Captain Beefheart And His Magic Band - Safe As Milk

Released - September 1967

Genre - Psychedelic Rock

Producer - Richard Perry & Bob Krasnow

Selected Personnel - Don Van Vliet (Vocals/Harmonica/Bass Marimba/Arrangements); Alex St. Clair Snouffer (Guitar/Bass); Jerry Handley (Bass); John French (Drums); Ry Cooder (Guitar/Bass)

Standout Track - Abba Zaba

As I've mentioned elsewhere, one of my favourite musical artists of all time is Tom Waits, one of the most exciting people working today and one of the most tireless innovators of the last 40 years. But the madness and the bloody-minded junkyard experimentalism that most people associate with Waits didn't materialise until about ten years into his career, and it was in no small part down to the influence of his discovery of the music of Don Van Vliet, the man known as Captain Beefheart. While people like the Beatles were busy applying experimental recording techniques to try and push mainstream pop music into more artful and unexpected areas, people like Beefheart and his long-term friend, collaborator and rival Frank Zappa were scurrying around on the fringes, caring nothing for mainstream acceptance and just doing whatever the hell they wanted. Safe as Milk, the album debut of Beefheart's Magic Band, is about as close to mainstream pop as they ever got, and even then it's a strange, mad and disconcerting listen, and all the more thrilling and exciting for its commitment to obeying its own rules rather than anybody else's.

Musically, the album is most indebted to traditional Delta blues, but injects the genre with a spikiness and a weirdness that makes it feel totally alien. It's difficult to quite put your finger on what makes this record so odd, but there's certainly a sense that the more full-blown madness that was to follow for the band is hiding behind every note. Many of the songs are normal enough in their structure or their composition, but there's an uneasiness to the strange time signatures, a discomfort in the weird screeching sounds and distortions that decorate songs like the deliriously weird "Electricity," while Beefheart's howls and snarls and Howlin' Wolf-esque bellows convey a frenzied menace and outrageous silliness unlike any other voice in popular music up to this point. It's not just blues that's given a mutant makeover here, either - the gorgeous "I'm Glad" harks back to classic 1960s soul, although with a sort of implied irony that keeps it from ever being a truly sincere ballad. Another highlight is "Abba Zaba," a collage of spidery guitar over jungle-like rhythms with Beefheart's nonsense vocals crooning and booming over the top of the whole thing, one of the most joyfully silly songs ever recorded.

The relative "normality" of the song structures in comparison to what Beefheart would go on to do can probably be attributed to the mysterious Herb Bermann, a songwriter who Van Vliet recruited to co-write most of the album, something he never did at any other point in his career. Presumably he felt the pressure of having to make a real album and turned to somebody with a more innate understanding of composition to help keep his work with one foot in conventional music. We can also presume that he found the experience creatively stifling and felt compelled to take control of his own work in the future. Bermann himself remained a mystery for years, with Beefheart unwilling to discuss the nature of his contributions, and several members of the Magic Band unclear as to who he actually was. He was only tracked down and interviewed about his work on the album in 2003.

The band themselves are on great form here as well, with most of the musicians sharing guitar and bass duties. The guitars are spiky and raucous and uncomfortable as they should be for these songs, and the bass is simply earth-shakingly good, with the bass breakdown partway through "Zig Zag Wanderer" being one of the most undeniably cool showcases for the instrument in history. After the relatively tame experiments of Safe as Milk, Beefheart went on to record his magnum opus Trout Mask Replica, under the guidance of Zappa himself. It's one of the most wilfully difficult, stupid and unlistenable albums ever made and, while it scores points for its innovative spirit and sheer ridiculousness, it's ultimately just too frustrating to include on this list. But when tempering his madness with just the right dose of creative productivity, Captain Beefheart was an artist to really sit up and take notice of.

Track Listing:

All songs written by Herb Bermann and Don Van Vliet except where noted.

1. Sure 'Nuff 'n' Yes I Do

2. Zig Zag Wanderer

3. Call On Me (Don Van Vliet)

4. Dropout Boogie

5. I'm Glad (Don Van Vliet)

6. Electricity

7. Yellow Brick Road

8. Abba Zaba (Don Van Vliet)

9. Plastic Factory (Herb Bermann; Don Van Vliet & Jerry Handley)

10. Where There's Woman

11. Grown So Ugly (Robert Pete Williams)

12. Autumn's Child