Well I've already reviewed
Trout Mask Replica twice, with varying degrees of success, so I won't be doing it here again. You can follow the link in the OP to the other review if you want. That means we move on to the next one in the Captain's discography, which is this:
Album title: Lick My Decals Off, Baby
Artiste: Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band
Genre: Experimental/Psych/Jazz/Avant-Garde etc
Year: 1969
Label: Straight Records
Producer: Don Van Vliet
Chronological position: Fourth album
Notes:
Album chart position: 20 (UK)
Singles: n/a
Lineup: Captain Beefheart—vocals,bass clarinet,tenor sax,soprano sax,harmonica
Zoot Horn Rollo—electric guitar and glass finger guitar
Rockette Morton—bassius-o-pheilius
Drumbo—percussion,broom
Ed Marimba—marimba, percussion, broom
Review begins
The title track kicks it off, and I guess it takes up from where
TMR left off, with a fast kind of folky guitar and that weird vocal that became his trademark, later copied by Waits. Doesn't do anything for me, not the greatest opener from my point of view, but like all the songs here it is short; there's hardly anything over three minutes. “Doctor Dark” is another kind of folky tune again on sharp guitar, while there's some good harmonica on “I love ya big dummy” and some fairly crazy screeching from the Captain. “Peon” is an instrumental mostly on acoustic guitar I think and there's some interesting sax in “Bellerin Plain” but it's not something I like. Marimbas give “Woe-is-uh-me-bop” a very familiar Waits feel to me, and yes, I know he was later but it just makes me feel a little more comfortable with this tune, which given my reaction so far is important. Then tehre's “Japan in a dishpan” which wrecks my ears with more harsh sax.
Rapidly losing the will to live here. Can't even think of anything to write. “Petrified forest” has a nice jangly feel to it, while “One red rose that I mean” is a decent little instrumental. “The buggy boogie woogie” is at least keeping my interest, quite cool, funky little guitar line holding it and a good vocal nd “The Smithsonian Institute Blues” is not without its charm, though “Space age couple” is just repetitive and very annoying. So is the closer, just a mess to my ears.
Track listing and ratings
Lick my decals off, baby
Doctor Dark
I love you, you big dummy
Peon
Bellerin' Plain
Woe-is-uh-me-bop
Japan in a dishpan
I wanna find a woman that'll hold my big toe till I have to go
Petrified forest
One red rose that I mean
The buggy boogie woogie
The Smithsonian Institute blues (or The Big Dig)
Space age couple
The clouds are full of wine (not whiskey or rye)
Flash Gordon's ape
Afterword: So we meet again Captain, and it's not a happy meeting. I feel that if I have any way in at all to this guy's music – and I'm not saying by any means that I do – then it may be through the later albums when, apparently, he stopped with all the experimental nonsense * and settled down into what I would, and did, in reviews, call more accessible music for the likes of me. But for now, still not a fan, nor particularly expecting to be.
* I don't mean it's actual nonsense, Frown, just that it does nothing for me and doesn't come across as pleasant to my ears.
Rating: 