out though!! at least to me it fit the vibe of jjk and shibuya well without copying/stealing anyone’s storylines outright

the photo album feels like an end credits scene to me if that makes sense?? like it would play at the end of the movie/final episode of the show and it would make you cry HAHAHA it made me so emotional writing it like they’re really come so far from their first year 🥹😭💔

HEHEHE had to hit ‘em w a spin move 😈 i had so much fun making y/n as a character and expanding on her and the pomegranate ink version of jjk…she’s not complex in the sense that she’s a pretty normal person but there was a lot of thought put into her and with how long the story ended up being there was a lot of time to really get to know her and everything abt her!! she struggles a lot but in the end she somehow makes it through and even though it’s not a perfect victory because so many are dead…SHE made it which in the beginning of the series didn’t even seem likely

THANK YOU SOOO MUCH I’M SO GLAD YOU LIKED IT!! hehehe best friend’s brother (otoya’s version) should be out soon so you’ll have something silly w that

[newmusickarl]

2021 has been relentless with great new music so far this year, with each Friday drop bringing with it at least two or three incredible new releases worth checking out. However, that still didn’t quite prepare me for this last week which has probably been the best New Music Friday of the year so far. An avalanche of new releases, including (at least as I haven’t got round to everything yet!) five incredible albums, each offering different sounds to fit different moods. Because of this and because I can’t choose a favourite from these records yet, there is no Album of the Week – instead here are the five albums and two tracks from the last seven days that you should make the time to listen to and discover:

Album & EP Recommendations

Carnage by Nick Cave & Warren Ellis

“This morning is amazing and so are you…” – Balcony Man

Surprise! Out of nowhere, the legendary Nick Cave and his partner in crime from the Bad Seeds Warren Ellis have today dropped their lockdown collaboration album - Carnage. And although I have only managed one listen through at the time of writing, just like his last two records, this one is really something special.

If there was any artist who you would pick to really capture the mood of lockdown and turn it into something magical, it would be Nick Cave. On his last record Ghosteen, one of my Albums of the Year for 2019, Cave & Ellis continued through their journey of despair which originally begun on 2016’s Skeleton Tree, ultimately finding a glimmer of hope at the end of it all. Carnage by comparison arrives almost as a halfway house thematically of these two previous efforts, carrying the hopelessness of Skeleton Tree rooted in real life events, along with the fantastical stories and tinge of optimism displayed on Ghosteen.

Because of this, Carnage is arguably more accessible than those two records, with Cave & Ellis seemingly dancing in the melancholy of the apocalypse across the album’s eight tracks. Sonically however it is vastly different, with the understated piano-driven melodies replaced with grand, operatic instrumentation built predominantly on strings, that move effortlessly from the menacing to the stirring at the drop of a hat.

Although I still need to stew on this record a bit more, the ominous prance of Old Time, the gorgeous guitar and choral chants of the title track and the beautifully restrained closer Balcony Man are standing out as the early highlights.

Cave himself summed up Carnage perfectly in his release statement, calling it “a brutal but very beautiful record nested in a communal catastrophe.” This is Cave and Ellis waltzing majestically in amongst the chaos, taking the listener into the eye of the storm and presenting them with something quite glorious at the centre of it all.

Terra Firma by Tash Sultana

Elsewhere, Australian multi-instrumentalist Tash Sultana released her much-anticipated sophomore album this week, Terra Firma. Contrary to Cave & Ellis’ record, Sultana delivers a peaceful escape from the global situation, delivering a record that is very personal and reflective.

Soulful and richly textured, there are plenty of career-best moments here including the acoustic-driven cooing of Crop Circles, the gorgeous Josh Cashman collaboration Dream My Life Away and the record’s transcendent finale, I Am Free. However, it is the album’s centrepiece Coma that delivers arguably Sultana’s best song to date, a beautifully constructed track about letting go, that culminates in a wonderfully bluesy guitar solo.

At 60 minutes long, Terra Firma feels like a meditative experience – an album to sit and bask in to get some much needed relaxation and introspection away from the lockdown grind. This is another special album, one I’ve returned to numerous times this week and can see me continuing to do so over the course of the year too.

As Love Continues by Mogwai

At this point, ten albums and 26 years into their career, people just about know what to expect from Scottish post-rockers Mogwai, and that is soaring, grandiose instrumentals. However somehow with each new release, the band still manage to amaze, taking their instrumentals into unchartered territory and leaving listeners in wonder with their colourful, breath-taking soundscapes.

For me, As Love Continues is one of their best releases for years (with some of their best song names too). From cathartic opener To the Bin My Friend, Tonight We Vacate The Earth, the acid-drenched industrial sounds of Here We, Here We, Here We Go Forever, and the dreamy, looping guitar riff and euphoric crescendo of Pat Stains, Mogwai’s touch for forging fascinating sonic textures hasn’t missed a beat. That said, it is the one track that contains clean vocals that stands out amongst the pack, and that is the emotional gut punch of Ritchie Sacramento which sees frontman Stuart Braithwaite paying a beautiful tribute to all his musician friends that have passed over the years.

This is definitely one of my favourite recent Mogwai records, and one of my favourite releases by anybody this year so far – an essential listen.

Trauma Factory by nothing,nowhere

When you’re ready for a change of pace after indulging in the albums above, then the fantastic fourth record from American prodigy Joe Mulherin under his nothing,nowhere guise is the place to go. Mulherin has always been known for his edgy blend of hip-hop, R&B, pop punk and emo, with this crossover of genres helping him to forge a sound that feels very much his own, with many trying to replicate since and ultimately failing.

Now on Trauma Factory, Mulherin sets himself for world domination with arguably his most commercial collection of tracks to date, certainly from a melody standpoint at least if not lyrically. From ambient groove lights (4444), the laidback, slackerpop of upside down, the anthemic chorus of pretend, the infectiously catchy KennyHoopla collaboration blood, and the straight-up pop punk of nightmare, Trauma Factory feels stadium-ready, almost playing out like a nothing,nowhere greatest hits collection.

However as big and chart friendly as this one feels at times, there are still plenty of riskier moments too, such as the bold, heavy riffs and aggressive vocals of death, a track which is nicely contrasted by the vulnerability of one like real, an album highlight which sees Joe confess his own pressures and anxieties in a haunting spoken word number.

All in all, this a wonderfully eclectic album that perfectly showcases Mulherin’s growing confidence as a songwriter and artist. This was by far my most highly anticipated album heading into this week, and although I am yet to decide if this is overall Mulherin’s finest release to date, there is no doubt that this a highly enjoyable 40 minute listen, packed in with plenty of career best tracks.

Non-Fiction by Spector

And finally this week on the album front, legendary indie rockers Spector have released a new 13 track collection called Non-Fiction, a culmination of all their independent EPs and singles released since their last full length album Moth Boys in 2015 (their last to be released on Fiction records, hence the title of this one, aha!). That album was actually my Album of the Year in 2015 and, despite not being an official studio album, Non-Fiction resonates with me the same way that album did six years ago.

One of the great differentiators Spector have always had over other British guitar bands for me is enigmatic frontman Fred Macpherson, with his witty humour and razor-sharp songwriting completely unmatched by any of his peers. On Non-Fiction, his unique brand of lyricism is out in full force with this collection featuring some of the very best songs Spector have ever written. From the brilliant “We broke down on the M1, they said to call the AA but I didn’t know which one” line in opener Untitled in D, through to the “More M&S than S&M, two can dine for news at ten, voucher for my requiem, now I’m one of them” verse in album highlight When Did We Get So Normal?, Macpherson doesn’t waste a single word.

Steered by Macpherson’s astute, observational lyricism, Spector serve up huge singalong indie anthems that have no reason to be this poetic and wonderfully crafted. Again, an album that features plenty of career highs including Fine Not Fine, Wild Guess, Tenner and Half Life to name but a few, Non-Fiction, despite being independently made, feels every bit as special as its predecessor Moth Boys did. Ultimately if you’re after rousing indie anthems this week, you’ll struggle to find anything better.

Tracks of the Week

The Last Man On Earth by Wolf Alice

Onto tracks then and Wolf Alice made their triumphant return this week, debuting the first taste of their forthcoming album Blue Weekend. An unexpected first single choice, The Last Man On Earth is a haunting piano ballad built around Ellie Rowsell’s powerfully haunting vocals, which eventually erupts into a glorious haze of soaring guitars. Welcome back!

Paranoid by Keir

And my final recommendation this week is the anthemic new single from singer-songwriter Keir. Ever since the release of his song Squeeze Me years ago, Keir has been an artist I always thought should be dominating radio stations across the country. Although he’s not achieved that feat just yet, Paranoid may be the track to change all that with its instantly catchy chorus, glorious choral backing and masterful production. One of the best pop songs of the year so far.

[hermitologist]

My 20 Favorite Records of 2019

Lists! Everyone loves them. Here’s another one.

These are the records I liked the most this year. That doesn’t mean they’re the *best*, that means I liked them. You might not. That’s fine! You might be livid that Porpoise Corpse’s neo-classical folk prog double LP isn’t on my list because it’s an easy top 5 record for you, but maybe electric mandolin solos, blast beats, and harpsichord runs aren’t my thing. That’s fine too! It’s infinitely cooler and far more productive to let people enjoy the art they enjoy rather than wasting precious minutes of your life trying to convince the entire internet to have the exact same taste in music.

That said ... 

This years list is chock full of the usual, if you’re familiar with my taste at all -- tons of super heavy bummer jams, a handful of Radiohead-adjacent mid-tempo rock of the indie or emo variety, some hearty post-rock, some tried-and-true vets doing the thing they do very well ... again, and a few outliers. The honorable mentions list gets considerably more eclectic if you’re looking for stuff that sounds less like a soundtrack to various stages of the apocalypse.

As always, I welcome your suggestions for records and podcasts I might’ve missed the boat on. There’s way too much good stuff out there to keep up with, so PLEASE help me out.

Also: When I am not being a lazy pile of crap, I try to haul my dadbod around town for a run a few days a week and will listen to/briefly review a record in the process. Almost every record on this list has been a part of one of those posts, so if you’re interested in such a thing, please check out my Instagram.

BONUS: I put together a playlist on Spotify of my favorite song from each of my top 20 records, and a separate one for the 51 other records I liked this year, so if you’re overwhelmed and don’t know where to start, just needle drop a little and see if anything grabs you. And if anyone’s feeling productive and has time to do an Apple Music playlist, I’ll link and credit you.

Top 20 Spotify Playlist

Top 20 Apple Music Playlist -- Thanks, Austin!

Other Faves Spotify Playlist

But before we get to the Top 20, a couple of records that deserve a nod ... 

Record I Listened To The Most In 2019 Whether I Wanted To Or Not

Angel Du$t - Pretty Buff

This is my four-year-old son’s favorite record, and while I’m trying to round out his musical palate by throwing on all sorts of different bands while we’re hanging out, he insists on either “no music” or “The Basketball Song” (which is “Big Ass Love”). I have no idea how or why his little amazingly weird brain equates the song with basketball (a sport he doesn’t really play or watch or think about ever, to my knowledge), but it does. He LOVES IT. I’ve got to admit, I didn't care for the song all that much when I first heard it, but it’s an earworm, and some 3000 plays later, I love it, and I love the record. Funny how that works out.

Record That Came out in 2009, But I Didn’t Discover Until 2019

Self-Evident - Endings

Endings was neck-and-neck with my favorite record of 2019 for spins this year. Coincidentally, the it was recommended by someone from the band who made my #1 record, and it has moments where it sounds a whole hell of a lot like my #1 record. Blows my mind that a band that was/is so incredibly in my wheelhouse sonically, that has released nine LPs over an 18 year career, and operates in circles incredibly close to a ton of bands I love and respect and nerd out about music with somehow managed to elude me for the better part of two decades. At any rate I’m incredibly stoked to have finally found them, absolutely love them, and honestly might’ve listened to this LP 20 times in a matter of a few days when I got my first taste. It’s that good. 

And now for the list ... 

20) Remote Viewing - It’s Better This Way

Super nasty, dark, sludgy, well-crafted noise rock out of London that fits somewhere in between KEN Mode and early-Kowloon Walled City sonically. You’d think it was pretty crazy to have a band be so locked in and fully formed as early as LP2, but then you find out they’re ex-members of Palehorse, Million Dead, and I Want You Dead and it all kinda makes sense. Unfortunately, the song on the playlist is from a previous LP (because the new one is inexplicably not on Spotify), but you can and should get the new record on Bandcamp.

19) From Indian Lakes - Dimly Lit

I’ve been a big fan of FIL for years, but have always been at a bit of a loss when it comes time to describe them. It’s hazy and dreamy, but not quite shoegazey ... it’s insanely infectious and pleasing to the ear, but not really poppy ... it’s forward-thinking and experimental, but not quite art-rock or groggy at all. It’s just excellent. Full stop. If you dig anything from Tycho, to Radiohead, to The Cure, to Slowdive you’ll enjoy this.

18) Stray From The Path - Internal Atomics

Furious, mathy, riff-heavy hardcore from Long Island that sounds like a reformed Rage Against The Machine had spent the past two decades doing steroids, mainlining Red Bull, and studying the finer points of Moshology. The breakdowns are massive, the drumming absolutely mental, and the vocals pissed as hell. At my advanced age, it’s rare that a record makes me want to pit and/or try to deadlift cars, but this one’s got that magic.

17) Glassing - Spotted Horse

Mostly spazzy, occasionally dreamy, black-metal sprinkled post-hardcore that fits in very well with bands like Portrayal Of Guilt and Respire in the rebirth of traditional screamo. It’s fits and starts of chaos and beauty, and it all sounds and feels like it could completely go off the rails at any time which is what made bands like Orchid and Majority Rule and Saetia so great back in the day. 

16) La Dispute - Panorama

It’s no secret that I’m a big La Dispute fan (Thrice has toured the US with them twice in the past decade), and I love all of their records, but I’m pretty sure I can say with full confidence that this is the best record they’ve ever made. Everything is firing at peak performance, and the way the record is arranged and sequenced makes it feel more like a film score than a collection of songs. It’s a complete work -- meant to be listened to as such, which is a daunting artistic task, but they pulled it off in grand fashion.

15) Russian Circles - Blood Year

This band has been in the upper echelon of post-rock bands for as long as I can remember, and Blood Year is another incredible addition to their already stellar discography. These guys are all absolute monsters at their given instruments, and one of the best live rock bands on the planet, so getting to hear them do their thing on a record that manages to actually capture that live energy and ambience really does the trick for me. 

14) Greet Death - New Hell

This one kinda came outta nowhere for me, as I (ashamedly) was not familiar with them prior to giving New Hell a spin. It blew me away. I’m a total sucker for bummer jams, and this record is full of top-quality sludgy, sad, shoegazey goodness. If you dig Cloakroom, O’ Brother, or Pianos Become The Teeth this is gonna be right up your alley.  

13) Sleep Token - Sundowning

Another record that came out of nowhere to knock me on my ass. I downloaded it before a transatlantic flight on a whim (after hearing about 30 seconds of the opening track), hoping that it would be a nice, mellow companion to ease my in-flight anxiety. And it was, but whoa was it so much more than that. It kinda sounds like a collab between Active Child and Deftones -- poppy, melancholic piano ballads, brought to crushing crescendos via super heavy drop-tuned sludge -- which sounds like a mess, but it works so well. It’s a killer record and probably would’ve landed higher on this year’s list if it hadn’t come out so late in the year.

12) Big Thief - UFOF

This one’s a bit of an outlier, and a damn good one at that. I came across UFOF via a friend’s recommendation before the hype train had left the station, and honestly didn’t know what to expect. Said recommendation simply said that it was good and infectious and probably a few other things that I can’t recall, but didn’t mention the folk thing (which is great because I probably would have passed). The friend was right. It’s good (maybe even great), incredibly infectious, and gave me a nice reprieve from the heavy stuff I tend to listen to on the regular.

11) Cave In - Final Transmission

I’m beyond thankful we got any new music from Cave In after Caleb passed. They owed us nothing, and had every right to walk away, but managed to rally to release a killer record that is heavy both sonically and conceptually, and still manages to give me chills despite being live demos recorded in a rehearsal room. There are few bands on the planet who’ve inspired me like Cave In have, and seeing them pull together to grieve and forge ahead to continue to build their legacy is even more inspiring. What a band.

10) Pedro The Lion - Phoenix

My favorite singer/songwriter of my generation decided to revive the project that made me a fan of his in the first place. That project put out a record for the first time in 15 years, and I had unreasonably high expectations for it. Phoenix delivered and then some. I remember sitting at my kitchen table, weeping into my cup of coffee the first time I heard Phoenix, the same way Control used to make it seem like the inside of the Thrice van was getting a little dusty during cross-country drives back in the early 00s. It blows my mind that David Bazan can be such a prolific artist, write such insanely powerful music, and seem incapable of writing a dud song. 

9) Coilguns - Watchwinders

This Swiss noise-rock band kicks unbelievable amounts of ass. Their Millenials LP made my favorites list last year, and when I heard they had a follow up coming out a little over a year later, my gut reaction was to worry they’d blow it with a new record that was either rushed and/or half-assed, or lose the plot and take a hard left turn and make something markedly un-Coilguns. They did neither. The made an absolute monster of an album, that was apparently written in the studio, and is full of live energy in rawness that is pretty tough to capture in a sterile atmosphere like a studio. Watchwinders dropped in late October, and if I’d had a bit more time with it, I could see it moving up to my Top 5. It’s that good. I find myself going back to it constantly.

8) Blessed - Salt

This record kinda defies description, but it reminds me of everything from Pile to Menomena to Interpol to La Dispute to Devo at times. As scatterbrained and incongruent as that might sound, I assure you it rules. It was in verrrry heavy rotation this year -- mostly for the utterly filthy drum groove on the final track. If you like your music catchy, but slathered in weird, this is definitely gonna do the thing for you. It’s an incredible record.

7) Herod - Sombre Dessein

I hadn’t heard of this band before they popped up on a Spotify playlist early this year, and when “Reckoning” hit, it absolutely flattened me. You know that nuclear apocalypse scene from Terminator 2? That’s what “Reckoning” did to me. It was undoubtedly my favorite ultra-heavy track of the year, and while it’s my favorite song on the record by a pretty large margin, the rest of Sombre Dessein kicks ass too. It’s 42 minutes of crushing heaviness that kinda sounds like a blend of Cult Of Luna, Meshuggah, and Gojira. Heavy. Pissed. Unrelenting. And Outstanding.

6) Pile - Green & Grey

Every time I try to describe Pile to someone I fail. On Wikipedia they’re described as “indie rock”, which ... sure, I suppose? There’s a little post-punk in there, a little post-rock, a little noise-rock, nods to classic rock (maybe?), a little of that southern magic that made Colour Revolt so great (but Pile’s from Boston so hmm ... ), some country even? Do you like weird guitars? Freakish musicians? Melancholic crooning? I dunno. It’s all over the place, but in the best ways possible. They’re a singular band, and so damn good. Green & Grey is stellar addition to a discography that is already full of incredible music ... even if the album cover gives makes me want to fold those blankets and put them away.

5) PUP - Morbid Stuff

Was this the year that PUP broke? Definitely seems like it, and rightfully so. Morbid Stuff is my favorite thing they’ve ever done, but I’ve absolutely loved everything they’ve ever put out, so that’s saying a lot. Per usual, it’s insanely infectious and anthemic without being traditionally poppy or relying on tropes to burrow into your skull and take up residence there. It’s uplifting musically, but kinda depressing lyrically, which does this weird push/pull thing in my brain that makes it impossible to stop listening to. The musicianship is fantastic, the guitar parts especially -- like the guitar line in “Scorpion Hill” wow. I really needed a record to fill the gaping void between the metal/sludge/noise and the ambient/downtempo electronica I listened to this year, and Morbid Stuff fit the bill perfectly.

4) Cult Of Luna - A Dawn To Fear

These guys belong on the Mount Rushmore of Post-Rock/Metal with Neurosis and Isis. Nobody has done it better than them over the past two decades, and A Dawn To Fear is arguably their best work to date. It, like any Cult Of Luna requires a great deal of patience, but man if they don’t make the wait worth it. They’re the masters of the slow build to an absolutely crushing climax, the dynamic shifts that leave you feeling like you got hit by a freight train, the nuanced instrumentation that tells a different story each time you listen to a certain section of a song. They’re absolute masters at their craft, and this record is them at their peak. 

3) Big|Brave - A Gaze Among Them

Another record that came out of nowhere to completely floor me. I hadn’t heard a single note from this band until a friend recommended I check out the opening track, “Muted Shifting Of Space”. I did ... and that plodding drum and bass pulse with dark, swirling, ethereal guitar swells/feedback and soaring vocals building into a huge release of sludgy, drop-tuned goodness checked off all the boxes for me. I was hooked. The atmosphere and dynamics Big|Brave have built their sound around give every song a cinematic feel -- if you close your eyes, can you see drone footage of landscapes too? . If you dig post-rock/metal that is experimental around the edges, moody, absurdly heavy, and has both feet firmly planted in sludge, this is a must-have record. 

2) Cloudkicker - Unending

If you’ve been following me on social media or reading these year-end lists for a while you’re probably pretty familiar with Cloudkicker by now because any time we get new music I can’t shut up about it and the record invariably ends up on this list. This instance is no different. Unending is the first LP we’ve gotten from Ben Sharp in four years, and it’s worth the wait and then some. He’s managed to pull from every era of CK and turn it into a masterpiece mash-up of styles without it ever feeling rehashed or uninspired. I’d go far as to say this tops Beacons and Fade for me, and comes awfully close to challenging Subsume for my favorite Cloudkicker record of all time and space. There’s soooo much progressive and djenty masturbatory metal garbage floating in the ether right now. Hearing the one of the kings do the damn thing properly is incredibly refreshing.

1) Town Portal - Of Violence

No surprise here. I’ve been crapping my pants about this band ever since my good friend Scott Evans shared their music with me a couple years ago. I’ve been unhealthily obsessed ever since. The magical progressive rock/metal these three guys are capable melts and massages my brain in a way few bands ever have. Of Violence is incredibly mathy without ever feeling awkward, it’s melodic without being conventional, it’s discordant without being abrasive, it’s heavy as shit without being overloaded with distortion, it’s progressive as hell without ever coming remotely close to devolving into a wankfest, and it’s damn near perfect in every way. Songwriting? Great. Tones? Phenomenal. Musicianship? Otherworldly. Execution? Flawless. Mix? Perfect. Replayability? (Not a word, but ... ) PUT THIS RECORD ON A GODDAMN LOOP AND NEVER TURN IT OFF. Can you tell I like it? You might too, so give it a listen. And if by chance you do not like it, please see a doctor. You’re broken.

OTHER STUFF I REALLY ENJOYED THIS YEAR

HEAVY JAMS

METZ - Automat

Buildings - Negative Sound

Helms Alee - Noctiluca

Minors - Abject Bodies

Periphery - Periphery 4: HAIL STAN

Employed To Serve - Eternal Forward Motion

Elizabeth Colour Wheel - Nocero

Defeater - S/T

Pelican - Nighttime Stories

Spotlights - Love And Decay

Great Falls - A Sense of Rest

Baroness - Gold & Grey

The End of the Ocean - -aire

Vous Autres - Champ du Sang

Brutus - Nest

Torche - Admission

Glose - The Second Best of Glose

Throes - In The Hands of an Angry God

Slipknot - We Are Not Your Kind

meth. - Mother of Red Light

SECT - Blood of the Beasts

Kublai Khan TX - Absolute

Seizures - Reverie of the Revolving Diamond

Dead Kiwis - Systematic Home Run

Norma Jean - All Hail

Refused - War Music

Chamber - Ripping / Pulling / Tearing

MIDRANGE JAMS

Jimmy Eat World - Surviving

Elbow - Giants of All Sizes

Raketkanon - RKTKN #3

Bad Religion - Age of Unreason

The Appleseed Cast - The Fleeting Light of Impermanence

DIIV - Deceiver

Idiot Pilot - Blue Blood

Microwave - Death Is A Warm Blanket

Low Dose - S/T

SWMRS - Berkeley’s On Fire

Self-Evident - Lost Inside The Machinery

B. Hamilton - Nothing and Nowhere

MELLOW JAMS

Trade Wind - Certain Freedoms

Square Peg Round Hole - Branches

Great Grandpa - Four of Arrows

Local Natives - Violet Street

Rhone - Leaving State

Shlohmo - The End 

Tycho - Weather

Bon Iver - i,i

Drowse - Light Mirror

Bonniesongs - Energetic Mind

Telefon Tel Aviv - Dreams Are Not Enough

GoGo Penguin - Ocean In A Drop

Bent Knee - You Know What They Mean

THE PODCAST QUEUE

The Deadcast (RIP) - sports, culture

Chapo Trap House - politics

The Rich Roll Podcast - health, wellness, endurance sports

Hang Up & Listen - sports

Effectively Wild - baseball

The Gist - current events

The Downbeat - drums, humor

To Live & Die In LA - true crime

FilmDrunk Frotcast - movies, culture, humor

The Modern Drummer Podcast with Mike & Mike - drums (duh)

The Trap Set - also drums

Song Exploder - songwriting

[vinylandcoffeecollection]

Notes On a Conditional Form- The 1975

(This is my review of Notes, which, obviously, I adore)

People tend to have a fixed idea of what the 1975 are, love or hate them. To some, they’re a plastic pop band who write (great) 80s-influenced songs like “The Sound”. To others, they’re the millennial Radiohead or U2 (pick your comparison depending on how much warmth you feel towards Matty Healy), obsessed with chronicling and holding forth on the State of the Nation, embodied by perhaps their best and most critically lauded song “Love It If We Made It”. The mixed reviews of their fourth album probably stem from the disappointment of both camps above: for the first group, superstar single “If You’re Too Shy (let me know)” is evidence that the band could continue to be great if only they mined this genre more. The second camp desperately searched for proof that Notes... has Something to Say, didn’t really find it, then concluded that it’s a weak or inferior album. In reality, though, 1975 are neither of the ostensibly polar identities above. As they are fond of saying, they create as they consume, and they consume a vast landscape of music constantly: it’s their life’s passion and one that has been apparent since their earliest EPs. Even though their last two albums appear on the surface to be perfect examples of the plastic pop (ILIWYS) and political polemic (ABIIOR), in reality each blends both and throws in some ambient instrumentals and other left field moments for good measure. No one who has heard Matty Healy and George Daniel talk about their creative influences and processes could ever confuse them with any other conveyor belt pop band or be in any doubt about their commitment to their art.

Following up 2018’s critically lauded A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships was always going to be a tall order but the 1975 can always be relied on to do the unexpected. This is a band who by the point of becoming massive had given up on ever actually becoming massive, so made a first album full of songs that they loved, that they now admit they might never have made if they had had any idea that global stardom was beckoning, because it’s just a bit weird. They apply the same kind of logic to Notes...: on the back of huge critical acclaim from A Brief Inquiry...they went inwards and simply made the kinds of music they loved consuming and playing, heedless of expectations. Notes.... has long been spoken of by the band as a metaphorical notebook, a looking back to their roots, collected and recorded around the world on their global tour last year. Originally due in May, then August 2019, then February, then April 2020, it’s been a beneficiary rather than a victim of unimaginable global circumstances, more relevant and strangely prescient than ever now. It turns out it does have something to say, but in lowercase rather than capital letters, and it’s a better album for it. Any capital-lettered statement, after all, could only have appeared completely outdated and irrelevant in the midst of a global pandemic.

Conditional verbs are “if” verbs, used to imagine events in certain conditions, and this is what Notes... is: a collection of songs posing questions and examining sets of circumstances and relationships that make us who we are, for better or worse. It’s an ending to these four albums of sorts (“I just wanted a happy ending,” Matty pleads in “If You’re Too Shy,”) but also an exploration of the impossibility of tidy, definitive endings. The final track of A Brief Inquiry... , the vital and unexpectedly uplifting “I Always Wanna Die (Sometimes)”, began with the line “I bet you thought your life would change but you’re sat on a train again.” That’s where we are on Notes and why its third track, not the final track, is called “The End”, to underline the point. This instrumental re-works the instrumental track “HNSCC” from the band’s 2013 EP Music for Cars, making it more orchestral. It’s a lovely way to develop this theme: that everything that happens to us is conditional to other events in the past, present or future. It also explores the idea that concepts of linear growth as people are artificial. Notes... embraces the lack of any kind of coherent narrative in life that we can tie our experiences together neatly with, the struggle to know and accept yourself, to be that person that you present to the outside world.

Anais Nin wrote: we do not see things as they are; we see them as we are. A Brief Inquiry.... is a great album but it also captured a moment in time both culturally and for the band, particularly Matty Healy personally. Having derided him for years, there seemed to be a huge will amongst the press to make this album succeed because of everything he had been through with addiction and rehab between 2013-2017. That was the narrative- he’d fucked up, now he was clean, gleaming and healthy in tasteful fitted jumpers and suits, with the haircut of a Mature Man, and they’d made a Political and Important album. The band were apparently finally deserving of the acclaim afforded to serious artists. But there were notes of caution: an interview Matty did where he spoke of being wary of being a poster boy for sobriety because he hadn’t been sober for long enough. I remember worrying about him when listening to all of this- what if he couldn’t hold it together? What then for him and the position in culture that he and the band were now occupying? It was almost a relief when he confessed in a 2019 interview to briefly relapsing: it was honest and it was real.

Notes sees Matty embracing the honest and the real like never before, and it’s apt that the album moves through the idea of Endings to “Frail State... “ “Streaming” and “The Birthday Party”, a hauntingly beautiful song about sobriety, questions of shifting identity, growth and relationships (“We can still be mates because it’s only a picture,” is the narrator’s rejoinder to a friend taking the piss out of him for buying an expensive artwork that the friend can’t relate to). It’s a song that narrates a tale, in the tradition of A Change of Heart, Milk or Paris, that is both humorous and devastating, particularly in its last line: “I depend on my friends to stay clean. As sad as it seems.” Maybe you do need to be knowledgeable about the band’s personal circumstances to understand that “The Birthday Party” isn’t just a dull and over-long tale about being bored at a party, as Rolling Stone appears to have taken it, but to paraphrase “Frail State of Mind”, it seems unlikely. In any case, Notes.... is a deeply honest album, one that paints Matty Healy in as unvarnished a form as he has ever appeared, talking candidly and literally about piss, shit and erections. As he has said, it’s an album without ego.

Appropriately for an album looking back, making notes on all those “if...then”s, Notes... is more eclectic than ever before, a distillation, as the band say, of their previous sounds as well as the music that has inspired their own creativity over the past nearly two decades. The reaction of the album’s detractors to this has been to see it as a jumbled mess of Too Much-ness, which is to completely miss the point. Notes... is deliberately and thoughtfully structured, each track including threads and connections to other songs and iconography of the band’s world, an intertextuality that is sometimes darkly humorous, sometimes poignant and very much underlining that theme of honesty. “I never fucked in a car, I was lying,” opens “Nothing Revealed/Everything Denied”, Healy lacerating his ego by referencing Love It If We Made It’s memorable opening line as well as their early song “Sex”, and later “you can’t figure out a heart. You were lying,” undercutting the swagger of 2013’s 80s-maximalist “Heart Out”. More poignantly on “Roadkill”, again recalling the lie of linear growth and maturity, he sings “if you never eat you’ll never grow. Should have learned that quite a while ago,” looking back to one of the band’s most loved and most “apocalyptic adolescent” songs, as they term it, from their debut album, “Robbers”. The intertextuality is there in the music too, from the re-working of instrumental track “HNSCC” in “The End” (a connection missed, unforgivably, by seemingly every critic) to the inclusion of original demo of standout track from A Brief Inquiry... “It’s Not Living (If it’s not with you)” at the start of the surreally titled “Shiny Collarbone”. This is the largely instrumental EDM track sampling Cutty Ranks that for a number of critics seems to represent the fact that the band have lost their way and just started putting out random filler. They haven’t on either count, and the sample is a lovely reminder that even when farming seemingly the furthest reaches of the 1975’s discovered land, the music is always quintessentially theirs.

Perhaps the farming metaphor isn’t the most appropriate though. The band have spoken before about the choice that they have as artists to be “cowboys or farmers”, to keep re-working old ground or move forward and discover new places. To the charge that the songs here are just not as good as their earlier albums, well that depends on your perspective. Even the poor reviews aren’t quibbling with the strength of “If You’re Too Shy...” but truly that’s not the best songwriting on display here. The 1975 can write songs like “Too Shy” while knocking about having a laugh, stoned out of their heads. As they say themselves, it’s not a stretch. They’d rather push themselves, which they do. Regardless of genre, though, any band will stand or fall on whether they can write a catchy tune or not. The 1975 have always been able to write a catchy tune and it says something that over 22 tracks, each one has that catchiness and each one is distinctly itself. “Tonight (I Wish I Was Your Boy)” begins with a pitched up sample of “Just my Imagination” by the Temptations, it’s a love song in the 1975 tradition: bouncy and irresistible major key melody juxtaposed with an emotional sucker punch: “She said they should take this pain and give it a name.” They cleverly subvert the genre, pairing the beauty of the melody with the brutally honest: “Tonight, I think I fucked it royally.” It’s one of the best songs on display here and another perfect example of how the 1975 can take that most over-done of genres, and make it completely their own.

Because of the evolution of the album, seven songs, not including “The 1975” with Greta Thunberg, were already well known before its release. “People”, the first of these after Greta, is fantastic pop punk, a track that has lost none of its impact in the 9 months since its original release. “Nothing Revealed/Everything Denied”, the self-referential track referred to above, is a catchy treatise on the search for meaning in our lives, fusing a soaring choir-sung chorus with Matty’s witty rapping. A trio of tracks explore what some critics have labelled “emo garage”: a thread that begins with the pulsing and affecting “Frail State of Mind” (“Go outside? Seems unlikely,” and is followed through with the standout “I Think There’s Something You Should Know”, surely a future single that would be perfectly at home on Radio 1, and “What Should I Say?” In the instrumental vein, the George Daniel-created masterpiece “Having No Head” transports the listener to another sonic world. There are several throw-backs to the band’s previous emo-indie incarnation Drive Like I Do with “Then Because She Goes” and “Me and You Together Song”. And then there’s a couple of gorgeous ballads: the profound “Jesus Christ 2005...” and the love letter to the band “Guys”. In a way this closing track is almost a microcosm of the band: love them and this is a beautifully turned love letter to friendship and loyalty in the face of life’s challenges. Hate them and it’s a cringeworthy, naive irritation.

Of course, there is no happy ending or neat bow tied round Notes.... at the conclusion of its 22 tracks. We leave Matty still struggling with himself, life and his conflicted desires but with two tracks- the gentle “Don’t Worry”, a Tim Healy- penned song that is performed as a father/son duet, and “Guys”- we are reminded that it’s our relationships that will help us through, the connections we build. We are all conditional forms in this sense.

The vinyl of Notes... is poignantly inscribed with the words 'If this is to be read in the future, please know that this was us trying'. It would be very easy at this stage in their career for the 1975 to put out albums filled with variations on “Chocolate” or “The Sound”, and it might make some fans and critics happy, but they don’t want to. They are triers. Perhaps it’s this very workaholism, their obsession with pushing boundaries and experimentation, speaking up and refusing to stay in their lane that so riles up those ready to sharpen their critical knives. They are those too clever and too keen kids at the front of the class, annoying the fuck out of those who can’t be bothered or just can’t compete. Having spent last year taking political stands on issues ranging from misogyny in music to abortion laws in the US to the treatment of the LGBTQ& community in the UAE and doing their bit for the environment by commanding fans to be quiet and listen to a Greta Thunberg monologue for five minutes at their live shows, selling recycled merchandise and planting trees for every ticket sold, they are still unable to rest in the midst of a global pandemic, engaging with fans through Twitter listening parties and an interactive website called Mindshower where fans can create their own music and artwork and reflecting on what live music might look like in the future when we can finally get out there again. It all sounds a bit like Radiohead in the 2000s, except Radiohead never made an album as sonically beautiful or coherent as Notes... either immediately post-OK Computer or in the 19 years since. The 1975 are many things but they’ll never allow themselves to become stale or apathetic or lazy and for that at least they should be recognised: they simply care too much. And as for that vinyl inscription, in the future they won’t just be remembered for trying but for achieving what most bands never do even in a lifetime of striving.

[midnightiscoming-kasabian]

Nine Songs: Serge Pizzorno [1/2]

Kasabian’s Sergio Pizzorno talks Maddy Smith through the songs that have soundtracked his hit-filled career, and why he’s taking on an escapist solo project with The S.L.P.

“I always think that there’s a Japanese take on western culture. One where you can get a different eye looking at society. It’s a cartoonish way of looking at the world.”

A shaven leopard print fade, suede tiger print shirt and cheetah print jacket is not the typical get-up of someone who takes themselves too seriously. Kasabian’s creative force Sergio Pizzorno is just that - a character with a unique view of the world. As we sit down to chat in a London café, Pizzorno’s laid-back demeanour is somewhat at odds with his aggressively loud attire. Discussing his approach to song writing he reflects on a career that spans two decades riddled with no. 1 albums, and he stresses the importance of comedy and light-heartedness in a world that can often take itself too seriously.

“It’s all very visual and imagery is really important, I like to set little scenes in my lyrics, and humour as well. I think there has to be a little twist, or a little darkness, like in ‘Vlad the Impaler’. Calling a track that is ridiculous, so there’s a cartoonish nature to it as well. But ‘Underdog’ actually is about the love of the underdog and ‘Fire’ is about when you keep rolling sixes, when you just can’t miss. ‘Thick as Thieves’ and tracks like that are little stories. I think films and cinema are important, I feel like a lot of my ideas come from that world.”

With five no. 1 albums, a Glastonbury headline set and a wealth of worldwide tours behind him, Kasabian’s guitarist and songwriter meets me in the run up to a new challenge with the release of upcoming solo album, The S.L.P. Featuring Little Simz and Slowthai, he explains the reasons behind his solo venture. “I wanted to make an album where I can collaborate and it’s easier to do that when it’s with a different project. It was almost to create a world that you can visit every now and again. It gives you total freedom; you can be in the studio with anyone, see what happens and that’s really exciting.”

From his tongue-in-cheek dirgy, paleontological lyrics, zesty fashion sense, to the left-field tracks in his nine songs, it’s clear to see an eclectic pattern emerge; a comical twist on the everyday but also on life’s darker tangents. Catching a glimpse of the luminous socks peeking out of his shoes (which are emblazoned with a product available in Amsterdam coffee shops - you know the ones) I inwardly chuckle as I’m reminded that all too often we get caught up in cynicism, and think back to those infamous words from ‘Vlad the Impaler’ where Noel Fielding rigidly terrorises unassuming locals in ‘80’s horror movie fashion through barren fields. “Get loose, Get loose.”

“Dragonaut” by Sleep

“There’s a wicked film called Gummo, have you seen it? This song is on the soundtrack and it’s got that Sabbath thing going on, which we were looking for around our second album. The first album sort of blew up and we were quickly becoming quite big. We went in to record the second album with that in mind, we wanted to have heavy guitars for the live sound, that tone and that evilness, that heavy sort of drone in ‘Dragonaut’ - we just wanted to create some of that.

“It was a big contrast to what the first album was. It was becoming this band on this escapade, so we fell into that and life just got insane. We wanted to make a really heavy record to reflect that, the guitar was at the forefront because we played live every night, so we wanted to take that attitude and capture it in the studio.

“This track has that dirgy sound that I love, for me that will go to a lot of different areas but at the core, groove, flavour and flow is so, so important. We used to call it “The push” because if it pushes, it’s laid back behind the beat.

“It’s funny, because if you know that a musician has got it or a band has got it, it’s like you’re in that clique - ‘I know why you like that, because it’s got that flavour.’ You can listen to a hip-hop tune or a heavy metal tune and somehow get it. I think that was the appeal with making Empire, it was to retain that, ‘Okay, it’s going to be heavy and it’s going to be distorted, but we still need to retain that flavour and that push.’”

“Revenge of the Black Regent” by Add N to (X)

“I love their album Avant Hard, it’s way, way ahead of the game. It must have been the late ‘90s when I discovered it, around ‘98 or ‘99. I used to work in a clothes shop when I was about 18 or 19 and in the square where the shop was there was a record store. We got on with the guy there and he told me I’d love this record. So on the Monday, when the new records would come out, I put that on instantly and thought ‘What is going on here?’

“They were really ahead of the curve with ‘Revenge of the Black Regent’. Add N to (X) were using all these synths that I’d never heard of, that’s when I started to really research and get into the synth world and I became a complete synth nerd.

“What’s interesting is what people can hear compared to what you’re actually listening to. Say with our first album, when people said it sounded like Primal Scream or Happy Mondays and all this, we were actually listening to Add N to (X), that’s where we were getting that sound you can hear on the first record. It’s almost like they didn’t dig deep enough to realise what we were into, and where we were getting our inspiration from.

“‘Revenge of the Black Regent’ is really minimal, there’s hardly any layers and the girl’s voice is amazing; ethereal and floaty, it’s so good. The synths are amazing and the flavour’s there again that I love. There’s a horror to it as well, a darkness to it. It celebrates that feeling of discomfort or like you’re feeling a little on edge. It looks like there’s a thread to these tunes!”

“A To G” by Blackalicious

“That’s going back! For me, the lyrics from Gift of Gab - who’s part of Blackalicious - have such an amazing wittiness and humour about them. Blackalicious are so good at that, combining cleverness and wittiness with that melody and production on the track.

“My friend used to DJ in Leicester as a hip-hop DJ and he used to get me all of these albums. He played that out to me one time, it was that wordplay and the artistry in connecting words and meaning that grabbed me, and the flow on ‘A to G’ blew my mind.

“There’s humour in the song and I feel that’s also important. At the forefront I think humour plays a big part of my taste; there’s humour in all these tracks - even in ‘Revenge of the Black Regent’ and ‘Dragonaut’. I find something quite absurd about them, but I think if you’re writing something that’s a bit weird and wacky it’s really important for people to be in on the joke.

“We actually managed to work with Blackalicious and get a remix done of ‘Take Aim’ by them. We’re going to get that on YouTube at some point, which is amazing. That was great.”

“Plateau” by Meat Puppets

“I came late to the game with grunge. At the time I was a bit young, the rave scene had a massive effect on me and grunge was so far from what I was into. I think back in the day you didn’t tend to like everything, you’d say you were more into grunge, or into hip-hop, or a certain scene; it was very tribal.

"So I couldn’t really connect the dots to Nirvana and grunge, and at the time I missed the wave of grunge. But then when I got into guitar music later on - maybe in the late 90s - I found Nirvana. I heard Kurt talk about Meat Puppets, I think they covered them on MTV’s Unplugged? “Again, it’s the vocal on this track - “And an illustrated book about birds” - you can’t not smirk at that, it’s so far off. It’s the brittleness of the sound, it feels like at any point it’s going to fall to pieces - and I just love that, I like broken stuff. In the studio I play with guitars that are really old and have got one string on them, so I feel like I really connect with this ramshackle, rustic sound and I just want to be in that band. I want to be in the Meat Puppets - I feel like they operate in a whole other world.”

“Six Days” by DJ Shadow

“I’ve spoken about ‘Organ Donor’ quite a lot, but with this track I think the words are really powerful, especially with everything that’s going on at the moment. He talks about “Tomorrow never knows until it’s too late.” It’s a very powerful message and it’s where the world is right now.

“DJ Shadow has always been a massive inspiration and I cite him as the reason that I make music now, because of how big an impact that first album Endtroducing..... had on me and how it made me look at music. He combines a sort of psych/folk with a beat with more of an electronic focus.

“As long as there’s people willing to experiment with synths and electronic influence in rock music - and I like to think there is - I think it will stay popular. Those waveforms must do something to some people’s ears. It’s funny when you hear people getting synths really wrong though, because it’s very obvious. I think you should have to have a licence. There’s certain synths that I hear on records that are so bad, it’s ‘Put that away! Please stay away from pre-sets and do some research if you want to get involved in experimenting with synths. Don’t just pull out a keyboard and start to make music.’ You’ve really got to do your research.”

The Line of Best Fit | Words: Maddy Smith | 23 August 2019

[fuckyeahfightlock]

Grape and banana. Really interested in the answer to banana.

grape: if you could take a vacation anywhere in the world, where would you go?

I would love a 2 - 3 week trip (once in a lifetime; do everything!) in the UK. See all the usual stuff, touristy fun; plus a Morrissey/Smiths tour of Manchester; Doctor Who/Torchwood visit to Cardiff; Sherlock-y London, so on and so on. I have friends to visit in Sussex, London, Manchester, and Glasgow.

banana: favorite horror movies?

Like my taste in music, my taste in horror movies is crazy eclectic. None of these relate to the others, and the reasons I like them range from the theoretical/technical (I studied film in college and look at films with that gestalt eye for writing, direction, art direction, photography, etc, as well as the social/filmic context) to the “fuck yeah scary movie!” So. YMMV.

I am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House (directed by a gay man, Director of Photography is a woman; this slow-burn ghost story has a strong female gaze/POV. Probably the most feminine horror flick I’ve seen)

The Strangers (home invasion is my own personal horror and this captures the paranoia and terror of that scenario perfectly; haven’t seen the recent remake/reboot)

Evil Dead 2 (classic 1980s horror comedy and the perfection of Sam Raimi as a director, IMO)

Last House on the Left (original 1970s version; would never watch again, but it was a significant film in horror history, and came at a time of huge societal upheaval; interesting to read about even if you don’t chooose to watch it)

Spider-Baby (so fucking weird; used to be impossible to find and that was part of its appeal)

A Nightmare on Elm Street (fuck yeah scary movie! plus it was of my era. The best of the series is actually Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, so postmodern I get VERY worked up about it. Nowadays we call that type of work “meta” and we’ve developed a vocabulary and tool set to easily interpret and accept it, but at the time New Nightmare was made, it epitomised 1990s PoMo)

The Blair Witch Project (every horror movie that isn’t torture porn is The BWP nowadays but at the time of its release, in the early days of the internet, it was actually possible to do viral marketing the way this movie did, with an online whisper campaign and website that made it seem the film could actually BE found footage. It was an incredible breakthrough, the first of its type. Plus it is genuinely terrifying.)

A Quiet Place (after almost a whole generation of Hostel/Snowtown-style torture porn–which I fucking despise, not only because it’s horrifying without being frightening, but because it’s a gratuitous amplification of the 1980s slasher genre, insidious in its desensitization to violence due to its ethic of hyper-realism–A Quiet Place and other recent horror films such as The Babadook, Cargo, I am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House, and Hereditary hopefully signals a return to less porn-gory and more intellectual scares in horror films, a move I have long awaited. Points to AQP for having a head-to-toe, well-lit, lingering shot of its monster. I’m so tired of blurry, side-eye monsters. SHOW ME THE MONSTER!)

Honorary mentions: The Sixth Sense, I Spit on Your Grave, the 2010s remake of Evil Dead, The Others, Suspiria (1970s original), Scream, Saw, Let the Right One In, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, The Ruins, Hellraiser (!!! my favourite series)

[hcmj]

HCMJ’s Favorite Albums of 2018!

Listen to a mix featuring these albums here: HCMJ’s 2018 End Of Year Mix

Honorable Mentions: 

LLLL - Chains Phase 4: Resemblance

Various - 慕情 in da tracks

Endurance - Shade Terrarium

Farragol x dropp - 楽感 / optimo

pool$ide - aquarius

FUJII - EUPHORIA

Andrew W.K. - You’re Not Alone

Stardazer - Vacation Dreams

Alex Crispin - Open Submission

Foodman - Aru Otoko No Densetsu

20) TUPPERWΛVE - To you baby, with love

As the years go by, sometimes I still crave that classic-style (or as Tech Honors once described SEAWRLDハートブレーク, “trash-ass”) vaporwave sound. It’s the usual fare of slowed down antiquated R&B with filter sweeps and side-chained kicks, but TUPPERWΛVE’s sample choices and looped snippets stay inspired throughout, building emotionally impactful arrangements and proving the artist has what 90% of contemporary vaporwave is missing: a sense of taste and purpose. NUWRLD vibes.

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19) The Caretaker - Everywhere At The End Of Time - Stage 4 & 5

Leyland Kirby released stages 4 and 5 of his six part, multi-year epic simulating a mind falling into dementia. It’s said the last memories someone suffering from dementia retains are the melodies heard in their youth, and on this year’s installments we find melodies from the first stages lost in a haze of static and noise. While not as easy to listen to as the first three stages, these 8 tracks lose the poetic titles of the previous installments and present an absolutely horrifying interpretation of the confusion that comes with a mind breaking down.

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18) Kate NV - для FOR

I won’t lie, I went into the new Kate NV hoping for at least a few heart-melting rib-cage exploding pop masterpieces like what she showed us on Binasu (my favorite album of 2016). However, the absence of conventional songwriting on для FOR ends up being its defining characteristic. The album delivers a set of impressionistic synth sculptures that slowly develop an album that blossoms into blissful organic structures with brushstrokes of vocals before skipping off into a brightly lit horizon.

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17) 忘れた頃に手紙をよこさないで - Tamao Ninomiya

There is an air of surreality drifting through the new crop of Tokyo underground post-pop. Tamao Ninomiya’s “lo-fi bedroom pop” is always performed in PJs and has a playful gloominess with a thousand-yard-stare kind of shyness that exudes a special kind of emotional resonance. Everything is gentle, subtly “off” - it’s an inventive and delicate pop sketchbook. 

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16) Kero Kero Bonito - Time 'n' Place

The same way Pokémon Yellow was a video game based on an anime that was based on a video game, Kero Kero Bonito is a British group that has arrived at a sound closer to early 2000′s jrock than the British rock that crop of Japanese musicians were imitating. While the final 1/3rd of the album drags, there’s no denying the pop perfection of “Time Today,” the Blue-Album-Weezer thunder of “Only Acting,” the Parklife-era Blur artschool bounce of “If I’d Known,” the whimsical bubblegum of “Make Believe,” or the saccharin yet heartfelt “Dear Future Self,” a pop meditation complete with "Mr. Blue Sky” charm and melodramatic chamber orchestra arrangements.

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15) we could die here - we could die here

While “brooding ambient” is a genre I have drifted away from these past years, ‘we could die here’ reminded me of why I was once drawn to it. It’s all about creating atmospheres, and while so much of genre these days seems to be producing the same, boring, smoke-filled neon/black room, ‘we could die here’s lush sound succeeds in building a sprawling, haunting world with enough depth that it’s worth returning to.

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14) poemme - Moments in Golden Light

Similar in scope to ‘we could die here,’ Moments in Golden Light is as advertised - warm and soft. Blissful pillows of ambience constructed in the old style, poemme pulses and drones with the silkiness of Hakobune and the breadth of Steve Roach, featuring a track that even unabashedly layers in bird samples.

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13) Machine Girl - The Ugly Art

The Ugly Art is special, as it’s the first Machine Girl album that begins to capture the raw energy and power of their live shows by showcasing live drums. The insane breaks are intact and the blistering Dreamcast punk is more hardcore. It’s dense, unrelenting in its shredding, and culminates in the epic “A Decent Man,” a 10 minute violent rave masterpiece with more content than all 3 Matrix movies combined.

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12) Oneohtrix Point Never - Age Of

Age Of is a complex concept album more convoluted than a Roger Waters solo project. The music itself makes the trip one worth taking, through 13 immaculately produced tracks painting a post-apocalyptic machine world. It has an ability to turn pop tricks on tracks like “Black Snow” and “Same,” while the sound remains distant from any of comfortable paradigm. Bits of static, broken samples, and walls of noise develop into larger-than-life ballads that seem eerily familiar despite being so alien. The arrangements are complex and the production is deep, it’s a cyber-western soundtrack that always commands full attention. 

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11) Seth Graham - Gasp

Gasp has a charm and complexity that sets it apart from a lot of experimental composition. The tape cut samples of “Whisper - Slap” sound impossibly worked on, while the ASMR freakouts of “Binary Tapioca” and the restrained playfulness of “Flower Cheese” make the process sound like an artist working effortlessly. Deeply emotive and loudly expressive, Gasp has a sound that digs in its hooks and burrows deep.

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10) Equip - Synthetic Core 88

The long awaited followup to the seminal faux-ost I Dreamed Of A Palace In The Sky, Synthetic Core 88 delivers on the promise of Equip’s earlier work and brings it to a new realm of legitimacy. This is a 32-bit RPG I wish I could play - with all the themes of interwoven technology and magic revealing themselves in the clever score. The conflict between the cold steel and floral lushness emerges in the sound somewhere between Uematsu and a “Tales of” game. This album could only be made by someone who truly understands how music supports the worldbuilding an RPG needs to be a successful narrative platform.

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9) Utsuro Spark - Static Electricity

Utsuro Spark is a miracle. One of the highlights from the impressive output of the Japanese label, Local Visions, this mini-album is a collection of beautifully crafted metropolitan electro pop. Sharp instrumentals including studio-perfect guitar and on-point synth work lay a foundation for blissfully creamy vocals - pop music that is full of desperate longing and unpretentious charm. The katakana titles recall the old Japanese pop it draws inspiration from, but in many ways the soul of this music at the very least meets the bar set by the old masters. 

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8) Tsudio Studio - Port Island

I was lucky to play a show in Kobe with Tsudio Studio, whose brilliant songwriting and iconic vocal delivery completely won over my heart and soul. The jazzy coolness and gorgeous chord structure for tracks like “Azur” and “Snowfall Seaside” are absolutely intoxicating, while the hooky R&B in “Mikage” and the Phantasy Star Online space-shredding of the opener “Tor” make Port Island a mini-album where every single track is a stand out.

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7) Dinosaur On Fire - Populous Romantique

After a 6 year gap, dds cohort Tech Honors unleashed the second Dinosaur On Fire album in a maelstrom of prog rock and laser beams. It’s an ultra hi-fi production that bounces from stoner prog to krautrock to synthwave to operatic video game symphonies to Ray Lynch arp fountains and back again effortlessly. Populous Romantique showcases the expansive reach of Tech’s abilities both as a visionary artist and producer.

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6) Monari Wakita - Ahead!

While so much jpop has become aggressively intense and fast-tempo, Ahead! provides a soulful contrast. Monari Wakita is an ex-idol and alumni of Especia, a group known for capitalizing on 80′s/90′s nostalgia. Ahead! mostly pulls from the 90′s, with new jack swing aping and hyper-produced city pop so technically perfect that the instrumentals would sound at home on the soundtrack of a 90′s Sonic Team video game. It’s that FM bass, synthetic swing, and plastic instrumentation against Monari’s powerful and soulful voice that gives Ahead! its irresistible charm and made it one of the most addictive albums of the year.

VIDEO 1 / VIDEO 2

5) Ventla - Plugged-Matic/Sublingual Odyssey

After years of silence, Ventla returned in 2018 with 10 (!) new albums on his quest to release 100. Ventla’s music continues to be eclectic vignettes of scratchy pop music, utilizing a seemingly endless variety of instruments and synths. Of the 10, the “classic Ventla” sound of Plugged-Matic and the playful exoticism explored on Sublingual Odyssey were my favorites - but with an artist whose entire catalog of 477 songs is easily played on loop for days on end, picking only 2 albums is almost an act of futility.

STREAM/DOWNLOAD: Plugged-Matic/Sublingual Odyssey

4) emamouse - Pigeon’s Point

emamouse’s genius visual art and surreal identity are accented by her equally forward thinking music. The iconic opener “01_PP2″ is a brilliant statement of purpose; a homicidal vocaloid squeaking words you can’t quite understand but frighten you nonetheless over a synth organ jamming out hypnotic post-pop you can’t help but dance to. This is music written by a true artist with a powerful vision of reality and instrumental chops informed by video game music deep cuts. “08_Pigeon’s Swipe” is another great showcase of emamouse’s ability to skew Dragon Quest baroque synths and contort them into the brilliant, unsettling world of her boundless imagination.

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3) TWICE - What Is Love?

Kpop can be a divisive genre, but its meteoric rise in the US is no fluke. The Korean pop machine has mastered the art of the pop song, and nowhere is it more evident than in TWICE’s “What Is Love?” Perfect structure, heart-tugging hook, surprising turns, and a chorus that sounds like 1000 girls yelling the lyrics from the bottom of the grand canyon, “What Is Love?” is technically perfect and sweetly endearing. It’s truly the most perfect pop song I’ve ever heard.

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2) Mid-Air Thief - Crumbling

Crumbling is an album so in tune with my personal taste it’s hard to believe it exists. With a foundation of Lamp-esque dreamy pop labyrinths, Mid-Air Thief weaves complex arrangements peppered with ELO synths, chiptune fireworks, lo-fi indie folk revery, underwater voices and Elliott Smith whispers, even some Merriweather Post Pavilion electro-hippy clouds. It’s all the right flavors and textures coming together in a perfectly balanced, romantic masterpiece.

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1) Lamp - Her Watch / 彼女の時計

I discovered Lamp through a vaporwave album back in 2014 that sampled them heavily, and while those short samples of cooing vocals and breezy guitar looped with their heads underwater certainly worked in a satisfying way on that album, discovering the source material was a revelation. Lamp is the result of an algorithm to determine music that would be most appealing to me, and they hit new ridiculous heights of personal appeal on Her Watch. Their signature labyrinthine hurricane of Beatle-esque chord changes under soft voices and bossa nova rhythms is re-fitted into a nostalgic frame, sometimes approaching an almost city pop revivalist sound. The tenderness of “Slow-Motion,” the romance of “A Train Window,” the pop genius of “1998,” the borage of melancholic brightness that rolls from the opening chords of “At The Night Party,” all of it falls into place on the most sublime 36 minutes I have heard in a long time. It was the soundtrack to my life this year and my favorite album of 2018!

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[liugeaux]

Greatest Songs Ever - Part 14 (Leaning In)

Here we go again with another 10 songs. I’m really enjoying this “anything-goes” approach to the lists, so for the foreseeable future that’s probably the direction I’ll be taking. I’ll be leaning into the more eclectic side of my taste, and for now that’s really exciting. 

Let’s go!

1986 “Dreams” - Van Halen

“Dreams” isn’t the first Van Halen song to make my list, but it IS the first “Van Hagar” track. Arguably, it’s also the best the song to emerge from the Hagar years. After VH graduated from a straight forward rock act into a group willing to play with other toys, mainly the keys and synthesizers, “Dreams” leverages the groups three strengths: Hagar’s superior vocal capability, Eddie’s ear for melody, and his blistering guitar licks. Eddie’s guitar parts stand tall on islands at the end of the track and without the baggage of having to carry the entire song, the solos are able to breathe. It borrows elements from the trends of the time, but still has the punch of a classic Van Halen track.   

2011 “Ni**as in Paris” - Jay-Z & Kanye West

I feel like time is going to be kind to 2011′s Watch the Throne. It was two hip-hop geniuses at the peak of their talent and power. Commercially there’s not too much to write home about, but creatively its experimental, audacious and bold. The production of “Ni**as in Paris” is big and loud but instead of drowning out Kanye and Jay-Z lyrics it accents the raw American Black Man energy that both vocalist bring to the track. It may not be either artist’s “best” song, but “Ni**as in Paris” captured a moment in Hip-Hop where the artform had never been more important to American culture and featured artists that are universally respected across 3-4 generations of Rap fans. With the late ‘10′s splintering of pop-culture, a song like “Ni**as in Paris” may never happen again and I would argue, it shouldn’t.  

1993 “Independence Day” - Martina McBride

Drinking, domestic abuse, small towns, mama, gossip, revenge, murder, freedom, I’m not gonna say “Independence Day” is the perfect country song, but a strong argument could be made. Yes, it’s very 90′s and full of cheesy almost-too-obvious metaphors, and prominently featuring bells in the final mix borders on too much, but any crimes this songs commits are immediately expunged by McBride’s over-the-top vocal performance. Outside of country circles, she really doesn’t get the respect her vocal prowess deserves. The classic story-telly nature of the song fits so squarely into country music, it's hard to see a world where this track ever had a chance to cross over, and ultimately that’s just fine.

1994 “Creep” - TLC 

“Creep” is a sexy-ass TLC song. Sure it's about cheating on a cheater, and very little positivity can be gleaned from its salacious lyrics, but I mean...have you HEARD that trumpet? Many of TLC’s other hits can be seen as gimmicky or even a bit cheesy, but there’s a realness to the song that is vengeful and destructive. It’s got an unmistakable groove, and gets caught in your ears a bit too easily. Sure, TLC will be remembered mostly for “Waterfalls” and “No Scrubs” but “Creep” has the attitude and swagger I picture when I think of the R&B trio. 

1985 “A View to a Kill” - Duran Duran 

This selection is partly colored by my recent trip through the Bond movie franchise, but the more I commit to its inclusion the less I second guess myself. Duran Duran somehow found a way to record a song that evokes both their signature synth-pop style and the iconic brass-led scores of the franchise. It’s funky, it’s odd, but most importantly it sets the mood for the movie it was written for. This is where Duran Duran really understood the assignment. Most of the Bond songs, even some of the better tracks, have failed to feel like the theme song from an action movie. Dare I say, “A View to a Kill” is one of the few Bond songs that makes me feel like James Bond is cool. Sadly, most of his films prove otherwise. For a brief moment in 1985, James Bond was cool as hell! 

2011 “Party On Fifth Ave.” - Mac Miller

I miss Mac Miller, but I more-so miss party guy Mac Miller. Specifically the party guy from his album Blue Slide Park. Like early Beastie Boys, Miller on Blue Slide Park is a talent that is obviously too great to be making lowly party music. With that said, “Fifth Ave” is a masterpiece. By mixing one of the most recognizable loops in hip-hop with the Miller’s innate ability to set a mood through his enigmatic charm and razor-sharp wit, this song teleports me to that nervous energy only found when preparing for a night out. It’s a hype song that is both the journey and the destination. The conceit of the whole song is being the flyest person headed to the party, and ultimately the song IS the party. It’d be like going to dinner with Mac Miller, the dinner doesn’t matter, you’re there with Mac Miller and that’s the good time.   

1972 “Summer Breeze” - Seals and Crofts

I only recently remembered this song even existed. Living in the south, a summer breeze doesn’t seem as pleasant as this song suggests. Either way, what this song evokes is the child-like wonder of just going outside and not doin’ shit. Maybe sitting on a truck tailgate staring at a meadow, or laying in field and watching the clouds slowly drift past. For the most part, it’s a by-the-numbers soft-rock track, but there’s an unexpected haunting quality to the instrumentation. A song seemly written as optimistic and comforting can easily be interpreted as a metaphor for the fleeting nature of youth, and happiness or even the hazy and often disappointing nature of nostalgia. Maybe I’m digging too deep, but this song tugs at a few different emotions and I feel like those emotions will be different for each listener. Side Note: I’m uniquely aware that this might be the first post on tumblr ever tagged with Seals and Crofts. #pioneeriguess 

2001 “Where the Party At?” - Jagged Edge (ft. Nelly)

The year is 2001 and every time a party or event, or school dance wants to get hype what song comes on? Jagged Edge and Nelly’s “Where the Party At?” It’s a low-key hype track that stops short of being danceable, but gets you in the mood to have a good time. I’m not familiar with Jagged Edge, so I’m not sure how representative this song is of the rest of their library, but I can say this, Producer Jermaine Dupri captured Nelly’s entire vibe perfectly. Nelly drops into the bridge of this song seamlessly and punctuates an already catchy R&B track with one of the best verses of his career. 

1994 “Kiss From A Rose” - Seal

This Seal song has been on the cusp of hitting my list for years. I’ve always loved it, and unlike much of this song’s fans it’s not due to its connection to a criminally under-rated Batman movie. “Kiss From a Rose” is atmospheric, passionate, and weird. Amongst the mixed-metaphors and thoughtful one-liners, the song is both elegant and anthemic. It’s the rare song that would have made sense as either a light whimsy ballad, or a bold arena jam. Seal picked a pop-friendly highly-digestible middle-of-the-road interpretation that shines brightest during its mostly a cappella bridge. This song will out-live us all.

1939 “In the Mood” - Glenn Miller and His Orchestra 

By far the oldest song I’ve ever added to this list, “In the Mood” is an example of a song so engrained in human culture that you don’t even know you know it. It’s arguably the most recognizable big band/swing song of its era, and to my surprise, it’s still infectiously listenable. As with a lot of music in the pre-I’m-gonna-sue-the-shit-outta-you era, riffs were lifted from pre-existing songs whole-cloth with few repercussions. So there’s a long history of the elements of this song being built over nearly a decade before Miller and his band purchased and recorded the track. It’s good to know Miller compensated someone for the elements he harvested from previous versions because the core of Miller’s track, the iconic saxophone riff, is straight out of “Tar Paper Stomp” by Wingy Malone. I can’t find evidence that Malone is who was compensated, but Miller “buying” the arrangement is evidence that he had at least a basic understanding of the emerging idea of copyright law. Regardless of the potentially shady origins of this song, artistically “In the Mood” is humanity at it’s finest and weirdly enough, it bums me out that it wasn’t chosen as one of the songs included on the Voyager Golden Record. 

[mousetrapreplica]

Captain Beefheart From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Captain Beefheart Captain Beefheart in Toronto.jpg At Convocation Hall, 1974 Background information Birth name Don Glen Vliet Also known as Captain Beefheart Bloodshot Rollin' Red Don Van Vliet Born January 15, 1941 Glendale, California, U.S. Died December 17, 2010 (aged 69) Arcata, California, U.S.[1] Genres Experimental rock, blues rock, avant-garde Occupation(s) Singer-songwriter, musician, painter, poet, composer, author, record producer, film director Instruments Vocals, harmonica, saxophone, clarinet, oboe, horn, shehnai Years active 1964–1982 Labels A&M, Buddah, Blue Thumb, ABC, Reprise, Straight, Virgin, Mercury, DiscReet, Warner Bros., Atlantic, Epic, Major League Productions (MLP) Associated acts The Magic Band, Frank Zappa, The Mothers of Invention, Gary Lucas, the Tubes, Jack Nitzsche, Zoot Horn Rollo, Mallard, Jeff Cotton, Rockette Morton, Winged Eel Fingerling, The Mascara Snake, John "Drumbo" French, Ry Cooder, Eric Drew Feldman, Moris Tepper Website www.beefheart.com Don Van Vliet (/væn ˈvliːt/, born Don Glen Vliet;[2] January 15, 1941 – December 17, 2010) was an American singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and visual artist best known by the stage name Captain Beefheart. He conducted a rotating ensemble called the Magic Band, with whom he released 13 studio albums between 1964 and 1982. His music blended elements of blues, free jazz, and rock with avant-garde composition, idiosyncratic rhythms, and his surrealist wordplay and wide vocal range.[3][4][5] Known for his enigmatic persona, Beefheart frequently constructed myths about his life and was known to exercise an almost dictatorial control over his supporting musicians.[6] Although he achieved little commercial or mainstream critical success,[7] he sustained a cult following as a "highly significant" and "incalculable" influence on an array of new wave, punk, and experimental rock artists.[3][8] He has been described as "one of modern music's true innovators."[5] An artistic prodigy in his childhood,[9] Van Vliet developed an eclectic musical taste during his teen years in Lancaster, California, and formed "a mutually useful but volatile" friendship with musician Frank Zappa, with whom he sporadically competed and collaborated.[10] He began performing with his Captain Beefheart persona in 1964 and joined the original Magic Band line-up, initiated by Alexis Snouffer, the same year. The group released their debut album Safe as Milk in 1967 on Buddah Records. After being dropped by two consecutive record labels they signed to Zappa's Straight Records, where they released 1969's Trout Mask Replica; the album would later rank 58th in Rolling Stone magazine's 2003 list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.[11] In 1974, frustrated by lack of commercial success, he pursued a more conventional rock sound, but the ensuing albums were critically panned; this move, combined with not having been paid for a European tour, and years of enduring Beefheart's abusive behavior, led the entire band to quit. Beefheart eventually formed a new Magic Band with a group of younger musicians and regained contemporary approval through three final albums: Shiny Beast (1978), Doc at the Radar Station (1980) and Ice Cream for Crow (1982). Van Vliet made few public appearances after his retirement from music in 1982. He pursued a career in art, an interest that originated in his childhood talent for sculpture, and a venture which proved to be his most financially secure. His expressionist paintings and drawings command high prices, and have been exhibited in art galleries and museums across the world.[5][12][13] Van Vliet died in 2010, having suffered from multiple sclerosis for many years.[14] Contents 1 Biography 1.1 Early life and musical influences, 1941–62 1.2 Initial recordings, 1962–69 1.2.1 Safe as Milk 1.2.2 Recognition 1.2.3 The flipside of success 1.2.4 Strictly Personal 1.2.5 Mirror Man 1.2.6 The 'Brown Wrapper' Sessions 1.3 Trout Mask Replica, 1969 1.4 Later recordings, 1970–82 1.4.1 Lick My Decals Off, Baby 1.4.2 The Spotlight Kid and Clear Spot 1.4.3 Unconditionally Guaranteed and Bluejeans & Moonbeams 1.4.4 Bongo Fury to Bat Chain Puller 1.4.5 Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller) 1.4.6 Doc at the Radar Station 1.4.7 Ice Cream for Crow 1.4.8 Riding Some Kind of Unusual Skull Sleigh 1.5 Paintings 1.6 Life in retirement 1.7 Death 2 Relationship with Frank Zappa 3 The Magic Band 3.1 Beginning 3.2 Beefheart takes the lead 3.3 The Magic Band post-Beefheart 3.4 Timeline 4 Influence 5 Discography 6 References 7 Further reading 8 External links Biography Early life and musical influences, 1941–62 Van Vliet was born Don Glen Vliet in Glendale, California, on January 15, 1941, to Glen Alonzo Vliet, a service station owner of Dutch ancestry from Kansas, and Willie Sue Vliet (née Warfield), who was from Arkansas.[2] He claimed to have as an ancestor Peter van Vliet, a Dutch painter who knew Rembrandt. Van Vliet also claimed that he was related to adventurer and author Richard Halliburton and the cowboy actor Slim Pickens, and said that he remembered being born.[5][15] Van Vliet began painting and sculpting at age three.[16] His subjects reflected his "obsession" with animals, particularly dinosaurs, fish, African mammals and lemurs.[17] At the age of nine, he won a children's sculpting competition organised for the Los Angeles Zoo in Griffith Park by a local tutor, Agostinho Rodrigues.[18] Local newspaper cuttings of his junior sculpting achievements can be found reproduced in the Splinters book, included in the Riding Some Kind of Unusual Skull Sleigh boxed CD work, released in 2004.[19] The sprawling park, with its zoo and observatory, had a strong influence on young Vliet, as it was a short distance from his home on Waverly Drive. The track "Observatory Crest" on Bluejeans & Moonbeams reflects this continued interest. A portrait photo of the school-age Vliet can be seen on the front of the lyric sheet within the first issue of the US release of Trout Mask Replica. For some time during the 1950s, Van Vliet worked as an apprentice with Rodrigues, who considered him a child prodigy. Vliet made claim to have been a lecturer at the Barnsdall Art Institute in Los Angeles at the age of eleven,[17] although it is likely he simply gave a form of artistic dissertation. Accounts of Van Vliet's precocious achievement in art often include his statement that he sculpted on a weekly television show.[20] He claimed that his parents discouraged his interest in sculpture, based upon their perception of artists as "queer". They declined several scholarship offers,[3] including one from the local Knudsen Creamery to travel to Europe with six years' paid tuition to study marble sculpture.[21] Van Vliet later admitted personal hesitation to take the scholarship based upon the bitterness of his parents' discouragement.[22] Van Vliet's artistic enthusiasm became so fervent, he claimed that his parents were forced to feed him through the door in the room where he sculpted. When he was thirteen the family moved from the Los Angeles area to the more remote farming town of Lancaster, near the Mojave Desert, where there was a growing aerospace industry and testing plant that would become Edwards Air Force Base. It was an environment that would greatly influence him creatively from then on.[20] Van Vliet remained interested in art; several of his paintings, often reminiscent of Franz Kline[23] were later used as front covers for his music albums. Meanwhile, he developed his taste and interest in music, listening "intensively" to the Delta blues of Son House and Robert Johnson, jazz artists such as Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk and Cecil Taylor, and the Chicago blues of Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters.[5][20][24] During his early teenage years, Vliet would sometimes socialize with members of local bands such as the Omens and the Blackouts, although his interests were still focused upon an art career. The Omens' guitarists Alexis Snouffer and Jerry Handley would later become founders of "the Magic Band" and the Blackouts' drummer, Frank Zappa, would later capture Vliet's vocal capabilities on record for the first time.[25][26] This first known recording, when he was simply "Don Vliet", is "Lost In A Whirlpool" – one of Zappa's early "field recordings" made in his college classroom with brother Bobby on guitar. It is featured on Zappa's posthumously released The Lost Episodes (1996). He had dropped out of school by that time, and spent most of his time staying at home. His girlfriend lived in the house, and his grandmother lived in the house, and his aunt and his uncle lived across the street. And his father had had a heart attack; his father drove a Helms bread truck, part of the time Don was helping out by taking over the bread truck route [and] driving up to Mojave. The rest of the time he would just sit at home and listen to rhythm and blues records, and scream at his mother to get him a Pepsi. Frank Zappa[27] Van Vliet claimed that he never attended public school, alleging "half a day of kindergarten" to be the extent of his formal education and saying that "if you want to be a different fish, you've got to jump out of the school". His associates said that he only dropped out during his senior year of high school to help support the family after his father's heart attack. His graduation picture appears in the school's yearbook.[28] His claims to have never attended school - and his general disavowals of education - may have been related to his experience of dyslexia which, although never officially diagnosed, was obvious to sidemen such as John French and Denny Walley, who observed his difficulty reading cue-cards on stage, and his frequent need to be read aloud to.[29] While attending Antelope Valley High School in Lancaster, Van Vliet became close friends with fellow teenager Frank Zappa, the pair bonding through their interest in Chicago blues and R&B.[20][30] Van Vliet is portrayed in both The Real Frank Zappa Book and Barry Miles' biography Zappa as fairly spoiled at this stage of his life, the center of attention as an only child. He spent most of his time locked in his room listening to records, often with Zappa, into the early hours in the morning, eating leftover food from his father's Helms bread truck and demanding that his mother bring him a Pepsi.[27] His parents tolerated such behavior under the belief that their child was truly gifted. Vliet's "Pepsi-moods" were ever a source of amusement to band members, leading Zappa to later write the wry tune "Why Doesn't Someone Give Him A Pepsi?" that featured on the Bongo Fury tour.[31] After Zappa began regular occupation at Paul Buff's PAL Studio in Cucamonga he and Van Vliet began collaborating, tentatively as the Soots (pronounced "soots" [long double-o]). By the time Zappa had turned the venue into Studio Z the duo had completed some songs. These were Cheryl's Canon, Metal Man Has Won His Wings and a Howlin' Wolf styled rendition of Little Richard's Slippin' and Slidin'.[25] Further songs, on Zappa's Mystery Disc (1996), I Was a Teen-Age Malt Shop and The Birth of Captain Beefheart also provide an insight to Zappa's "teenage movie" script titled Captain Beefheart vs. the Grunt People,[32] the first appearances of the Beefheart name. It has been suggested this name came from a term used by Vliet's Uncle Alan who had a habit of exposing himself to Don's girlfriend, Laurie Stone. He would urinate with the bathroom door open and, if she was walking by, would mumble about his penis, saying "Ahh, what a beauty! It looks just like a big, fine beef heart".[33] In a 1970 interview with Rolling Stone, Van Vliet requests "don't ask me why or how" he and Zappa came up with the name.[20] Johnny Carson also asked him the same question to which Van Vliet replied that one day he was standing on the pier and saw fishermen cutting the bills off pelicans. He said it made him sad and put "a beef in his heart". Carson appeared nervous and uncomfortable interviewing Van Vliet and after the next commercial break Van Vliet was gone. He would later claim in an appearance on Late Night with David Letterman that the name referred to "a beef in my heart against this society".[21] In the "Grunt People" draft script Beefheart and his mother play themselves, with his father played by Howlin' Wolf. Grace Slick is penned in as a "celestial seductress" and there are also roles for future Magic Band members Bill Harkleroad and Mark Boston.[34] Van Vliet enrolled at Antelope Valley Junior College as an art major, but decided to leave the following year. He once worked as a door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman, and sold a vacuum cleaner to the writer Aldous Huxley at his home in Llano, pointing to it and declaring, "Well I assure you sir, this thing sucks."[35] After managing a Kinney's shoe store, Van Vliet relocated to Rancho Cucamonga, California, to reconnect with Zappa, who inspired his entry into musical performance. Van Vliet was quite shy but was eventually able to imitate the deep voice of Howlin' Wolf with his wide vocal range.[24][36] He eventually grew comfortable with public performance and, after learning to play the harmonica, began playing at dances and small clubs in Southern California. Initial recordings, 1962–69 In early 1965 Alex Snouffer, a Lancaster rhythm and blues guitarist, invited Vliet to sing with a group that he was assembling. Vliet joined the first Magic Band and changed his name to Don Van Vliet, while Snouffer became Alex St. Clair (sometimes spelled Claire). Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band signed to A&M and released two singles in 1966. The first was a version of Bo Diddley's "Diddy Wah Diddy" that became a regional hit in Los Angeles. The followup, "Moonchild" (written by David Gates, later of the band Bread) was less well received. The band played music venues that catered to underground artists, such as the Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco.[37] Safe as Milk After fulfilling their deal for two singles the band presented demos to A&M during 1966 for what would become the Safe as Milk album. A&M's Jerry Moss reportedly described this new direction as "too negative"[3] and dropped the band from the label, although still under contract. Much of the demo recording was accomplished at Art Laboe's Original Sound Studio, then with Gary Marker on the controls at Sunset Sound on 8-track. By the end of 1966 they were signed to Buddah Records and much of the demo work was transferred to 4-track, at the behest of Krasnow and Perry, in the RCA Studio in Hollywood, where the recording was finalized. Tracks that were originally laid down in the demo by Doug Moon are therefore taken up by Ry Cooder's work in the release, as Moon had departed over "musical differences" at this juncture. Drummer John French had now joined the group and it would later (notably on Trout Mask Replica) be his patience that was required to transcribe Van Vliet's creative ideas (often expressed by whistling or banging on the piano) into musical form for the other group members. On French's departure this role was taken over by Bill Harkleroad for Lick My Decals Off, Baby.[38] Many of the lyrics on the Safe as Milk album were written by Van Vliet in collaboration with the writer Herb Bermann, who befriended Van Vliet after seeing him perform at a bar-gig in Lancaster in 1966. The song "Electricity" was a poem written by Bermann, who gave Van Vliet permission to adapt it to music.[39] "Electricity" MENU0:00 While Safe as Milk mostly conveyed a blues–rock sound, songs such as "Electricity" illustrated the band's unconventional instrumentation and Van Vliet's unusual vocals, that guitarist Doug Moon described as "...hinting of things to come." Problems playing this file? See media help. Much of the Safe as Milk material was honed and arranged by the arrival of 20-year–old guitar prodigy Ry Cooder, who had been brought into the group after much pressure from Vliet. The band began recording in spring 1967, with Richard Perry cutting his teeth in his first job as producer. The album was released in September 1967. Richie Unterberger of Allmusic called the album "blues–rock gone slightly askew, with jagged, fractured rhythms, soulful, twisting vocals from Van Vliet, and more doo wop, soul, straight blues, and folk–rock influences than he would employ on his more avant garde outings." Recognition Among those who took notice were the Beatles. Both John Lennon and Paul McCartney were known as great admirers of Beefheart.[40] Lennon displayed two of the album's promotional "baby bumper stickers" in the sunroom at his home.[41] Later, the Beatles planned to sign Beefheart to their experimental Zapple label (plans that were scrapped after Allen Klein took over the group's management). Van Vliet was often critical of the Beatles, however. He considered the lyric "I'd love to turn you on" from their song A Day in the Life, to be ridiculous and conceited. Tiring of their "lullabies",[42] he lampooned them with the Strictly Personal song Beatle Bones 'n' Smokin' Stones, that featured the sardonic refrain of "...strawberry fields, all the winged eels slither on the heels of today's children, strawberry fields forever". Vliet spoke badly of Lennon after getting no response when he sent a telegram of support to him and wife Yoko Ono during their 1969 "Bed-In for peace". Van Vliet did meet McCartney in Cannes during the Magic Band's 1968 tour of Europe, though McCartney later claimed to have no recollection of this meeting.[43] The flipside of success Doug Moon left the band because of his dislike of the band's increasing experimentation outside his preferred blues genre. Ry Cooder told of Moon's becoming so angered by Van Vliet's unrelenting criticism that he walked into the room pointing a loaded crossbow at him, only to have Van Vliet tell him, "Get that fucking thing out of here, get out of here and get back in your room", which he did.[27] (Other band members dispute this account, though Moon is likely to have "passed through" the studio with a weapon.)[44] Moon was present during the early demo sessions at Original Sound studio, above the Kama Sutra/Buddah offices. The works Moon laid down did not see the light of day, as he was replaced by Cooder when they continued on material at Sunset Sound with Marker.[45] Marker then fell by the wayside when recording was moved by Krasnow and Perry to RCA Studio. This would have a profound effect on the quality of the Safe as Milk work, as the former studio was 8-track and the subsequent studio a 4-track. To support the album's release the group had been scheduled to play at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival. During this period Vliet suffered severe anxiety attacks that made him convinced that he was having a heart attack, possibly exacerbated by his heavy LSD use and the fact that his father had died of heart failure a few years earlier. At a vital "warm-up" performance at the Mt. Tamalpais Festival (June 10/11) shortly before the scheduled Monterey Festival (June 16/18), the band began to play "Electricity" and Van Vliet froze, straightened his tie, then walked off the 10 ft (3.0 m) stage and landed on manager Bob Krasnow. He later claimed he had seen a girl in the audience turn into a fish, with bubbles coming from her mouth.[46] This aborted any opportunity of breakthrough success at Monterey, as Cooder immediately decided he could no longer work with Van Vliet,[27] effectively quitting both the event and the band on the spot. With such complex guitar parts there was no means for the band to find a competent replacement in time for Monterey. Cooder's spot was eventually filled for a short spell by Gerry McGee, who had played with the Monkees. According to French the band did two gigs with McGee, one of which was at The Peppermint Twist near Long Beach. The other was at Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, August 7, 1967, as opening act for the Yardbirds.[47] McGee was in the group long enough to have an outfit made by a Santa Monica boutique[47] that also created the gear worn by the band on the Strictly Personal cover stamps. "Safe as Milk" MENU0:00 "Safe as Milk" from Strictly Personal, an album "...having little in the way of lyrics or chords beyond the most primeval stomp." Problems playing this file? See media help. Strictly Personal In August 1967, guitarist Jeff Cotton filled the guitar spot vacated, in turn, by Cooder and McGee. In October and November 1967 the Snouffer/Cotton/Handley/French line–up recorded material for what was planned to be the second album. Originally intended to be a double album called It Comes to You in a Plain Brown Wrapper for the Buddah label, it was released later in pieces in 1971 and 1995. After rejection from Buddah, Bob Krasnow encouraged the band to re-record four of the shorter numbers, add two more, and make shorter versions of "Mirror Man" and "Kandy Korn". Krasnow created a strange mix full of "phasing" that, by most accounts (including Beefheart's), diminished the music's strength. This was released in October 1968 as Strictly Personal on Krasnow's Blue Thumb label.[48] Stewart Mason in his Allmusic review of the album described it as a "terrific album" and a "fascinating, underrated release... every bit the equal of Safe as Milk and Trout Mask Replica".[49] Langdon Winner of Rolling Stone called Strictly Personal "an excellent album. The guitars of the Magic Band mercilessly bend and stretch notes in a way that suggests that the world of music has wobbled clear off its axis," with the lyrics demonstrating "...Beefheart's ability to juxtapose delightful humor with frightening insights."[50] Mirror Man In 1971 some of the recordings done for Buddah were released as Mirror Man, bearing a liner note claiming that the material had been recorded in "...one night in Los Angeles in 1965". This was a ruse to circumvent possible copyright issues. The material was recorded in November and December 1967. Essentially a "jam" album, described as pushing "the boundaries of conventional blues–rock, with a Beefheart vocal tossed in here and there. Some may miss Beefheart's surreal poetry, gruff vocals, and/or free jazz influence, while others may find it fascinating to hear the Magic Band simply letting go and cutting loose."[51] The album's "miss-credit errors" also state band members as "Alex St. Clare Snouffer" (Alex St. Clare/Alexis Snouffer), "Antennae Jimmy Simmons" (Semens/Jeff Cotton) and "Jerry Handsley" (Handley). First vinyl was issued in both a die-cut gatefold (revealing a "cracked" mirror) and a single sleeve with same image. The UK Buddah issue was part of the Polydor-manufactured "Select" series. During his first trip to England in January 1968, Captain Beefheart was briefly represented in the UK by mod icon Peter Meaden, an early manager of the Who. The Captain and his band members were initially denied entry to the United Kingdom, because Meaden had illegally booked them for gigs without applying for appropriate work permits.[52] After returning to Germany for a few days, the group was permitted to re-enter the UK, when they recorded material for John Peel's radio show and appeared at the Middle Earth venue, introduced by Peel on Saturday January 20. By this time, they had terminated their association with Meaden. On January 27, 1968, Beefheart performed in the MIDEM Music Festival on the beach at Cannes, France. Alex St. Claire left the band in June 1968 after their return from a second European tour and was replaced by teenager Bill Harkleroad; bassist Jerry Handley left a few weeks later. The 'Brown Wrapper' Sessions After their Euro tour and the Cannes beach performance the band returned to the US. Moves were already in the air for them to leave Buddah and sign to MGM and, prior to their May tour – mainly in the UK – they re-recorded some Buddah material of the partial Mirror Man sessions at Sunset Sound with Bruce Botnick. Beefheart had also been conceptualizing new band names, including 25th Century Quaker and Blue Thumb,[53] while making suggestions to other musicians that they might get involved. The thought-process of 25th Century Quaker was that it would be a "blues band" alias for the more avant-garde work of the Magic Band. Photographer Guy Webster actually photographed the band in Quaker-style outfits, and the picture appears in The Mirror Man Sessions CD insert. It would later transpire that much of this situation was transient and that Buddah's Bob Krasnow was to set up his own label. The label that was unsurprisingly named Blue Thumb launched with its first release Strictly Personal, a truncated version of the original Beefheart vision of a double album. Thus "25th Century Quaker" became a track and a potential band-name became a label. In overview, the works for the double album in this period were intended to be packaged in a plain brown wrapper, with a "strictly personal" over-stamp and addressed in a manner that could have connotations of drug content, pornographic or illicit material; As per the small ads of the time: "It comes to you in a plain brown wrapper." Given that Krasnow had effectively poached the band from Buddah there were limitations on what material could be released. Strictly Personal was the result, contained in its enigmatically-addressed parcel sleeve. The raft of material left behind eventually emerged, firstly on CD as I May Be Hungry, But I Sure Ain't Weird and later on vinyl, implemented by John French, as It Comes To You in a Plain Brown Wrapper (which has two tracks that are missing from the former release). Both Blue Thumb and the stamps on the cover of Strictly Personal have LSD connotations, as does the track Ah Feel Like Ahcid, although Beefheart himself refuted this (claiming that this is a rendering of "I feel like I said"). Trout Mask Replica, 1969 This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (December 2010) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) Critically acclaimed as Van Vliet's magnum opus,[54] Trout Mask Replica was released as a 28 track double album in June 1969 on Frank Zappa's newly formed Straight Records label. First issues, in the US, were auto-coupled and housed in the black "Straight" liners along with a 6-page lyric sheet illustrated by the Mascara Snake. A school-age portrait of Van Vliet appears on the front of this sheet, while the cover of the gatefold enigmatically shows Beefheart in a 'Quaker' hat, obscuring his face with the head of a fish. The fish is a carp – arguably a "replica" for a trout, photographed by Cal Schenkel. The inner spread "infra-red" photography is by Ed Caraeff, whose Beefheart vacuum cleaner images from this session also appear on Zappa's Hot Rats release (a month earlier) to accompany "Willie The Pimp" lyrics sung by Vliet. Alex St. Clair had now left the band and, after Junior Madeo from the Blackouts was considered,[55] the role was filled by Bill Harkleroad. Bassist Jerry Handley had also departed, with Gary Marker stepping in. Thus the long rehearsals for the album began in the house on Ensenada Drive in Woodland Hills, L.A.,[56][57] that would become the Magic Band House. The Magic Band began recordings for Trout Mask Replica with bassist Gary "Magic" Marker at T.T.G. (on "Moonlight on Vermont" and "Veteran's Day Poppy"),[58] but later enlisted bassist Mark Boston after his departure. The remainder of the album was recorded at Whitney Studios, with some field recordings made at the house.[56] Boston was acquainted with French and Harkleroad via past bands. Van Vliet had also begun assigning nicknames to his band members, so Harkleroad became Zoot Horn Rollo, and Boston became Rockette Morton, while John French assumed the name Drumbo, and Jeff Cotton became Antennae Jimmy Semens. Van Vliet's cousin Victor Hayden, the Mascara Snake, performed as a bass clarinetist later in the proceedings.[59] Vliet's girlfriend Laurie Stone, who can be heard laughing at the beginning of Fallin' Ditch, became an audio typist[60] at the Magic Band house. Van Vliet wanted the whole band to "live" the Trout Mask Replica album. The group rehearsed Van Vliet's difficult compositions for eight months, living communally in their small rented house in the Woodland Hills suburb of Los Angeles. With only two bedrooms the band members would find sleep in various corners of one, while Vliet occupied the other and rehearsals were accomplished in the main living area. Van Vliet implemented his vision by completely dominating his musicians, artistically and emotionally. At various times one or another of the group members was "put in the barrel", with Van Vliet berating him continually, sometimes for days, until the musician collapsed in tears or in total submission.[61] Guitarist Bill Harkleroad complained that his fingers were a "bloody mess" as a result of Beefheart's orders that he use heavy strings.[62] Drummer John French described the situation as "cultlike"[63] and a visiting friend said "the environment in that house was positively Mansonesque".[5] Their material circumstances were dire. With no income other than welfare and contributions from relatives, the group barely survived and were even arrested for shoplifting food (Zappa bailed them out).[64] French has recalled living on no more than a small cup of beans a day for a month.[27] A visitor described their appearance as "cadaverous" and said that "they all looked in poor health". Band members were restricted from leaving the house and practiced for 14 or more hours a day. John French's 2010 book Through the Eyes of Magic describes some of the "talks", which were initiated by his doing such things as playing a Frank Zappa drum part ("The Blimp (mousetrapreplica)") in his drumming shed, and not having finished drum parts as quickly as Beefheart wanted. French writes of being punched by band members, thrown into walls, kicked, punched in the face by Beefheart hard enough to draw blood, being attacked with a sharp broomstick.[65] Eventually Beefheart, French says, threatened to throw him out an upper floor window. He admits complicity in similarly attacking his bandmates during "talks" aimed at them. In the end, after the album's recording, Beefheart ejected French from the band by throwing him down a set of stairs, telling him to "Take a walk, man" after not responding in a desired manner to a request to "play a strawberry" on the drums. Beefheart replaced French with drummer Jeff Bruschel, an acquaintance of Hayden. Referred to as "Fake Drumbo" (playing on French's drumset) this final act resulted in French's name not appearing on the album credits, either as a player or arranger. Bruschel toured with the band to Europe but was replaced by the next recording. According to Van Vliet, the 28 songs on the album were written in a single 8½ hour session at the piano, an instrument he had no skill in playing, an approach Mike Barnes compared to John Cage's "...maverick irreverence toward classical tradition,"[66] though band members have stated that the songs were written over the course of about a year, beginning around December 1967. (The band did watch Federico Fellini's 1963 film 8½ during the creation of the album). It took the band about eight months to mold the songs into shape, with French bearing primary responsibility for transposing and shaping Vliet's piano fragments into guitar and bass lines, which were mostly notated on paper.[67] Harkleroad in 1998 said in retrospect: "We're dealing with a strange person, coming from a place of being a sculptor/painter, using music as his idiom. He was getting more into that part of who he was instead of this blues singer."[66] The band had rehearsed the songs so thoroughly that the instrumental tracks for 21 of the songs were recorded in a single four and a half hour recording session.[67] Van Vliet spent the next few days overdubbing the vocals. The album's cover artwork was photographed and designed by Cal Schenkel and shows Van Vliet wearing the raw head of a carp, bought from a local fish market and fashioned into a mask by Schenkel.[68] "Moonlight on Vermont" MENU0:00 "Moonlight on Vermont" from Trout Mask Replica, that well illustrates the album's sound and composition. "Pena" MENU0:00 "Pena"; An example of the album's avant-garde instrumentation and bizarre lyrical content. Problems playing these files? See media help. Trout Mask Replica incorporated a wide variety of musical styles, including blues, avant garde/experimental, and rock. The relentless practice prior to recording blended the music into an iconoclastic whole of contrapuntal tempos, featuring slide guitar, polyrhythmic drumming (with French's drums and cymbals covered in cardboard), honking saxophone and bass clarinet. Van Vliet's vocals range from his signature Howlin' Wolf-inspired growl to frenzied falsetto to laconic, casual ramblings. The instrumental backing was effectively recorded live in the studio, while Van Vliet overdubbed most of the vocals in only partial sync with the music by hearing the slight sound leakage through the studio window.[69] Zappa said of Van Vliet's approach, "[it was] impossible to tell him why things should be such and such a way. It seemed to me that if he was going to create a unique object, that the best thing for me to do was to keep my mouth shut as much as possible and just let him do whatever he wanted to do whether I thought it was wrong or not."[27] Van Vliet used the ensuing publicity, particularly with a 1970 Rolling Stone interview with Langdon Winner, to promulgate a number of myths that were subsequently quoted as fact. Winner's article stated, for instance, that neither Van Vliet nor the members of the Magic Band ever took drugs, but Harkleroad later contradicted this. Van Vliet claimed to have taught both Harkleroad and Boston to play their instruments from scratch; in fact the pair were already accomplished young musicians before joining the band.[69] Last, Van Vliet claimed to have gone a year and half without sleeping. When asked how this was possible, he claimed to have only eaten fruit.[15] Critic Steve Huey of AllMusic writes that the album's influence "was felt more in spirit than in direct copycatting, as a catalyst rather than a literal musical starting point. However, its inspiring reimagining of what was possible in a rock context laid the groundwork for countless experiments in rock surrealism to follow, especially during the punk and new wave era."[70] In 2003, the album was ranked sixtieth by Rolling Stone in their list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time: "On first listen, Trout Mask Replica sounds like raw Delta blues," with Beefheart "...singing and ranting and reciting poetry over fractured guitar licks. But the seeming sonic chaos is an illusion—to construct the songs, the Magic Band rehearsed twelve hours a day for months on end in a house with the windows blacked out. (Producer Frank Zappa was then able to record most of the album in less than five hours.) Tracks such as "Ella Guru" and "My Human Gets Me Blues" are the direct predecessors of modern musical primitives such as Tom Waits and PJ Harvey."[11] Guitarist Fred Frith noted that during this process "forces that usually emerge in improvisation are harnessed and made constant, repeatable".[71] Critic Robert Christgau gave the album a B+, saying, "I find it impossible to give this record an A because it is just too weird. But I'd like to. Very great played at high volume when you're feeling shitty, because you'll never feel as shitty as this record."[72] BBC disc jockey John Peel said of the album: "If there has been anything in the history of popular music which could be described as a work of art in a way that people who are involved in other areas of art would understand, then Trout Mask Replica is probably that work."[73] It was inducted into the United States National Recording Registry in 2011. Later recordings, 1970–82 Lick My Decals Off, Baby Lick My Decals Off, Baby (1970) continued in a similarly experimental vein. An album with "...a very coherent structure" in the Magic Band's "...most experimental and visionary stage",[74] it was Van Vliet's most commercially successful in the United Kingdom, spending twenty weeks on the UK Albums Chart and peaking at number 20. An early promotional music video was made of its title song, and a bizarre television commercial was also filmed that included excerpts from Woe-Is-uh-Me-Bop, silent footage of masked Magic Band members using kitchen utensils as musical instruments, and Beefheart kicking over a bowl of what appears to be porridge onto a dividing stripe in the middle of a road. The video was rarely played but was accepted into the Museum of Modern Art, where it has been used in several programs related to music.[75][76] On this LP Art Tripp III, formerly of the Mothers of Invention, played drums and marimba. Lick My Decals Off, Baby was the first record on which the band was credited as "The" Magic Band, rather than "His" Magic Band. Journalist Irwin Chusid interprets this change as "...a grudging concession of its members' at least semiautonomous humanity".[69] Robert Christgau gave the album an A–, commenting that, "Beefheart's famous five-octave range and covert totalitarian structures have taken on a playful undertone, repulsive and engrossing and slapstick funny."[72] Due to licensing disputes, Lick My Decals Off, Baby was unavailable on CD for many years, though it remained in print on vinyl. It was ranked second in Uncut magazine's May 2010 list of The 50 Greatest Lost Albums.[77] In 2011, the album became available for download on the iTunes Store.[78] He toured in 1970 with Ry Cooder on the bill to promote the album. The Spotlight Kid and Clear Spot Beefheart performing at Convocation Hall, Toronto, in 1974. The next two records, The Spotlight Kid (simply credited to "Captain Beefheart") and Clear Spot (credited to "Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band"), were both released in 1972. The atmosphere of The Spotlight Kid is, according to one critic, "definitely relaxed and fun, maybe one step up from a jam". And though "things do sound maybe just a little too blasé", "Beefheart at his worst still has something more than most groups at their best."[79] The music is simpler and slower than on the group's two previous releases, the uncompromisingly original Trout Mask Replica and the frenetic Lick My Decals Off, Baby. This was in part an attempt by Van Vliet to become a more appealing commercial proposition as the band had made virtually no money during the previous two years—at the time of recording, the band members were subsisting on welfare food handouts and remittances from their parents.[80] Van Vliet offered that he "got tired of scaring people with what I was doing... I realized that I had to give them something to hang their hat on, so I started working more of a beat into the music".[81] Magic Band members have also said that the slower performances were due in part to Van Vliet's inability to fit his lyrics with the instrumental backing of the faster material on the earlier albums, a problem that was exacerbated in that he almost never rehearsed with the group.[81] In the period leading up to the recording the band lived communally, first at a compound near Ben Lomond, California and then in northern California near Trinidad.[82] The situation saw a return to the physical violence and psychological manipulation that had taken place during the band's previous communal residence while composing and rehearsing Trout Mask Replica. According to John French, the worst of this was directed toward Harkleroad.[83] In his autobiography Harkleroad recalls being thrown into a dumpster, an act he interpreted as having metaphorical intent.[84] Clear Spot's production credit of Ted Templeman made Allmusic consider "why in the world [it] wasn't more of a commercial success than it was", and that while fans "of the fully all-out side of Beefheart might find the end result not fully up to snuff as a result, but those less concerned with pushing back all borders all the time will enjoy his unexpected blend of everything tempered with a new accessibility". The song "Big Eyed Beans from Venus" is noted as "...a fantastically strange piece of aggression".[85] A Clear Spot song, "Her Eyes Are A Blue Million Miles", appeared on the soundtrack of the Coen brothers' cult comedy film The Big Lebowski (1998). Unconditionally Guaranteed and Bluejeans & Moonbeams In 1974, immediately after the recording of Unconditionally Guaranteed, which markedly continued the trend towards a more commercial sound heard on some of the Clear Spot tracks, the Magic Band's original members departed. Disgruntled and past members worked together for a period, gigging at Blue Lake and putting together their own ideas and demos, with John French earmarked as the vocalist. These concepts eventually coalesced around the core of Art Tripp III, Harkleroad and Boston, with the formation of Mallard, helped by finance and UK recording facilities from Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson.[86][87] Some of French's compositions were used in the band's work, but the group's singer was Sam Galpin and the role of keyboardist was eventually taken by John Thomas, who had shared a house with French in Eureka at the time. At this time Vliet attempted to recruit both French and Harkleroad as producers for his next album, but his pleas fell on deaf ears. Andy Di Martino produced both of these Virgin label albums. Vliet was forced to quickly form a new Magic Band to complete support-tour dates, with musicians who had no experience with his music and in fact had never heard it. Having no knowledge of the previous Magic Band style, they simply improvised what they thought would go with each song, playing much slicker versions that have been described as "bar band" versions of Beefheart songs. A review described this incarnation of the Magic Band as the "Tragic Band", a term that has stuck over the years.[88] Mike Barnes said that the description of the new band "grooving along pleasantly", was "...an appropriately banal description of the music of a man who only a few years ago composed with the expressed intent of shaking listeners out of their torpor".[89] The one album they recorded, Bluejeans & Moonbeams (1974) has, like its predecessor, a completely different, almost soft rock sound from any other Beefheart record. Neither was well received; drummer Art Tripp recalled that when he and the original Magic Band listened to Unconditionally Guaranteed, they "...were horrified. As we listened, it was as though each song was worse than the one which preceded it".[90] Beefheart later disowned both albums, calling them "horrible and vulgar", asking that they not be considered part of his musical output and urging fans who bought them to "take copies back for a refund".[91] Bongo Fury to Bat Chain Puller By the fall of 1975 the band had completed their European tour, with further US dates in the New Year of 1976, supporting Zappa along with Dr. John. Van Vliet now found himself stuck in a web of contractual hang-ups. At this point Zappa had begun to extend a helping hand, with Vliet already having performed incognito as "Rollin' Red" on Zappa's One Size Fits All (1975) and then joining with him on the Bongo Fury album and its later support tour. Two Vliet-penned numbers on the Bongo Fury album are "Sam with the Showing Scalp Flat Top" and "Man with the Woman Head". The form, texture and imagery of this album's first track, "Debra Kadabra", sung by Vliet, has 'angular similarities' to the work he would later produce in his next three albums. On the Bongo Fury album Vliet also sings "Poofter's Froth Wyoming Plans Ahead", harmonizes on "200 Years Old" and "Muffin Man", and plays harmonica and soprano saxophone. In early 1976 Zappa put on his producer hat and, once again, opened up his studio facilities and finance to Vliet. This was for the production of an album provisionally titled Bat Chain Puller. The band were John French (drums), John Thomas (keyboards) and Jeff Moris Tepper and Denny Walley (guitars). Much of the work on this album had been finalized and some demos had been circulated when fate once again struck the Beefheart camp. In May 1976 the long association between Zappa and his manager/business partner Herb Cohen ceased. This resulted in Zappa's finances and ongoing works becoming part of protracted legal negotiations. The Bat Chain Puller project went "on ice" and did not see an official release until 2012.[92][93] After this recording John Thomas joined ex-Magic Band members in Mallard. Prior to his next album Beefheart appeared in 1977 on the Tubes' album Now, playing saxophone on the song "Cathy's Clone",[94] and the album also featured a cover of the Clear Spot song "My Head Is My Only House Unless It Rains". In 1978 he appeared on Jack Nitzsche's soundtrack to the film Blue Collar.[35] Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller) Having extricated himself from a mire of contractual difficulties Beefheart emerged with this new album, in 1978, on the Warner Bros label. Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller) contained re-workings of the shelved Bat Chain Puller album and still retained its original guitarist, Jeff Moris Tepper. However, he and Vliet were now joined by a whole new line-up of Richard Redus (guitar, bass and accordion), Eric Drew Feldman (bass, piano and synthesizer), Bruce Lambourne Fowler (trombone and air bass), Art Tripp (percussion and marimba) and Robert Arthur Williams (drums). The album was co-produced by Vliet with Pete Johnson. Members of this Magic Band and the "Bat Chain" elements would later feature on Beefheart's last two albums. Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller) was described by Ned Raggett of Allmusic to be "...manna from heaven for those feeling Beefheart had lost his way on his two Mercury albums".[95] Following Vliet's death, John French claimed the 40-second spoken word track "Apes-Ma" to be an analogy of Van Vliet's deteriorating physical condition.[96] The album's sleeve features Van Vliet's 1976 painting Green Tom, one of the many works that would mark out his longed-for career as a painter of note. Doc at the Radar Station "Bat Chain Puller" MENU0:00 "Bat Chain Puller" from (Shiny Beast) Bat Chain Puller, the album that marked Van Vliet's return to prominence and form. "Ice Cream for Crow" MENU0:00 Ice Cream for Crow, the title track of the final Beefheart album Problems playing these files? See media help. Doc at the Radar Station (1980) helped establish Beefheart's late resurgence. Released by Virgin Records during the post-punk scene, the music was now accessible to a younger, more receptive audience. He was interviewed in a feature report on KABC-TV's Channel 7 Eyewitness News in which he was hailed as "the father of the new wave. One of the most important American composers of the last fifty years, [and] a primitive genius"; Van Vliet said at this period, "I'm doing a non-hypnotic music to break up the catatonic state... and I think there is one right now."[97] Huey of Allmusic cited the Doc at the Radar Station as being "...generally acclaimed as the strongest album of his comeback, and by some as his best since Trout Mask Replica", "even if the Captain's voice isn't quite what it once was, Doc at the Radar Station is an excellent, focused consolidation of Beefheart's past and then-present".[98] Van Vliet's biographer Mike Barnes speaks of "revamping work built on skeletal ideas and fragments that would have mouldered away in the vaults had they not been exhumed and transformed into full-blown, totally convincing new material".[5] During this period, Van Vliet made two appearances on David Letterman's late night television program on NBC, and also performed on Saturday Night Live. Richard Redus and Art Tripp departed on this album, with slide guitar and marimba duties taken up by the reappearance of John French. The guitar skills of Gary Lucas also feature on the track Flavor Bud Living. Ice Cream for Crow Van Vliet and the new Magic Band. The final Beefheart record, Ice Cream for Crow (1982), was recorded with Gary Lucas (who was also Van Vliet's manager), Jeff Moris Tepper, Richard Snyder and Cliff Martinez. This line-up made a video to promote the title track, directed by Van Vliet and Ken Schreiber, with cinematography by Daniel Pearl, which was rejected by MTV for being "too weird". However, the video was included in the Letterman broadcast on NBC-TV, and was also accepted into the Museum of Modern Art.[99] Van Vliet announced "I don't want my MTV if they don't want my video" during his interview with Letterman, in reference to MTV's "I want my MTV" marketing campaign of the time.[100] Ice Cream for Crow, along with songs such as its title track, features instrumental performances by the Magic Band with performance poetry readings by Van Vliet. Raggett of Allmusic called the album a "last entertaining blast of wigginess from one of the few truly independent artists in late 20th century pop music, with humor, skill, and style all still intact"; with the Magic Band "...turning out more choppy rhythms, unexpected guitar lines, and outré arrangements, Captain Beefheart lets everything run wild as always, with successful results."[101] Barnes writes that, "The most original and vital tracks (on the album) are the newer ones," saying that it, "...feels like an hors-d'oeuvre for a main course that never came."[5] Michael Galucci of Goldmine praised the album, describing it as "the single, most bizarre entry in Van Vliet's long, odd career."[102] Promotional work proposed to Beefheart by Virgin Records was as unorthodox as him making an appearance in the 1987 film Grizzly II: The Predator.[103] Soon after, Van Vliet retired from music and began a new career as a painter. Gary Lucas tried to convince him to record one more album, but to no avail. Riding Some Kind of Unusual Skull Sleigh Released in 2004 by Rhino Handmade in a limited edition of 1,500 copies,[19] this signed and numbered box set contains a "Riding Some Kind of Unusual Skull Sleigh" CD of Vliet-recited poetry, the Anton Corbijn film of Vliet Some YoYo Stuff on DVD and two art books. One book, entitled Splinters, gives a visual "scrapbook" insight into Vliet's life, from an early age to his painting in retirement. The second, eponymously titled, book is packed with art pages of Vliet's work. The first is bound in green linen, the second in yellow. These colors are counterpointed throughout the package, which comes in a green slipcase measuring 235 mm × 325 mm × 70 mm. An onion-skin wallet, nestling at the package's inner sanctum, contains a matching-numbered Vliet lithograph on hand-rolled paper, signed by the artist. The two books are by publishers Artist Ink Editions. Paintings Throughout his musical career, Van Vliet remained interested in visual art. He placed his paintings, often reminiscent of Franz Kline, on several of his albums.[23] In 1987, Van Vliet published Skeleton Breath, Scorpion Blush, a collection of his poetry, paintings and drawings.[104] In the mid-1980s, Van Vliet became reclusive and abandoned music, stating he had gotten "too good at the horn"[12] and could make far more money painting.[105] Beefheart's first exhibition had been at Liverpool's Bluecoat Gallery during the Magic Band's 1972 tour of the UK. He was interviewed on Granada regional television standing in front of his bold black and white canvases.[27] He was inspired to begin an art career when a fan, Julian Schnabel, who admired the artwork seen on his album covers, asked to buy a drawing from him.[13] His debut exhibition as a serious painter was at the Mary Boone Gallery in New York in 1985 and was initially regarded as that of "...another rock musician dabbling in art for ego's sake",[16] though his primitive, non-conformist work has received more sympathetic and serious attention since then, with some sales approaching $25,000.[13] Two books have been published specifically devoted to critique and analysis of his artwork: Riding Some Kind of Unusual Skull Sleigh: On The Arts Of Don Van Vliet (1999) by W.C. Bamberger[106] and Stand Up To Be Discontinued,[107] first published in 1993, a now rare collection of essays on Van Vliet's work. The limited edition version of the book contains a CD of Van Vliet reading six of his poems: Fallin' Ditch, The Tired Plain, Skeleton Makes Good, Safe Sex Drill, Tulip and Gill. A deluxe edition was published in 1994; only 60 were printed, with etchings of Van Vliet's signature, costing £180.[108] Cross Poked Shadow of a Crow No. 1 (1990) In the early 1980s Van Vliet established an association with the Galerie Michael Werner in Cologne.[citation needed] Eric Feldman stated later in an interview that at that time Michael Werner told Van Vliet he needed to stop playing music if he wanted to be respected as a painter, warning him that otherwise he would only be considered a "...musician who paints".[27] In doing so, it was said that he had effectively "succeeded in leaving his past behind".[13] Van Vliet has been described as a modernist, a primitivist, an abstract expressionist, and, "in a sense" an outsider artist.[13] Morgan Falconer of Artforum concurs, mentioning both a "neo-primitivist aesthetic" and further stating that his work is influenced by the CoBrA painters.[109] The resemblance to the CoBrA painters is also recognized by art critic Roberto Ohrt,[23] while others have compared his paintings to the work of Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline, Antonin Artaud,[13] Francis Bacon,[3][23] Vincent van Gogh and Mark Rothko.[110] According to Dr. John Lane, director of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, in 1997, although Van Vliet's work has associations with mainstream abstract expressionist painting, more importantly he was a self-taught artist and his painting "has that same kind of edge the music has". Curator David Breuer asserts that in contrast to the busied, bohemian urban lives of the New York abstract expressionists, the rural desert environment Van Vliet was influenced by is a distinctly naturalistic one, making him a distinguished figure in contemporary art, whose work will survive in canon.[27] Van Vliet stated of his own work, "I'm trying to turn myself inside out on the canvas. I'm trying to completely bare what I think at that moment"[111] and that, "I paint for the simple reason that I have to. I feel a sense of relief after I do."[110] When asked about his artistic influences he stated that there were none. "I just paint like I paint and that's enough influence."[16] He did however state his admiration of Georg Baselitz,[13] the De Stijl artist Piet Mondrian, and Vincent van Gogh; after seeing van Gogh's paintings in person, Van Vliet quoted himself as saying that, "The sun disappoints me so."[112] Exhibits of his paintings from the late 1990s were held in New York in 2009 and 2010.[citation needed] Falconer stated that the most recent exhibitions showed "evidence of a serious, committed artist". It was claimed that he stopped painting in the late 1990s.[109] A 2007 interview with Van Vliet through email by Anthony Haden-Guest, however, showed him to still be active artistically. He exhibited only few of his paintings because he immediately destroyed any that did not satisfy him.[12] Life in retirement Van Vliet in Anton Corbijn's 1993 Some Yo Yo Stuff After his retirement from music, Van Vliet rarely appeared in public. He resided near Trinidad, California, with his wife Janet "Jan" Van Vliet.[12] By the early 1990s he was using a wheelchair as a result of multiple sclerosis.[5][113][114][115] The severity of his illness was sometimes disputed. Many of his art contractors and friends considered him to be in good health.[114] Other associates such as his longtime drummer and musical director John French and bassist Richard Snyder have stated that they had noticed symptoms consistent with the onset of multiple sclerosis, such as sensitivity to heat, loss of balance, and stiffness of gait, by the late 1970s. One of Van Vliet's last public appearances was in the 1993 short documentary Some Yo Yo Stuff by filmmaker Anton Corbijn, described as an "observation of his observations". Around 13 minutes and shot entirely in black and white, with appearances by his mother and David Lynch, the film showed a noticeably weakened and dysarthric Van Vliet at his residence in California, reading poetry, and philosophically discussing his life, environment, music and art.[112] In 2000, he appeared on Gary Lucas' album Improve the Shining Hour and Moris Tepper's Moth to Mouth, and spoke on Tepper's 2004 song "Ricochet Man" from the album Head Off. He is credited for naming Tepper's 2010 album A Singer Named Shotgun Throat.[116] Van Vliet often voiced concern over and support for environmentalist issues and causes, particularly the welfare of animals. He often referred to Earth as "God's Golfball" and this expression can be found on a number of his later albums. In 2003 he was heard on the compilation album Where We Live: Stand for What You Stand On: A Benefit CD for EarthJustice singing a version of "Happy Birthday to You" retitled "Happy Earthday". The track lasts 34 seconds and was recorded over the telephone.[117] Death Van Vliet died at a hospital in Arcata, California on Friday, December 17, 2010[1]. The cause was named as complications from multiple sclerosis.[118] Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan commented on his death, praising him: "Wondrous, secret ... and profound, he was a diviner of the highest order."[119] Dweezil Zappa dedicated the song "Willie the Pimp" to Beefheart at the "Zappa Plays Zappa" show at the Beacon Theater in New York City on the day of his death, while Jeff Bridges exclaimed "Rest in peace, Captain Beefheart!" at the conclusion of the December 18 episode of NBC's Saturday Night Live.[120] Relationship with Frank Zappa "Willie the Pimp" MENU0:00 Van Vliet's idiosyncratic vocal on Zappa's "Willie the Pimp" was among their collaborations. Problems playing this file? See media help. Van Vliet seated left on stage with Zappa in 1975 Van Vliet met Frank Zappa when they were both teenagers and shared an interest in rhythm and blues and Chicago blues.[30] They collaborated from this early stage, with Zappa's scripts for "teenage operettas" such as "Captain Beefheart & the Grunt People" helping to elevate the Van Vliet persona of Captain Beefheart.[121] In 1963, the pair recorded a demo at the Pal Recording Studio in Cucamonga as the Soots, seeking support from a major label. Their efforts were unsuccessful, as "Beefheart's Howlin' Wolf vocal style and Zappa's distorted guitar" were "not on the agenda" at the time.[30] The friendship between Zappa and Van Vliet over the years was sometimes expressed in the form of rivalry as musicians drifted back and forth between their groups.[122] Van Vliet embarked on the 1975 Bongo Fury tour with Zappa and the Mothers,[123] mainly because conflicting contractual obligations made him unable to tour or record independently. Their relationship grew acrimonious on the tour to the point that they refused to talk to one another. Zappa became irritated by Van Vliet, who drew constantly, including while on stage, filling one of his large sketch books with rapidly executed portraits and warped caricatures of Zappa. Musically, Van Vliet's primitive style contrasted sharply with Zappa's compositional discipline and abundant technique. Mothers of Invention drummer Jimmy Carl Black described the situation as "two geniuses" on "ego trips".[27] Estranged for years afterwards, they reconnected at the end of Zappa's life, after his diagnosis with terminal prostate cancer.[124] Their collaborative work appears on the Zappa rarity collections The Lost Episodes (1996) and Mystery Disc (1996). Particularly notable is their song "Muffin Man", included on the Zappa/Beefheart Bongo Fury album, as well as Zappa's compilation album Strictly Commercial (1995). Zappa finished concerts with the song for many years afterwards. Beefheart also provided vocals for "Willie the Pimp" on Zappa's otherwise instrumental album Hot Rats (1969). One track on Trout Mask Replica, "The Blimp (mousetrapreplica)", features Magic Band guitarist Jeff Cotton talking on the telephone to Zappa superimposed onto an unrelated live recording of the Mothers of Invention (the backing track was later released in 1992 as "Charles Ives" on You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore, Vol. 5 ).[125] Van Vliet also played the harmonica on two songs on Zappa albums: "San Ber'dino" (credited as "Bloodshot Rollin' Red") on One Size Fits All (1975) and "Find Her Finer" on Zoot Allures (1976).[126] He is also the vocalist on "The Torture Never Stops (Original Version)" on Zappa's You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore, Vol. 4. The Magic Band Don Van Vliet and Gary Lucas, 'Doc at the Radar Station' sessions (May 1980) The members of the original Magic Band had come together in 1964. At this time Van Vliet was simply the lead singer of the group, which had been brought together by guitarist Alex St. Clair. As in many emerging groups in California at the time, there were elements of psychedelia and the foundations of contemporary hippie counterculture. Thus, it seemed quite logical to promote the group as "Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band", around the concept that Captain Beefheart had "magic powers" and, upon drinking a "Pepsi", could summon up "His Magic Band" to appear and perform behind him.[127] The strands of this logic emanated from Vliet's Beefheart persona having been "written in" as a character in a "teenage operetta" that Zappa had formulated,[32] along with Van Vliet's renowned "Pepsi moods" with his mother Willie Sue and his generally spoilt teenage demeanor. The name "His Magic Band" changed to "the Magic Band" in 1972. Beginning In late 1965, after numerous car-club dances, juke joint gigs, appearances at the Avalon Ballroom and winning the Teenage Fair Battle of the Bands, the group finally bagged a contract for recording two singles with the newly created A&M Records label with Leonard Grant as their manager. It was at this time that musical relationships had also been struck with members of Rising Sons who would later feature in the band's recordings. The A&M deal also brought some contention between members of the band, torn between a career as an experimental "pop" group and that of a purist blues band. Working with young producer David Gates also opened up horizons for Vliet's skills as a poet-cum-lyricist, with his "Who Do You Think You're Fooling" on the flipside of the band's first single, a cover of the Ellas McDaniel/Willie Dixon-penned hit, "Diddy Wah Diddy". Fate and circumstance, not for the first time, would befall the band's success upon its release – which coincided with a singles cover of the same song by the Remains.[128] The initial line-up of the Magic Band that entered the studio for the A&M recordings was not that which emerged by the second release, "Moonchild", also backed by a Vliet-penned number, "Frying Pan". A 12" vinyl 45rpm mono EP/mono mini-cassette tape was later released in 1987, with the four tracks of the two singles, plus "Here I Am, I Always Am" as a fifth previously unreleased song. This release was titled The Legendary A&M Sessions, with a red-marbled cover and (later) members Moon, Blakely, Vliet, Snouffer and Handley seated in a "temperance dance band" photo-pose. The original Magic Band was primarily a rhythm and blues band, led by local Lancaster guitarist Alexis Snouffer, along with Doug Moon (guitar), Jerry Handley (bass), and Vic Mortenson (drums), the last being rotated with and finally replaced by Paul Blakely, known as "P. G. Blakely". For the first A&M recording Mortenson had been called up for active service and Snouffer stood in on drums, with a recently recruited Richard Hepner taking up the guitar role. By the time the single was aired on a pop television show P. G. Blakely was back in the drum seat. He then left for a career in television and was replaced by John French by the time the band cut their first album, as the first release on the new Buddah Records label. Personnel in the Magic Band for Beefheart's first album, Safe as Milk, were Alex St. Clair, Jerry Handley and John French. Earlier meetings with the Rising Sons had also secured them the guitar and arranging skills of Ry Cooder, which also brought about input from Taj Mahal on percussion and guitar work from Cooder's brother-in-law Russ Titelman. Further guests to this line-up included Milt Holland on percussion and the all-important and controversial theremin work on Electricity by Samuel Hoffman. It was perhaps this track, above the others, which caused A&M to view the band as "unsuitable" for their label with what was seen as weird and too psychedelic for popular consumption. Thus, this album was recorded for Buddah, with the band signed to Kama Sutra, which left them close to penniless after extricating themselves from A&M. A large proportion of the tracks on this album were co-written with Van Vliet by Herb Bermann, whom Vliet initially met up with at a bar gig near Lancaster. Part-time Hollywood television actor and budding scriptwriter Bermann and his then wife Cathleen spent some time in Vliet's company prior to this release.[39] Bermann would later write for Neil Young and script an early Spielberg-directed television medical drama. Gary "Magic" Marker (the "Magic" added by Beefheart) was involved in early session work for this release, and his involvement with Rising Sons was also instrumental in acquiring the skills of Cooder, upon an unfulfilled suggestion that Marker might produce the album.[129] Marker would later lay down two uncredited bass tracks for Trout Mask Replica before being replaced by Mark Boston. French worked on five more Beefheart albums, while Snouffer worked with Beefheart on and off on three more albums. Bill Harkleroad joined the Magic Band as guitarist for Trout Mask Replica and stayed with Beefheart through May 1974. Beefheart takes the lead While appearing humorous and kind-hearted in public, by all accounts Van Vliet was a severe taskmaster who abused his musicians verbally and sometimes physically. Vliet once told drummer John French he had been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic and thus he would see inexistent conspiracies that explained this behaviour.[130] The band were reportedly paid little or nothing. French recalled that the musicians' contract with Van Vliet's company stipulated that Van Vliet and the managers were paid from gross proceeds before expenses, then expenses were paid, then the band members evenly split any remaining funds—in effect making band members liable for all expenses. As a result, French was paid nothing at all for a 33-city US tour in 1971 and a total of $78 for a tour of Europe and the US in late 1975. In his 2010 memoir Beefheart: Through The Eyes of Magic French recounted being "...screamed at, beaten up, drugged, ridiculed, humiliated, arrested, starved, stolen from, and thrown down a half-flight of stairs by his employer".[131] The musicians also resented Van Vliet for taking complete credit for composition and arranging when the musicians themselves pieced together most of the songs from taped fragments or impressionistic directions such as "Play it like a bat being dragged out of oil and it's trying to survive, but it's dying from asphyxiation."[132] John French summarized the disagreement over composing and arranging credits metaphorically:[133] If Van Vliet built a house like he wrote music, the methodology would go something like this... The house is sketched on the back of a Denny's placemat in such an odd fashion that when he presents it to the contractor without plans or research, the contractor says "This structure is going to be hard to build, it's going to be tough to make it safe and stable because it is so unique in design." Van Vliet then yells at the contractor and intimidates him into doing the job anyway. The contractor builds the home, figuring out all the intricacies involved in structural integrity himself because whenever he approaches Van Vliet, he finds that he seems completely unable to comprehend technical problems and just yells, "Quit asking me about this stuff and build the damned house."... When the house is finished no one gets paid, and Van Vliet has a housewarming party, invites none of the builders and tells the guests he built the whole thing himself. The Magic Band post-Beefheart The Magic Band finishing off a gig at Band on the Wall, Manchester, 29 May 2014 Receiving only a "grumpy" reception from Van Vliet,[131] the Magic Band reformed in 2003 with John French on drums, lead vocals and harmonica, Gary Lucas and Denny Walley on guitars, Rockette Morton on bass, and Robert Williams on drums for the vocal numbers. The initial impetus came from Matt Groening who wanted them to play at the All Tomorrows Parties festival he was curating. For their subsequent European tour, Williams left and was replaced by Michael Traylor. John Peel was initially skeptical about the re-formed Magic Band. However, after he aired a live recording of the band playing at the 2003 All Tomorrow's Parties festival on his radio show, he was lost for words and had to put on another record to regain his composure. In 2004 the band did a live session for him at his home "Peel Acres".[134] They played over 30 shows throughout the United Kingdom and Europe, and one in the United States.[135] They also released two albums: Back to the Front (on the London-based ATP Recordings, 2003) and 21st Century Mirror Men (2005). The group disbanded in 2006 but reformed in 2011, with Lucas and Traylor replaced by Eric Klerks and Craig Bunch respectively, to play at ATP once again (which was due to take place in November, curated by Jeff Mangum).[136] The festival was postponed until the following March but they honoured the other UK and Ireland dates which had been booked around it, the new line-up being dubbed "The Best Batch Yet" by Beefheart song-title-referencing commentators. They returned to play the rescheduled ATP and more UK gigs in March 2012, followed by a European tour in September and October. They toured Europe again in 2013 and 2014. The reformed band's repertoire was initially drawn mainly from the Clear Spot and Trout Mask Replica albums, with some of the latter’s songs performed as instrumentals, allowing the intricacy of the instrumental parts to be heard, where they had previously been obscured by Beefheart’s vocals or sax. During subsequent tours the setlist has been expanded to include a more representative selection of Beefheart's repertoire. French has described the set as "a play which should be rolled out from time to time". Timeline Influence Van Vliet has been the subject of at least two documentaries, the BBC's 1997 The Artist Formerly Known as Captain Beefheart narrated by John Peel, and the 2006 independent production Captain Beefheart: Under Review.[137] According to Peel, "If there has ever been such a thing as a genius in the history of popular music, it's Beefheart ... I heard echoes of his music in some of the records I listened to last week and I'll hear more echoes in records that I listen to this week."[103] His narration added: "A psychedelic shaman who frequently bullied his musicians and sometimes alarmed his fans, Don somehow remained one of rock's great innocents."[27] Mike Barnes referred to him as an "iconic counterculture hero" who, with the Magic Band, "went on to stake out startling new possibilities for rock music".[5] Lester Bangs cited Beefheart as "one of the four or five unqualified geniuses to rise from the hothouses of American music in the Sixties",[138] while John Harris of The Guardian praised the music's "pulses with energy and ideas, the strange way the spluttering instruments meld together".[7] A Rolling Stone biography described his work as "a sort of modern chamber music for [a] rock band, since he plans every note and teaches the band their parts by ear. Because it breaks so many of rock's conventions at once, Beefheart's music has always been more influential than popular."[54] In this context, it is performed by the classical group, the Meridian Arts Ensemble.[139] Nicholas E. Tawa, in his 2005 book Supremely American: Popular Song in the 20th Century: Styles and Singers and What They Said About America, included Beefheart among the prominent progressive rock musicians of the 1960s and 1970s,[140] while the Encyclopædia Britannica describes Beefheart's songs as conveying "deep distrust of modern civilization, a yearning for ecological balance, and that belief that all animals in the wild are far superior to human beings".[8] Many of his works have been classified as "art rock".[141] Many artists have cited Van Vliet as an influence, beginning with the Edgar Broughton Band, who covered "Dropout Boogie" as Apache Drop Out[142] (mixed with the Shadows' "Apache")[143] as early as 1970, as did the Kills 32 years later. The Minutemen were fans of Beefheart, and were arguably among the few to effectively synthesize his music with their own, especially in their early output, which featured disjointed guitar and irregular, galloping rhythms. Michael Azerrad describes the Minutemen's early output as "highly caffeinated Captain Beefheart running down James Brown tunes",[144] and notes that Beefheart was the group's "idol".[145] Others who arguably conveyed the same influence around the same time or before include John Cale of the Velvet Underground,[146] Little Feat,[147] Laurie Anderson,[148] the Residents and Henry Cow.[71] Genesis P-Orridge of Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV,[149] and poet mystic Z'EV,[150] both pioneers of industrial music, cited Van Vliet along with Zappa among their influences. More notable were those emerging during the early days of punk rock, such as the Clash[105] and John Lydon of the Sex Pistols (reportedly to manager Malcolm McLaren's disapproval), later of the post-punk band Public Image Ltd.[151] Frank Discussion of punk rock band The Feederz learned to play guitar from listening to Trout Mask Replica and Lick My Decals Off, Baby. Cartoonist and writer Matt Groening tells of listening to Trout Mask Replica at the age of 15 and thinking "that it was the worst thing I'd ever heard. I said to myself, they're not even trying! It was just a sloppy cacophony. Then I listened to it a couple more times, because I couldn't believe Frank Zappa could do this to me—and because a double album cost a lot of money. About the third time, I realised they were doing it on purpose; they meant it to sound exactly this way. About the sixth or seventh time, it clicked in, and I thought it was the greatest album I'd ever heard."[152] Groening first saw Beefheart and the Magic Band perform in the front row at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall in the early 1970s.[153] He later declared Trout Mask Replica to be the greatest album ever made. He considered the appeal of the Magic Band as outcasts who were even "too weird for the hippies".[27] Groening served as the curator of the All Tomorrow's Parties festival that reunited the post–Beefheart Magic Band.[153] Another devotee from the film industry is Woody Allen, who was found singing along to Beefheart's music in the audience in New York.[154][155] Van Vliet's influence on post–punk bands was demonstrated by Magazine's recording of "I Love You You Big Dummy" in 1978 and the tribute album Fast 'n' Bulbous – A Tribute to Captain Beefheart in 1988, featuring the likes of artists such as the Dog Faced Hermans, the Scientists, the Membranes, Simon Fisher Turner, That Petrol Emotion, the Primevals, the Mock Turtles, XTC, and Sonic Youth, who included a cover of Beefheart's "Electricity" which would later be re-released as a bonus track on the deluxe edition of their 1988 album Daydream Nation. Other post-punk bands influenced by Beefheart include Gang of Four,[7] Siouxsie and the Banshees,[156] Pere Ubu, Babe the Blue Ox and Mark E. Smith of the Fall.[157] The Fall covered "Beatle Bones 'N' Smokin' Stones" in their 1993 session for John Peel. Beefheart is considered to have "greatly influenced" new wave artists,[8] such as David Byrne of Talking Heads, Blondie, Devo, the Bongos, and the B-52s.[148] The post-punk group, Dalis Car, took their name from the song "Dali's Car" from Trout Mask Replica.[158] Tom Waits' shift in artistic direction, starting with 1983's Swordfishtrombones, was, Waits claims, a result of his wife Kathleen Brennan introducing him to Van Vliet's music.[159] "Once you've heard Beefheart", said Waits, "it's hard to wash him out of your clothes. It stains, like coffee or blood."[160] More recently, Waits has described Beefheart's work as "glimpse into the future; like curatives, recipes for ancient oils".[161] Guitarist John Frusciante of the Red Hot Chili Peppers cited Van Vliet as a prominent influence on the band's 1991 album Blood Sugar Sex Magik as well as his debut solo album Niandra Lades and Usually Just a T-Shirt (1994) and stated that during his drug-induced absence, after leaving the Red Hot Chili Peppers, he "would paint and listen to Trout Mask Replica".[162] Black Francis of the Pixies cited Beefheart's The Spotlight Kid as one of the albums he listened to regularly when first writing songs for the band,[163] and Kurt Cobain of Nirvana acknowledged Van Vliet's influence, mentioning him among his notoriously eclectic range.[40] The White Stripes in 2000 released a 7" tribute single, "Party of Special Things to Do", containing covers of that Beefheart song plus "China Pig" and "Ashtray Heart". The Kills included a cover of "Dropout Boogie" on their debut Black Rooster EP (2002). The Black Keys in 2008 released a free cover of Beefheart's "I'm Glad" from Safe as Milk.[164] The 2002 LCD Soundsystem song "Losing My Edge" has a verse which James Murphy says, "I was there when Captain Beefheart started up his first band". In 2005 Genus Records produced Mama Kangaroos – Philly Women Sing Captain Beefheart, a 20-track tribute to Captain Beefheart.[165] Beck included Safe as Milk and Ella Guru in a playlist of songs as part of his website's Planned Obsolescence series of mashups of songs by the musicians that influenced him.[166] Franz Ferdinand cited Beefheart's Doc at the Radar Station as a strong influence on their second LP, You Could Have It So Much Better.[7] Placebo briefly named themselves Ashtray Heart, after the track on Doc at the Radar Station; the band's album Battle for the Sun contains a track, "Ashtray Heart". Joan Osborne covered Beefheart's "(His) Eyes are a Blue Million Miles", which appears on Early Recordings. She cited Van Vliet as one of her influences.[167] PJ Harvey and John Parish discussed Beefheart's influence in an interview together. Harvey's first experience of Beefheart's music was as a child. Her parents had all of his albums; listening to them made her "feel ill". Harvey was reintroduced to Beefheart's music by Parish, who lent her a cassette copy of Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller) at the age of 16. She cited him as one of her greatest influences since. Parish described Beefheart's music as a "combination of raw blues and abstract jazz. There was humour in there, but you could tell that it wasn't [intended as] a joke. I felt that there was a depth to what he did that very few other rock artists have managed [to achieve]."[168] Ty Segall covered "Drop Out Boogie" on his 2009 album Lemons. Discography Main article: Captain Beefheart discography Safe as Milk (1967) Strictly Personal (1968) Trout Mask Replica (1969) Lick My Decals Off, Baby (1970) Mirror Man (1971) The Spotlight Kid (1972) Clear Spot (1972) Unconditionally Guaranteed (1974) Bluejeans & Moonbeams (1974) Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller) (1978) Doc at the Radar Station (1980) Ice Cream for Crow (1982) Bat Chain Puller (2012) References "Captain Beefheart". Encyclopædia Britannica. 2010. Retrieved December 18, 2010. "Don Glen Vliet's birth certificate at Beefheart.com". Retrieved 2011-07-18. Ankeny, Jason. "Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band". Allmusic. Retrieved 2007-03-17. Commonly reported as five octaves (Captain Beefheart. (2010). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved January 28, 2010, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online Library Edition), though reports have varied from three octaves to seven and a half: "Captain Beefheart: Biography : Rolling Stone". www.rollingstone.com. Retrieved 2017-10-26. Barnes 2000 Barnes, Mike; Paytress, Mark; White III, Jack (March 2011), "The Black Rider", Mojo, London: Bauermedia, 208: 65–73 Harris, John (August 4, 2006). "Mission: unlistenable". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 2010-04-28. "Captain Beefheart at the Encyclopædia Britannica". Retrieved 2010-02-16. Rolling Stone Loder, Kurt. June 24, 1999. Captain Beefheart: The Man Who Reconstructed Rock & Roll. www.mtv.com. "58 Trout Mask Replica". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 2010-02-11. Anthony Haden-Guest (July 28, 2007). "Don Van Vliet: Boom times, bad times". Financial Times. McKenna, Kristina (July 29, 1990). "A Crossover of a Different Color Archived October 1, 2009, at the Wayback Machine.. Los Angeles Times. "Captain Beefheart Dead at Age 69". RollingStone.com. Retrieved 2010-12-17. Johnston, Graham (May 1, 1980). "The Captain Beefheart Radar Station – Captain Beefheart". Beefheart.com. Archived from the original on January 6, 2010. Retrieved February 11, 2010. Rogers, John (June 22, 1995). "Captain Beefheart Gaining International Acclaim—for Painting Archived March 29, 2006, at the Wayback Machine.". AP. Barnes 2000, p. 2 Barnes 2000, p. 4 Riding Some Kind Of Unusual Skull Sleigh Ltd. Ed. boxed work. Artist Ink Editions (2003), ISBN 0-7379-0284-1 Winner, Langdon (May 14, 1970). The Odyssey of Captain Beefheart Archived March 15, 2006, at the Wayback Machine.. Rolling Stone. Don Van Vliet, IMDB – David Letterman "Episode dated 11 November 1982 (1982) TV episode (as Captain Beefheart) .... Himself" Barnes 2000, p. 6 Ohrt, Roberto (1993). The Painting of Don Van Vliet Archived March 29, 2006, at the Wayback Machine.. In Stand Up to Be Discontinued, Cantz, ISBN 3-89322-595-1. Johnston, Graham (March 19, 1972). "The Captain Beefheart Radar Station – A Study of Captain Beefheart". Beefheart.com. Archived from the original on February 27, 2010. Retrieved February 11, 2010. Zappa, Frank; Occhiogrosso, Peter (1989). The Real Frank Zappa Book. Poseidon Press. ISBN 0-671-63870-X. Watson, 1996, Frank Zappa: The Negative Dialectics of Poodle Play, p. 13. Elaine Shepard (Producer), Declan Smith (Film research) (1997). The Artist Formerly Known as Captain Beefheart (Documentary). BBC. Johnston, Graham. "Don Vliet's Graduation Photograph". Beefheart.com. Archived from the original on August 17, 2011. Retrieved July 18, 2011. French, J. Beefheart: Through The Eyes Of Magic[page needed] Steve TaylorA to X of Alternative Music. Continuum International Publishing Group,. 2006. p. 53. ISBN 0826482171. Retrieved 2010-01-26. "Album track: "Why Doesn't Someone Give Him A Pepsi?"". Discogs.com. Retrieved 2011-07-18. "Captain Beefheart vs. the Grunt People". The Captain Beefheart Radar Station. Archived from the original on April 7, 2007. Retrieved March 17, 2007. Zappa, Frank; Occhiogrosso, Peter (1990). The Real Frank Zappa Book. Fireside. ISBN 0-671-70572-5. Johnston, Graham. "''Grunt People'' draft script". Beefheart.com. Archived from the original on August 17, 2011. Retrieved July 18, 2011. Johnston, Graham. "The Captain Beefheart Radar Station – Captain Beefheart Pulls A Hat Out of His Rabbit". Beefheart.com. Archived from the original on September 18, 2010. Retrieved February 11, 2010. Zappa, Frank (March 1977). International Times. Barnes 2000, p. 27 Harkleroad, Bill (1998). Lunar Notes: Zoot Horn Rollo's Captain Beefheart Experience. Interlink Publishing. ISBN 0-946719-21-7. p67 Johnston, Graham. "The Captain Beefheart Radar Station – Herb Bermann interview pt 1". Beefheart.com. Archived from the original on October 20, 2008. Retrieved February 11, 2010. "Book Review: Zoot Horn Rollo's Captain Beefheart Experience". Ru.org. Retrieved February 11, 2010. "Photo of John Lennon lounging at his Surrey home, with "Safe as Milk" bumper stickers visible". Archived from the original on June 16, 2011. Retrieved February 11, 2010. Barnes 2000, p. 142 Barnes 2000, p. 144 French, John. Beefheart: Through The Eyes Of Magic, pp.206–207. ISBN 978-0-9561212-1-9 Grow Fins CD box set booklet p.39 [also in vinyl set booklet]. French, John. Beefheart: Through The Eyes Of Magic, p.253. ISBN 978-0-9561212-1-9 French, John. Beefheart: Through The Eyes Of Magic p264. ISBN 978-0-9561212-1-9 Captain Beefheart – Google Books. Retrieved January 25, 2010. Mason, Stewart (April 25, 1968). "Strictly Personal > Overview". Allmusic. Retrieved February 11, 2010. Winner, Langdon (May 14, 1970). "The Odyssey of Captain Beefheart Archived March 15, 2006, at the Wayback Machine." Huey, Steve (June 1, 1999). "The Mirror Man Sessions > Overview". Allmusic. Retrieved February 11, 2010. Johnston, Graham. "Refusal of Leave to Land Report, dated 24 January 1968". Beefheart.com. Archived from the original on August 17, 2011. Retrieved July 18, 2011. French, John. Beefheart: Through The Eyes Of Magic, p327 – 329. ISBN 978-0-9561212-1-9 "Captain Beefheart: Biography". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 2010-02-11. French, John. Beefheart: Through The Eyes Of Magic, p359. ISBN 978-0-9561212-1-9 Grow Fins CD box set booklet p.107 [also in vinyl set booklet]. Harkleroad, Bill. Lunar Notes p22-23. ISBN 0-946719-21-7 Grow Fins CD box set booklet p.51 [also in vinyl set booklet]. Barnes 2000, pp. 70–71 Grow Fins CD box set booklet p.99 [also in vinyl set booklet]. The Magic Band, vanity project interviews, April 2005. Gore, Joe. "Zoot Horn Rollo: Captain Beefheart’s Glass-Finger Guitarist". Guitar Player Jan. 1998 : 39-40, 42, 44. Print. "Burundo Drumbi! — John French's Series of Q&As, 2000/1". The Captain Beefheart Radar Station. Archived from the original on December 13, 2007. Retrieved December 9, 2007. From Straight to Bizarre - Zappa, Beefheart, Alice Cooper and LA's Lunatic Fringe, DVD, 2012 French, p. 7 Barnes 2000, p. 71 Miles, Barry (2005). Zappa: A Biography, Grove Press, pp. 182–183. "United Mutations interview with Schenkel". United-mutations.com. Retrieved 2010-02-11. Chusid, Irwin (2000). Songs in the Key of Z: The Curious Universe of Outsider Music, pp. 129–140. London: Cherry Red Books. ISBN 1-901447-11-1 Huey, Steve. "Trout Mask Replica". Allmusic. Retrieved 2007-03-17. Frith, Fred. New Musical Express (1974), as quoted in Barnes. "CG: Artist 222". Robert Christgau. 2006-12-01. Retrieved 2010-02-11. Barnes, Mike (February 1999). "Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band: Trout Mask Replica". Perfect Sound Forever. Retrieved 2007-12-09. Johnston, Graham. "The Captain Beefheart Radar Station – Lick My Decals Off Baby". Beefheart.com. Archived from the original on January 24, 2010. Retrieved February 11, 2010. Music Video: The Industry and Its Fringes, Museum of Modern Art, September 6–30, 1985 Looking at Music,, Museum of Modern Art, August 13, 2008 – January 5, 2009 Uncut magazine, May 2010. "The 50 Greatest Lost Albums" www.rocklistmusic.co.uk Retrieved 2010-02-09. itunes.apple.com Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band – Lick My Decals Off, Baby Retrieved 2011-01-28. Raggett, Ned."The Spotlight Kid" allmusic. Retrieved 2010-12-19. French, pp. 563–564 Barnes 2000, p. 155 French, p. 558–565. French, p. 563. Harkleroad, p. 67 Raggett, Ned. Clear Spot, Allmusic. Retrieved 2010-12-19. French, John. Beefheart: Through The Eyes Of Magic, pp.608–609. ISBN 978-0-9561212-1-9 Harkleroad, Bill. Lunar Notes pp.132–133. ISBN 0-946719-21-7 Delville, Michel; Norris, Andrew (2005). "That Blues Thing: Enter Captain Beefheart". Archived from the original on January 1, 2009. Retrieved November 20, 2008. Barnes 2000, p. 203 Johnston, Graham (February 10, 2006). "The Captain Beefheart Radar Station – Art Tripp interview". Beefheart.com. Archived from the original on November 20, 2010. Retrieved February 11, 2010. Johnston, Graham. "The Captain Beefheart Radar Station – Zappa and the Captain Cook". Beefheart.com. Archived from the original on November 20, 2010. Retrieved February 11, 2010. Zappa, Gail. "'Orig BCP' release date". Zappa.com. Archived from the original on January 9, 2012. Retrieved 2011-11-03. "Barfko-Swill Bat Chain Puller CD | Shop the Barfko-Swill Official Store". Barfkoswill.shop.musictoday.com. Retrieved 2012-03-26. Barnes 2000, p. 255 Raggett, Ned. "Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller) > Overview". Allmusic. Retrieved 2010-02-11. French, John.John French's tribute to Don Van Vliet Archived December 26, 2010, at the Wayback Machine. Beefheart.com Published 2010-22-12. Retrieved 2011-13-01. Van Vliet interviewed on KABC-TV's Channel 7 Eyewitness News on YouTube 1980. Retrieved on April 9, 2010. Huey, Steve. "Doc at the Radar Station > Overview". Allmusic. Retrieved 2010-02-11. Darrin, Fox. "Fast and Bulbous: Gary Lucas and Denny Walley Reignite the Magic Band". Guitar Player Oct. 2003 : 43, 45, 47, 49. Print. Lucas, Gary. "O Captain! My Captain Beefheart: An Appreciation" The Wall Street Journal. blogs.wsj.com Published and retrieved on 2010-19-12. Raggett, Ned. "Ice Cream for Crow > Review". Allmusic. Retrieved 2010-02-11. Galucci, Michael. "Reviews: Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band - "Doc at the Radar Station"; "Ice Cream for Crow". Goldmine 13 Apr. 2007 : 63. Print. Barnes, Mike (August 17, 1997). "Genius or madman—the jury is still out on Captain Beefheart Archived April 3, 2004, at the Wayback Machine.". Daily Telegraph. Van Vliet, Don (Captain Beefheart). Skeleton Breath, Scorpion Blush (all poems in English, preface in German and English). Bern-Berlin: Gachnang & Springer, 1987. ISBN 978-3-906127-15-6 Needs, Kris (2005). John Peel, his Producer Soulmate and the Mad Captain". trakMARX 18. Retrieved February 28, 2006. Bamberger, W.C. Riding Some Kind of Unusual Skull Sleigh: On The Arts Of Don Van Vliet, ISBN 0-917453-35-2 Various authors. Stand Up To Be Discontinued, Paperback: ISBN 3-9801320-2-1 Hardback Limited Edition (1500) with CD: ISBN 3-9801320-3-X Johnston, Graham. "The Captain Beefheart Radar Station – Stand Up To Be Discontinued". Beefheart.com. Archived from the original on August 17, 2011. Retrieved July 18, 2011. Don Van Vliet, Morgan Falconer, Artforum, July 7, 2007. Retrieved November 27, 2008. Johnston, Graham (July 29, 1990). "The Captain Beefheart Radar Station – Crossover of a Different Colour". Beefheart.com. Archived from the original on October 1, 2009. Retrieved February 11, 2010. Barnes 2000, p. 330 "Film & Video: Anton Corbijn". UbuWeb. West Virginia University. Archived from the original on 2008-12-30. Retrieved 2010-02-11. Elaine Shepard (Producer), Declan Smith (Film research) (1997). The Artist Formerly Known as Captain Beefheart (Documentary). BBC. a virtual recluse suffering from a long term illness" and "wheel chair bound Johnston, Graham. "The Captain Beefheart Radar Station – Frequently Asked Questions". Beefheart.com. Archived from the original on January 8, 2010. Retrieved February 11, 2010. Ankeny, Jason (January 15, 1941). "Captain Beefheart > Biography". Allmusic. Retrieved 2010-02-11. Shotgun Throat Credits "candlebone.com". Retrieved 2010-12-20. Where We Live: Happy Earthday artistdirect.com. Retrieved 2010-09-04. "Don Van Vliet, also known as "Captain Beefheart", dies aged 69". BBC News. 17 December 2010. Retrieved 2010-12-17. http://www.antilabelblog.com On Captain Beefheart… Published 2010-12-21. Retrieved 2011-01-28. "SNL Transcripts: Jeff Bridges: 12/18/10: Goodnights". snltranscripts.jt.org. Retrieved 2016-04-23. Mike Barnes, Captain Beefheart, p14 ISBN 978-0-7119-4134-2 Miles 2004 "''Bongo Fury'' for Mothers link". Discogs.com. Retrieved 2011-07-18. Miles 2004, p. 372 Zappa, Frank. You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore, Vol. 5 Liner notes B0000009TR. "Frank Zappa featuring Captain Beefheart" Archived September 18, 2010, at the Wayback Machine. The Captain Beefheart Radar Station. Retrieved 2010-07-01. Courtier, Kevin. Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica (33​1⁄3), p. 32, London: Continuum Press (2007) "Beefheart vs The Remains". Discogs.com. Retrieved 2011-07-18. "Grow Fins CD box set booklet p.38 [also in vinyl set booklet]". Discogs.com. April 3, 2009. Retrieved 2011-07-18. teejo. "Don't argue the Captain". Freewebs.com. Retrieved 2011-07-18. "John "Drumbo" French: Through The Eyes Of Magic review and interview" diskant.net. Retrieved 2010-04-07. Barnes 2000, p. 59 Barnes 2001, pp. 815–816 "Radio 1 – Keeping It Peel – Sessions – 2004". BBC. Retrieved 2010-02-11. "Captain Beefheart Up Sifter: Magic memories". Beefheart.com. Archived from the original on August 17, 2009. Retrieved February 11, 2010. "ATP curated by Jeff Mangum". Atpfestival.com. Retrieved 2011-07-18. "101 Distribution – ''Captain Beefheart: Under Review''". 101distribution.com. March 30, 2009. Retrieved 2011-07-18. Bangs, Lester (April 1, 1971). "Mirror Man" review for Rolling Stone. Accessed at beefheart.com Archived February 18, 2010, at the Wayback Machine.. "Meridian Arts Ensemble – About Us", meridianartsensemble.com, retrieved February 28, 2010 Tawa, Nicholas E. Supremely American: Popular Song in the 20th Century: Styles and Singers and What They Said About America (Lanham, MA: Scarecrow Press, 2005), ISBN 0-8108-5295-0, pp. 249–50. "Art Rock".The Grove Dictionary of American Music. 2nd ed. 2014. Print. http://www.discogs.com/Edgar-Broughton-Band-Apache-Drop-Out/release/2333986 Barnes 2000, p. 325 Azerrad 2001, p. 69 Azerrad 2001, p. 71 "John Cale – Producer". Xs4all.nl. May 2, 2006. Retrieved 2011-07-18. "Little Feat". Johnston, Graham (September 28, 1980). "The Captain Beefheart Radar Station – Doc at the Radar Station". Beefheart.com. Archived from the original on July 9, 2011. Retrieved 2010-02-11. Reynolds, Simon. Rip It Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978–1984. Chapters 9: "Living for the Future: Cabaret Voltaire, The Human League and the Sheffield Scene"; 12: "Industrial Devolution: Throbbing Gristle's Music from the Death Factory"; and 25: Vale, V.; Juno, Andrea (1983). Re/Search No. 6/7: Industrial Culture Handbook. San Francisco: V/Search. ISBN 0-9650469-6-6. Reynolds, Simon (2005). Rip it Up and Start Again – Postpunk 1978–1984. Faber and Faber. ISBN 978-0-571-21570-6. Johnston, Graham. "The Captain Beefheart Radar Station – Plastic Factory". Beefheart.com. Archived from the original on October 14, 2009. Retrieved 2010-02-11. Payne, John (November 5, 2003). "All Tomorrow's Parties Today". LA Weekly. Retrieved 2010-06-05. Captain Beefheart Takes Up Cudgel Against Catatonia, Enlists Brave Shiny Beast Archived February 4, 2012, at the Wayback Machine.. "Genius or madman – the jury is still out on Captain Beefheart" Archived April 3, 2004, at the Wayback Machine., Beefheart.com. Johns, Brian. Entranced : the Siouxsie and the Banshees story, Omnibus Press, 1989, p.11. ISBN 978-0-7119-1773-6 Blincoe, Nicholas (April 26, 2008). "Mark E Smith: wonderful and frightening". London: Telegraph. Retrieved 2010-02-11. Buckley, Peter, ed. (2003). "Dali's Car". The Rough Guide to Rock (3 ed.). Rough Guides. p. 264. ISBN 978-1-84353-105-0. ...Mick Karn, ex-bassist with arty New Wave band Japan, and Peter Murphy, ex-vocalist with arty gothic punks Bauhaus. They took their name from a Captain Beefheart... Simmons, Sylvie (October 2004). The Mojo Interview: Tom Waits Speaks Archived March 20, 2006, at the Wayback Machine.. Mojo. "Reid, Graham ''Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band: Trout Mask Replica (1969)'' at". Elsewhere.co.nz. November 23, 2009. Retrieved 2011-07-18. Robinson, John. "Archive: Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band – ‘Trout Mask Replica’". Uncut Dec. 2013 : 90. Print. Rotondigic, James (November 1997). Till I Reach the Higher Ground. Guitar Player. Sisario, Ben. (2006). Doolittle. Continuum, 33⅓ series. ISBN 0-8264-1774-4. "The Black Keys Cover Captain Beefheart – MP3". Stereogum. May 18, 2008. Retrieved 2010-02-11. US, Amazon. "Mama Kangaroos: Philly Women Sing Captain Beefheart". Retrieved March 4, 2011. http://www.beck.com Planned Obsolescence Archived May 4, 2010, at the Wayback Machine. No 11: Broken Glass Blues. Retrieved 2010-06-06. "Vanguard Records: Joan Osborne". Archived from the original on August 6, 2009. "MOGTv: PJ Harvey & John Parish on Neil Young, Captain Beefheart". Mog.com. Archived from the original on June 6, 2009. Retrieved February 11, 2010. Further reading Azerrad, Michael (2001). Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground, 1981–1991. Little Brown. ISBN 0-316-78753-1. Bamberger, W.C. (1999). Riding Some Kind of Unusual Skull Sleigh: On The Arts Of Don Van Vliet. ISBN 978-0-917453-35-9 Barnes, Mike (2000). Captain Beefheart: The Biography. London: Quartet Books. ISBN 1-84449-412-8. Retrieved 2010-01-27. Beaugrand, Andreas and various (1994). Stand Up to Be Discontinued. (Paperback) ISBN 3-9801320-2-1. Courrier, Kevin (2007). Trout Mask Replica. New York: Continuum. ISBN 0-8264-2781-2 Delville, Michel & Norris, Andrew (2005). Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart, and the Secret History of Maximalism. Cambridge: Salt Publishing. ISBN 1-84471-059-9. French, John (2010). Beefheart: Through the Eyes of Magic. ISBN 0-9561212-1-7. Harkleroad, Bill (1998). Lunar Notes: Zoot Horn Rollo's Captain Beefheart Experience. Interlink Publishing. ISBN 0-946719-21-7. Miles, Barry (2004). Frank Zappa. Atlantic Books. ISBN 1-84354-091-6. Van Vliet, Don (Captain Beefheart) (1987). Skeleton Breath, Scorpion Blush. (All poems in English, preface in German and English.) Bern-Berlin: Gachnang & Springer. ISBN 978-3-906127-15-6 Zappa, Frank & Occhiogrosso, Peter; The Real Frank Zappa Book, Poseidon Press (1989), ISBN 0-671-63870-X External links Wikimedia Commons has media related to Captain Beefheart. Book: Captain Beefheart Wikiquote has quotations related to: Captain Beefheart Wikinews has related news: Don Van Vliet, best known as "Captain Beefheart", dies aged 69 Beefheart.com – The Captain Beefheart Radar Station "Captain Beefheart collected news and commentary". The Guardian. Captain Beefheart at AllMusic Captain Beefheart at Rolling Stone Some Yo Yo Stuff by Anton Corbijn [hide] v t e Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band (1964–1982) Captain Beefheart Alex St. Clair Jerry Handley Gary Jaye Cliff Martinez Doug Moon Gary 'Magic' Marker Vic Mortenson Ry Cooder Drumbo Rockette Morton Zoot Horn Rollo Winged Eel Fingerling The Mascara Snake Antennae Jimmy Semens Moris Tepper Indian Ink Black Jew Kitabu Gary Lucas Ed Marimba Wait For Me The Magic Band (2003–present) Drumbo Rockette Morton Feelers Rebo Eric Klerks Andrew Niven Wait For Me Gary Lucas Michael Traylor Craig Bunch Studio albums Safe as Milk Strictly Personal Trout Mask Replica Lick My Decals Off, Baby Mirror Man The Spotlight Kid Clear Spot Unconditionally Guaranteed Bluejeans & Moonbeams Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller) Doc at the Radar Station Ice Cream for Crow Bat Chain Puller EPs The Legendary A&M Sessions Live albums Bongo Fury I'm Going to Do What I Wanna Do: Live at My Father's Place 1978 Compilations Grow Fins: Rarities 1965–1982 Singles "Diddy Wah Diddy" "Moonchild" "Yellow Brick Road" "Sure 'Nuff 'N Yes I Do" "Zig Zag Wanderer" "Plastic Factory" "Electricity" "Pachuco Cadaver" "Click Clack" "Too Much Time" "Upon the My-O-My" "Hard Workin' Man" "Ice Cream for Crow" Other songs "Advance Romance" "Muffin Man" "Party of Special Things to Do" "Willie the Pimp" Related articles Discography Frank Zappa Fast 'n' Bulbous – A Tribute to Captain Beefheart Peter Meaden Mallard Authority control WorldCat Identities VIAF: 117619223 LCCN: nr89010378 ISNI: 0000 0001 0775 1374 GND: 118978047 SELIBR: 213391 SUDOC: 161696015 BNF: cb13946983d (data) BIBSYS: 1063915 ULAN: 500329822 MusicBrainz: 8dcd04e4-7695-4d80-bae9-1d7d680a38ef BNE: XX1596199 RKD: 81463 Categories: Captain Beefheart1941 births2010 deaths20th-century American paintersAmerican male painters20th-century American sculptors21st-century American painters21st-century American sculptorsAmerican male sculptorsAbstract expressionist artistsAlbum-cover and concert-poster artistsAlter egosAmerican classical composersAmerican environmentalistsAmerican experimental filmmakersAmerican experimental musiciansAmerican experimental rock groupsAmerican harmonica playersAmerican male classical composersAmerican male composersAmerican composersAmerican male poetsAmerican poetsAmerican male singersAmerican multi-instrumentalistsAmerican people of Dutch descentAmerican rock saxophonistsAmerican rock singersAntelope Valley High School alumniArt rock musical groupsAvant-garde singersBands with fictional stage personasBass clarinetistsBlues rock musiciansCounterculture of the 1960sDeaths from multiple sclerosisExperimental composersFrank ZappaLiberty Records artistsMercury Records artistsMusical groups disestablished in 1982Musical groups established in 1965Musicians from Glendale, CaliforniaOutsider musiciansPainters from CaliforniaPeople from Arcata, CaliforniaPeople from Lancaster, CaliforniaProgressive rock musiciansProtopunk groupsProtopunk musiciansPsychedelic rock musiciansReprise Records artistsSongwriters from CaliforniaVirgin Records artistsWarner Bros. 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Boulevards Interview: Funky Gut Punches

Photo by Jordan Rickard

BY JORDAN MAINZER

“I wish I could Men In Black erase my shit so I could listen to it with fresh ears,” Jamil Rashad tells me over the phone from Raleigh, North Carolina. The garage funk artist who records as Boulevards is about to release Brother!, a four-track EP (with an accompanying 2-track single) via Normaltown Records, an imprint of New West. But the restless singer-songwriter’s coming back from recording even newer music, for a potential LP, and has to get in the mindset that in a couple weeks, he’s dropping something he recorded a while back, especially because it’s his most assured (recorded) music to date, all the while exploring new aesthetic and thematic territory.

Rashad finished writing the songs on Brother! early on during the pandemic and messaged various artists he admired to see whether they’d produce the record. Blake Rhein, of Durand Jones & The Indications, bit. Rashad had long admired them. “Durand Jones & The Indications was one of the first soul revival groups in the game,” he said. “They kind of paved the way for Black Pumas and the other cats on Colemine [Records].” It turned out to be the perfect fit for what Rashad was trying to do. “I wanted to do some soul shit but still stay focused to the garage-funk element of Boulevards,” he said, something immediately apparent from the warbling psychedelia of the guitars and strut of the drums from the opening and title track. “I’ve always been chasing my predecessors,” he continued, referring to not only the contemporaries that paved the way for him but classics he grew up listening to with his father, a radio DJ: George Clinton & Parliament-Funkadelic, Curtis Mayfield, and Rick James. Rashad’s always been an avid indie rock and punk listener too, citing The Strokes’ Is This It and early Black Keys albums as just as formative.

You can hear Boulevards’ journey to this genre-averse point from listening to his discography. He released his debut LP on Brooklyn post-punk label Captured Tracks, bouncing around different labels and different styles (earlier this year, he released a collaborative track with “Bulletproof” synth popper La Roux) before finding a home on Normaltown. “I had to make those records in the past to make it to this point,” he said, citing New West’s increasing levels of genre diversity, from Caroline Rose’s pop-rock jamfest LONER to their recent Pylon box set, as a reason why he kept asking them to release his EP. When they said yes, he felt like they got it. “If you’re friends with [Normaltown co-founder] George [Fontaine, Jr.] on Facebook or Instagram, you’ll see how eclectic his tastes are. If anybody could get what I was trying to do, George gets it. It’s not like the Thundercats, the Leon Bridges, the Gary Clark Jr.s of the world,” he said. “This is Carolina soul shit.” As a bonus, Rashad was already friends with a couple New West signees: singer-songwriter Jaime Wyatt and American Aquarium’s BJ Barham, the latter of whom helped Rashad get sober from alcohol.

It’s certainly not lost on Rashad that, in his music community, he’s a Black singer-songwriter surrounded by many white ones, many of whom are his friends but don’t have to face the differences inherent in being Black in America. Some of these differences, he sings about, like on “Shook”, a song about being afraid of the police in Raleigh. But it’s the disparities in the music world that he hopes to directly reduce with Brother! “You have indie rock and the soul revival stuff and the psychedelic stuff, but you don’t have the straight garage funk records unless you see an old record on a Spotify playlist,” he laments, citing the dearth of existence and/or influence of old school, “Black small rare funk bands” as a reason for wanting to bring funk to the forefront. In a post-George Floyd protest world of white American racial reckoning, influencing everything from opinions on law enforcement to music listening habits, Rashad wants to tell his story, share his thoughts on the world, and dance while doing it.

Read the rest of my interview with Rashad below, and check out his live stream from the Cat’s Cradle in Carrboro via NPR tomorrow night at 7 PM CST.

Since I Left You: It’s hard to point to a short EP as a turning point for many artists like this is for you. Why did you want to do just these four songs as opposed to a bigger project?

Jamil Rashad: I mean, I wanted to do a bigger project. That’s why we’re writing an LP right now. But for me, the writing never stops. I’m always writing. At first, I wasn’t even gonna do an EP here. I was gonna do singles and see how my fan base reacted. I wasn’t even gonna have a label. Every record, I always feel like it’s gonna be a turning point. You never know. I was thinking about this the other day. It’s almost like I’m starting fresh. These are songs I’ve been wanting to write--it’s just taken me time as an artist to get to this point to be able to zone in on the sound that I wanted. A 4-song EP is a little bit of the past and what’s to come with Boulevards, which I’m really stoked about.

SILY: You can tell that immediately from the title track, the first track on the EP. It’s got that psychedelic, garage element to the guitars, but it’s also really funky.

JR: I was tested a lot on this record, learning how the voice interacts with the microphone. Blake was pushing me to do it, which no producer has never done before. It’s turned out really dope. The goal was always to be the face of garage funk. Back in the day, my parents and your parents had the George Clinton records, Isaac Hayes, [Curtis Mayfield], they had all these different artists that were bringing the wave of funk. James Brown. You don’t really have that now. You have soul acts, R&B acts, indie rock acts, country acts, Americana acts, but you don’t have anyone that [brings] the funk shit. That’s what Boulevards is all about.

SILY: More than ever for you, these songs are political. Did you want the EP to be both a thematic and aesthetic turning point, or was that just a coincidence?

JR: It was both. Being 36 at this age, and looking at what’s going on in America, there are things you can’t ignore. I’m not a political expert, but maybe I should post what I’m feeling, what I’m seeing from white friends and Black friends and what’s going on with my community, and put it into these songs. I don’t think if a lot of this stuff didn’t happen with George Floyd, the pandemic, small businesses struggling, and people struggling, I would have been able to write these songs. I’m still gonna stay true to love and heartbreak, and self-growth, and trying to overcome obstacles and things of that nature. Those things I’m always gonna write about. But what was going on in the world definitely inspired and influenced those lines and crafting those songs. I’m not one to preach--you have a lot of these artists who have political records and preach. I wanted to make something about what I’ve experienced that people can still vibe and groove too.

SILY: Only “Shook” seems to be outwardly political. The rest of the songs are about Black life, but they’re really about your Black life.

JR: Of course. Me being a Black man and my struggles and things I’ve been through and seen other people go through. “Shook” is a song about being afraid of police. Being a Black man, every time I leave my house, I have to calculate every move that I make. It’s not like that for a lot of my white friends. That’s fine--that’s what America is. Well, actually, it’s not fine, it’s where America’s at. If I see Raleigh PD and am walking in a predominantly white neighborhood, are they gonna stop me? I live in this neighborhood I worked my ass off to be in. Are they gonna stop me because I don’t look the part and look like I’m up to something? So that’s what inspired “Shook”. Elijah McClain, just doing his thing, cops killing the brother. I didn’t want to do it in an overly preachy way, but at the same time, as America, we have to have uncomfortable conversations with each other. White on white America needs to show awareness with each other for things to actually change. 

“Brother!” is mostly about working. Working your ass off for somebody and nothing changes. [laughs] You’re putting in the hours and the time, you’re making money for somebody else who doesn’t give a shit about you. You’re trying to get the promotions, you’re putting on a face. I worked at Best Buy, you can imagine being a touring artist and then having to put on a blue shirt and dealing with customers over some TV or kitchen appliance shit. I’m obviously doing my job, but I’m not gonna get a promotion there or get an advancement there. It’s about being a Black man in the work force and making somebody else money. At the time, I wasn’t sober, too, so the bar was my only release. It was the only way I could cope with that. [At the same time,] being in the Black community and being in Raleigh, and seeing my father interact with other Black men and even white men, saying, “Brother so and so” [inspired the song.] That’s how we greet each other sometimes. It’s also talking to myself talking to a man out there.

SILY: Whether these songs are about your personal experiences growing up or problems you’re facing now, as serious as they are, you can dance to them.

JR: Curtis Mayfield was good for that. Funkadelic, even Marvin Gaye. That’s what I wanted to be able to accomplish. Funk hits people in the gut. You can still politically come from a serious perspective. 

SILY: Tell me about the video for “Luv n Pain”.

JR: It’s a simple, fun video. [Director] Patrick [Lincoln] pitched the idea. He wanted to have a day of Boulevards alone in his home, reflecting on being alone, reflecting on the things that have caused me personal heartbreak, without a partner. Getting ready in the morning, drinking coffee, wanting to share it with somebody but not having anybody to share it with.

Every video I’ve done up till this point, I’m always dancing. He wanted to slow things down, but still have it be Boulevards, stay true to me, have me dance in certain scenes but also have me reflecting, looking at the fire, up at the ceiling, things we do in our own homes. We [also] wanted to make something visually appealing and fun with bright colors. We didn’t really try to overthink it. Something simple that reflected Boulevards. When I’m at home, I’m always dancing.

SILY: You reference Gil Scott-Heron on “Shook” (“The revolution is now being televised.”) When was the first time you were aware of him?

JR: When I was a kid. My dad used to pick me and my sister up from track practice, and he worked at the radio station and was always getting these records. Gil Scott-Heron, “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”, “Whitey on the Moon”, all these songs. He’s a poet. I started out as a poet before I became a rapper, MC, or funk artist. Every time I do spoken word on a record, it’s never written. The verses and hooks are, but here, I said to the engineer, play these couple bars and just let me talk. It just came out. It also came from watching peoples’ stories and thinking, “The revolution is being televised now.” We’re seeing the anger, the pain, people expressing their frustration with the system of racial inequality in America. Not just Black people, but white people and Latino too. [Before,] they didn’t want people to see what was going on in America. Now, people are seeing it and are looking and are more aware of it now.

SILY: What’s the story behind the album art?

JR: Sly Stone and Funkadelic, predecessors I grew up loving. That was influenced by a Sly Stone record. 60′s/70′s swag. I worked with a photographer in Raleigh named Jordan [Rickard]. I wanted to do something simple. I did it in my crib at my front porch. When I’m working on a record, I always have these vision boards. I always think about the colors, being a Black man, what’s gonna look good. I reached out to a stylist in L.A. who’s a good friend. I’ve always wanted to do a burnt orange background, and the sky blue represents Carolina blue because I’m a big Tar Heels fan. That color coordination blue and orange looks good together. 

SILY: Why are you also putting out a two-track single in addition to the 4-track EP?

JR: That was more the label, how we wanted to go about the campaign. Initially, “Luv n Pain” was the first single I wanted to release regardless. “Shook” would be too predictable. There were so many artists releasing protest songs. “Luv n Pain” is more the past and present of Boulevards. When we finished it in the studio, [I knew.]

[watusichris]

Get a Move On

In the great tradition of seemingly every music site I work for, Music Aficionado appears to have dumped my story about the Move from its virtual library. So, in honor of Roy Wood’s birthday, I’m posting it my own damn self. **********

Everyone knows the Electric Light Orchestra. From 1974-80, they ruled the charts in America, ringing up three multi-platinum albums, two million-sellers, and a trio of gold discs; four of their singles reached the U.S. top 10. Sadly, the band from which Jeff Lynne’s rock-orchestral hit factory morphed remains a relatively unknown commodity in the colonies: the Move.

Stateside, the Birmingham, England-bred Move couldn’t get arrested for loitering with intent. It was a different tale in Blighty, where during their 1966-1972 heyday the group toted up seven top-10 45s. Tearing several pages from the Who’s playbook, they were one of the most notorious live acts of their era, and their taste for outrage led to a successful libel suit filed by British Prime Minister Harold Wilson. Almost insanely eclectic and creative, they made some of the most exciting and exploratory music of the period.

Alas, they are probably best known among American listeners for covers of several of their songs – “Brontosaurus,” “Down On the Bay,” “California Man” -- by their ardent fanboys Cheap Trick. Their obscure, rambunctious legacy is worth a second look and listen.

The Move was cobbled together in the English Midlands in late 1965 by a group of local musical vets; it’s said that impetus for the new unit was provided by aspiring pop singer David Jones, who would go on to greater fame as David Bowie. The front man was plummy-voiced lead singer Carl Wayne, formerly leader of his own outfit the Vikings. Vocal and instrumental support was supplied by guitarists Trevor Burton and Roy Wood, the latter of whom swiftly became the group’s principal songwriter; thumping drummer Bev Bevan; and glamourpuss bassist Chris “Ace” Kefford, a charismatic but highly unstable character in the Brian Jones mold who was nicknamed “the Singing Skull.”

Like almost every English band of any import during that epoch, the Move took initial inspiration from R&B and soul music; their early sets included covers of the Marvelettes’ “Too Many Fish in the Sea,” the Isley Brothers’ “Respectable,” the Orlons’ “Don’t Hang Up,” and Betty Everett’s “I Can’t Hear You No More.”

They swiftly found their footing in the studio with a pair of Wood-penned singles that bubbled up from its author’s evidently bottomless well of paranoia: The debut “Night of Fear” topped out at No. 2 in the U.K., while its follow-up “I Can Hear the Grass Grow” peaked at No. 5.

By the time the second 45 was released in the spring of 1967, the Move – under the aegis of manager Tony Secunda, who also handled another top local attraction, the Moody Blues -- had attained a reputation as one of England’s most (literally!) dangerous concert attractions.

Since 1964, the Who had been alarming the populace by trashing their equipment onstage; taking a page from Stephen Potter’s books about oneupsmanship, the Move lifted the ante with freewheeling and potentially perilous gigs at which the gangster-suited act attacked TV sets with fire axes, set effigies of public figures ablaze, and, during one notorious date at London’s Roundhouse, undertook the riot-inducing onstage demolition of a car.

The band’s fortunes seemed assured with the September 1967 release of “Flowers in the Rain,” a trippy little slice of psychedelia ornamented with classically-derived production flourishes courtesy of Bowie’s future producer Tony Visconti.

However, the No. 2 chart triumph of the single was tarnished after Secunda concocted a promotional postcard depicting Harold Wilson in flagrante delicto with his secretary Marcia Williams. Wilson’s solicitors speedily slapped a libel suit on the band, and, after a verdict in his favor, all royalties from the song were directed to the coffers of Wilson’s favorite charities. (“Vote For Me,” a mocking song about politicians whose target couldn’t have been more obvious, was subsequently recorded but wisely left unreleased.)

Secunda was subsequently deposed in favor of iron-fisted manager Don Arden by the time the Move’s self-titled debut LP was tardily released in April 1968. Even for its time, it was a wildly eclectic opus. Strong, heartily psychedelic Wood compositions – “Flowers in the Rain,” “Yellow Rainbow,” “Walk Upon the Water,” “Fire Brigade,” “Cherry Blossom Clinic” – sat side-by-side with covers of material by Eddie Cochran (“Weekend”), Moby Grape (“Hey Grandma”), and the Coasters (“Zing! Went the Strings of My Heart”). It became the group’s lone British long-player to reach the charts, hitting No. 15.

Incipient drug casualty Kefford had already been ejected from the band by the time they cut a live EP at London’s Marquee Club in February 1968. Hurriedly issued as Something Else From the Move on the heels of the debut album, the all-covers effort was a genre-encompassing set featuring tracks originally essayed by the Byrds, Love, Eddie Cochran, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Spooky Tooth. It was a raucous affair, but it gave little hint of the more focused and highly personalized work that was to follow.

A pair of crunching singles released in late 1968 pointed towards the bottom-heavy sound that would characterize all the Move’s later work. The frenzied “Wild Tiger Woman” was the first of the band’s 45s that failed to chart in England: The BBC’s skittishness about its female protagonist’s sexual insatiability prompted a radio ban. It was succeeded by “Blackberry Way,” a string-inflected, Beatlesque tune – think “Penny Lane” – with a then-rare Wood lead vocal; it became the group’s only No. 1 entry.

Sometimes chaotic events during 1969 harbingered both the contorted latter-day history of the Move and the disinterested response that greeted their work on American shores. Trevor Burton, relegated to bass duties following Kefford’s expulsion, bridled at the pop orientation of “Blackberry Way.” Wood, previously a retiring figure within the band, was empowered by the song’s success and looked to take a higher profile in the group. And Carl Wayne, already studying an exit strategy, moved into music publishing and began pondering a solo career in cabaret-styled pop – and successfully dragged his band mates into incongruous dates whose repertoire reflected his aspirations.

After an on-stage punch-out between Burton and Bev Bevan at a Swedish concert, the unhappy bassist departed the band, and was replaced by Rick Price. The reconstituted quartet, some of whose earlier singles had been issued with a total lack of success by A&M in the U.S., undertook an American “tour” of four dates in October 1969; the trek was so chaotically managed that the band members had to book their own hotel rooms.

Out of this disorder came a remarkable album: Shazam, released in early 1970 in both the U.K. and the U.S. Loosely tied together by off-the-cuff “man on the street” interviews, it was a typically everywhere-at-once collection that managed to hang together thanks to its bottom-heavy sound.

Save for a string-flecked McCartneyesque ballad, “Beautiful Daughter,” which plays like a sop to Wayne’s pop ambitions, Shazam knocks a listener’s head against the wall. The LP was highlighted by the thunderous Wood original “Hello Suzie” and churning renderings of American art-rock act Ars Nova’s “Fields of People,” Frankie Laine’s antique pop hit “Don’t Make My Baby Blue,” and folkie Tom Paxton’s ballad “The Last Thing On My Mind.” “Cherry Blossom Clinic Revisited” – an expanded remake of the debut album’s Wood original about life in a mental institution – pointed at things to come with its extended instrumental interpolations from Bach’s “Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring” and Tchaikovsky’s “Peter and the Wolf” and “The Nutcracker Suite.”

This stupendous slab of proto-metal heaviosity was greeted with roaring silence, and failed to chart on either side of the Atlantic. The couple thousand people who purchased Shazam in the U.S. were probably prompted to lay down their cash by a fey yet wildly enthusiastic review of the album in Rolling Stone by critic and aspiring rock star John Mendelsohn, who would become the band’s chief advocate on these shores. The Move’s small but vocal cult following in the States had its beginnings here.

Wayne put his other foot out the door before Shazam appeared in the stores, and the band was speedily reformulated with the addition of singer-guitarist-vocalist Jeff Lynne, late of Birmingham’s Idle Race. (Wood had himself played in an early edition of that group, Mike Sheridan and the Nightriders.)

The new alignment captured immediate traction in the U.K., where Wood’s “dance song” “Brontosaurus” tallied a No. 7 slot. A full-length album bearing that track, Looking On, followed in late 1970. Grindingly, profoundly bottom-heavy, it lacked any notable songs beyond its chart hit, but it showed Wood flexing his considerable instrumental muscles on cello, sitar, oboe, and saxophones, and the twinned lead vocals and production skills of Wood and Lynne hinted at a winning combination. However, issued by Capitol in both the U.K. and U.S., it died a quick and largely unmourned death.

At this juncture, Wood and Lynne began to envision a new Move offshoot, the Electric Light Orchestra, as a seamless melding of the mother band’s already extant pop and classical strains. Thus work began simultaneously on a new Move album and a debut ELO recording.

The Move’s final set was prefaced by the pummeling Lynne-penned 45 “Down On the Bay” and two fantastic pop-rock singles from Wood, “Tonight” (No. 11 in England) and “Chinatown,” which hinted at the sonic density that would feature in his later solo work.

Recorded after Price’s exit by the trio of Wood, Lynne, and Bevan, the LP Message From the Country landed in October 1971. Though flawed – thanks to Bevan’s silly Elvis homage “Don’t Mess Me Up,” the equally obvious Johnny Cash homage “Ben Crawley Steel Company,” and the “Honey Pie”-like ‘20s pop tidbit “My Marge” – it showed what Lynne and Wood were capable of together. Wood brought in the anvil-dropping “Until Your Mama’s Gone” and “It Wasn’t My Idea to Dance,” while Lynne contributed the titular rocker, the end-of-the-world ballad “No Time,” and a pair of expansive numbers, “The Minister” and “The Words of Aaron,” that pointed towards his later ELO hits in style and sound.

Message From the Country might as well have been released with a “No Sale” sticker attached to it, for the album left nary a trace on any international chart. The band had one last, magnificent single in it: in May 1972, the double-barreled blast of Lynne’s snarling, careening “Do Ya” and Wood’s metallic Jerry Lee Lewis tribute “California Man” landed like a bomb. This two-sided stick of dynamite was the Move’s only 45 to make an American dent, belatedly peaking at a meager No. 93, but became a valedictory No. 7 hit in Great Britain.

By that time, the Electric Light Orchestra’s first LP, No Answer, had seen release. An uncertain mixture of wide-screen rock and unfocused mock-classicism, it bemused listeners in England, where old Move fans took it to a modest No. 32 chart slot, and stultified audiences in America, where it clipped the chart at No. 196 during a two-week stay.

By the time work commenced on a follow-up ELO opus, Wood and Lynne were at loggerheads about the future direction of the band, and, after contributing to just two numbers for the sophomore album, Wood exited the group, with Lynne and Bevan carrying on under the ELO handle.

It was left to United Artists Records, ELO’s American label, to release a splendid parting gift that served as a kind of primer for late-blooming Move devotees. The late-1972 compilation Split Ends brought together the best tracks from Message From the Country, with its genre pastiches excised, and the stunning singles released before and after that album’s release. No doubt benefiting from loud tub-thumping in UA’s in-house music publication Phonograph Record Magazine, which was distributed free in American record stores, the posthumous collection became the Move’s only American chart LP, rising to No. 172 in early 1973.

With the dissolution of their partnership, the commercial fortunes of the Move’s prime movers diverged. Lynne of course perfected his rock/classical fusion and enjoyed a glittering run with ELO, taking a remake of “Do Ya” to No. 24 in 1977, and went on to become a big-name producer, rock star familiar, and Traveling Wilbury as his career burgeoned in the ‘80s and ‘90s.

Roy Wood, always one Tommy short of a Pete Townshend-worthy career in the U.S., proceeded as a beloved eccentric and sometime hitmaker in his homeland. His 1973 all-solo opus Boulders contained the top-20 hit “Dear Elaine,” and was succeeded by the scrumptious Neal Sedaka-meets-the-Beach Boys hit “Forever” (No. 8). Regrouping with dissident Move bassist Rick Price, he founded the visually and sonically extravagant rock big band Wizzard, which issued such neo-Spectorian smashes as “Ball Park Incident” and “See My Baby Jive.”

Quite the saga. Now, if you haven’t heard the band, it’s time to get a Move on.

[thebandcampdiaries]

Midnight Bandit is back on the scene with a brand new studio EP: Eternity Begins

An EP featuring 5 tracks, falling somewhere in between experimental electronics, trip-hop, and instrumental hip-hop.

September 2020 - Can you picture the beginning of eternity? At first, it seems like a fairly normal thing to imagine, but if you really think about it, it’s really hard to grasp something like that. Eternity is something so vast and endless we can’t quite possibly grasp - let alone imagine its beginning. This endearing creative and thought-provoking premise is at the basis of Midnight Bandit’s brand new studio EP, titled “Eternity Begins.” The sound and feel of this release are as deep as the thoughts the title inspires, with a moody vibe that captures influences as diverse as lo-fi electronic music, trip-hop, hip-hop, and so much more. Midnight Bandit is a very eclectic music lover, and he is also influences by a wide variety of other styles, including chip tune music, house, as well as stoner rock and metal, only to mention a few. “Eternity Begins” is a great taste of the artist’s distinctive sound and great passion for music. He is not the average classically trained musician, but he worked hard to teach himself about production and songwriting, and for him, music is more than just a passion: it is a way to cope with the world and to truly express himself. Hailing from Vancouver, British Columbia (Canada) - Home of Nardwuar The Human Serviette, among other music legends - the artist experienced some hardships growing up and dealing with Schizoaffective disorder. However, he made the most out of his situation and got himself in a better place, where he works regularly, avoids drinks and drugs, and focuses on music, which at the end of the day, is really what is all about! 7 years into music making, Midnight Bandit managed to rack up an impressive set of skills, and “Eternity Begins” is a great taste of what he is all about musically. The EP features 5 songs, including the opening number, “Eternity.” This track is immediately endearing due to the synth in the background, which makes me think of 70s electronic music (Think Kraftwerk). The beat comes in with a lot of power and edge, especially the snare, which is fat and present, but never overpowering. “The Children Of The Night” is more influenced by hip-hop. I love the beat, as it feels like a homage to the old school scene. The synthesizers and effects add so much depth and texture, as well as somewhat of a darker mood. “Raining Bullets” begins with an arpeggiated synth, which almost sounds like a spiral collapsing into space, as you get closer and closer. I love the break-beat type drums and the fact that they are saturated and smashed with tape-like distortion. “Bludgeon” might be my absolute favorite on this EP. I love how the song immediately starts with an upbeat drum rhythm, holding the melodic drone and the soundscapes in the background. This song is both chill and driven, bridging the gaps between different musical world. Last, but definitely not least, “Haunted” is another fantastic highlight. The closing number begins with some warm vinyl-like crackle and a unique melody, which feels quite experimental along with some electronic blips and some punchy drums. At the end of the day, these 5 songs are extremely diverse, and they definitely showcase Midnight Bandit’s creative potential and vast scope as an artist and composer. In addition to that, the sound design is really on point, perfectly creating a nice set of sonic landscapes that unfold before the listener. I would definitely recommend this one if you are a fan of artists such as Flying Lotus, as well as Boards of Canada, J Dilla, Jon Hopkins and Nosaj Thing, only to mention but a few. This is music that escapes the usual genre definitions, diving deeper into something that’s much better experienced than described. This is why the best way to get a good idea of this music is to hit that play button and let it tell the rest of the story!

Find out more about Midnight Bandit, and do not miss out on “Eternity Begins,” which is currently available on Spotify, as well as other digital music streaming platforms on the web:

https://open.spotify.com/album/57N6l5IEMIBRCchs7v0inV?si=49tsl09sTbqlMBApgIi1Ug

[intheclique]

CLIQUE talks ‘Olly Vollans’

In this week’s CLIQUE we talk exclusively to yet another north-east up and coming producer, fresh from the scene. ‘Olly Vollans.’

What seems to be a new young breed of up and coming fresh music talent. 

They all certainly have one thing in common. 

They know exactly how to play the game, and give back the musical sounds we’ve all really become accustomed to from our nights out.

Olly Vollans is no exception. Consistently bringing his own particular spin or sound to each track produced.

With a wide range of backgrounds he started music from as young as five, bringing electric sounds through to his acid feels. 

Olly happily gives everyone an intro to what he’s all about.

His current track ‘Freak Me’ (Free Download; Link below.) 

https://soundcloud.com/user-409800016/freak-me 

Not only has a fantastic sound, but ensures his fans get a flavor for what he’s going to bring next. 

His debut EP ‘Movement’ is out next week and will most certainly not disappoint.

Showing signs of strength in all things production, mixing, and DJing; it is a testament to his continued growth and learning.

Olly Vollans shows he is yet another talent to watch out for in the near future.

So, lets get to it…

 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

 Q. First of thanks so much for taking the time out to talk to us this evening.

A. No problem at all, excited to have this opportunity.

Q. How’s your day been?

A. Steady. I’ve been working on some new production techniques and PR mix for my forthcoming debut EP ‘Movement’. I’ve also just received my final university results so I’ve been celebrating a little too.

Q. It’s been pretty weird hasn’t it, the lock-down, festivals cancelled, how you been finding this all?

A. Extremely weird. It’s been wild for me where Corona meant everything shutting down and me finishing university at 3pm in my parents living room haha. All in all, it’s been a pretty crazy period of time and has been very testing for me personally with finishing university, trying to find a job and spend time on music too. I’m extremely grateful to be living at home for sometime and have the facilities to produce music available on my doorstep.

Q. Almost as if the music stopped right? How’ve you been using the time gained for your music?

A. Somewhat yes, however the industry is still alive and kicking with artists and labels continuing to release incredible music and produce exceptional live streams for their followers. The resilience I have seen on social media from the music industry has been great to watch and I cannot wait for everything to get cracking again. have used my time well if I am honest, been spending most of my free time working on new music/mixes really to just continue learning and developing the skill set and sound I want at the moment. This is a marathon and not a sprint so I’m taking my time to create quality music that I know people will enjoy.

Q. Your young 22 and been into production for some time, how did this all come about?

A. I’ve been musical from the age of 5, building a ‘drumkit’ out of used quiche tins for cymbals and wooden footstools for the toms hahaha. My family is very musical, all of us play at least one instrument so music has always been celebrated but my production journey started when I joined a music technology course at college and was in the studio’s recording on Avid Pro Tools for hours on end. It’s spiraled from there ever since.

Q. Talking of making waves, you’ve got a new E.P coming out, tell us a little about it? What’s the story and what’s the vibe?

A. I have and I can’t wait for it to come out on 24th July. Movement is more of a statement than an inspiration, this debut EP is to really show that I’m here to stay and both tracks feature my interpretation of Techno elements I’m listening to most at the moment…Acid! 

There is not ‘story’ as such for this EP, it’s a statement because yes there are complexities in the two tracks I have produced but there isn’t that professional and perfectly mixed and crisp sound because if there was it would not be true to where I am currently as a producer. 

This EP is a statement for me showcasing who I am as a producer and an acknowledgement that there is always progress to be made and opportunity for growth and movement whether it be in developing a skill set or moving forward from a situation. I also wanted to incorporate my musical background by adding prominent synth melodies to capture emotion and become the character of the track Systematic. 

The EP comes with a pounding 140BPM remix of Systematic from Kane Hannay that I think is incredible and cant wait for everyone to hear the whole project. Releasing a debut EP has been a milestone of mine for a few years so this is surreal to be honest.

Q. Your current FREE DOWNLOAD ‘Freak Me’ has a great flow to it and even touches a little acid to it. Is this something you always like to use?

A. Thank you. Producing and listening to tracks with acid element is definitely something I enjoy and just seems to creep into most of the tracks I’ve been producing at the moment haha. You can never go wrong with a little acid in a record.

Q. What other genres are you into, is it always strictly techno?

A. It’s hard to say really, I have a very eclectic music taste as I grew up listening to Rock, Indie and Soul bands/musicians. Now it’s a bit of everything but if I had to name a few it would be Indie, Hip Hop and Dance.

Q. Amazing stuff, so where do you see yourself in 3 years?

A. Difficult question… I want to continue doing my own thing and developing my skill set in music, producing/DJing whilst having a mint time with my pals travelling and going places. I hope I will be playing some incredible venues around the UK (a maybe Europe) but I try not to get ahead of myself and just focus on what is in front of me right now.

Q. Big things, would you say you a specific artist that influences you? And why?

A. I wouldn’t say there’s one specific but off the top of my head what inspires me are artists such like Rudosa who actively engage with next generation of producers and provide constructive feedback from their professional point of view, one that has signed to some of the biggest Techno labels and has plenty of experience.

Q. Who would you love to collab with?

A. It’s hard to say because I would collaborate with anyone really as long as the sound is fresh and exciting, I’m up for anything really.

Q. Beer or Whisky?

A. Beer

Q. Dirty Rave or Big Club Room Vibe?

A. Wouldn’t mind a good rave with all my mates after Corona has passed.

Q. Do you see the scene recovering post CORONA?

A. Of course, music will live through the ages. How fast it will recover? I couldn’t really tell you but there is plenty of resilience and drive to get back up and running from artists and promoters.

Q. Perfect night in?

A. Just chill really. That could be watching a movie or sitting In the studio producing music or practicing on the decks.

Q. Perfect night out?

A. Nonstop party with all my mates in one room just having a mint time. That feeling of Euphoria is like no other.

Q. Best festival and experience?

A. Parklife 2019 was a good one for me, there was about 30+ of us grooving and having the best time watching Denis Sulta. What a talent is Denis Sulta.

Q. Anything else you’d like to add?

A. Just to say thank you to everyone for the constant support and go stream my debut EP ‘Movement’ on 24th July.

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Thanks to Olly for another great interview. 

Here’s Links to the socials below.

Olly Vollans 

INSTAGRAM | https://www.instagram.com/olly_vollans/

SOUNDCLOUD | https://soundcloud.com/user-409800016/freak-me

[cathygeha]

LIBERATION THROUGH HEARING 

RICHARD RUSSELL

 2 APRIL 2020 | HARDBACK, EBOOK, AUDIO | £20 | White Rabbit

A spiritual journey through music by the Mercury Prize nominated musician and the man behind some of the world’s biggest recording artists including Adele, Dizzee Rascal and The Prodigy

For almost 30 years as a musician, producer, label boss and talent conductor at XL Recordings, Richard Russell has discovered, shaped and nurtured the artists who have rewritten the musical dictionary of the 21st century, artists like The Prodigy, Adele, M.I.A., Dizzee Rascal and Giggs. Growing up in north London in thrall to the raw energy of 80s US hip hop, Russell emerged as one part of rave outfit Kicks Like A Mule in 1991 at a moment when new technology enabled a truly punk spirit on the fledgling dance scene. Initially identified in the early 90s with breakbeat and hardcore before embracing a broader musical aesthetic, Russell’s stewardship of the label was always uncompromising and open to radical influences rather than conventional business decisions.

Released in April 2020 via White Rabbit, Liberation Through Hearing sees Richard Russell telling the remarkable story of XL Recordings and their three decades on the frontline of innovation in music; the eclectic chorus of artists who came to define the label’s unique aesthetic, and Russell’s own story; his highs and lows steering the fortunes of an independent label in a rapidly changing industry, his celebrated production work with Bobby Womack and Gil Scott-Heron on their late-career masterpieces and his own development as an artist as Everything Is Recorded.

Always searching for news sounds and new truths, Liberation Through Hearing is a portrait of a man who believes in the spiritual power of music to change reality. It is also the story of a record label that refused to be categorised by genre and in the process cut an idiosyncratic groove which was often underground in feel but mainstream in impact.

RICHARD RUSSELL SAID: ‘Writing this book was an opportunity for me to reflect on the last few decades. I hope people will get something from it. I’ve tried not to compromise in anything I’ve done, and that includes writing Liberation Through Hearing.’

LEE BRACKSTONE SAID: ‘To have any understanding of the music that has soundtracked the past three decades you need to read this book. Liberation Through Hearing documents Richard Russell’s investment in the great artists who defined rap, rave and all its infinite tributaries with a piercing honesty.’

EXCERPT

PRELUDE 1

SALFORD, 17 APRIL 2019

It’s an overcast early spring afternoon. I’m in a recording studio on an industrial estate on the outskirts of Manchester. I’ve been here for an hour. It would have been hard to locate but I was collected at Manchester Piccadilly by a professional who had researched the destination and got us here easily. He used to drive Keith Flint during The Prodigy’s UK tours, and having picked me up we spent the short journey reminiscing about Keith, who passed away less than a month ago, at the age of forty-nine.

I arrive in a sombre mood. There are three musicians here. A man known as CASisDEAD has just arrived from a stopover in Nottingham. He is the most idiosyncratic, articulate and fluent British rap lyricist I have heard since Dizzee Rascal emerged from Bow E3 in 2002. CAS’s themes are typically the underbelly of street life, drug sales and sex work. In the first really classic song he has made, ‘Pat Earrings’, he tells the apparently heartfelt and melancholy story of his ill-fated relationship with a prostitute. At the conclusion of the song, he finds she has continued to see clients despite telling him she has stopped. ‘Heartbroken, I’m at wits’ end / She’s never accepted by my friends / That’s cool ’cause I never liked them’. The narrator is bereft.

As is often the case with those who make disturbing art he seems a person of integrity. Those in the public eye who go out of their way to seem benevolent, the supposedly squeaky-clean ones, are the ones to beware of. Nasty pretends to be nice, and vice versa. CAS has his face covered at all times when in public. Oscar Wilde said, ‘Give a man a mask and he’ll tell you the truth.’ CAS has a taste for the analogue synthesiser sounds of the 1980s, music that soundtracked my youth and was popular around the time he was born.

I have programmed my Roland TR-808 drum machine in order to echo the feeling of the year that the machine was first released: 1980.

This item is my favourite material possession. Its sounds and groove have been enjoying a renaissance in popularity since the James Brown samples of classic East Coast hip-hop made way for the more electronic palette that was being used by rap artists from the South. Its distinct sonic character is still a crucial part of the hip-hop production landscape.

Drums are only part of the story. In creating music for this session, I have enlisted someone who not only has the ability to craft unforgettable melodies but owns a collection of the vintage analogue synthesisers necessary to sonically execute this job properly. He sits behind one of these while his daughter Missy and his best friend Remi potter around. His name is Damon Albarn and, as frontman of Blur, mastermind behind virtual band Gorillaz and all-round musical polymath, he has scaled every imaginable height of creative and commercial success.

Damon and I are both fortunate to have benefited enough from our musical endeavours to each have our own first-class recording facilities in west London. We are in this particular location because of the third musician. We want him to record a hook for the song and this is where he wished to do it. He possesses a deep, deep soul voice that evokes not just the specific time we wish to reference, the mid-eighties, but the theme CAS wants to explore in this song, which is intended for his debut album, for release on XL Recordings.

This theme is the ephemeral nature of fame. The song is to be called ‘Everything’s For Sale’. It may become a worldwide hit. Or it may never be released, or even completed. At this formative stage of the creative process uncertainty is a given.

This third musician’s name is Alexander O’Neal, and he is a sixty-fiveyear-old former Prince associate from Natchez, Mississippi, by way of Minneapolis, where he was the original lead singer for The Time, before making three solo albums with legendarily great production and writing duo, and fellow Prince acolytes, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. These albums were quite successful in the US, but in the UK he became a huge crossover pop star, scoring Top 10 singles with his songs ‘Criticise’, ‘If You Were Here Tonight’, and his duet with Cherrelle, ‘Saturday Love’. His second album, Hearsay, went triple platinum in the UK, and he sold out three consecutive nights at Wembley Arena.

His appetites were always legendary. Along with most other eighties success stories, his star faded through the nineties. With each new decade music changes irrevocably and only a tiny number of musicians can transcend the decade they found fame in. In recent times Alexander has appeared on reality TV programmes Just the Two of Us, Wife Swap and Celebrity Big Brother.

When CAS gave me a list of the eighties voices he wished to try to feature on his album, I knew that Alexander O’Neal was the one to pursue. My guess was that we would find him in LA, perhaps living near the airport, but it turns out he lives in Manchester.

We’re here to capture the voice of this weathered soul survivor, and prior to the session he has been supplied with a map in the form of a recording, a guide version of the song that Damon, CAS and I made in London. Our preparation and planning have been exemplary and, while I have experienced enough ‘best laid plans’ scenarios to know that nothing is ever guaranteed, an hour into the session we have a heartbreakingly soulful performance from Alexander O’Neal on our hard drive. CAS says to me that it is important to absorb moments like this. I agree. I have had many of them but they always feel dreamlike. Alexander says he needs to buy a bed, inexplicably, and with that he is gone

ABOUT RICHARD RUSSELL

Richard Russell (b. 1971) is a British record producer, musician and the owner of the British record label XL Recordings. He has nurtured and guided some of the most influential recording artists of our time including Adele, Dizzee Rascal, The Prodigy, M.I.A. and Giggs. As a producer and musician, Russell has made albums with the likes of Gil Scott-Heron, Bobby Womack, Damon Albarn and Ibeyi and most recently launched his own artist project Everything Is Recorded, whose self-titled debut album was nominated for the 2018 Mercury Music Prize.

ABOUT XL RECORDINGS

XL Recordings is a British independent record label founded in 1989. Widely regarded as one of the most influential labels, XL releases on average just six albums a year and has worked with artists such as Adele, Arca, Beck, Dizzee Rascal, FKA twigs, Gil Scott-Heron, Giggs, The Horrors, Jai Paul, Jungle, Kamasi Washington, King Krule, M.I.A., Nines, The Prodigy, Peaches, Radiohead, Sampha, SBTRKT, Sigur Rós, Tyler, the Creator, Vampire Weekend, The White Stripes, and The xx.

ABOUT WHITE RABBIT

White Rabbit is a new imprint published by former Faber Social impresario Lee Brackstone launching in April 2020. In its inaugural year of 2020, White Rabbit will publish twelve titles by music industry legends like Carl Cox, Richard Russell, Mark Lanegan, Annie Nightingale, Chris Frantz and Jehnny Beth of Savages amongst others. Dedicated to publishing the most innovative books and voices in music and literature, Brackstone aims to build on the uniquely successful publishing he was responsible for at Faber Social with authors like The Beastie Boys, Viv Albertine and Jon Savage. Brackstone’s titles for his Orion imprint indicate the range and personality of a list that will encompass memoir, history, fiction, translation, illustrated books and high-spec limited editions.

ABOUT THE ORION PUBLISHING GROUP

Where every story matters.

The Orion Publishing Group is one of the UK’s leading publishers.  Our mission is to bring the best publishing to the greatest variety of people. Open, agile, passionate and innovative – we believe that everyone will find something they love at Orion. Founded in 1991, the Orion Publishing Group today publishes under seven main imprints: Gollancz, the UK’s No1 science fiction and fantasy imprint; Orion Fiction, a heartland for brilliant commercial fiction; Orion Spring, home of wellbeing and health titles written by passionate celebrities and world-renowned experts; Seven Dials, for the very best commercial non-fiction, beautifully designed and produced; Trapeze for commercial fiction and non-fiction books that start conversations; White Rabbit, dedicated to publishing the most innovative books and voices in music and literature; and Weidenfeld & Nicolson, one of the most prestigious and dynamic literary imprints in British and international publishing.  

The Orion Publishing Group is part of Hachette UK which is a leading UK trade publishing group.