Captain Beefheart – The Road Taken
In the course of 1967/8 I was eighteen years old, taking A Levels at Kingston Polytechnic. An incredible year. I had a new girlfriend, now my wife, a motorbike and access to the burgeoning underground scene in London – UFO, Middle Earth, Eel Pie Island, Les Cousins, the Marquis….. The whole scene was taking off.
Every Friday night, to finance my record purchases and gigging, I worked the twelve hour night-shift at Lyons bakery, stuffing loaves into trays for weekend delivery. Here I met Mike. He had the longest black hair which he refused to brush because he claimed it caused split ends and broke off. His ambition was to have the longest hair of anyone. Mike was a regular at Middle Earth. Every weekend he would drop acid and head off for an all-nighter with the likes of Pink Floyd. Mike was into the nascent West Coast Acid Rock scene. Every break we would avidly talk music.
Many an evening was spent in Mike’s bedroom playing all the latest sounds, pawing over sleeves and talking wildly. This was the year of fabulous debuts. Mike introduced me to Country Joe and the Fish, Big Brother and the Holding Company, Love, Doors, Quicksilver Messenger Service, The Grateful Dead, The Mothers Of Invention and that incredible first Beefheart album – Safe As Milk. What a year!
As soon as I heard that acidified Delta Blues I was hooked. That debut album was brimming with innovation and power. Tracks like ‘Electricity’, ‘Abba Zabba’, ‘Dropout Boogie’, ‘Yellow Brick Road’ ‘Sure Enough And Yes I Do’, and ‘Zig Zag Wanderer’ they just blew me away. I’d never heard anything like that before. ‘Safe As Milk’ rapidly became my most played album.
Then Mike informed me that they were touring and going to play Middle Earth! That made my year! The chance to see the Magic Band up close. All the way from the Mojave desert to a small club in London. Wow!!
Thinking back through fifty five years. Some memories are still vivid.
The Middle Earth gig was scheduled for a couple of weeks before my important A-Level exams. I needed a place at uni for three more years in London! Those exams were crucial. I knew that a trip to Middle Earth meant not getting to be before three. But with a couple of weeks to go that wasn’t even a consideration.
I turned up at Middle Earth to find that the band had cancelled, Drumbo was sick. They put Aynsley Dunbar on instead. Now I liked Aynsley he was a good drummer and they were a solid blues unit but it was a poor substitute. My expectations had been mounting for weeks – now rudely dashed.
The good news was that they had rescheduled and were going to perform a double-header with none other than John Mayall with the great Peter Green. A fabulous prospect.
The bad news was that it was the night before my important A Level Biology exam that started at nine in the morning.
Well I did think about it for a minute or two. My whole future rested on that exam. To go to the gig meant no last-minute revision (the only type I ever did) and going in knackered with a few hours kip. It was a no-brainer. This was the original Beefheart Magic Band – Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band (Alex St. Clair Snouffer, Jerry Handley, Jeff Cotton and John ‘Drumbo’ French). A must see.
The atmosphere was electric. The place was heaving. The band on top form. The music pulsated with throbbing power. Drumbo’s drumming was a thunderstorm of complex rhythms. The bass throbbed right through you vibrating all your internal organs with powerful waves of physical energy. The guitars were strident, weaving magic with intricate interconnecting patterns. Then that voice!! The Captain was like a demented Howlin’ Wolf powering over the top with an avalanche of sheer power, an unleashed cosmic force! The whole band thundered along like a stampeding herd of buffalo, a runaway express, and we were all riding it like on the crest of a giant wave, a wave that roller-coasted along and crashed all around us in an aural explosion. The floor was heaving as we bounced along to the intricate rhythms lost in some primitive tribal frenzy.
There’s something incredibly different about Beefheart and the Magic Band. The music is unbelievably complex, yet simple. Once you immerse yourself in its mesmerising groove it transports you. There is primitive magic at work with a sophisticated intricacy. The power is immense. It operates on so many levels – the blues-ridden beat, the basic pulse that drives, underpins a multi-layered mesh of interweaving patterns. Bo Diddley and Howling Wolf melded to abstract art in music form; Dali and Picasso expressed in sound. Once you experience it live and connect with the primeval force alloyed to the twenty-first century esoterics you become lost in it.
I was caught up in the throng, bouncing and jumping in time as the incredible waves flowed through me. We were all connected by some unifying mystical force – the power of music. The whole audience was one superbeing feeding off the energy the band was delivering. There’s nothing gets close! This is the energy that bound our primitive ancestors together when they danced themselves into trances around their camp fires. This was the energy of the brotherhood of the hunting group, the ecstatic festivals, the village celebrations. A music creating unity and excitement!
Best gig ever!
Of course, I didn’t get back until three in the morning, I did manage to get to my exam at 9.00. but I was a trifle knackered and did not perform at my best. I missed out on my uni place by one grade!
Life changed! I was not destined to be a doctor! But I had participated in one of the best gigs of all time! I was there!!
