Captain Beefheart featured on Lawrence O'Donnel Thursday Night Romney coverage
Last edited Sat Apr 14, 2012, 10:24 AM - Edit history (1)
Willard has to cope with the Republican's war on women. In Lawrence's segment about this, I was flabbergasted to hear this song in the background:
Which leads me to think somebody on Lawrence staff is a Beefheart fan, as I don't think you'd come up with this song without deep prior knowledge. It would have been the 3,896,786th hit on a google search, so it wasn't dumb luck that led to the selection.
Also on this album, Beefheart's first, is one of the most remarkable songs in rock history:
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Remarkable first for Beefheart's (Don Van Vliet) astounding voice and also one of the pioneering uses of the theremin in a rock song. (Beach Boys also used the theramin, particularly on "Good Vibrations", which may have predated this song?)
Beefheart's "big break" could have come from the revolutionary Monterrey Pop Festival that broke Hendrix and a lot of others. It wasn't meant to be, as Ry Cooder had been brought in to the group by the producer to contribute some musical discipline and chops. Cooder found Van Vliet so erratic and bizarre that he thought he would be risking his musical career if Don flubbed the performance. Don had stage fright issues at the time and Ry probably made the right call for his career, but the wrong call for what could have been another awe inspiring Monterrey breakout performance.
All part of the incredible Beefheart/Zappa folklore that make them such interesting people to know about in rock history.
-90% Jimmy
= new reply since forum marked as read
I own every "official" Beefheart release. I never collected the plethora of semi-bootlegs...authorized and otherwise...that followed Don's retirement.
The only Beefheart song someone "might" know from the mainstream music world...and even then, they'd have to be garage rock / psychedelia enthusiast...would be "Diddy Wah Diddy." The Tubes did a nice cover of "My Head Is My Only House Unless It Rains," but...even with their later-period hits like "She's A Beauty"...they weren't exactly a household name, and definitely not at the time of their cover (the third album, "Now"
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Awesomeness! 
