•
Rating: A year after the Captain's passing, it seems appropriate to pay tribute to his genius. Van Vliet's records can be found for sale at less than 6 euros each: truly honest, considering that these are works capable of changing the minds of those who listen to them, as they are relentless in breaking down the barriers erected by "genres", which muzzle that indistinct flow of phonemes that is music. It seems quite limiting to assert, as some of his detractors do, that Van Vliet merely had the simple intuition to apply the harmonic achievements of free jazz to blues-rock: in reality, Van Vliet was the painter of rock, sometimes an expressionist, sometimes abstract, sometimes cubist, surrealist, or Dadaist. What he did with the palette of colors (devoting himself fully to painting after retiring from the scene in the early '80s) he replicated with musical notes, giving his collaborators "chromatic" instructions on how to play the instruments.
"Shiny Beast" was released in 1978 after a thousand recording troubles that I frankly spare you, including a change of title. It was released in the middle of the new-wave era, that bubbling of ideas and innovations that Captain Beefheart's early records had helped inspire. A completely reformed Magic Band plays on it, with contributions also from the Mothers Of Invention of his rival friend Frank Zappa. Already, "The Floppy Boot Stomp", at the opening, presents itself as a brilliant compendium of Beefheart's thought, here in a symphonic-progressive, polychromatic, three-dimensional version, galvanized by bandistic inserts in the spirit of Zappa, yet mindful of his historical models: on one side, the heretical slide of "Safe As Milk", on the other, the broken scales of "Trout Mask Replica". Without losing the naïve touch of his paintings, Van Vliet sketches the usual precarious geometries, then crumples the canvas, smudging it in patches of secondary colors. There is no room for watercolors; only tempera. Or at most, the ballpoint pen, whose peremptory strokes are used for the indelible scribbles of "Suction Prints".
What makes the Captain's music unparalleled is its ability to be both visceral and cerebral at the highest levels: it is an unstable and relentless ballet of reversals and reconsiderations, never falling into sterile intellectualism and never losing the feral instinct of the black tradition. Even when, with the instrumental "Ice Rose", he attempts a daunting articulation of scales, approaching the "serious" Frank Zappa, as well as certain progressive "fusions" trendy at the time or the alt-jazz of Canterbury, Van Vliet retains that spirit, resentful yet proud, of a talent rejected by the vacuous musical star system.
The two Caribbean tracks on the album, "Tropical Hot Dog Night" and "Candle Mambo", may be mistaken for jokes, boisterous interludes, when instead they define Captain Beefheart's spirit better than others. Joyful, anarchic, marked by a smiling and capricious infantilism, an ideal link between the playful Robert Wyatt of "End Of An Ear" and David Thomas the hedonist of the Pedestrians era, they respond to the serious catastrophism of the emerging "industrial music" with a festive show of marimbas: it's that feeling of escaping from a reality too ugly to be true, closely related to that expressed by Pere Ubu's "Dub Housing".
The best, however, comes where Captain Beefheart's influence on the most experimental new wave is fully revealed. "When I See Mommy I Feel Like A Mummy" could be on a The Fall album, if not for a Birthday Party-like guitar. It paints all the indolence of a life devoted to apathy, which is merely a mask for depression; an unbearable sense of nausea, of underlying anguish, of incurable malaise, all the way to pure abjection, evaporates from the shabby orchestration of an arrangement that seems to want to liquefy and make every instrument involved insubstantial: it brings to mind certain indefinable things from the '80s underground, perverse and tormented hybrids like No Trend or Tragic Mulatto.
The surprises of this rich album seem inexhaustible: Van Vliet, a "baroque", explosive, overflowing composer, even managed to embrace on a couple of occasions that minimalism he had always opposed. As in the obsessive "Bat Chain Puller", another masterpiece, a pure disturbed state of mind: a fanfare of dissonance and unpleasantness, colors mixed haphazardly; a parade of mutant brass that, in its procession through the streets of a non-existent city, welcomes both Allen Ravenstine-like electronic interference and an extreme metamorphosis of the oldest singing style in blues, the call'n'response. "Owned T'Alex" is again mental dissociation, subdued neurosis, longing for pure dissolution, to a grey, neutral, unaffective ecstasy.
There are also more modest tracks, where it relies on established styles, in which, however, the astounding vocal expressiveness of a Van Vliet capable of everything emerges: "Love Lies", sullen late-night blues; "Harry Irene", pure '30s revival with whistle-blowing à la Lovin' Spoonfull; but especially "You Know You're A Man", dusty epic from the desert, cactus, and cobra, which recalls the glories of "Moonlight On Vermont".
Every piece by Captain Beefheart can effortlessly transition from the silliest hilarity to the darkest abyss: just a change of rhythm, tone, timbre... a slight upheaval in a balance impossible to maintain for more than an instant, to shake every certainty not only of one's ideas but also of one's emotions. In "Shiny Beast", the compositional facets are complemented by those of the arrangements, the sounds, the colors, making consciousness even more fragile, the perception of reality even more relative, the mind even more dissected. Honor to you, lamented Captain, for showing us how incomprehensible our thoughts and our states of mind are.
Tracklist Lyrics and Samples
01 The Floppy Boot Stomp (03:51)
The floppy boot stomped down onto the ground
The farmer screamed 'n blew the sky off the mountains
Eye sockets looked down on the chestbone meadows
'n the sun dropped down, 'n the moon ran off,
His heels 'n elbows pale as chalk
'n all the comets collided 'n blew t' dust
For fear they'd be seen.
'n the sky turned white in the middle of the night
'n the sky turned white in the middle of the night
'n the big floppy boot stomped down onto the ground
'n the red violin took the bow for to do the hoodoo hoe-down
'n the red violin took the bow for to do the hoodoo hoe-down
The farmer jumped in a circle 'n flung his chalk right down
Do-si-do the devil sure showed 'n he broke of his horns
'n fiddled him down the road
through the fork
'n the farmer's floppy boot stomped down
Red tail squirmin' and the hot leg kicked
'n the fire leaped 'n licked
Red tail squirmin' and the hot leg kicked
'n the fire leaped 'n licked
And when the boot came up, the fire went out
And hell was just an ice cube melting off on the ground.
And the bow caught down for to do the hoodoo hoe-down
And the bow caught down for to do the hoodoo, the devil hoe-down
Through the fork, huddled’ in the hollow, standin’ at the crossroads
Was that bunged-up bandaged broken bum
that fell into the wrong circle
He had a sore red tail that once went red, now was pale
Fe-Fi-Fo-Fum he was summoned up from hell
Booted down a spell
By a square-dancin’ farmer
By a square-dancin’ farmer, well
That old bum was sticking out his thumb
When the farmer drew up and said
"Listen son", and the horse compared his hooves.
"If you fall into my circle again I’ll tan your red hide
And dance you on your tail, and pitch you from now to now
Pitch you from now to now."
And the hotlick kicked, and the fire leaped an’ licked
And the hotlick kicked and the fire just leaped an’ licked
And the hotlick kickin’ an’ the fire jus’ leapin’ an’ lickin’
And the fire leaped and licked.
04 Harry Irene (03:42)
Harry Irene were a couple that lived in the green
Harry Irene were a couple that ran a canteen
Ran a canteen
Ran a canteen
Two people Harry and Irene like you never seen
The floor was made of oak, the door was smokey gray
Their tuna sandwiches would turn the dark into day
Harry Irene were a couple that ran a canteen
Harry Irene were a couple that lived in the green
Ran a canteen
Ran a canteen took Harry for all of his green and Irene
Harry was left holding an empty canteen
What does this mean?
What does this mean?
What's the meaning of this?
Poor Harry, I guiss
06 Bat Chain Puller (05:27)
Bat chain
Puller
Bat chain puller
Puller, puller
A chain with yellow lights
That glistens like oil beads
On its slick smooth trunk
That trails behind on tracks, and thumps
A wing hangs limp and retreats
Bat chain puller
Puller puller
Bulbs shoot from its snoot
And vanish into darkness
It whistles like a root snatched from dry earth
Sodbustin’ rakes with grey dust claws
Announces it's coming in the morning
This train with grey tubes
That houses people’s very thoughts and belongings.
Bat chain puller
Puller puller
This train with grey tubes that houses people’s thoughts,
Their very remains and belongings.
A grey cloth patch
Caught with four threads
In the hollow wind of its stacks
Ripples felt fades and grey sparks clacks,
Lunging the cushioned thickets.
Pumpkins span the hills
With orange Crayola patches.
Green inflated trees
Balloon up into marshmallow soot
That walks away in faulty circles,
Caught in grey blisters
With twinkling lights and green sashes
Drawn by rubber dolphins with gold yawning mouths
That blister and break in agony
In zones of rust
They gild gold sawdust into dust.
Bat chain puller,
Puller puller.
08 Owed T' Alex (04:06)
Owed T'Alex
Stupid heart, cupid heart
Where will ya go from here
Magnetic ring, magnetic draw
Ooh, whatcha got me into
Eye of ah wolf, chrome craw
Leavin' ya now, I'll write cha, ma
Takin' ah putt up t' Carson City
Well, if y' hear me howlin' - W'hell,
Sittin' pretty, Tastin' nitty gritty
Puttin' on in t' Carson City
Sparks, tattoos, 2 tat, 'n ah toot
Helmets, crosses, 'n a patch t' boot
Engine hot, pipes burn white
Glad ah'm not … home t'night
Five miles back
Ah took ah spill
Thought I almost paid m' bill
Makin' m' putt ta Carson City
Party time with the Jones by name
Aww, it's a shame - say, it's a pity
Gotta putt outta Carson City
09 Candle Mambo (03:24)
candle shy
candle weep
fly hot candle leap
candle roll
unfold and ball
candle large
candle small
your threads of fire are burning up
your feathers of fire are winning night
and turning light
and turning light
light deepest night for me
and steer for me
spin and spin then and then
when I'm dancing with my love
the shadows flicker up above
up above the shadows do the candle mambo
candle roll
unfold and ball
candle blur
candle whir
candle her
candle her
while your lights are spinning around
your feathers of fire are winning night
and turning light
and turning light
candle crack
candle break
correct the night's mistake
(''repeating of parts'')
Loading comments slowly
