Beefheartiana (Updated)
For reasons that remain somewhat obscure to me, my friend the astonishing guitarist Gary Lucas has asked me to read the Captain Beefheart lyric/poem "Old Fart At Play" as part of a multi-media tribute to Beefheart at the Knitting Factory on the evening of April 9. The high points, of course, will be two sets by Fast N' Bulbous, the Gary-and-Microscopic-Sextet-sax-maestro-Phillip-Johnston-led big band dedicated to the music of Beefheart. There will also be rare films, auditings of unreleased Beefheart tracks, and for the spoken word section of the evening, readings and reminiscences from the likes of Suicide's Alan Vega, Sonic Youth's Lee Ranaldo, the legendary musical cross-breeder Hal Willner, the legendary rock entrepreneur Giorgio Gomelsky (who I'm looking forward to catching up with), and, in audio-only form, Mr. David Lynch, who recorded a reading especially for the occasion. As well as many others, including, as I said, myself, who have been spending much of this evening trying to decide on just the right intonation for the phrase "gorgeous gingham."
Do stop by if you're in the area and so inclined.
Here's the legendary video for "Ice Cream For Crow," directed by the Captain himself, back when Gary was both playing in the Magic Band (that's him getting his hat levitated by Beefheart) and managing it. My lord, the mind boggles just typing that phrase. Other Magic Banders seen in the clip are Richard "Midnight Hatsize" Snyder on bass, Jeff Morris Tepper on guitar, and young Cliff Martinez on drums. Martinez moved on to a brief tenure with the Red Hot Chili Peppers before going into movie scoring, starting with Steven Soderbergh's sex, lies, and videotape back in 1989...
UPDATE: Steve asks how it went. Pretty well, if I may say so myself. I was the first reader, and heeding My Lovely Wife's coaching, I took a lighter declamatory approach than I had initially planned, emphasizing the comic qualities of the piece before getting a little more grand and oddball for the surreal climax, wherein the the wooden mask turning real. The crowd seemed to dig it. David Lynch's mp3 of "Pena" was pretty awesome, as was Giorgio Gomelsky's reminiscence of first hearing Beefheart. As I predicted, Fast N' Bulbous were the highlight, and Gary really ripped on "Kandy Korn." One fairly prominent rock musician was irritated by the absence of beer in the dressing room. A splendid time was had by all, up to the point when I left my gym bag in the cab after we got home. This resulted in a ridiculously overstated bad mood.
The whole shebang was videotaped and will be up on a website whose name escapes me at the moment some time next week.
The "Ice Cream for Crow" video was actually directed by Anton Corbijn. Good luck with your reading; I devoutly wish I could be there, but I've been shanghaied by a high-hat beaver mustache man and his pirate friend.
Posted by: Tim Lucas | April 09, 2008 at 02:12 AM
Tim, the Anton Corbijn/Beefheart film you're thinking of is 1993's "Some Yo-Yo Stuff." Anton shot the Don and the Magic Band for the "Crow" album cover back in '82 but hadn't done much moving-picture stuff then. Don van Vliet (Beefheart, that is) is the credited director for the video but most accounts of its making note that its producer Ken Schreiber and cinematographer Daniel Pearl (of "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" fame) did quite a bit of the on-set heavy lifting...
Of course Gary was there so I'll double-check with him on this tonight...
Posted by: Glenn Kenny | April 09, 2008 at 09:08 AM
What do you know, an obscure musician referenced by Glenn Kenny with whom I'm somewhat familiar. Of course, I haven't listened to any Beefheart in years, and when I do listen to him I prefer the more "commercial" sound of "The Lightspot Kid/Clear Spot", but, still, I'm counting this as a victory.
Posted by: bill | April 09, 2008 at 09:24 AM
The "Lightspot" Kid???
Hey, Glenn, dying to hear about last night!
Posted by: steve mowrey | April 10, 2008 at 01:12 PM
Glenn, sorry about the bag...sounds like a really cool evening. I was driving to work today listening to the instrumentals from Safe As Milk wondering--as I usually do--how someone not technically (whatever that means) proficient (ditto) on any one instrument (altho Beef had pretty mean harp & free sax chops) could write so much wonderfully complex, varied, & delightful music? I've always chalked it up to a mystery I'm not supposed to understand & boy do we need more mysteries. Thanks again.
Posted by: steve mowrey | April 10, 2008 at 02:01 PM
Steve - Err...yeah. It's a little-known Beefheart album that is very similar to, yet completely different from, "The Spotlight Kid". You're probably just not hip enough to know about it.
Ahem.
Posted by: bill | April 10, 2008 at 03:12 PM
Keep an eye on Culturecatch.com for the podcast of the evening.
Was it just me or did Danny Fields' contribution to the spoken portion strike you as irrelevant, half-assed, and uninformed?
Posted by: Steve H | April 10, 2008 at 06:15 PM
I think that while Danny's heart was pretty close to being in the right place, he was kind of stuck. Having been given an already extant and venerated text to work with, I was in a much easier place!
Posted by: Glenn Kenny | April 10, 2008 at 07:03 PM