CAPTAIN BEEFHEART AND THE MAGIC BAND
''ICE CREAM FOR CROW''
1982
37:25
1/Ice Cream for Crow
Don Van Vliet/4:35
2/The Host, the Ghost, the Most Holy-O
Don Van Vliet/2:25
3/Semi-Multicoloured Caucasian
Don Van Vliet/4:20
4/Hey Garland, I Dig Your Tweed Coat
Don Van Vliet/3:13
5/Evening Bell
Don Van Vliet/2:00
6/Cardboard Cutout Sundown
Don Van Vliet/2:38
7/The Past Sure Is Tense
Don Van Vliet/3:21
8/Ink Mathematics
Don Van Vliet/1:40
9/The Witch Doctor Life
Don Van Vliet/2:38
10/"81" Poop Hatch
Don Van Vliet/2:39
11/The Thousandth and Tenth Day of the Human Totem Pole
Don Van Vliet/5:43
12/Skeleton Makes Good
Don Van Vliet/2:17
Eric Drew Feldman/Bass, Fender Rhodes, Guest Artist, Keyboards, Synthesizer, Synthesizer Bass
Gary Lucas /Dobro, Guest Artist, Guitar, National Duolian, National Steel Guitar, Slide Guitar
Cliff Martinez /Drums, Percussion, Washboard
Richard Midnight /Guitar (Bass), Marimba, Viola
Hatsize Snyder /Bass, Guitar, Guitar (Bass), Marimba, Viola
Richard Snyder /Bass, Violin
Jeff Moris Tepper /Guitar, Guitar (Acoustic), Guitar (Steel), National Steel Guitar, Slide Guitar
Don Van Vliet /Arranger, Chinese Gong, Gong, Harmonica, Horn, Sax (Soprano), Vocals
REVIEW
by Ned Raggett
With yet one final Magic Band lineup in place, featuring Richard Snyder on bass and Cliff Martinez on drums alongside returning vets Jeff Moris Tepper and Gary Lucas, Beefheart put the final touch on his recording career to date with Ice Cream for Crow. It's a last entertaining blast of wigginess from one of the few truly independent artists in late 20th century pop music, with humor, skill, and style all still intact (as even the song titles like "Semi-Multicoloured Caucasian" and "Cardboard Cutout Sundown" show). With the Magic Band turning out more choppy rhythms, unexpected guitar lines, and outré arrangements, Captain Beefheart lets everything run wild as always, with successful results. Sometimes he sounds less like the blues shouter of lore and more of a spoken word artist with an attitude, thus the stuttering flow of "The Host the Ghost the Most Holy." "Hey Garland, I Dig Your Tweed Coat" is even more entertainingly outrageous, Beefheart's addictive if near impenetrable ramble about tobacco juice and straw hats and more backed by an insanely great arrangement. Magic Band members each get chances to shine one way or another -- "Evening Bell" in particular demonstrates why Lucas went on to later solo renown, a complex, suddenly shifting solo instrumental that sits somewhere between background music and head-scratching "how did he do that?" intrigue.
BIOGRAPHY
by Jason Ankeny
Born Don Vliet, Captain Beefheart was one of modern music's true innovators. The owner of a remarkable four-and-a-half-octave vocal range, he employed idiosyncratic rhythms, absurdist lyrics, and an unholy alliance of free jazz, Delta blues, latter-day classical music, and rock & roll to create a singular body of work virtually unrivaled in its daring and fluid creativity. While he never came even remotely close to mainstream success, Beefheart's impact was incalculable, and his fingerprints were all over punk, new wave, and post-rock.
Don Vliet was born January 15, 1941 in Glendale, CA (he changed his name to Van Vliet in the early '60s). At the age of four, his artwork brought him to the attention of Portuguese sculptor Augustinio Rodriguez, and Vliet was declared a child prodigy. In 1954, he was offered a scholarship to study in Europe; his parents declined the proposal, however, and the family instead moved to the Mojave Desert, where the teen was befriended by a young Frank Zappa. In time Vliet taught himself saxophone and harmonica, and joined a pair of local R&B groups, the Omens and the Blackouts.
After a semester at college, he and Zappa moved to Cucamonga, CA, where they planned to shoot a film, Captain Beefheart Meets the Grunt People. As the project remained in limbo, Zappa finally moved to Los Angeles, where he founded the Mothers of Invention; Van Vliet later returned to the Mojave area, adopted the Beefheart name and formed the first lineup of his backing group the Magic Band with guitarists Alex St. Clair and Doug Moon, bassist Jerry Handley, and drummer Paul Blakely in 1964.
In their original incarnation, the Magic Band were a blues-rock outfit who became staples of the teen dance circuit; they quickly signed to A&M Records, where the success of the single "Diddy Wah Diddy" earned them the opportunity to record a full-length album. Comprised of Van Vliet compositions like "Frying Pan," "Electricity," and "Zig Zag Wanderer," label president Jerry Moss rejected the completed record as "too negative," and a crushed Beefheart went into seclusion. After replacing Moon and Blakely with guitarist Antennae Jimmy Semens (born Jeff Cotton) and drummer John "Drumbo" French, the group (fleshed out by guitarist Ry Cooder) recut the songs in 1967 as Safe as Milk. After producer Bob Krasnow radically remixed 1968's hallucinatory Strictly Personal without Beefheart's approval, he again retired.
At the same time, however, Zappa formed his own label, Straight Records, and he soon approached Van Vliet with the promise of complete creative control. A deal was struck, and after writing 28 songs in a nine-hour frenzy, Beefheart formed the definitive lineup of the Magic Band -- made up of Semens, Drumbo, guitarist Zoot Horn Rollo (born Bill Harkleroad), bassist Rockette Morton (Mark Boston), and bass clarinetist the Mascara Snake (Victor Fleming) -- to record the seminal 1969 double album Trout Mask Replica.
Following 1970's similarly outré Lick My Decals Off, Baby, Beefheart adopted an almost commercial sound for the 1972 releases The Spotlight Kid and Clear Spot. Shortly thereafter, the Magic Band broke off to form Mallard, and Beefheart was dropped by his label, Reprise. After a two-year layoff, he released a pair of pop-blues albums, Unconditionally Guaranteed and Bluejeans and Moonbeams, with a new, short-lived Magic Band; following another fallow period, 1978's Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller) marked a return to the eccentricities of his finest work.
After 1982's Ice Cream for Crow, Van Vliet again retired from music, this time for good; he returned to the desert, took up residence in a trailer, and focused on painting. In 1985, he mounted the first major exhibit of his work, done in an abstract, primitive style reminiscent of Francis Bacon. Like his music, his art won wide acclaim, and some of his paintings sold for as much as $25,000. In the 1990s Van Vliet dropped completely from sight when he fell prey to multiple sclerosis; however, releases like 1999's five-disc Grow Fins box set and the two-disc anthology The Dust Blows Forward maintained his prominence. Van Vliet died of complications from multiple sclerosis on December 17, 2010 in California; he was 69 years old.