I post a weekly diary of historical notes, arts & science items, foreign news (often receiving little notice in the US) and whimsical pieces from the outside world that I often feature in "Cheers & Jeers".
OK, you've been warned - here is this week's tomfoolery material that I posted.
CHEERS to Bill and Michael in PWM, our Wyoming-based friend Irish Patti and ...... well, each of you at Cheers and Jeers. Have a fabulous weekend .... and week ahead.
ART NOTES — an exhibition entitled British Art from Whistler to World War II is at the Santa Barbara, California through January 8th.
Thru Jan 8: in Santa BarbaraHAIL and FAREWELL to the veteran English chamber music conductor Sir Neville Marriner— immortalized in a New Yorker cartoon showing a parrot listening to the radio ... out of the airwaves came the announcer’s voice, “That was the Academy of St Martin in the Fields” …. to which the parrot chirps, “conducted by Neville Marriner” — who has died at the age of 92.
AFTER THIS WEEKEND there will only be three weeks for your local disk jockey to refer to this as …….... Rocktober.
THURSDAY's CHILD is named Eddie the Cat— an Arizona kitteh who is part of a program called Hearts that Purr — allowing the elderly (who are unable to fully own a pet) to foster kittehs, such as this 93 year-old woman, who loves Eddie.
Eddie the Cat w/Katherine FitzpatrickSPORTING NOTES — time was that the sport of American football had a gentleman’s agreement as far as scheduling was concerned. Once Labor Day passed (it was open season before that date) the high schools had Friday night to themselves, college football owned Saturday night and the NFL had Sundays — should New Year’s Day fall on a Sunday, then the college bowl games were played on January 2nd (so as not to step on the professional football lock on Sundays).
This year? There are several major college games played on Friday nights each week … Friday Night Lights are (evidently) no longer the province of high schools.
FRIDAY's CHILD is the late Tombili the Cat— an outdoor kitteh who became a social media phenomenon in Istanbul, Turkey after this photo was taken … and who (three months after his death) now has a statue of him being dedicated.
The late Tombili the CatBRAIN TEASER - try this Quiz of the Week's News from the BBC … as well as a BBC quiz dedicated to anonymous performers, as well.
THE OTHER NIGHT yours truly hosted the Top Comments diary with a look at a hard-luck baseball pitcher, Harvey Haddix— who still turned-in the best pitched baseball game of all time.
SEPARATED at BIRTH — Fox host Megyn Kelly and film/TV star Elizabeth Banks (“Hunger Games”, “30 Rock”).
Megyn Kelly “The Kelly File” Film/TV star Elizabeth Banks...... and finally, for a song of the week ...........................… although he began his artistic life (and ended it, as well) with painting and sculpting, his musical career lasted for only about 15 years, his temperament (and behavior) were often erratic, and his songs have not (to this day) reached a wide audience …... among music insiders, the career of Captain Beefheart is one that brings forth much praise.
He is definitely an acquired taste: my best friend JG (exhorting me to) is the only reason I ever listened to him. An early cohort of Frank Zappa (though they had a major falling-out for many years), he blended so many forms of music (blues, free-jazz, modern classical, psychedelia and rock) along with wild lyrics and a frenetic singing style ….. that punk/new-wave musicians are only some of the musicians citing his influence.
Born as Don Vliet (he later amended it to Don Van Vliet) in greater Los Angeles in 1941, he was considered a child prodigy as a sculptor and painter by the age of four. His work came to the attention of the Portuguese artist Agostinho Rodrigues and his parents turned down a scholarship offer for a thirteen year-old Don Vliet to study in Europe. His family moved near the Mojave Desert (near Edwards Air Force Base) and Vliet learned the saxophone and harmonica enough to play in some local bands.
He befriended a young Frank Zappa and the two became music fanatics, listening to records through the night from a wide source of musicians: Son House, Muddy Waters (blues), John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor (free jazz) and the French avant-garde composer Edgard Varèse. After high school, Vliet sold vacuum cleaners door-to-door and supposedly assured the author Aldous Huxley that "this thing sucks". After an unsuccessful 1964 attempt to produce a film, Zappa moved to LA to found the Mothers of Invention while a newly-renamed Don Van Vliet adopted the Beefheart moniker and founded his first incarnation of his Magic Band - but far from the last.
At first, they played an energetic form of blues-rock, with the Captain singing a Howlin’ Wolf-style of growl, and after some success at area clubs in 1965, they were signed to A&M Records. Their first single is a cover version of the Willie Dixon-Bob Diddley song Diddy wah Diddy– and at this link you can hear an adventurous blues from a white band of 1966.
But label president Jerry Moss (The M in A&M) called their first album ‘too negative’ — and thus Safe as Milk had to be released on Buddah Records in 1967. Most of the songs were written by Van Vliet along with lyricist Herb Bermann, but the songs such as "Abba Zabba", "Electricity" and "Sure 'Nuff 'n Yes I Do” were more-blues based than what was to come. The performance was enhanced by the work of a 20 year-old Ry Cooder on guitar (who had just joined the band).
One of the great 'What-if?' questions of rock music would be what the future of the Magic Band would have been had there not been an incident at the Mt. Tamalpais Festival a week before the filming of the legendary Monterey Pop Festival of 1967. The band began to play "Electricity" but Van Vliet went through a bad LSD trip and fell off the stage– which was the last straw for Ry Cooder, already fed-up with Van Vliet’s behavior while straight – and thus the band never had the chance to perform at Monterey with a lead guitarist who knew their (complex) material and would have shined.
But they persevered and released their 1968 second album Strictly Personal– with a more psychedelic sound of the times, and notably for the song “Beatle Bones 'n' Smokin' Stones” as a parody of the Beatles (quite bold, since John Lennon and Paul McCartney were reputed to be Beefheart fans).
It was at this time that the Magic Band formed its classic version, and all had stage names like its bandleader: Antennae Jimmy and Zoot Horn Rollo (guitars), Drumbo French (drums), Rockette Morton (bass) and – for a short time – Van Vliet’s cousin Mascara Snake on bass clarinet. Van Vliet over time began writing all of his band’s material himself.
Frustrated with label restrictions, the band was signed to Frank Zappa’s Straight Records, in time for the 1969 double-album Trout Mask Replica– from every standpoint, the band’s signature album. Rolling Stone named it as #60 in its 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list and with songs such as “Moonlight on Vermont” and “Veteran’s Day Poppy”, it was praised by figures as varied as John ‘Johnny Rotten’ Lydon to the cartoonist Matt Groening (later of Bart Simpson fame).
Beefheart followed up with a similar out-there recording Lick My Decals Off, Baby– and then tried to capitalize with two more commercially-oriented albums, Clear Spot and The Spotlight Kid– but these did not break him into the big time commercially, and the Magic Band broke-up thereafter, with some minor releases in the interim.
He returned to the limelight with 1978’s Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller)– more in line with his eccentric sounds - with the song “Tropical Hot Dog Night” exemplifying an album that British singer PJ Harvey says changed her life. Captain Beefheart recorded two more albums: 1980’s Doc at the Radar Station with the gravelly-voiced song "Ashtray Heart" (later recorded by the White Stripes) and the 1982 album Ice Cream for Crow– with the title track acting a summary of his music; a heavy blues-based track with frenzied vocals.
And with that: Captain Beefheart retired from music, moving to the desert to live in a trailer and return to his first love … abstract painting… as a major gallery told him that if he did not leave music he’d never be taken seriously as a painter: only as a "musician who paints". For the rest of his life he slowly became a recluse – although unlike Syd Barrett and Sly Stone, he did communicate with his audience via his artwork. In 1985, he had his first major exposition– with many comparing his work to that of Francis Bacon (with some of his works selling for $25k apiece).
During the 1990’s, he first began to experience the onset of multiple sclerosis – and thus appeared less and less in public as he needed a wheelchair. During that decade, he did have both a boxed set of unreleased material as well as a 2-disc compilation album that brought his music to a wider segment of the population who had not been familiar with his work. And he would from time-to-time appear as a session musician on other albums, as well as work for environmental and animal rights issue. Years earlier he had a major falling-out with Frank Zappa, but the two reconciled shortly before Zappa’s death in 1995.
But Van Vliet had been out of the limelight for many years when his death (from complications resulting from MS) was announced in December, 2010– just a few weeks short of his 70th birthday. He and his wife Jan had been married for more than forty years. But while he is no longer of this earth, his Magic Band has reunited from time-to-time.
The influential BBC disk jockey John Peel said of him, "If there has ever been such a thing as a genius in the history of popular music, it's Beefheart... I heard echoes of his music in some of the records I listened to last week and I'll hear more echoes in records that I listen to this week." Some of the musicians who cite him as an influence include: the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the Pixies, Kurt Cobain, the Clash, Sonic Youth, Beck, Franz Ferdinand, Joan Osborne, PJ Harvey and Tom Waits - who summed up his music by saying, "Once you've heard Beefheart, it's hard to wash him out of your clothes. It stains, like coffee or blood."
The Captain: Don Van VlietOf all of his work, my favorite song - interestingly, from his least-regarded album Unconditionally Guaranteed from 1974 - was the single Upon the My-O-My – which shows the band’s blues roots as well as his aggressive singing style, yet is more accessible to the general public; possibly a way that he could have been more commercially acceptable.
The former LaBelle singer Nona Hendryx performed “Upon the My-O-My" at a Multiple Sclerosis benefit memorial concert in New York – but below you can hear Captain Beefheart sing it with his Magic Band on the Old Grey Whistle Test in Britain, over forty years ago.
The decks were stacked ….. The wind blew low, the wind blew high The stakes were low, the stakes were high
How was I to know she was so shy? ….. Upon the My-O-My Across the light, across the night …. You can hear the Captain's cry
Now tell me, good Captain …. How does it feel To be driven away from your own steering wheel? …...Upon the My-O-My
x YouTube Video