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Reverse Reviews : Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band, Safe as Milk
CAPTAIN BEEFHEART AND THE MAGIC BAND – SAFE AS MILK (1967)
Buddha
This is one of those records you only pull out at the right moment, due to its potency. If it were a person, it would be a tophat-wearing snake-oil salesman wearing smeared clown makeup, hawking his wares and whispering things. Nothing he said would make sense, but his voice tone would somehow sound….soothing. “Sure,” you say, in some sort of trance. “I’ll buy whatever you’re selling.” If this record were a place, it would be a small Mississippi farming town whose water supply had just been heavily dosed with some psychologically disruptive substance.
Delta blues
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One (1) really strange white dude with a 4 ½ octave vocal range
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Safe as Milk by Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band.
Don’t let the term “blues” throw you off here. Most blues that you hear these days is just crap, which this is not. Let us explain ourselves…
So there’s blues, and then there’s blues. Blues guitar is easy to play, sure, but that’s not the point. Real blues isn’t about virtuosity. Leave that crap to Eddie Van Halen and Joe Satriani. It’s about delivery; it’s about passion; it’s about soul. You know that feeling you get when you’re upset about something and, instead of holding it in, you just let it all pour out? That wave of satisfaction that you get afterwards…well, that’s the blues.
Real blues is primal. Like the other folk styles of the world, it’s meant to act as a simple pallet upon which the player has free reign to voice his/her deepest feelings, desires and longings. But you rarely get the goods. Because of its simple chord structure, the blues, as a style, is pretty easy to half-ass…and, more often than not, that’s exactly what you get from most “blues” musicians. But when someone really digs into the blues, really uses it for its born purpose – i.e., the exorcism of demons – it’s some of the most potent music on Earth.
Taking his cues straight from the most intense and fiery of the original bluesmen – Son House, Robert Johnson, Charley Patton and Howlin’ Wolf – and then adding his own bizarre (genius?) layer of taste…an acid-drenched menagerie of free jazz, psychedelic garage rock and a sort of broken Afro-funk, Captain Beefheart (born Don Vliet in Glendale, CA) and his Magic Band produced their first record, Safe as Milk, in 1967. Arguably, this was the first substantial interpretation by a white dude of the blues’ underbelly, the rich stuff, the stuff from the Delta that smelled like swampwater, dried sweat and the smoke from cigarettes rolled in cornhusks. It was completely unique for its time. When it came out, John Lennon – one of the biggest musical cynics of his day – said it was one of his favorite records.
Safe as Milk is like a funhouse or a hall of mirrors. When you first walk in, everything seems relatively normal. The first 6 tracks (Side One of the original vinyl) are a driving, even-keel stride through Beefheart’s blues interpretation – real hot stuff. But It’s almost as if Beefheart felt obliged to start the first side of this record as a humble homage to the folk style upon which he had chosen to build. Tracks 1-6 lay the foundation on which Beefheart would construct his crooked-assed house.
Then, Side Two of the record kicks in, and everything changes in a subtle-yet-dramatic way. You turn the corner, the lights start flickering madly, mirrors, mirrors everywhere, all the while The Captain’s voice howling all around…his voice a mix between a drunken lounge singer, a bloodhound on the scent, and an angst-ridden prison inmate, singing a harrowing song on the chain gang. By the time the chorus of “Yellow Brick Road” jumps out at you, you realize that the Side One was Beefheart’s giving you his list of influences, his resume. On Side Two, he assumes that he got the job…now he’s going to work. Hi. I’m Captain Beefheart. Nice to meet you.
From “Yellow Brick Road” onward, the musical style deteriorates from more traditional blues styles into a sort of unraveled, tribal madness...this is Howlin’ Wolf on a freakout spree, running through the fields with a shotgun after somebody woke him up in the middle of the night and stole his underpants. By the time you hit “Abba Zaba,” you feel like you’re bearing witness to some sort of ancient ritual being reenacted by your neighbors at the trailerpark.
Legendary BBC DJ John Peel (R.I.P.) was a huge fan of Captain Beefheart. His sets on John Peel’s radio show in January and June of 1968 are definitely worth a listen...it’s in these performances where several of the Safe as Milk tracks really show their twisted, freakish power. Be sure to also check out Beefheart’s record Trout Mask Replica, where he basically abandons his blues roots, does a bunch of whippets and loses his mind, formally perfecting the psychedelic mash-up style that he started with Safe as Milk.
For fans of: Tom Waits (Swordfishtrombones and Bone Machine), Leonard Cohen (The Future), Frank Zappa, Devo, Julian Cope, Ween, Suicide, Flaming Lips (pre-The Soft Bulletin), Felice Brothers, Beck (start at Odelay and go backwards). And so many more.
Footage of Captain Beefheart & the Magic Band playing "Sure 'Nuff 'N Yes I Do," the first track off Safe as Milk, on the beach at Cannes, France in 1968.