A brief note in the Times on Friday evening: Don Van Vliet, aka Captain Beefheart, has died at the age of 69, from complications of multiple sclerosis.
The Captain was slightly too far out for me back in the 60s and 70s. I thought his friend Zappa was a lot of fun, and I always found Zappa pretty accessible. Captain Beefheart, on the other hand, was usually obscure and frequently creepy.
But Zappa and the Captain made a live album together - “Bongo Fury” - that I still have on the shelf, and that really holds up. Who but a genius could have written and performed a song/poem called “Sam With The Showing Scalp Flat Top”?
But that album encapsulates the whole problem both men had with – ahem – “comedy music.” Zappa frequently did funny stuff on purpose; to me, “Billy The Mountain” is mostly a 30-minute comedy routine with some (pretty good) tunes stuck in it here and there. But Zappa was a serious musician who wrote complex scores, and who took some of his early inspiration from the avant-garde composer Edgard Varese. The conflict shows in the music; he clowns defiantly, and he's very funny, but he's also definitely angry about not being taken as seriously as he deserves.
So now look at the Captain. Can you do an album called “Trout Mask Replica” (see cover art above) and expect everyone to understand, or take you seriously? Some people will laugh, thinking it's a joke; others will mock. But some people will look underneath and see the originality, and the complexity, and the raw talent.
God bless 'em both, though, and send them to rock-and-roll heaven, if there is such a place.
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