BEEFHEART
rough trade from venus hits it big

from england 28 april 1972 FRENDZ #26
by nick kent
is 29 march 1972 interview & poem & two drawings

notes:
* text reprinted as rough trade from venus in england book THE LIVES AND TIMES OF CAPTAIN BEEFHEART
* all pictures by pennie smith

part 1 - part 2 - THIS is PART 3

*

THE KID GETS HEAVY

finally the conversation turned to dealing with his old buddy from el monte, frank zappa. it was at this point that one got a taste of what it must be like to be one of those who have crossed the captain in any way:

"zappa is the most disgusting character i have ever encountered. évér! you know, he claimed to have discovered me. this sham, this bum who is under the impression that he is an artist, claimed that he discovered me! i mean, people say i discovered zoot horn rollo - which is crap: he found me and i found him. i didn't discover him or anything like that. he was 'on' when i met him. it was just that he thought he was off. but zappa! the thing is: he didn't have to be what he is, he just chose to be a shit. he has got a real burden - nose-to-the-grindstone, red-faced erection."

"he should know better than that, being around musicians like ed marimba. he claimed that he produced 'trout mask replica'; he was asleep at the switches, man. he is like a switchman with parkinson's disease. look what he did with wild man fischer. he tried to exploit a man who wasn't a freak; the word freak just doesn't exist as far as i'm concerned. i haven't seen any freaks - i have seen people who they say are deformed. i don't know what deformed is, because i like art and form - that's all beautiful. do you know what wild man fischer is doing now? zappa drained him: he prostituted that man's integrity."

"herbie cohen, zappa's associate and manager, reminds me of a red marble in a can of lard, and zappa reminds me of a cataract. the only reason i performed on 'willie the pimp' (on frank's 'hot rats' album - t.t.) was because i wanted to straighten zappa out. i thought that if he came in contact with a real artist he might see the light - but he was too far gone by then. listen man, you would be degrading yourself as a writer by even mentioning his name in your article.... ask the boys in the band who used to work with him. listen: oréjon started the mothers of invention, not zappa. did you know that? even i didn't know that...."

oréjon, alias roy estrada, the bassist who stuck with the mothers from 'freak out' to the 'uncle meat' period, nodded his head. he started a band along with ray collins and jimmy carl black called 'the soul kings' until zappa came along and took them over.

estrada, a killer bass player, whose falsetto renderings of such classics as 'do you wanna dance' and 'in the midnight hour' could be heard at the back of the bus, is very bitter about the way zappa treated him.

since he left the mothers he has played with 'little feat' (an excellent country-rock band which also features lowell george, another ex-mother) and worked as a session man. he has just recently joined the magic band, allowing rockette morton to play guitar when the mood takes him.

his old friend ed marimba (alias art tripp) was also a mother. artie looks kind of weird on stage nowadays with his green moustache and his hair fixed in three ringlets with a pince-nez round his neck. he spent six years studying music at university and carried on that tradition with the classical chamber music zappa fooled around with in the later days of the original mothers. tripp now despises 'all that formal crap' as he calls it, and is totally committed to beefheart's music.

ian underwood (zappa's ace keyboard player) played in the magic band for a couple of weeks, but he just couldn't make it. "he said the music gave him headache", tripp says contemptuously.

he explained the reason that so many ex-mothers are now playing with beefheart like this: "well, all that stuff with zappa was just hard work. this band is like total liberation - work doesn't come into it at all. we've been released."

winged eel fingerling is perhaps the most interesting of the ex-mothers. his real name is elliot ingber and he played guitar on the 'freak out' album. after his dalliance with zappa he formed 'the fraternity of man', whose main claim to fame lies in the inclusion of their song 'don't bogart that joint' on the 'easy rider' soundtrack, which elliot wrote.

he eventually joined beefheart after 'lick my decals off, baby' had been released, but soon split owing to his hatred of being on the road. now, he too is totally committed to beefheart: "as long as there is a magic band, that's the place i want to be."

he is the only one of the band who has anything good to say about zappa - "i like and respect frank very much. he's a fine guitarist - but he seems very distant from everything going on around him." after politely answering questions, he mutters "jiggers" and goes off to sit by himself again.

after a seemingly endless journey - the first coach had broken down halfway the trip to brighton - we finally arrived at the dome, a sort of mini-version of the albert hall filled to capacity, as all the beefheart gigs have been. in the dressing room the band prepares for the show, with zoot horn rollo clasping his spider-like fingers around the fret-board of his guitar, crafting almost impossible chords from the instrument.

beefheart disappears into the john, eventually emerging in his stage clothes: an incredible red silk suit over a black shirt with a gold necklace instead of a tie. all this is topped off with a black cloak emblazoned with some weird embroidered design and he looks every inch a rock and roll star just like little richard. "bétter, man: richard was too little."

it must be after the first three bars of 'when it blows its stacks' that you realise something truly astounding is going to be laid on you. the captain told me that the band never do free gigs because "we need money to buy good food in order to play good music".

all i can say is that beefheart and company are no vegetarians, they're cannibals. their music comes right out and eats up the audience. the guitars slip and slide with a vengeance, slicing up the music into magnificent splinters while beefheart howls like some croned shaman going werewolf.

the band never seems quite human - more like spirits suckled from birth by one of those strange treacherous figures that appear in dr. john's more inspired ramblings or which found a place in bo diddley's creepy 'who do you love' saga.

make no mistake: captain beefheart and his magic band ain't just another black magic hype for the kids to lap up; they're the real voodoo, the acorn gospel in the grand old tradition of the delta music vision of 'the twilight zone'. the demons that drove robert johnson to his grave at the tender age of twenty-one are working in harness with beefheart, transforming his music into some weird bastard offspring of the music of the spheres.

the tracks the band plays, come from 'trout mask replica', 'lick my decals off, baby' and 'the spotlight kid' exclusively and the live sound that they get now, makes most of their studio effects look sick by comparison.

the magic band at full strength on such numbers as 'click clack', 'i'm gonna booglarize you baby' and 'my human gets me blues' is quite unique: beefheart sums it all up - "their playing is so together that they look as if they are untogether, if you know what i mean."

their music is both jagged and flowing and when, for an encore, the captain takes up his alto sax and proceeds to assault the p.a. with his highly unconventional style of playing it is all literally a bit too much for some of the kids in the audience - although i can imagine that the whales coasting off brighton beach appreciate the communication from a fellow spirit.

the scene backstage after the show is hectic. bad vibes are present in the form of some acid-heads who keep annoying beefheart with their inane jive. beefheart is vehemently opposed to drugs of all kinds - hard drugs he considers to be poison and psychedelics as "just an extension of disneyland" - and has actually spoken out on stage against them, but the fact remains that his music appeals to a young, drug-orientated audience.

while he recognises the fact that the majority of his audience are young (sixteen-year-old kids in the states make the bulk of beefheart's afficionados) he steadfastly refuses to believe that they are heavily into drugs. "i'm appreciated by those young people who have realised how pointless the drug experience is."

it is also sad that for most beefheart addicts his appeal is that of a charismatic crazy-man spouting inspired gibberish. there is a good deal of humour and insanity in his work - which he recognises - but he is most concerned that the ideas which he puts across and the music that the band produces should ultimately be taken seriously as great art.

he contends that within the bizarre structure of his art there lie some incredibly advanced ideas. whether or not the great rock and roll population of planet earth ever pick up on them, remains to be seen - but captain beefheart and the magic band ain't worrying.

like don says: the stars are matter / we are matter / but it doesn't matter.