Back when most websites had MIDI soundtracks and ugly wallpaper best viewed with Netscape Navigator, the blog culture hadn't yet developed and magazines were basically the best way to keep up with the culture of music. Or at least, they were the best way for young turks like me, voracious readers and anxious learners just discovering the world of music beyond the mainstream.
One month, nestled between articles on the new exploits of Christina Aguilera and the Beastie Boys and whoever else was a curious piece on a man who hadn't released a record in nearly twenty years. His name was Captain Beefheart. He looked nothing like anyone else in the magazine, and the article went to great lengths to explain how his music sounded like nobody else's, either. It explored the early years of his career, his spark of popularity, and then his retreat into the California desert, severing all ties with the music industry. Though he had spent nearly two decades as a recluse and many of his albums were difficult to find, his wildly experimental concoction of blues, folk and rock continued to inspire artists to that day. And the album widely regraded to be his masterpiece, Trout Mask Replica, had just been re-released.
For a culturally suffocated midwestern teenager like me, looking for anything at all to help separate myself from the Abercrombie-clad high school herd, desperately if need be, this was like discovering the holy grail. I found a copy of Replica and purchased it sight unseen (no small feat for me; in those poor days, I would heavily vet every album at Streetside Records' listening station before purchase). I took it home and put it on, listening with a half-frown because parts of it were so jarring, but also with a half-smile because I was prepared. This was an album I knew I would not love on first listen; it would require some effort from me, but it would be worth it in the end. I reminded myself that, according to the article, this was the all-time favorite album of Matt Groening, of all people.
I listened to it over and over again. I played it for my friends, and I even played it for my parents. I wrote a five-star review of the album in my high-school newspaper. I don't remember specifically how I described his sound, but I'm pretty sure I quoted "Fast and bulbous!" somewhere in there. And I took immense pleasure in playing the album for the rest of the newspaper staff, a grin both wicked and smug plastered to my face when my fellow teenagers cringed or yelled "turn it off!" or "this is terrible!" or just left the room.
I rarely made it all the way to the end of the album. 28 tracks of Captain Beefheart was a little much even for me, but that didn't really matter. I considered picking up other albums like Safe as Milk, but still being a neophyte (and, frankly, an idiot kid) when it came to music, I had figured everything else could only be a diluted form of Replica, so I passed. At that time, though, those were only details. I had found a brash badge of individuality and I did not hesitate to show it off. And I was beginning to realize, too, that you could appreciate music without always wanting to listen to it: this music, so intensely honest and unflinchingly enthusiastic, most definitely had its time and place.
I was also really proud when one of my friends purchased The Spotlight Kid of his own volition. To me, still, there are few better things in life than knowing you've helped someone discover a new favorite artist.
I went off to college and began working as a DJ at the radio station, quickly finding myself surrounded by like-minded individuals who were far more versed in indie rock than I. And anyone can tell you that a group of liberal art school hipsters can get pretty insufferable: their codes of necessary knowledge and aloofness are as strict as anything they loudly rebel against. So while I came in not knowing Merge from Matador or Ian Curtis from Ian MacKaye, I did possess one unshakable piece of indie capital in the form of Mr. Beefheart. Our fiercely underground library included most of his albums - all on vinyl, of course - so I played him on my show whenever I could.
Eventually I realized that my show needed a name, and I settled on "Captain Beefheart Rides Again". That meant (to me, a least) that I had to play at least one Beefheart song per show. It was a shtick, but one I was more than happy to repeat. Usually I played songs I knew from Replica, but I would branch out every now and then, too. One day I finally dug out the vinyl copy of Ice Cream for Crow, Beefheart's final studio album, and played the title track. It was my virgin listen, and I was as curious and confused by it as the first time I had heard any other Beefheart song. It was ramshackle crazy, its blind enthusiasm unspooling at speeds almost impossible to conceive. Even his voice sounded more surreal than usual. But this is what I should have expected from the man, I thought: the unexpected. Always.
Then the phone rang. I picked it up; it was a listener.
"Slow it down, man!" He bellowed.
"Uh, what?" I thought for a moment that this was his way of saying I was playing so much great music that he could barely handle it.
"The record, man!" He said. "You're playing it too fast!"
I looked at the record player: it was at 45 RPM. I switched it to 33 RPM, and the hyper jamming slowed to a dirty, bluesy stomp, Beefheart's signature howl now as deep as I remembered it.
"Oh shit," I said, and thanked the listener.
But I regretted fixing the RPM in the middle of the song. In some ways, it felt like it would have been more appropriate to let it run at the same crazy speed. For Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band, there almost seemed to be no one right way to play a song, or sing, or even maintain a rhythm. Theirs was the sound of ultimate musical freedom, with all the highs and lows and rushes of inspiration and quagmires of confusion that come with it.
After college, I listened to Captain Beefheart less and less frequently, and eventually stopped altogether. Too much time spent keeping up with the music culture and its symbiotic relationship with the blogosphere. SPIN magazine continues to this day, though I haven't read it in years. I can only imagine how difficult it must have been to get an editor to sign off on a Captain Beefheart article back in the late 90s, but I hope they're continuing to take those risks. It's one of the only articles I still remember from that era.
Captain Beefheart's real name was Don Van Vliet. He passed away yesterday, at the age of 69.
The more I think back on my minor obsession with the man's music, the more I realize I didn't really understand much of it at all. But that's partly the point, I think. With that unique authorial voice, that singular outlook which inspired such a daring and unforgettable body of work, any of us would be hard-pressed to say that we truly understood a man who began his career with Frank Zappa and ended it in the desolation of the Mojave.
My familiarity with his work didn't end up being as encyclopedic or everlasting as I thought it would, but Van Vliet still had an undeniable effect on my musical tastes, strengthened my appetite for experimental art, and helped show me the endless possibilities that creativity can offer beyond the measured pleasures and well-trod roads of most other artists.
If I had ever been able to meet the man, I would have liked to thank him for that.
