I have weird rituals about listening to music, and sometimes legends like Beefheart get pushed back while more obscurities of music gets pushed up front. I tend to wait for a "sign", or, good reason, to listen to something. I tried Zappa really early in my music listening, and I was impressed with the composition, but not fond of his "rules", and hated that he wasted his talent making joke music (in the 80's with Valley Girl and Bobby Brown.... stuff like that). Sure, he did pop/rock music in a great, weird way, but I have always felt he could of tried many other genres of music than he did.
Because of this, I never gave Beefheart a chance, since he was associated with Zappa...
I first began seeing his name around again with The Residents (who are one of my favorite bands) and then Rob Crow (one of my favorite rock/pop/indie musicians)....
What a great adventure Beefheart's music is. From the early stuff, to the late, it changes a lot. And like most bands, the weird stuff is first, the more listenable stuff is later.
Bluejeans & Moonbeans is very enjoyable to listen to. I first downloaded it while on a Beefheart binge, to find out what he sounded like after the 60's. I don't think I ever listened to the whole thing, but the song "Captain's Holiday" came on while going through a phase of listening to my itunes on shuffle. I was so shocked (and confused) after listening to a bit of the song to find out that it was CB. Maybe it was just the kind of jam I needed at that time, but it blew me away. After knowing CB from TMR, I figured anything was possible, but straight bluesy/jam/rock??? They pull it off in a way only The Magic Band could do.
As I'm typing this, I'm hearing the end of "Further than we've gone". And so far, every song has been enjoyable, and the flow from one song to the next is smooth.
I'll be throwing this one on the ipod and listening over and over again while working.
I'd love to hear all of Beefheards recordings from end to end. It seems like a marvelous transformation from weird, to normal, to weird, and everything in between..... One day I'll get around to it, but at this rate, I'll have new Beefheart records to listen to until I'm 40.
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