Disc of the day
Heaven 17 - Penthouse And Pavement
From Sheffield, synth pop and funk to stick it to Thatcher. Currently being played live!
Features Disc of the day
Captain Beefheart And His Magic Band
Safe As Milk
(Buddah, 1967)
Van Vliet's blues-rocking debut. Ry Cooder and Taj Mahal guest!
This storied outfit's earliest activities after emerging from the California desert included playing Rolling Stones tunes and releasing a single version of Diddy Wah Diddy by Bo Diddley. And if the above activities seem a fair distance from later Beefheart trepanning parties like Trout Mask Replica, they're a good précis for Safe As Milk. With Beefheart's signature wolf-roar (strange to think of him ever being 26) present and correct, the music is a blues-heavy rock rich in natural eccentricity rather than paisley-underpants '67-psychedelia, and despite previous label A&M dropping the band for being uncommercial, these songs are invariably catchy, hummable and in possession of the all-important good beat. They're varied too; take latiny choco-bar tribute Abba Zaba, the soul and doo-wop of Call On Me and I'm So Glad and freak folk weeper Autumn's Child for proof. There are signposts to where they'd go later - see how rhythmatist Drumbo's already getting to grips with those treble-jointed micro-beats on the fabulous Electricity - but there's a kind of calm here that suggests he hadn't yet started forbidding the band to use the toilet to make their playing "tense". As for contemporary admirers, a certain J.W. Lennon was on the money.
Clive Prior
Posted by Ross_Bennett at 6:00 AM GMT 19/10/2009
Further Listening
Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band - Trout Mask Replica (Straight, 1969)
The Mothers Of Invention - Freak Out! (Verve, 1966)
The Fall - Hex Enduction Hour (Kamera, 1982)
Previous Disc of the day
-
Heaven 17 - Penthouse And Pavement
From Sheffield, synth pop and funk to stick it to Thatcher. Currently being played live!
6:00 AM GMT 18/03/2010
-
Creedence Clearwater Revival - Green River
Essence De Choogle from John Fogerty and crew. Badass!
9:54 AM GMT 17/03/2010
-
The The - Soul Mining
Matt Johnson's self-excoriating - but tunepacked! -classic.
6:00 AM GMT 16/03/2010
-
-
Various Artists - Axe Attack Vol II
Metal Britannica inspires MOJO metal amnesty. Studded leather wristbands aloft!
2:32 AM GMT 12/03/2010
-
The Pop Group - Y
For connoisseurs of pop-as-rupture-in-the-space/time-continuum
6:00 AM GMT 11/03/2010
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Oh man, this is one of the greatest recordings ever released... and it would take an idiot to say otherwise.
Posted by Anonymous at 4:28 PM GMT 21/10/2009 Report Abuse
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