Captain Beefheart's 10 rules for guitarists
June 19, 2007 4:50 PM   Subscribe

Captain Beefheart's 10 rules for guitarists are also useful life rules for anyone: " Never Point Your Guitar At Anyone: Your instrument has more power than lightning. Just hit a big chord, then run outside to hear it. But make sure you are not standing in an open field.."
posted by tombola (32 comments total) 15 users marked this as a favorite
 
great words of wisdom.
posted by gnutron at 5:07 PM on June 19, 2007


Flunkie; Get a heart man.

Seriously. This was pretty fun but I disagree with the bird thing. The stupid birds around here have managed to mimic my damn phone and now I find myself running into the house only to find that the sound is coming from a tree@! Stupid birds!
posted by snsranch at 5:09 PM on June 19, 2007 [2 favorites]


I always think I'm going to like a Captain Beefheart record more than I actually do. Put another way - I definitely have to be in the right mood, but I never know when that mood is going to strike, and by the time I'm coherent enough - and nearby enough a stereo - to willfully put on Doc At The Radio Station, the moment's been lost.

That said, that's all pretty great advice for life.
posted by Sticherbeast at 5:11 PM on June 19, 2007


Five and eight are bullshit. Also, my guitar conjures no Caspers.
posted by The White Hat at 6:17 PM on June 19, 2007


5. IF YOU'RE GUILTY OF THINKING, YOU'RE OUT If your brain is part of the process, you're missing it. You should play like a drowning man, struggling to reach shore. If you can trap that feeling, then you have something that is fur bearing.

That is fascinating. It is very similar to what theatre artist Antonin Artaud said about the ideal actor in 'Theatre and the Plague." Specifically, he wrote that actors should be like "victims burnt at the stake, signaling through the flames." In other words, highly physically and emotionally involved, but not especially intellectually involved.
posted by Joey Michaels at 6:29 PM on June 19, 2007


Yup. You hear the same sort of talk from other creators. I've always liked Kerouac's List of Essentials. With a little license, I can find birds, devils, and stink in there, too.
posted by mrettig at 6:59 PM on June 19, 2007 [2 favorites]


A white flake riverboat just flew by...
posted by Wizzle at 7:12 PM on June 19, 2007


My god that Kerouac list read like a Time Cube piece that made sense.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 7:18 PM on June 19, 2007


Thanks for pointing this one out, tombola. I believe it's one of the few pieces of Beefheart wisdom that I hadn't heard or read before (or at least I don't remember it). Don Van Vliet's half-bullshit, half-wordplay genius has always fascinated me, especially in this interview from the early '80s where he not only explains the mother heart beat problem with music, but also how he keeps everyone in the band in line with a kind whip/quip (kind of bad quality youtube post, also, Don's a little coked up in the interview it seems).
posted by sleepy pete at 7:44 PM on June 19, 2007


I picked up an 8-Track of Trout Mask in High School in a clearance bin and it took me over a dozen tries and 3 years to get through the whole thing. Since then I've realized that the Captain has committed some wonderful moments to tape, but for the most part, I'm a fan of his in concept more than actually spinning his albums. There aren't a lot of Beefheart songs that I'm itching to play, but I love the guy on paper. This list is the kind of absurdist fun that makes me keep going back to the well time and time again, hoping that this is the time I get the whole picture. Thanks.
posted by Slack-a-gogo at 8:02 PM on June 19, 2007


How can you tell the stage is level? The guitarist drools out both sides of her mouth.
posted by Twang at 8:09 PM on June 19, 2007


Slack-a-gogo, you could try Clear Spot or The Spotlight Kid (or get them both on one CD--first two links are to some writings on the albums). They're less out as far as rhythms go, but not as horribly commercially crass as Unconditionally Guaranteed. Unless you're tired of trying, then don't worry about it.

On preview: Twang, I thought that was the drummer/keyboard/banjo player.
posted by sleepy pete at 8:13 PM on June 19, 2007


ALWAYS CARRY YOUR CHURCH KEY

You mean that old-timey thing that pierced steel beer can tops in the 1960's?

No way, Mr. Beefheart, the real hipsters carry typewriter erasers.
posted by Tube at 8:16 PM on June 19, 2007


Great post. But I always confuse Captain Beefheart with Van Dyke Parks.
posted by humannaire at 8:18 PM on June 19, 2007


Zoot Horn Rollo, the Magic Band's guitarist who was ranked number 62 in Rolling Stone's 2003 list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time, lives down the street from me. I've never seen him, though. I occasionally go out of my way to walk by his house just in case, but no luck yet (5 years).

"Hey, aren't you Zoot Horn Rollo?"
posted by neuron at 8:20 PM on June 19, 2007


If you have not heard the album "Clear Spot" you have not yet heard Cap'n Beefheart's greatest work. I found it in a junk store in rural Idaho. WOW! Years later I burned the vinyl to my ipod. It's still great.
posted by Dougoh at 9:09 PM on June 19, 2007


This is pretty awesome!
posted by Artw at 9:31 PM on June 19, 2007


We could use another Beefheart right about now. The guy had a his nose in the blues and his right hand in the swirling black sky of homespun Surrealist linguistics. Cranky and irreverent, his painstakingly crafted gutbucket sound was a thing of rare, creaking beauty. Spurting and growling his half-mad cadences through tripping marimbas, tinny distorted guitars and drumming like bubbles in some oily viscous fluid. The whole thing sounding like a bunch of instruments falling down a long staircase. A raving desert weed hobo madman singing about ashtray hearts and x-ray dresses. Motherfucker shoulda gotten the Nobel Prize, taken it to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and painted it blue before covering it with gravel and chewing tobacco.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 10:19 PM on June 19, 2007 [3 favorites]


Flunkie; Get a heart man.

A beefheart, no less.
posted by lkc at 11:07 PM on June 19, 2007


nice f@m!

beefheart can be hard and infuriating. But like sticherbeast said, if he catches you in the right mood, or, ahem, under the influence of the right substance, it is like nothing you have ever heard before. You will dance right out of your skin.

This is a great article by a rock critic trying to come to grips with Beefheart.

Andy Partridge on TMR

"At some point, he said, 'You've got to try Trout Mask Replica.' And I put it on and just thought, 'What the fuck is this? They're mucking about! They can't even play their instruments: they're all out of tune, the drummer can't drum in time, the singer's not even singing, he's just growling.' But Spud said, 'No, no - stick with it. You will get it.' And I eventually had a road-to-Damascus experience: this sudden revelation. It just clicked."
posted by vronsky at 11:08 PM on June 19, 2007


American genius. Dismiss at own peril.
posted by Wolof at 12:13 AM on June 20, 2007 [1 favorite]


Wolof speak truth.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 12:41 AM on June 20, 2007


Flunkie; Get a heart man.

A beefheart, no less.


Or perhaps an ashtray heart.
posted by louche mustachio at 12:58 AM on June 20, 2007


a squid eating dough in a polyethylene bag is fast and bulbous, got me?
posted by rolo at 1:03 AM on June 20, 2007 [1 favorite]


Caspers I've never managed. But my mandolin has managed to reel in the occasional Wendy.
posted by El Brendano at 2:29 AM on June 20, 2007


What Wolof said.
posted by languagehat at 5:44 AM on June 20, 2007


Shiny Beast is a pretty accessible album.
posted by Drexen at 7:20 AM on June 20, 2007


a squid eating dough in a polyethylene bag is fast and bulbous, got me?

Also tapered.
posted by Dr-Baa at 7:44 AM on June 20, 2007


a tin...teardrop.
posted by joseph_elmhurst at 9:01 AM on June 20, 2007


Click clack, click clack. two railroad tracks. one of them going, the other one coming back...
posted by DesbaratsDays at 9:45 AM on June 20, 2007


"I picked up an 8-Track of Trout Mask in High School in a clearance bin and it took me over a dozen tries and 3 years to get through the whole thing."

The only time I've listened to Trout Mask Replica all the way through was driving eight hours overnight on tour because it was the only thing that would keep the guy behind the wheel awake.

But Beefheart is freakin' awesome. And this post was freakin' awesome.
posted by buriednexttoyou at 6:40 PM on June 20, 2007


Why is Captain Beefheart so good?
posted by Rhomboid at 4:57 PM on June 21, 2007


« Older fair and unbalanced no really this time its real   |   What science can, and can't, tell us about the... Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments