Captain Beefheart - Safe As Milk
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CD Details
Artist: Captain BeefheartEdition: Music CD
Format: Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered
CD Release Date: 1999-06-01
Music Label: Buddha
Soundtracks:
- Sure 'Nuff 'N Yes I Do
- Zig Zag Wanderer
- Call On Me
- Dropout Boogie
- I'm Glad
- Electricity
- Yellow Brick Road
- Abba Zaba
- Plastic Factory
- Where There's Woman
- Grown So Ugly
- Autumn's Child
- Safe As Milk (Take 5)
- On Tomorrow
- Big Black Baby Shoes
- Flower Pot
- Dirty Blue Gene
- Trust Us (Take 9)
- Korn Ring Finger
Music reviews of Safe As Milk
Music Review: Got milk?
Rating: 5 Stars
This is a band that developed FAST during the 60's. To think that this album was recorded the year after their 1966 single "Diddy Wah Diddy" - a Bo Diddley cover performed in a manner that made the group sound like any mediocre pop group of early/mid 60's, and 2 years before the revolutionary 1969 Frank Zappa production "Trout Mask Replica" (for which Van Vliet was given 100% artistic freedom)...
Blues elements have always been apparent in Beefheart's singing as well as in his music, and it's probably the strongest element on "Safe as Milk;" the album starts off with a slide-guitar dominated tune, played over a commonly used blues structure used by Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, among others.
"Grown So Ugly," though not a 12 bar structure completely in 4/4, is also a blues tune and cover of blues singer/guitarist Robert Pete Williams. The guitars on the other tracks are also very bluesy, with perhaps the exception of the 3/4 R&B/doo-wop tune "I'm Glad," which--Beefheart's voice aside--musically sounds unlike the rest of the album.
Another bluesy element is Beefheart's distorted tremolo harmonica (introduced on "Plastic Factory") which, just like his emotional singing on "Where There's Woman," is performed from his heart in a skillful, personal way.
The overall sound has been digitally improved. It's not only clearer than on the original LP record, but also compared to earlier CD releases of the album. This has made the audio picture wider and the listening experience "easier" if you will. Some might disagree and call this kind of "updating" rape of art. While I can appreciate such a point of view, I must say that I prefer the digitally re-mastered version (of THIS album) for a number of reasons:
- The Captain's singing in the left channel on "Sure 'Nuff 'N Yes I do" doesn't suffer from being too low in volume anymore.
- The balance between the instruments is more accurate to how it was intended from the start (though no BIG changes have been made - it's not re-MIXED). The reason some tracks originally suffered from "bad balance" is that the music was recorded on 4 tracks, but due to a low production budget, had to be mixed on 2.
- Though improvements have been made by shifting certain frequencies it still sounds dirty and "old" like it should.
There is, in my opinion, a downside to this, though: the guitar sound on "Call On Me" is a bit brighter than earlier - the pogo stick/fast feather sounding kind of tremolo/vibrato effect is much more obvious now than before (I had barely noticed it earlier.) It makes the guitar sound a bit out-of-tune, and the whole mix of the song seems a bit thicker because of this, but it's no BIG problem, though I could have lived without the uplifting of that element.
With the 7 bonus tracks the CD runs over 71 minutes, but the original "Safe as Milk," i.e. the 12 first tracks, is a bit under 34 minutes long.
Several of the bonus tracks are quite interesting; take 5 of the song "Safe as Milk," which originally appeared on the 1968 "Strictly Personal" album, is featured here, with--in comparison to the "Strictly Personal" version--a much sharper mix.
This also goes for take 9 of "Trust Us," - a song that also originally appeared on "Strictly Personal."
The takes are quite similar to their "true form" though the bonus track "Safe as Milk" runs a bit shorter - it lacks the minute of hectic drumming at the end.
The instrumental "Big Black Baby Shoes" is an early version of "Ice Rose" (which wasn't further developed and re-recorded until 12 years later.) "Ice Rose" is included on the 1979 album "Shiny Beast/Bat Chain Puller," where the main melody is played on trombone by Bruce Fowler. "Big Black Baby Shoes" isn't as organized or skillfully played as "Ice Rose," but it's an interesting listen for comparison.
"Dirty Blue Gene" is an early version of "The Witch Doctor Life," which wasn't re-recorded until the making of "Ice Cream for Crown," where no original Magic Band members were featured, and lyrics had been added. Again, the version played 15 years earlier wasn't played as skillfully, but it's still candy for your ears.
On "Korn Ring Finger" Van Vliet introduces the "manual tremolo" effect by turning the mic on and off while singing a long note - this effect was to be used a lot during the "Mirror Man" session.
Upon its release, "Safe as Milk" was John Lennon's favorite album. With the original LP release of this album, a "Safe as Milk" sticker was featured, and there's a famous picture (famous to Beefheart fans anyway) of Lennon laying in his apartment on a couch reading a magazine, with two "Safe as Milk" stickers on the doors of a cupboard in the background.
Aside from the orginal Magic Band--which consisted of John "Drumbo" French, Alex St. Clair Snouffer, Ry Cooper and Jerry Handley--Doug Moon, Russ Titelman, Milt Holland, Taj Mahal, Sam Hoffman and Richard Perry participate on various instruments here and there throughout the album.
Don't expect it to be another "Trout Mask Replica" if that's all you've heard by Captain Beefheart, but don't think that you're unable to like this music just because you like "Trout Mask" - I like both. This album has perhaps more commercial potential than any other Magic Band release, and should appeal especially to fans of slide guitar/harmonica dominated 60's rock with a raw, bluesy sound.
Just like the sticker on the CD-case reads, this is "one of the most extraordinary debut albums in history."
Description of Safe As Milk
Digitally remastered reissue of this 1967 release, one of Rock's 'greatest albums of all time'! This really is an album that no collection is complete without! With A&M junior popmeister Richard Perry, jack of all trades Ry Cooder and songwriting genius Russ Titelman, The Captain makes his first real shot at being legendary...and succeeds! Beautifully re-mastered and wonderful liner notes by Kris Needs with comments from the stars of today! 19 tracks. Rev-Ola. 2009."I may be hungry, but I sure ain't weird," Don Van Vliet, a.k.a. Captain Beefheart, famously intones on this bright-sounding remastered version of the 1967 debut by Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band. Safe as Milk is a bold, tough-ass distillation of Delta blues stomp and '60s garage-punk swagger, fused with a radically polyrhythmic and tempo-shifting style that one might term "art rock." Listening to the delightfully playful, absurdist "Abba Zabba," it's easy to see why Lester Bangs called Beefheart "the only true dadaist in rock"; the song is a good indication of the intricate, rule-breaking music the Magic Band would continue to hone. But there are also formidable ballads (the psychedelic "Autumn's Child," the lachrymose "I'm Glad"), midtempo pop-soul tunes (the Otis Redding-ish "Call on Me"), and straight-ahead blues-rock workouts ("Plastic Factory"), all of which showcase the fretwork of a young Ry Cooder. Much has been made of Beefheart's multiple-octave vocal range; he sings menacingly on "Dropout Boogie" and allegedly broke a very expensive microphone on the eerie "Electricity." The last seven tracks on this reissue (for the most part fascinating, unfinished instrumentals) were recorded with a different lineup; they are outtakes from Mirror Man Sessions. --Mike McGonigal
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