Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band

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Lancaster CA, United States (1965 – 1982)

Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band (1967 - 1980) created music that has occasionally been dubbed “avant garde-blues”. Their music is characterised by bluesy melodies, shambolic instrumentation, idiosyncratic, unbound timings, the growls and shrieks of Beefheart’s vocals and his surreal, poetic lyrics. Throughout their career, the band’s musical direction was tightly controlled by Don Van Vliet, aka Captain Beefheart, who subjected the band to intense regimes of rehearsal; this tension (combined with poor salary) contributing to the break-up of the original Magic Band. Beefheart reformed a new band of musicians under the name, but left the music industry for good in 1982 to pursue his career as a painter.

With the exception of British disc jokey John Peel, they saw little critical endorsement or recognition in their years active, but their influence was highly significant; to later avant-garde artists such as The Residents and Tom Waits, as well as to the punk movement, which appreciated both their stripped-down sound and Van Vliet’s unleashed, expressive vocal delivery. In recent years their importance has been acknowledged by the mainstream music press, with Trout Mask Replica (1969), reaching number 58 on Rolling Stone Magazine’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list (beating albums like Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti, and John Lennon’s Imagine). In 1988, a tribute album, ‘Fast ‘n’ Bulbous’, was released, featuring such diverse artists as XTC, Sonic Youth and The Mock Turtles.

Tagged as:

experimental, psychedelic, avant-garde, blues, rock
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Utskot wrote:
yesterday evening

love

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Cassandra-Leo wrote:
Tuesday morning

Beefheart ringtones? Seriously? One of the most atonal, avant-garde, and innovative artists of the 20th century being reduced to fucking ringtones? Get the fuck off my planet, spambots.

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Deardeadfriend wrote:
Tuesday morning

GET A JOB GET A JOB

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klapwokkel wrote:
Monday morning

hahaha, " just got this Artist's ringtones"

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Martinchus89 wrote:
Monday morning

The stars are matter, we're matter, but it doesn't matter

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Crustclock wrote:
Monday morning

and the sky turned white in the middle of the night and the sky turned white in the middle of the night

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Oidualc wrote:
Saturday evening

zoom

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nicoinfurs wrote:
last week

Abba Zaba Abba Zaba Abba Zaba Abba Zaba Abba Zaba Abba Zaba Abba Zaba

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drumVektor wrote:
last week

HO HO HO, HAI HAI HAI

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Etothe3 wrote:
last week

That's right, Fast and Bulbous!

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barrettsnewpc wrote:
13 days ago

ice cream for crow is a really underrated album i think. not his best by a long chalk, but of the late period stuff i think it hangs together the best. nice to revisit it after a long time not having listened.

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Laurence-Son wrote:
14 days ago

YES

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abelashes wrote:
17 days ago

The maestro!

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Monty__ wrote:
18 days ago

I think that I'm finally able to enjoy Trout Mask Replica all the way through. Such a unique record. Time to celebrate!

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favoritpersonen wrote:
19 days ago

1000 shouts!

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npcza wrote:
22 days ago

When I listen to this I imagine that the point was to get people to stop listening as quickly as possible. I enjoy it more that way.

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djggou wrote:
27 days ago

SO FUCKING AWESOME. Can't get enough. I can't believe I've left it so long before listening to 'The Spotlight Kid'. Yet another classic album to add to the list.

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djggou wrote:
27 days ago

Her eyes, oh her eyes, her eyes are a blue million miles.

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Cassandra-Leo wrote:
28 days ago

it's been too long since I listened to Beefheart and it recently occurred to me that a squid eating dough in a polyethylene bag is fast and bulbous. Clearly I need to rectify my lack of Beefheart listening.

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boingocure wrote:
29 days ago

Don't do it that way, you'll never make a dime

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