the curtain
rose at the fenway theater to reveal a most astonishing event. the marquee
out front billed captain beefheart and his magic band, but onstage, amid
the array of equipment, stood one lone magician, bassist rockette
morton (mark boston), clad in bright
orange with a panama hat and an amazing moustache. he dipped low, pointed
his bass menacingly at the audience, and began to swing.
rockette sailed into
a free flowing, melodic bass solo, not the farting, one-note syncopations
that a rock bassist would perform, but full chords, falling into each other
in a delicate cascade. he swayed and played and danced around the stage
for a full five minutes before ending casually, as if he had scarcely noticed
he had been playing at all. the audience, to a man, was mystified.
the ancient theater,
with its crumbling blitz-victim ceiling and massive new p.a. system, was
only half full. the audience seemed comprised of familiar young longhairs
equipped with their hip credentials - a bottle of wine and a handful of
joints. they were quite casual about their ritualized anesthesia ceremony,
as they nonchalantly got loaded.
no one appeared to
mind the half-hour delay before the show; it only meant they would be all
the more gassed when the music began. it mattered little what band they
were awaiting, as most were only vaguely familiar with the captain's music.
one fan was actively worried about his investment: 'this better be good...
i never heard of these guys before'.
after the audience
had thoroughly insulted and harassed sapo's chimps, showering the warm-up
act with obscenity, and after the chimps had thoroughly explored the captain's
equipment (he later commented: 'i would set up with those cats anytime')
and after rockette's solo, the rest of the band appeared, a truly strange
apparition.
zoot horn rollo
(bill
harkleroad), truly eel-like in his ectomorphic jumpsuit, played bottle-neck
guitar. small and hairy, winged eel fingerling
(elliot
ingber) unleashed a frenzy of six-string guitar notes, while
ed
marimba
(art tripp) explored the drums.
captain beefheart looked so much the chicago gangster, with his heavy-set,
determined stance, his black leather coat and black wide-brimmed hat, that
his sub-basement growl of a voice seemed appropriate.
as the band performed
their open-ended, free flowing songs, they danced and whirled in manic
stop-action, like witches around a kettle. rockette moved from one end
of the stage to the other in his unique slow-motion stalk, and the captain
threw back his head, savoring his band's pulsing, polyrhythms as he paused.
beefheart's music is
totally engaging and always dynamic. each of the musicians is at liberty
to play whatever he feels, yet they still remain open and aware of the
music surrounding them; this is a group effort, not the jamming one-upmanship
of many bands. the captain once commented: 'i don't teach them how to play....
i teach them how to keep from nót playing'. thus the music they
create is uninhibited, to say the least. when beefheart was asked [about]
his favorite pop star, he said the last musician to turn him on was bill
haley, and it shows in his set.
now beefheart is the
last band you would find on the rock 'n' roll revival bus with little eva
and bo diddley (okay, maybe in 1972 but his debut single from 1965,
'diddy wah diddy', wás a cover of a bo diddley song! - teejo),
but the way that the magic band whoops it up, flinging themselves and their
instruments around while creating unfalteringly fresh music, is certainly
reminiscent of the early days of rock 'n' roll.
their set was a short
one, with the material culled from four of beefheart's albums (uh, mainly
'lick my decals off, baby' and the fresh release 'the spotlight kid' -
t.t.), and the band was constantly shifting, members walking on and
off for duets and solos. the captain played a double role, sometimes a
menacing growler, sometimes the solicitous host. after one number, he asked
the audience, in his unpretentiously tutorial style: 'did you hear that?'
referring not to the volume but to the music itself. at one point, ed marimba
pounded out a horse hooves cadence, and the captain sang through his clarinet
('spitball
scalped a baby' - t.t.): 'merrill lynch is bullish on america'.
the highlight of the
set was 'black snake blues' ('there's a black snake suckin' on my rider's
tongue' - originally by john lee hooker - t.t.). no one sings like
beefheart (he claims seven octaves), and most of the audience was mesmerized.
when one bozo tried to sing along, the captain waited to see if perhaps
their duet would work, then asked him: 'either keep quiet or keep in time'.
then the set ended quickly, the magic band disappeared, and the audience
yelled for more.
