Captain Beefheart - Strictly Personal
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CD Details
Artist: Captain BeefheartEdition: Music CD
Format: Import
CD Release Date: 1995-03-20
Music Label: EMI Europe Generic
Soundtracks:
- Ah Feel Like Ahcid
- Safe As Milk
- Trust Us
- Son Of Mirror Man - Mere Man
- On Tomorrow
- Beatle Bones 'N' Smokin' Stones
- Gimme Dat Harp Boy
- Kandy Korn
Music reviews of Strictly Personal
Music Review: A great album with a bizarre history...
Rating: 4 Stars
The history of Captain Beefheart and His Magic band fluctuates like a hyperactive echocardiogram. The personal, pointed, dissonant, and impassioned music confounded most record labels (and probably many listeners). Producers probably pondered and whacked thier heads with the question "how can I sell this stuff?" Nonetheless, they seemed to think that this music had market potential (otherwise they wouldnt've bothered at all). This perspective probably lies behind the strange, enigmatic, and now legendary story of "Strictly Personal", the band's second full-length album.
Somewhere between 1967 and 1968 Beefheart and His Magic Band struck out to do a double album magnum opus. The non-commercial project became foiled in record company politics and some other general nonsense. Consequently, the band fell out with their previous label, Buddha Records, over this very project (dubbed "It Comes to You In a Plain Brown Wrapper"). Buddha apparently began to focus on popular and more "happy" (or "bubblegum") music. And subsequently the band found their way to Liberty Records and producer Bob Krasnow.
The band had already recorded quite a bit of material for the failed double-album project. It sat moldering in Buddha's vaults for years (The 1999 CD releases of "Safe As Milk" and "Mirror Man" contain nearly all of this material - released, paradoxically, by the "new" Buddha records). With little rehearsal the band cranked out "Strictly Personal" in the spring of 1968. Much of the material overlapped with the aborted Buddha sessions. Notably, very shortened versions of "Mirror Man" (now called "Son of Mirror Man - Mere Man") and "Kandy Korn". The only new addition was the rough grunting blues number "Ah Feel Like Ahcid". Pieces of the song exist throughout the album. And the final notes of "Strictly Personal" come from a reprise of this song. Beefheart (aka Don Van Vliet) expressed confusion at the suggestion that the song was about "Acid" (a popular pop culture reference at the time). But it contains some greatly evocative Beefheart lyrics (and has some affinities with the later "China Pig").
Krasnow mixed the album while the band toured in 1968 and he subsequently added a mileu of "psychedelic" effects to the songs. Examples of this pervade the album. Supposedly he wanted the Magic Band to cash in on the "far out" music of the time. Some stories say Krasnow did this without the band's consent. Others say Beefheart actually approved of the new mix until the music press delivered consistent negative reviews of the production. Either way, a lot of the nuances of the music became buried in the thick mix or frosted over with psuedo-psychedelia. Consequently, more than any other Beefheart album (excluding his "Tragic Band" recordings from the mid 1970s), this album sounds the least like Beefheart. The album's title then becomes pregnant with irony.
It speaks volumes of the material on "Strictly Personal" that it remains a classic. The songs and the performances manage to shine through the rather annoying production. Mike Barnes, Beefheart biographer, calls "Strictly Personal" the band's "acid-rock statement". This gives too much credit to the production. Without Krasnow's layering the album would have sounded more like "Trout Mask Replica" than "The Piper At The Gates of Dawn". The re-released Buddha recordings (sans psychedelia) reveal this.
Some of Beefheart's strongest songs remain obscurely buried here. "Safe As Milk", the anti-hippie "Trust Us", the Trout Mask presage "On Tomorrow", and the song that cost the band John Lennon's approval, "Beatle Bones 'N' Smoking Stones". This album shows a definite progression from "Safe As Milk" towards "Trout Mask Replica" (which turned out to be a vindicating double-album release). Some of the innovations require work and digging to expose. But they exist down deep in the psychedelic stratifications of sludge. The effort pays off in droves. Beefheart begins to really emerge here, albeit slowly and somewhat frustratingly due to the mix. Still, Beefheart fans should not miss this album that comes with a history as murky as its production.
Description of Strictly Personal
1968 1994 8 TracksRecorded six months after the raucous Mirror Man sessions, Strictly Personal is marred only by odd phase-shifting effects and the insertion of backwards tapes allegedly added by Beefheart's manager to make him sound closer to the "acid rock" trend then prevailing. Still, Beefheart's playful nature comes shining through. His stream-of-consciousness leads him to the Beatles' "Strawberry Fields Forever" during "Beatle Bones 'n' Smokin' Stones." "Ah Feel Like Ahcid" is Beefheart's trademark over-the-top Howlin' Wolf blues set three steps ahead. Drummer John French, in particular, gives Beefheart's music its listener-challenging edge, jumpcutting as the rhythm becomes familiar. That he gets weirder and fully realized from here is a testament to Beefheart's lifelong obsession with uncovering something new underneath the same old rock. --Rob O'Connor
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