Rod Stewart - Every Picture Tells A Story
Rod the Mod finds his solo footing, headed for stardom, with the Faces in his wake.
6:00 AM GMT 22/06/2011
Features Disc of the day
Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band
Lick My Decals Off, Baby
(Straight, 1970)
Lost R&B weirdness from the Captain's junkyard of inspiration...
"I'm doing non-hypnotic music to break up the catatonic state," once said Don Van Vliet, 20th Century musical visionary and shaman of avant-garde sound. A big, bolshie bear of a man with a penchant for high-voltage blues, unruly rhythms and baffling wordplay, Beefheart's music has polarised listeners from the very start. With the rotating personnel of the Magic Band behind him, the Captain shattered the 12-bar structures his heroes (Howlin' Wolf, John Lee Hooker) adhered to, re-assembling the base elements into a unnerving meld of key-jumping guitar runs and free-jazz freak-outs. The sprawling Trout Mask Replica is often held as his masterpiece, but ...Decals..., its 1970 follow-up, is a far more concentrated burst of Beefheartian brilliance. Giving the record its creeping sense of anxiety are the marimba runs of Art Tripp who leads us into the likes of The Clouds Are Full Of Wine (Not Whiskey Or Rye) with foreboding thunks. Straight grooves are abandoned in favour of tense, trebly guitar snaps (courtesy of Zoot Horn Rollo) that give his wild beatnik flourishes (Mama, mama, here come Doctor Dark / Horse clippin', clappin' 'n his ol' hooves makin' sparks) a sense of looming danger - like some salivating monster emerging from a drain clutching a bunch of John Coltrane records. It's also very funny (witness the opening gambit of the title track: "Rather than I want to hold your hand / I wanna swallow you whole / 'n I wanna lick you everywhere it's pink / 'n everywhere you think / Whole kit 'n kaboodle 'n the kitchen sink"). If there was ever an album that needed a prompt CD reissue, it's this one. What are you waiting for record label people? Hell, it's even got its own pre-prepared advertisement!
Ross Bennett
Posted by Ross_Bennett at 6:00 AM GMT 05/03/2009
Further Listening
Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band – Clear Spot (Reprise, 1972)
Ornette Coleman – The Shape Of Jazz To Come (Atlantic, 1959)
Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion (Domino, 2009)
Previous Disc of the day
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Earl Brutus - Larky
Last salvo of Ginsters Pasty-Warholism from Britpop ramraiders.
12:04 PM GMT 08/06/2011
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Loudon Wainwright - T-Shirt
An overlooked small wonder from an unpredictable career.
6:00 AM GMT 03/06/2011
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Landscape - From The Tea-rooms Of Mars… To The Hell-holes Of Uranus
Dry computer club Futurists, upon hitting implausible chart paydirt.
6:00 AM GMT 17/05/2011
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Causa Sui - Summer Sessions Vol 1-3
Epic Danish jams, for when the neighbours get you down.
6:00 AM GMT 12/05/2011
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Damn right n yes i do! I have not played the record for ages but this one & Trout Mask last forever - the latter, my all time favourite...pit Don's work ethic for the band did not ease off a little as before long they would disappear, once grown up...
however, a brown star is on the horizon as Clear Spot, which NME in the old days said was the unsung soul l.p of the 7o's - damn right!
Posted by martin smith, Cleveland, u.k at 1:34 PM GMT 05/03/2009 Report Abuse
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iOkcQL That's rlaley thinking out of the box. Thanks!
Posted by Alyn at 6:15 PM GMT 14/04/2011 Report Abuse
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