Jamorama Blog » captain beefheart

Amazing grace

Jamorama — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 02:41:44 +0000

Here`s one of Captain Beefhearts gutarists Gary Lucas playing amazing slide.

Here are some more posts on slide if you really want to break out that glass finger boogie:

3. playing slide. a quick beginners guide to picking up a tube and sliding it across your guitar strings from guitarist Jake Edwards.

Swamp Blues

Jamorama — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 04:37:32 +0000

Although only idiosyncratically dissimilar to the Tulsa sound of Oklahoman J.J. Cale, but miles away from Woody Guthries narrative egalitarianism, Slim Harpo, as heard below, delivers the languid swamp blues Louisiana sound with as little effort as it apparently takes on King Bee which was later covered by almost everybody including Englishmen The Pink Floyd, here, The Rolling Stones and real deal Muddy Waters. Although JJ Cale started recording as early as 1958 he didn`t really kick off until 1971 with the album Naturally. If you`d like to take the swamp blues to rock and roll, psychedelia, grooves, shuffles and head into jazz experimentalism start with (Californian) Captain Beefheart`s 1966 Diddy Wah Diddy Howlin` Wolflike release and listen to Mirror Man, Clear Spot and then step into the deep space weirdness of Trout Mask Replica`s Moonlight on Vermont and perhaps Bat Chain Puller, or Lick My Decals off Baby. White Stripes have been covering a few Beefheart Numbers lately… the blues will never die because it`s in everything; and when you stretch that string you`re stretching your life!

Cheers, Jake.

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How to be Unique

Jamorama — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 20:49:55 +0000

Right on PEOPLE!!

While I clean up my strat (and mess about restringing) lets have a look at the soul – technique – equipment thing.

Consider the John Butler Trio for example; how many fellas do you know who use an acoustic twelve string with a wah wah and a gravel box? It certainly makes for a unique sound. Throw in a stand up bass and a drummer with a really frantic percussive style and you have a sound chock full of grit and character: earthy, organic, rootsy and soulful with plenty of bite too. What a combination.

You may use use an old suitcase for a kick drum, the grill for an oven as percussion or modify your instrument yourself.

Roland Kirk, who named himself after a series of dream-visions, and plays several reed or home made breath instruments simultaneously fuses ragtime, free jazz, hard bop, and musique concrete with early electronics.
Consider David Bowie`s career in oddity or Tom Waits scarecrow-drifter, hobo junkstore, down and out, rag and bone man blues, achingly sentimental ballads, and grotesque, vaudevillean strangeitude. Jimi Hendrix reinvented feedback on Machine Gun, fused Baudelaire with Dylan on Bold as Love and was last seen on Nine to the Universe anticipating Miles Davis.

Carlo Gesualdo the Italian music composer, lutenist and nobleman of the late Renaissance was famous for his intensely expressive madrigals and bizarre chromaticism. Lutenist John Dowland might be the melancholy blues master you need to augment your Robert Johnson, Freddie, B.B. and Albert King collection.

Captain Beefheart`s shifting time signatures, surreal linguistic complexities combined with Dr. Zeuss like syllogistics in a gritty, avante-garde, psychedelic blues hyperspace inhabited by the drunken ghost of Howling Wolf drinking absinthe from Miles Davis` open skull.

Beefheart was constantly prototyping in a Godinesque way. (That`s Seth Godin)
If you want to keep it real, consider yourself in beta.

Almost everyone you can think of who has made an impact had something different, something unique. Look for it in your own music. Look for it in your self. Make it your own – commercial viability is never a useful litmus test for success or achievement – always do what you want and if somebody likes it, great.

And above all IGNORE EVERYBODY.