samedi 27 août 2011

Captain Beefheart Gratuit

Captain Beefheart Gratuit

"Pourquoi je devrais faire payer ma musique? Moi, elle me vient Gratuitement"
(Captain Beefheart)

                                                                                           "Dead Heads Babies"

Ils sont cool a Rochefort En Accord...
Si tu t'arettes devant leur restaurant et que tu lis leur menu, ils te filent des hors d’œuvres a l’œil...
En digestif...
Alors, en revenant d'enregistrer mes copains The Belmondos à Saint-Georges de Didonne prés de Royan et des fontaines bleues du Château de Beaulon, quoi de mieux a faire que d'aller trainer ma misère sur la pelouse de la Corderie Royale, le cul dans l'herbe tendre, en cette Kinksienne fin de saison, comme un Sacré Grand-Père?
Les hirondelles volaient bas...
C'est le genre de merde qui aurait plu au capitaine...
Il faisait si doux...
Un soir de 71 sans doute un peu comme celui-la, l'ami Chris avait quitté les Hell's Angels et foncé vers le Sud... Un parfum de souvenir sans mélancolie flotte dans l'air... Et c'est plutôt agréable...
Peu de cuirs ni de blousons noirs...
J'en ai même oublié de regarder vers la buvette si des potes y étaient...
De toutes façons, Phil aurait fait passer le mot...
Dommage les gars...
Vous avez raté quelques belles chansons d'amour...




OK... Ce monde fonce dans un mur de chiasse rendue solide par la vitesse.
On est tous accrochés a un truc ou a un autre sans vouloir que ce soit le dit.
Est ce une raison pour cracher sur un pique-nique?
Hey, Plastic, si on avait su, tu serais venu avec tes fraises....

Une bourgeoise chic se curait le nez conciencieusement. Relax.
Quelques vieux durs aux visages souriants...
Y'avait aussi de belles dames de soixante balais avec des mèches rouges.
Plein de Jerry Garcia partout...
Par contre, je crois bien que j etais le seul a fumer...





Pendant les soli de guitare de mecs qui ont jamais joué pour France Gall,
y a des enfants qui rient et des jeunes qui dansent...
Peut être s'aimeront ils mieux que nous nous sommes aimés..?
"There's Gonna Be Some Changes Made"
Pour Sur.


















Celle ci s’appelle "Un Monde Sans Argent" dit l'homme en rouge.
Grand silence.
On y vit déjà, et ici, tout le monde ne veut que ça, mon pote..!
Enfin, comme c’était gratuit, le dodu public peut pas dire qu'il en a pas eu pour le sien...
Dans le pays d’où vient ce mec,  la sécurité sociale, c'est de la science-fiction...
Il gagne a être connu... Il vaut des points!
Et tout ceux qui sont venus aussi !  Également ! Libertairement et Fraternellement!

"C'est bizarre de voir comment les événements deviennent des souvenirs", rajoute-t-il...













Orage contenu au lointain désespoir...
Éclairs sur la fin.
Électricité...
Le vent peut se lever et souffler les arbres du parc comme des marionnettes...
Les bêtes doivent aller dormir d'un oeuil...
D'un sommeil plein de loups...
Comme dans une des chansons du gars en bleu.























Justement, il fait gris-bleu ce vendredi matin...



Quand j'arrive a l'heure, l'orchestre joue déjà et on dirait même qu'ils sont tout seuls.
Tout le monde travaille, et il y a donc peu de monde... Aficionados et musiciens...
Les zonards ont beau avoir passé une bonne soirée, ils ne sont pas revenus Place Colbert.
Se faire virer en écoutant le thème de Mean Streets sous la pluie..?

Quand j’étais jeune je me suis fait taper dessus par un flic qui avait un tatouage Gene Vincent.
J'en ai pas vu un seul, mais peut être y'en avait il? En t-shirt "Trout Mask Replica"? Ça semble logique...
Quand j avais quinze ans, en descente de speed, les Hippies filaient un joint, un bol de riz et un lit.
Les bobos de maintenant, ils donnent rien, ils essayent même plutôt de te vendre un machin qui marche pas,
ou carrément de te faire du mal...
"I Can't Take The Hurt Anymore", ils l'ont vraiment bien jouée...



















A part quelques larmes qui ont effrayé en cours d'adieux, la première émouvante apparition de compagnons de
route du Capitaine ne sera pas interrompue par une grosse colère du ciel a l'approche des soirées de gala...
Surement grâce la basse de l'espace d'une de ces passagères Demoiselles de Rochefort, le soleil dans le ciel a
montré le bout de son grand nez lunaire...

Un ami m'ayant filé un peu de fric, je peux prendre de quoi remplir mon frigo avant de rentrer. 
Avec un peu de chance, peut être verrais-je mes gosses bientôt.
"Sunny Day Sun" des New Christs a fond la caisse dans la voiture...
Je remercie dieu d'en avoir encore une, un frigo, une maison, pour les enfants.
Et des amis.




















J'ai remercié le MC entre quatre yeux.
Je le fais ici par écrit pour tous les participants!

   MERCI

 "Unlimited Supplies" comme disait le Big Eyed Rotten Bean From Venus!

A un de ces jours, peut-être...

Jean-Pierre

http://www.myspace.com/rockarolla17450



PS:

L'année dernière, j'ai vu exploser en vol ma 2ème Web-Radio presque au même moment que "Rochefort En accord".
Sur le conseil toujours judicieux du grand MC.Domi, les merveilleux Stilla et Tellek viennent de créer mon blog il y a une semaine...
Je suis pas vraiment un journaliste, mais ne pas me lancer a fond, carnet de notes a la main,
pour le meilleur et pour le pire, serait leur faire un affront dont je ne me relèverait pas...
Ils m'ont botté le cul... Ils ont eu raison... A mon tour de botter le votre dans la mesure de mes moyens...

J'ai vu plein de photographes et je n'en suis pas un, mais je me suis dit que meme si la qualite technique est
pourrie, vous aurez au moins une image de chaque formation... Les batteurs ont trinqué...
A la bonne votre, les gars...

BONUS:

Le Blog De Tellek Et Stilla:
http://telek-stilla.blogspot.com/

Le Clip Dadaiste de Magique Spencer, "Acapulco":
http://www.myspace.com/michaeljacksonspencer/videos/video/57107928

Le Monde des Orbes De Cattia d'Amour:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-U9qV-xppbk&list=PL4927466F79CFE637&index=5&feature=plpp
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPI0Q3jMgBo

Bientot le "Fest'en Herbe" de Gérard, son Epouse et leur Fille:
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001335743248&ref=pymk

The Belmondos:
http://www.myspace.com/thebelmondosclub

Maison a Vendre (Most Exclusive Residence For Sale):
http://la.curbed.com/archives/2010/09/captain_beefhearts_cabin_in_woodland_hills.php



PS:

J'ai essayé de poster ce texte toute la nuit et en vain... Et Ce matin, sans le calme et la gentillesse de
Tellek.... Eh non, je n'ai pas de nouvelles de mes enfants... Je suis maudit... Ne travaillez jamais avec moi...

"Je vais me lancer dans le business de la graisse" (Homer Simpson)

mardi 23 août 2011

Captain Beefheart a Rochefort

Captain Beefheart a Rochefort

http://www.rochefort-en-accords.fr/


"En fin de semaine, y'a Captain Beefheart a Rochefort, mais je pourrais pas y aller! Fait chier!"

Le jeune Joe a flashé sur Steve Marriott et Jimi Hendrix. Il a a peine vingt ans. Il joue dans un groupe de La Rochelle. De la guitare. Et il joue super-bien. Avec son cœur, le son, tout ça tout ça... Et il savait pas que Don Van Vliet n'est plus de ce monde... Un brin perdu dans ses rêves, le gamin, comme devaient l’être tout les gamins de son age dans les sixties, je suppose...
C'est beau, de rêver... Sans ça, y'a pas de Japonais ni de MP3.

Captain Beefheart fait partie de notre réseau étendu.
Son étoile brille tout la-haut.
Elle a toujours éclairé le monde, mais le monde ne le savait pas.

Lorsque quelqu'un montre la lune, l'idiot regarde le doigt, disent les chinois...

A Rochefort, cette semaine est donc placée sous le signe des Demoiselles et du Capitaine Cœur De Bœuf.
Vous risquez y croiser des filles de joie, des freaks, des bruitistes et des perchés, des boucaniers et même des
végétariens, tous venus honorer la mémoire de notre cher disparu!
il y a pire comme nouvelle, vous en conviendrez, non?

C'est une bonne idée que ces jam'sessions annuelles...
Il est temps de se serrer les coudes et d'aller voir chez le voisin si un bout de notre nez ou de notre palpitant
n'y est pas... Et je pense que vous êtes assez curieux pour aller entendre de vous même comment ils s'y prennent.Si le beau temps et le vin blanc sont de la partie, vous pourrez peut être finir par vous lâcher un peu, pour changer...
A moins que partager des trucs ensemble, faire des étincelles et pourquoi pas l'amour ne vous foute une trouille bleue...

"la ou on en joue, le voyageur entend la musique des montagnes", disait Hunter Thompson.
A moins que je ne ramène des bruits de la bas, ou que des spectateurs amateurs preneurs de sons et d'images ne soient présents, il se peut qu'a l instar des divas et des maestro de jadis qui répugnaient a êtres enregistrés, cette rencontre ne reste gravée que dans les cœurs des participants... Serait-ce si grave?

Puisque j'en suis a Chinoiser, comme on dit ici, je repense a ce petit nom charmant qu'ils ont pour nous désigner:   Les fantômes...
Je repense a cette photo perdue de Jim Morrisson moribond a la Corderie Royale dont me parlait Julien Sex-Toy...

Y'aura t il des orbes sur vos négatifs?

Hey Joe, ramène ta graisse, Rochefort est un Hamburger!

Le Vicomte Jean-Pierre De Rocka Rolla

http://www.myspace.com/rockarolla17450


UN BRIN DE BONUS :


Un peu de Plaisir Des Yeux Dadaïste:

DISCO-GRAPHISME RÉCRÉATIF DU PRÉSIDENT CAILLET:

http://approximatif.free.fr/index.php?page1
http://bricolagea.free.fr/
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002353014727&ref=pb

Une Juxtaposition Sonore Dadaïste:

MORISSON-DJANGO par JULIEN SEX-TOY:

http://www.myspace.com/morrisondjango

Le Groupe dans lequel Joue Joe:

KAZEMY




UNE INTERVIEW DU CAPITAINE PAR LESTER BANGS:


Captain Beefheart's Far Cry/Iridescent Logic - Lester Bangs Interview & Drawings

"...Captain Beefheart's Iridescent Logic was an article written by Lester Bangs that appeared in Musician #29 in

1981. Three of Don's sketches, shown below, were scattered through the article. The text was also published as

Captain Beefheart's Far Cry in the Village Voice, October 1980. The sketches were not included with this

version...."

(REPOSTED FROM THE EXCELLENT BEEFHEART RADAR STATION)

http://www.beefheart.com/zigzag/articles/cry.htm


Captain Beefheart's Far Cry

This excellent article / interview was written by Lester Bangs and was taken from the October 1st - 7th 1980 edition

of Voice.


He's alive, but so is paint. Are you?

Don Van Vliet is a 39-year-old man who lives with his wife Jan in a trailer in the Mojave Desert. They have very

little money, so it must be pretty hard on them sometimes, but I've never heard them complain. Don Van Vliet is

better known as Captain Beefheart, a legend worldwide whom the better part of a generation of New Wave rock 'n' roll

bands' have cited as one of their most important spiritual and musical forefathers: John Lydon/Rotten, Joe Strummer

of the Clash, Devo, Pere Ubu, and many others have attested to growing up on copies of Van Vliet's 1969 album Trout

Mask Replica, playing its four sides of discordant yet juicy swampbrine jambalaya roogalator over and over again

until they knew whole bits - routines out of his lyrics, which are a wild and totally original form of free-

associational poetry.

There are some of us who think he is one of the giants of 20th century music, certainly of the postwar era. He has

never been to music school, and taught himself to play about half a dozen instruments including soprano sax, bass

clarinet, harmonica, guitar, piano, and most recently mellotron. He sings in seven and a half octaves, and his style

has been compared to Howlin' Wolf and several species of primordial beasts. His music, which he composes for

ensemble and then literally teaches his bands how to play, is often atonal but always swings in a way that very

little rock ever has. His rhythmic concept is unique. I hear Delta blues, free jazz, field hollers, rock 'n' roll

and lately something new that I can't put my finger on but relates somehow to what they call "serious" music. You'll

probably hear several other things.

This is going to be a profile partially occasioned by the release of his 12th (and best since 1972's Clear Spot)

album, Doc at the Radar Station. This is also going to be, and I hesitate mightily to say this because I hate those

articles where the writer brays how buddybuddy he is with the rock stars, about someone I have long considered a

friend and am still only beginning to feel I understand after 11 years. Which is perhaps not so long a time to take

to be able to say that you have learned anything about anyone.

Meanwhile, back in the Mojave Desert, Don Van Vliet is enjoying a highly urbane, slyly witty (anecdotes and repartee

litter the lunar sands like sequins 'n' confetti on the floor of a Halloween disco), and endlessly absorbing

conversation with a gila monster. "GRAAUUWWWKKK!" says the big slumbrous reptile, peering out its laser-green

lidless bulging eyes and missing nothing. "Brickbats fly my fireplace," answers Van Vliet. "Upside down I see them

in the fire. They squeak and roast there. Wings leap across the floor." "KRAAEEAUUWWWKKK!" advises heat-resistant

gila. Van Vliet the Captain nods and ponders the efficacy of such a course. They've both just washed down the last

of the scalding chilli fulla big eyed beans from Venus what glare atcha accusingly as ya poppem doomward inya mouf.

The Captain, Van Vliet, call him which you choose, has chosen to live out here, squatflat wampum on this blazened

barren ground for many a year. Don't see too much o' the hoomin side o' the varmint family out here, but that's fine

with Cap Vliet, "Doc" as he's called by the crusty prospectors hung on lak chiggers from times before his emigration

to this spot.

Have you ever had somebody you idolized or looked up to as an artist?

"Can't think of anybody, other than the fact that I thought Van Gogh was excellent."

How about in music?

"Never in music I never have. A hero in music. No, fortunately."

So you didn't listen to like Delta blues and free jazz and stuff before you started to-

"Not really. . . I met Eric Dolphy. He was a nice guy, but it was real limited to me, like bliddle-liddle-

diddlenopdedit-bop, "I came a long way from St. Louie," like Ornette, you know. It didn't move me."

Dolphy didn't MOVE you?

"Well, he moved me, but he didn't move me as much as a goose, say. Now that could be a hero, a gander goose could

definitely be a hero, the way they blow their heart out for nothing like that."

Is that because you think that people generally do it for purposes of ego?

"Um, yeah, which I think is good because it gets your shoes tied. You know what I mean, it doesn't scare old ladies,

you get dressed. So I think that's nice."

You don't think it's possible to create art that's egoless, that just flows through you?

"That's possible, I'm tryin' to do that, on this last album definitely."

Well, one thing I find is that the more I know the less I know.

"Me too. I don't know anything about music."

As reviews over the years have proved, it's always difficult to write anything that really says something about Don

Van Vliet. Perhaps (though he may hate this comparison) this is because, like Brian Eno, he approaches music with

the instincts of a painter, in Beefheart's case those of a sculptor as well. (When I was trying to pin him down

about something on his new album over the phone the other day, he said: "Have you seen Franz Kline lately? You

should go over to the Guggenheim and see his Number Seven, they have it in such a good place. He's probably closer

to my music than any of the painters, because it's just totally speed and emotion that comes out of what he does.")

When he's directing the musicians in his Magic Band he often draws the songs as diagrams and shapes. Before that he

plays the compositions into a tape himself, "usually on a piano or a moog synthesizer. Then I can shape it to be

exactly the way I want it, after I get it down there. It's almost like sculpture; that's actually what I'm doing, I

think. 'Cause I sure as hell can't afford marble, as if there was any."

Much of what results, by any "normal" laws of music, cannot be done. As for lyrics, again like Eno, he often works

them up from a sort of childlike delight at the very nature of the sounds themselves, of certain words, so if, to

pull an example out of the air; "anthrax," or "love" for that matter appears in a line, it doesn't necessarily mean

what you'll find in the dictionary if you look it up. Then again, it might. Contrary to Rolling Stone, "Ashtray

Heart" on the new album has nothing to do with Beefheart's reaction to punk rockers beyond one repeated aside that

might as well be a red herring. ("Lut's open up another case of the punks" is the line reflecting his rather dim

view of the New Wavers who are proud to admit to being influenced by him. "I don't ever listen to 'em, you see,

which is not very nice of me but... then again, why should I look through my own vomit? I think they're overlooking

the fact - they're putting it back into rock and roll: bomp, bomp, bomp, that's what I was tryin' to get away from,

that mama heartbeat stuff. I guess they have to make a living, though.") He laughs about the misinterpretation, but

since the song is pretty clearly about betrayal, I asked: "What was it about the person in the song that could make

you care enough to be that hurt?"

He says: "Humanity. The fact that people don't hear it the way you really mean it. Probably for a similar reason

that Van Gogh gave that girl a piece of his flesh, because she was too stupid to comprehend what he was doing. I

always thought that he gave her that as a physical thing to hold onto because she didn't accept the aesthetic value

of what he was saying."

'We don't have to suffer, we're the best batch yet.' Would you care to comment on what that might mean?

"Yeah, what I was doing there was having these cardboard ball sculptures, fake pearls, real cheap cardboard

constructed circles, you know what I mean, floating through that music. Actually, I was afraid to sing on that

track, I liked the music so much, it was perfect without me on it. And so I put those words on there, you know

they're just cheap cardboard constructions of balls of simulated pearls floating through, and it's an overwhelming

technique that makes them look like pearls. "We don't have to suffer, we're the best batch yet" were these pearls

talking to themselves."

As opposed to the other ones. What does mean when you say, "White flesh waves to black"?

"God, I don't know what that means. It means, it's just a, uh, it's merely just a painting, you see, that's poetic

license."

I thought you were talking about racism.

"Oh, no. I don't know what to do about racial or political things. It was just a poem to me. A poem for poem's

sake."

I was also thinking of when you walk around looking at people who have turned themselves into commodities.

"Yeah, we're the best batch yet! We're the newest best that has been put out. Well that has to do with that, too.

You know I'm, uh, ahm, whaddaya call it, it isn't schizophrenic but it is, oh. what people in the West think of

people in the East, you see, meaning that in some instances they think that people are crazy who think multifaceted,

that there's many ways of interpreting something. I mean 'em all. I can't say I don't know what my lyrics mean, but

I can say that, oh, yeah I know what they mean, but if you call it you stop the flow."

Van Morrison has said that he doesn't know what a lot of his own lyrics, mean and even if Beefheart does, or they

mean something different for each of us, I think as with Morrison, occasionally you feel that the voice of some

Other just might be speaking through this singer at this particular time, as if he were an instrument picking up

messages from...? Doc at the Radar Station. (About the various voices he switches between, often in the same song:

"I'll tell you the truth, some of those guys really scare me, that come out at me when I do some things, like

'Sheriff Of Hong Kong,' I never met him before. Or she, I dunno. . . it's like different, uh uh... you see, I don't

think I do music, think I do spells.")

Wherever Don Van Vliet gets his rules and messages from, it's rarely the external, socalled rational, I think

psychotic "civilized" society we've known and lived in. He chooses to live out of it, mentally and physically, and

began trying to escape from it at a very early age: "I never went to school. I wet my pants and my mother came and

got me as I was running and I told her that I couldn't go to school because I was sculpting at that time a hell of a

lot. That was kindergarten, I think. Itried to jump into the La Brea Tar Pits when I was three, whatever that means.

They caught me just in time. I was sc intrigued by those bubbles going bmp bmp. I thought I would find a dinosaur

down there. I told my mother when I was three years old - she showed it to me not too long ago, in this baby book in

that horrible Palmer Penmanship method of writing that she used, you know that fantastic curlicues type stuff that

had everything to do with everything other than what it said, on this old yellow piece of paper it's written out,

that if she would stay on one side of the room and I would stay on the other, that we would be friends the rest of

our life. I used to lock myself in a room and sculpt when I was like three, five, six."

What sorts of things did you sculpt?

"Oh God, things that I would try to have moved kinetically, try to move these things around. These were my friends,

these little animals that I would make, like dinosaurs and. . .I wasn't very much in reality, actually."

Do you feel bad about that?

"No, ! feel good. I was right. The way people treat animals, I don't like it. One of my horrible memories is the

great Auk, the fact that it was extinct before I was born. What a beautiful bird."

What were your parents like?

"Pretty banal. They moved me to Mojave, that's where they kept the Japanese-Americans during World War II. They

moved me up there to keep me out of a scholarship to Europe for sculpture. They wanted to get me away from all the

'queer' artists. Isn't that awful? Periscopes in the tub, right?"

In this sense, he's still not very much in "reality." His problems with record companies over the years are

legendary. Yet he has, somehow, kept on making those amazing albums; just when you've almost given up hope, somebody

else comes along and offers him a contract, and he does another one, and it doesn't sell. Jon Landau told me in

1970, when he was my record reviews editor at Rolling Stone: "Grand Funk will be more important to the history of

rock and roll than Captain Beefheart. And you can quote me on that." But there are other occasions, like the time I

met a young woman in a bar who was not a scenemaker or into avant-rock, and when I asked her what kind of music she

liked she said: "This guy I heard named Captain Beefheart. There was just something kind of real sensual and musky

about it, I dunno. . .it was different, but I loved it."


Beefheart himself thinks women tend to understand his music better than men, so especially since he can be so

elliptically, obscurantistly difficult to pin down in interview and describing his music in prose is kind of like

trying to catch the prism of a dragonfly wing and hold it intact in the palm of your hand, I'll talk about his wife.

Jan is a young woman of such radiance and wholehearted sincerity that it can be a little stunning at first meeting.

Phrases like "earth mother" are too quaint, dreary, way off the mark. She is as active an artist as he and the

complexities of her mind are fully up to his moodswings, which can give you jetlag. Which doesn't mean she's the

archetypal Great Artist's Nursemaid either - she won't take his shit, and he can be a tyrannical baby at times. Like

a lot of us.

Jan helps mightily at broaching some kind of rapprochement communications-wise between this man and the world at

large. In other words, she translates. In both directions. You'd see the same thing at the U.N. And if Don is not

exactly intoning "Klaatu baraada niktu," he does at times seem almost like a visitor from another planet, or more

precisely someone still stunned by his first sight of this one, as I suspect he always will be. Perhaps he just

doesn't have those filtering mechanisms which enable most of us to cope with "reality" by blocking out at least 80

percent of it.

According to his set of filters, in-animate objects are alive, and plants and animals share with them the capacity

to think as well as feel. Don sees perspicacity in a mesquite, an old broom-handle even. If his lyrics are about

anything absolutely, they are about ecology.

You're a painter. In "Run Paint Run Run" are you saying that the paint itself is a conscious entity with a will of

its own?

"Yeah! Definitely! Hey, you got it. Yes, it does have a will of its own."

So it's alive.

"I think so. I definitely feel that it is."

Do you generally feel that about the things around you, inanimate objects?

"Um hm. Yeah, I really do. I think they're all alive. Don't you?"

I don't know.

"Come on, you do too."

So how do you and the paint get along?

"Pretty damn good, I'll tell ya. I'm just looking forward to getting enough money to be able to really paint big. I

don't wanna paint any littler than five by five. But I'd like to paint twenty by twenty."

Do you and the paint ever have fights?

"Yeah, definitely."

Do you feel the same way about the electric guitar, that when you plug it into the call it's this battle of wills

sort of?

"I think so. It'll spit out atcha anything that's out there."

Was that what you were talking about in 'Electricity"?

"Yeah, that had a hell of a lot to do with it. It always seems to come out the way it wants to, y'know."

I think that partially Don anthropomorphises animals and objects as a defence against a human crew who empirical

observation has told him are by and large incomprehensible to themselves as well as him, that's when they're not

also out to getcha. He's like an Androcles that would chat a spell with Leo but see fangs and claws on a delivery

boy. Lacking aforesaid filters, he has devised an elaborate system of checkpoint charlies to keep most of

humankind's snoots at bay. This can sometimes be frustrating. His favourite device in the past was to always say

some bigtime gonzo Dada non-sequitur ("All roads lead to Coca-Cola" was the first one I ever heard), then look you

straight in the eye and insistently enquire: "Do you know what I mean?"

"Yeah, sure, Don, sure!" everybody (except Jan) would always huffnpuff. He is a very charismatic person; a guru, of

sorts. He knows how to charm, and has a way of flattering you by asking you all. kinds of questions suggesting real

concern. He really means it too, his basic philosophy has always been summed up in the open invitation to share his

suddenly brighter sunshine in Trout Mask Replica's "Frownland". But see, that's just it: it was always his sunshine,

on another level all these things were and are distancing devices (though he's not nearly as egocentrically

defensive as he used to be) and it can be extremely frustrating because no matter how intimate you get with somebody

if all they ever say practically is stuff that sounds like it came out of their lingo-tango lyrics (another

technique is to ask you to elaborate when you ask a question and then just agree with you) you go home with a tape

recorder full of words that mean nothing in particular and the sad hunch that there was something a bit impersonal

about this whole affair. I've been told that with Don the best countertactic is to try and pin him down: "Just

exactly what do you mean?" But somehow I've never been able to draw that hard a line. The man is too magical.

Literally. Once in Detroit I walked into a theatre through the back door while he was onstage performing. At the

precise moment I stepped to the edge of the curtains on stage right where I could see him out there haranguing the

audience, he said, very clearly, "Lester!" His back was to me at the time. Later he asked me if I had noticed it. I

was a little shaken.

The years of what career-oriented folks would file as "failure" have ripened and mellowed Don; like most of us, he's

grown up some, albeit perhaps against his will. Once I listened to him rant drunk and bitter all night; now I ask

him: "Do you think the music business will ever find you 'commercial,' and do you care?"

"I don't think they ever will," he laughs, "and I don't care. I'm just thankful that an audience is listening to

me."

He just lets it turn with the earth, though he was particularly angry in the past when a band he literally taught to

play cut some sides on Mercury under his name without even telling him. There are also many of us who think Frank

Zappa, with whom he grew up, wouldn't be hock in a spittoon, much less a "composer" (anybody says that certifies

themselves a moron), if there had never been a Don Van Vliet on this earth. When Zappa established his Straight

Records in 1968, he invited Don to join a carny sideshow which also included the GTO's, Alice Cooper and Wild Man

Fischer, producing, or so he was credited, Trout Mask Replica. Hell, it's such a sleeper you can still order it from

Warner Comm. That record was four sides, 28 songs cut in two days of the most unparalleled ruckus in the annals of

recorded sound. In it, after relatively unfocused albums for Buddah (with whom he even scored a minor hit in '66,

"Diddy Wah Diddy") and Blue Thumb, Beefheart and his unearthly looking cabal of spazmo henchmen seemed effortlessly

to cook up the sofar still definitive statement on the possibilities for some common ground ("fusion," I believe

they called some bath-water quickbuckaroos bearing scant relation a few years later) on which raunch rock, slide-

slinging Delta blues and post Coltrane/Shepp/Ayler free jazz might consecrate a shakedown together.

Like almost all of Beefheart's recorded work, it was not even "ahead" of its time in 1969. Then and now, it stands

outside time, trends, fads, hypes, the rise and fall of whole genres eclectic as walking Christmas trees,

constituting a genre unto itself: truly, a musical Monolith if ever there was one. On it, Beefheart, behind a truly

scarifying gallery of separate voices, becomes at various times a sagebrush prospector, Jews screaming in the ovens

at Auschwitz, greased-back East L.A. pachuco, a breakable pig, automobile, "Ant Man Bee" (title of one song), a

little girl and her brinechawed seafarin' aged father (in the same song), a Pa Kettle-mischievous "Old Fart at

Play," and several species of floral piscatorial and amphibious life. The band under his tutelage, thereon reinvent

from the ground up rhythm, melody, harmonies, perhaps what our common narrow parameters have defined as "music"

itself.

Since then he has released seven albums of varying quality. The immediate followup, Lick My Decals Off Baby, was

brilliant though a little abrasive even for my ears at the time it was released. 1971's The Spotlight Kid was more

commercial though hardly compromised, and many people regard 1972's Clear Spot, a minor masterpiece of sorts, as a

dance album in disguise. Two later records on Mercury Unconditionally Guaranteed and BlueJeans and Moon Beams were

baldface attempts at sellout. Shiny Beast, a charming but relatively minor work, was re leased by Warner Brothers in

1978. None of these albums has sold more than 50 or 60 thousand, and that's over a long period of time; only Trout

Mask and Shiny Beast, in fact, remain in the catalogues.

Perhaps it is the ''success" ("triumph?") of New Wave that has emboldened Warner Brothers. In any case Doc at the

Radar Station is one of the most brilliant achievements by any artist in any year. And in 1980 it seems like a

miracle. It certainly is not compromised, and I doubt that it will get any radio play in this country at least, but

then I said the Clash didn't have a prayer. While some of his self-acknowledged acolytes have gone on to stardom,

megabucks, popout lunch boxes, etc., the progenitor remains in his Mojave trailer, where he barely has room for an

indoor easel. (So if any neo-Florentine patron is reading this, I will make a plea that Don would never make or ask

anyone else to for him: support a real artist.) I'm not sawing violins in half - Don certainly doesn't feel sorry

for himself, and in late 1977 when he reappeared at the Bottom Line with a new band and Shiny Beast in the wings, he

had the distinct air of a, well, I don't even feel "survivor" is the word. A patriarch, perhaps, a high priest, born

again from Ancient Egypt smiling like the spuming headwaters of the Nile, long weathered body holding just that many

mysteries, arcane secrets from half-apocryphal texts of hoodoo mojo Coptic canebreak healings of the kind Ishmael

Reed likes to dream up.

Next to him, Dr. John looked like Gary Glitter (apologies to Dr John, I’m sure he doesn’t mean it - Graham): all

soot, no zoot. He could go 15 rounds brainwave-to-brainwave with Screamin’ Jay Hawkins and judges who know nothin'

anyway call it a draw. Might be the white Leadbelly. Too much in love with living to be Robert Johnson. In the late

'60s, some hotshit young hitpicker got famous by proclaiming that Don Van Vliet, if he wanted to, could be the

greatest white blues singer in the world." That would have been dumb as settling for a moosehead over the fireplace

when you’ve lassoed the Loch Ness Monster and taken it to dinner, highballs and dancing. Like Van Gogh doing pasteup

for Bloomingdale's. Make no mistake, Captain Beefheart is an absolutely authentic hunk of taproot Americana on a

Mark Twain level with Paul Bunyan stature.

But today an artist is expected to market him or herself as a commodity to be generally recognised. So in that sense

it's no wonder Don retreated to the Mojave outback. On the other hand, the old irret routine doesn't exactly work

anymore either. And Don has pretty much been through his phase of living out the artist as Genius/Idiot Savant

cliche. On the phone the other day I mentioned Andy Warhol, and Don said, "He soups things up. But isn't it nice,

being able to say that we're not like him?" At the time I thought his was a shopworn verbal popper combined with an

absolutely childlike attitude: "Isn't it nice, being able to say that we're not like him?" Well, yes, it is, and Mr.

Rogers will be here at 3:30. This plus the fact that artists know how much they can get away with, how much we in

fact expect of them, can lead to truly sick situations, disastrous for all concerned: "Isn't it nice, being

somebody's pet?" I feel like even the word "genius" should be put in quotation marks because the very concept has a

way of getting out of hand, like an unruly child. Artists often end up conspiring with their adoring audiences to

ensure their own isolation. Once, a very long time ago, I saw Don go sweeping imperiously in and out of hotels until

he found one that met his aesthetic specifications, entourage (including me) trailing embarrassedly behind while he

wore a cape and doodled on a pad the whole time.

Still, there is something ingenuously natural about him. I don't think, for instance, that he necessarily "tries" to

"create" these things, they just sort of happen to (through?) him. In the course of this process, he has managed to

practically reinvent both music and the English language. And if you think that's a thorny thicket of defenses to

try and hack through so as to get at the actual person back there, you're right. He embarrasses you with his

effusiveness; he feels misunderstood and craves desperately to talk with anyone who, he's satisfied, understands

what he's trying to do. I don't know why he thinks I understand it. I only understand a little part of it. A lot of

it is Sanskrit to me too. But you'll never miss the feeling however obtuse the structure, because this man is almost

100 per cent feeling, can be feverish with it, leads with every open nerveend till sometimes you wonder if he has a

mind at all, or just threw the one he had away one day because every pore in the body is a knowing little eye

fiercely darting at experience.

Now, there is no reason on earth why such a creature should be articulate. Except that he is. But on his terms, most

of the time. And this is what has always bothered me. What good is being an artist, creating all these beautiful

things, if you can't just throw down your defenses sometimes and share things on the common level of other people?

Without that, it's barren and ultimately pathetic. Ultimately, without some measure of that, it can never matter as

art. 'Cause art's of the heart. And I'm talking about the heart that flies between two or more humans, not to the

ghost of the great Auk, or a glob of paint, or any of his other little friends. All this week, one song off Trout

Mask Replica kept playing in my head: "Orange Claw Hammer," an unaccompanied field holler-like poem about a man

who's been away at sea for years and catches first sight of his daughter since she was in swaddling. He grasps her

hand and offers to "Take you down to the foamin' brine ‘n water, and show you the wooden tits on the goddess with

the pole out full-sail that tempted away your pegleg father. I was shanghaied by a highhat beaver-moustache man and

his pirate friend. I woke up in vomit and beer in a banana bin, and a soft lass with brown skin bore me seven babies

with snappin' black eyes and beautiful ebony skin, and here it is I'm with you my daughter. Thirty years away can

make a seaman’s eyes, a round-house man's eyes flow out with water, salt water."

Now if that isn't pure true American folklore then you can throw everything from Washington Irving to Carl Sandburg

and beyond in the garbage. I'm saying Don Van Vliet, "Captain Beefheart," is on that level. But what I realised this

morning, the reason why it was this song stuck out from 26 others: because it's not about the "Neon Meate Dream of a

Octafish," but something that happened between people.

Why do you almost always talk elliptically?

"Due to the fact that probably it's very difficult for me to explain myself except in music or paint."

But don't you think talking that way all the time is kind of impersonal, a distancing effect?

"It probably comes out very personal in the music. That's where I'm truthful and honest. I don't know how it happens

exactly, but my mind becomes the piano or guitar."

What about when you're alone with Jan?

"We don't talk too much. Because we trust each other, and we don't have that much faith in the spoken word. I guess

it's true that I do talk selfishly, as a conversationalist."

Well, don't you think you're missing something you might get from other people by being that way?

"Sure, but they usually won't accept me anyway. I'm comfortable talking to you. Not many people seem to have things

in common with me. I guess what intrigues me the most is something like seeing somebody wash my windows - that's

like a symphony."

But if you and I are friends, and you trust me, we should be able to have a reciprocal conversation.

"We're talking without talking. I mean that in a good sense. We're saying things that can't be put into the tongue.

It's like good music.

In the end I'm not sure which of us is right. I am probably unfair in wanting everything so explicitly defined from

everybody, demanding the rest of the human race (perhaps especially ironic in the case of artists and musicians) be

as verbal or verbose as I am. I can't say that he's wrong in choosing to live out of society, because this society

itself doesn't seem to have much of a future, and doesn't seem to care either. A goat and a corporation exec, or

most rising young affluent career people around this town for that matter, come up about even conversation-wise, and

the goat smells better and is fun to pet so there you are. As for art that deals with human situations, almost none

of the art being produced from within the society these days does that, so why pick on Beefheart because he'd rather

commune with paints and bats in the fireplace? Certainly he illuminates more about the human heart, and the human

groin for that matter, than all these dry dead literati and "minimalist" artists and juiceless composers. As for Don

Van Vliet the man, each passing year seems to bring him farther out of defensive obscurantism, measurably more open

and trusting, which is really wild in itself because the world around is careening in exactly the opposite

direction.

Besides which on another level it's none of my business anyway, except insofar as he chose to make it so. If he is

somewhat in retreat, it can be justified on all the levels above and several more I'm sure, besides which who isn't

in retreat these days? His kind takes a lot more courage than most, and as. an artist he is so far removed from any

kind of burnout that he can't even be called, like I said earlier and like all the Neil Youngs and Lou Reeds who

made it from the late '60s to this point relatively intact, a survivor. More like a natural resource. The

difference, finally, is that, to use an example by one of his favourite writers, he'll never give us his version of

Macbeth. He would rather be the Grand Canyon.



http://ttexshexes.blogspot.com/2009/06/captain-beefhearts-far-cryiridescent.html

Posted by T. Tex Edwards
Sunday, June 28, 2009

http://www.beefheart.com/zigzag/pictures/iridlogic81.htm





An unusual picture this one ... A cartoon family group.
Could this be a young Donnie with his parents, Glen and Sue?

Kick De Strychnine

Kick De Strychnine

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002184733470&ref=pb
http://www.myspace.com/kickdestrychnine


Kick est le chanteur de Strychnine...
Et comme le dit le message gravé par Boubou le batteur a même le vinyle d'une de leurs rééditions,
"Même vieux, on t'emmerde encore!"

Strychnine existe encore!
Strychnine vient de foutre le feu au Saint-Ex de bordeaux récemment...
A trois...
David le bassiste est parti.
Kick, Boubou et Luc sont méchamment vivants!
Deux guitares , une batterie, des voix, de la sueur, de la bière...
Et des chansons!

Et Kick en a tellement, et les vils impératifs économiques étant ce qu'ils sont, empêchant les orchestres
de répéter, de se produire, qu'il a du faire un album solo!

Seul sur ce disque par force, sans même une bourgeoise édition en vinyle pour le plaisir des collectionneurs
avertis et des jeunes innocents aux mains pleines et parfois au cœur vide, Kick envoie le bois, et tout les
fantômes de sa vie, Philippe Jolly, Bolan, ses amis, ses souvenirs et la réalité résonnent en cœur avec lui!

Kick est un Rocker.
Un vrai.
Tout simplement.
Pas un de ceux qui sortent leur perfecto bien ciré pour aller a la messe, et qui d'un regard calment l'envie
de danser de leur gonzesse si par hasard l'orchestre est bon...
Le public "Rock" a mal vieilli... Très mal vieilli...
Pas Kick...
Le Rock and Roll ne peut pas mourir ni même vieillir...

Ce disque en est la preuve.
Puissant, plein, sincère, fort, bruyant et brutal.
Retour de Kick!





Seul avec ses machines, sa guitare et sa chemise de bucheron, tel un John Fogerty de la dèche, bien plus qu'un survivant, il écume les scènes de France depuis un moment déjà, et personne ne le sait...
Pourquoi?
Parce qu’il est honnête et droit et que de nos jours, cela fait peur...
Il éclate les bars louches et les gens de la rue dansent.
Le public de TF1 des campings l'acclame comme le héros qu'il est...
Kick est une vraie Pop-Star, et beaucoup donneraient leur couille gauche pour être a sa place, mais ils le
laissent crever dans le caniveau parce qu ils sont jaloux de lui!
Et ça craint!
Cher! 
Parler "entre amis" le langage de l’âme, du cœur et de la chair, ça les fait chier!
Et "Le Roi va chier tout les jours" disent nos amis Italiens...

Un artiste Pop, ça a besoin de bouffer!
Si d'aventure l'aventure de le voir en chair et en os vous tente faites lui signe!
Si vous êtes cool, il vous fera un prix.
Les vrais baladins, de ceux qui ne seront jamais le bouffon d'aucun roi, y'en reste plus guère!

En ce moment c'est comme la guerre , non?

Achetez son disque, Motherfuckers!

@mour
Le Vicomte





"The only questions worth asking today are whether
humans are going to have any emotions tomorrow,
and what the quality of life will be if the answer is no."
Lester Bangs

(Les seules questions qui valent le coup d’être posées aujourd'hui sont de savoir si les humains
auront encore des émotions demain, et quelle sera la qualité de notre vie, si la réponse est non.)








Bio de Strychnine:

 Réunis en 1976, arrogants et sectaires, ils vivent dans les vieux
quartiers de Bordeaux: les répétitions dégénèrent en exhibitions dans
leur cave de la rue Buhan, le " local ".
En août 77, le groupe s'impose sur la scène du Festival punk de Mont-
de-Marsan en compagnie des "Clash" et autres "Damned" !…
Strychnine n'aura qu'un idéal: se défouler en public!
Pendant quatre ans, sillonnant la France dans un corbillard racheté à
bas prix, ils multiplient les concerts partout où c'est alors possible,
avec la même fureur intégriste.
Après un premier simple autoproduit (78), le " Suspect "
( " je suis jeune et je t'emmerde ") dont la pochette est confectionné
dans du sac poubelle, le groupe commet l'erreur de jeunesse de signer
pour une major.
Il enregistre l'album " Jeux cruels " (80).
Strychnine se trouve coupé de son public potentiel malgré un pouvoir
scénique unanimement reconnu et la fascination pour des groupes tels
que "Stooges" et "New York Dolls".
C'est après l'enregistrement du 2ème album " Je veux " et avant qu'il
ne soit dans les bacs que le groupe décide de s'autodétruire en beauté.
Un soir de janvier 82, dans leur salle fétiche du Grand Parc pleine pour
l'occasion, les 3 Strychnine rescapés joueront …3 morceaux, avant de
s'acharner sur la batterie et les amplis…Long live Rock'n'Roll !
"Génération vaincue": une des premières composition du groupe (77),
titre fétiche, fera jusqu'à la fin l'ouverture de tous les concerts de
Strychnine.
in "Bordeaux Rock"