Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band: Safe As Milk

Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band: Safe As Milk

1967

Buddah Records

Format I Own it on: Vinyl & Compact Disc

Track Listing: 1. Sure 'Nuff 'n Yes I Do  2. Zig Zag Wanderer  3. Call on Me  4. Dropout Boogie  5. I'm Glad  6. Electricity  7. Yellow Brick Road  8. Abba Zaba  9. Plastic Factory  10. Where There's Woman  11. Grown So Ugly  12. Autumn's Child Bonus Tracks: 13.Safe as Milk (Take 5)  14. On Tomorrow  15. Big Black Baby Shoes  16. Flower Pot  17. Dirty Blue Gene  18. Trust Us (Take 9)  19. Korn Ring Finger


The first album by wonky-zonky Frank Zappa associate Don Van Vliet...He's joined by rootsy guitarist Ry Cooder, who after this album, moved on to his own successful career...



 ...as a solo artist...



..and in the ugly-album-covered super-group Little Village...



...and the Buena Vista Social Club...

This is much more in the 60's heavy blues rock mode than Captain Beefheart's  later work, but thanks to his restless, rasping vocals and surreal word-play this is still pretty far from straight-forward...

Generally, the farther-out "Safe As Milk" gets, the more I like it...Like the vocals on "Electricity" where  Beefheart sings the songs as in a buzzing, guttural manner as if he were electricity itself (rather than the more predictable choice of sounding like someone being electrocuted), and it turns out electricity itself sounds a lot like Wolfman Jack...

This shit was probably even too wigged out for 1967, a banner year where all of the greatest bands in music history were busy pushing boundaries that often resulted in their best albums ...Looking at the list of album releases for the year convinces me that every single, man, woman and child was ingesting massive amounts of LSD...

 Lysergic acid diethylamide was the Cronut of 1967...

 Check out some of the other albums that came out the same year...




"Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band"...



"Are You Experienced"...

 

"Absolutely Free"...




"The Piper At the Gates of Dawn"...



"Smiley Smile"...



"Disraeli Gears"...

 

 "Their Satanic Majesties Request"...


  "The Velvet Underground & Nico"...

 "The Who Sell Out"...

Was 1967 the greatest year for albums ever? Let's just say yes... However, looking at those records kind of makes me feel like "Safe as Milk" is less acid-drenched than the others...Most of these seem like they were produced by level-headed musicians who dropped a tab or two and went out of their heads for brief inspiration and then went on with their lives...Captain Beefheart seems more deeply weird than that...Like the straight doo-wop of "I'm Glad" was the escape and the nonsensical chanting of "Abba Zaba" was more the norm...

 Safe as Milk's psychedelia  resides in its DNA rather than in the colorful clothes that it wears...It's also one of the most endlessly inventive (and fun as hell) blues-rock albums I've ever heard.... So let's check out "Dropout Boogie" by Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band." Enjoy...