Captain Beefheart's 10 Commandments of Guitar Playing

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ward s
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2015/03/19 22:43:36 (permalink)

Captain Beefheart's 10 Commandments of Guitar Playing

No idea if these actually came from the Captain, but in any case, here are...
Captain Beefheart's 10 Commandments of Guitar Playing
 
1. Listen to the birds
That's where all the music comes from. Birds know everything about how it should sound and where that sound should come from. And watch hummingbirds. They fly really fast, but a lot of times they aren't going anywhere.
2. Your guitar is not really a guitar. Your guitar is a divining rod
Use it to find spirits in the other world and bring them over. A guitar is also a fishing rod. If you're good, you'll land a big one.
3. Practice in front of a bush. 
Wait until the moon is out, then go outside, eat a multi-grained bread and play your guitar to a bush. If the bush dosen't shake, eat another piece of bread.
4. Walk with the devil. 
Old Delta blues players referred to guitar amplifiers as the "devil box." And they were right. You have to be an equal opportunity employer in terms of who you're bringing over from the other side. Electricity attracts devils and demons. Other instruments attract other spirits. An acoustic guitar attracts Casper. A mandolin attracts Wendy. But an electric guitar attracts Beelzebub.
5. If you're guilty of thinking, you're out. 
If your brain is part of the process, you're missing it. You should play like a drowning man, struggling to reach shore. If you can trap that feeling, then you have something that is fur bearing.
6. Never point your guitar at anyone. 
Your instrument has more clout than lightning. Just hit a big chord then run outside to hear it. But make sure you are not standing in an open field.
7. Always carry a church key. 
That's your key-man clause. Like One String Sam. He's one. He was a Detroit street musician who played in the fifties on a homemade instrument. His song "I Need a Hundred Dollars" is warm pie. Another key to the church is Hubert Sumlin, Howlin' Wolf's guitar player. He just stands there like the Statue of Liberty-making you want to look up her dress the whole time to see how he's doing it.
8. Don't wipe the sweat off your instrument. 
You need that stink on there. Then you have to get that stink onto your music.
9. Keep your guitar in a dark place.
When you're not playing your guitar, cover it and keep it in a dark place. If you don't play your guitar for more than a day, be sure you put a saucer of water in with it.
10. You gotta have a hood for your engine. 
Keep that hat on. A hat is a pressure cooker. If you have a roof on your house, the hot air can't escape. Even a lima bean has to have a piece of wet paper around it to make it grow.
 
source: http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2009/03/captain-beefhearts-10-commandments-of-guitar-playing.html
 

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    bayoubill
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    Re: Captain Beefheart's 10 Commandments of Guitar Playing 2015/03/19 23:41:45 (permalink)
    Wow! It's like someone turned on the lights! This explains everything

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    yorolpal
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    Re: Captain Beefheart's 10 Commandments of Guitar Playing 2015/03/20 00:23:49 (permalink)
    Trust Don...he knows.

    https://soundcloud.com/doghouse-riley/tracks 
    https://doghouseriley1.bandcamp.com 
    Where you come from is gone...where you thought you were goin to weren't never there...and where you are ain't no good unless you can get away from it.
     
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    Mesh
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    Re: Captain Beefheart's 10 Commandments of Guitar Playing 2015/03/20 10:56:54 (permalink)
    I wonder if Gary More broke any of those commandments here?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0P8NejwA4fk

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    Bert Guy
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    Re: Captain Beefheart's 10 Commandments of Guitar Playing 2015/03/21 17:48:19 (permalink)
    Don Van Vliet sure knew how to use the GTR's in his band:
     
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XF177Aj59C8

    Silence is so accurate
     
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    Moshkito
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    Re: Captain Beefheart's 10 Commandments of Guitar Playing 2015/04/02 21:34:38 (permalink)
    Mesh
    I wonder if Gary More broke any of those commandments here?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0P8NejwA4fk




    I still think that the best thing that Gary Moore ever did was the very first album ... Stepping Stone. Side two non stop is massive, and the very best (and insane!) guitar solo ever!
     
    You can have those blues this and that! But some rock things are priceless!
     
    BTW, I'm reading Barry Miles book on Frank Zappa ... hmmmm ... not sure I want to review it, but it's otherwise OK, although I am not sure the facts are clean or sometimes incomplete. But there is a lot about Don/Capt in there. Like he can't read, or even read music?
     
    That should throw a bone at folks here!

    Music is not about notes and chords! My poem is not about the computer or monitor or letters! It's about how I was able to translate it from my insides! 
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    bapu
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    Re: Captain Beefheart's 10 Commandments of Guitar Playing 2015/04/03 09:31:08 (permalink)
    I wish I could read. Then I'd understand this fred.
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    jamesg1213
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    Re: Captain Beefheart's 10 Commandments of Guitar Playing 2015/04/03 12:05:55 (permalink)
    Moshkito
    But there is a lot about Don/Capt in there. Like he can't read, or even read music?




     
    I bet he could use  a DAW though...

     
    Jyemz
     
     
     



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    SteveStrummerUK
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    Re: Captain Beefheart's 10 Commandments of Guitar Playing 2015/04/03 19:28:28 (permalink)
    jamesg1213
    Moshkito
    But there is a lot about Don/Capt in there. Like he can't read, or even read music?




     
    I bet he could use  a DAW though...




    Biting

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    jbow
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    Re: Captain Beefheart's 10 Commandments of Guitar Playing 2015/04/04 20:29:22 (permalink)
    I had no idea he was a guitarist, I thought he was just an overbearing, control freak, dictator/genus. I do like Trout Mask Replica but since learning of the way he treated the band members during it's conception, it has changed me a bit in regard to the record. He was a true ARSE if half of what they say is true.
    From somewhere else:
     
    While appearing humorous and kind-hearted in public, by all accounts Van Vliet was a severe taskmaster who abused his musicians verbally and sometimes physically. Vliet once told drummer John French he had been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic and thus he would see inexistent conspiracies that explained this behaviour.[132] The band were reportedly paid little or nothing. French recalled that the musicians' contract with Van Vliet's company stipulated that Van Vliet and the managers were paid from gross proceeds before expenses, then expenses were paid, then the band members evenly split any remaining funds—in effect making band members liable for all expenses. As a result French was paid nothing at all for a 33-city US tour in 1971 and a total of $78 for a tour of Europe and the US in late 1975. In his 2010 memoir Beefheart: Through The Eyes of Magic French recounted being "...screamed at, beaten up, drugged, ridiculed, humiliated, arrested, starved, stolen from, and thrown down a half-flight of stairs by his employer".[133]
    The musicians also resented Van Vliet for taking complete credit for composition and arranging when the musicians themselves pieced together most of the songs from taped fragments or impressionistic directions such as "Play it like a bat being dragged out of oil and it's trying to survive, but it's dying from asphyxiation."[134] John French summarized the disagreement over composing and arranging credits metaphorically:[135]
    If Van Vliet built a house like he wrote music, the methodology would go something like this... The house is sketched on the back of a Denny's placemat in such an odd fashion that when he presents it to the contractor without plans or research, the contractor says "This structure is going to be hard to build, it's going to be tough to make it safe and stable because it is so unique in design." Van Vliet then yells at the contractor and intimidates him into doing the job anyway. The contractor builds the home, figuring out all the intricacies involved in structural integrity himself because whenever he approaches Van Vliet, he finds that he seems completely unable to comprehend technical problems and just yells, "Quit asking me about this stuff and build the damned house."... When the house is finished no one gets paid, and Van Vliet has a housewarming party, invites none of the builders and tells the guests he built the whole thing himself.
     
     
     
     
     

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    pwalpwal
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    Re: Captain Beefheart's 10 Commandments of Guitar Playing 2015/04/07 06:38:11 (permalink)
    scales are for fish

    just a sec

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    Moshkito
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    Re: Captain Beefheart's 10 Commandments of Guitar Playing 2015/04/12 11:32:14 (permalink)
    Hi,
     
    Barry Miles makes the suggestion, so I thought that it was Frank that "made" the Capt. I'm not so sure about that, because you won't last in the business with marginal and erratic talent. By the time of Moonbeams and Bluejeans ... I don't think Frank is there, and that album is super nice! Love to play "Observatory Crest".

    Music is not about notes and chords! My poem is not about the computer or monitor or letters! It's about how I was able to translate it from my insides! 
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    jbow
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    Re: Captain Beefheart's 10 Commandments of Guitar Playing 2015/04/12 19:22:13 (permalink)
    BTW, his name wasn't Don Van Vliet, he changed it in the 60s. He was born Don Glen Vliet in January 1941.
     
    David Crosby was a "Van", he came from BIG money. His name is David Van Cortland Crosby. Trivia... but the whole 1960s music scene is fascinating, especially that part in and around Laurel Canyon... it is almost a horror story when you dig into it. So many murders and "suicides" in Laurel and neighboring canyons. So much weirdness and so many people who came from the same background, strangely interconnected. For a number of years Zappa was sort of the "man" there, living in the Log Cabin. He gave Beefheart his start along with "Wild Man" Fisher who was a homeless street performer who had, IIRC, tried three time to kill his mother. Zappa also released the first double album which was also the first "concept" album and the first album with the lyrics printed on the sleeve, Freak Out!. Dylan's Blonde on Blonde was also a double and was scheduled to be released earlier, but was delayed. So many "musicians" from Laurel could not play. The Byrds, Hilman was a mandolin player who got assigned to the bass. Jim McGuinne was the only other one who could play in the first group... Gene Clark could play but I don't think he was on the first recording of (I don't remember) either Turn, Turn, Turn or Mr. Tambourine Man. Buffalo Springfield actually had three people who could play. CSN... Steve Stills played everything on their first album CSN.
    Back to the Byrds first album was worse, as far as musicians, than the first Monkees album. The musicians on the first Byrds album were: Glen Campbell on guitar, Hal Blaine on drums, Larry Knechtel on bass,  Leon Russell on piano, and Jerry Cole on rhythm guitar. Then they added vocals by the Byrds members to the mix.
    A bit of smoke and mirrors there... nothing new in show business.
    Maybe Vliet was right... LOL.
    The popularity of the live performances of many of these early folk/rock groups was due to the dancers of Vito and his dancing freaks who the people came to see. Vito and Carl were the first hippies. Vito Paulekas and Carl Franzoni.
    Vito and Godo, who died at 2 and a half yo after falling through a skylight while playing in the roof... (I know). It is said that Vito and wife had already begun exposing Godo to sexuality, passing him around a circle of friends. Yeah again... I know. Strange people, strange times. Involved with The Process church and worse. I've lately been digging in to a LOT of the culture that influenced me and so many others of that day and today and a lot of it is REALLY disturbing. Both John Phillips and Cass Elliott were on the defense witness list for the Charles Manson, but were not called. Manson and his girls were a part of the scene all over Laurel Canyon. Lived with Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys for about 6 months, they were in and out of Johns house. Neil Young tried to get him signed to a label.
    Strange time, really strange times... but I'll say this. Lynette Fromme was hot, IMO.
    It amazes me what people will believe. I guess it goes back to the old saying: "If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything". So many of these people had so much going for them and threw it all away for nothing. Still more amazing are the number of people who sill believe in Charlie. I don't get it... and I don't get why a group of people would allow themselves to be held in a house for a month, underfed, abused, etc by Vliet to record his strange music. Why do grown people allow themselves to be abused? I really do not get it. There is a LOT I don't get.. "like Jimi said in "Earth Blues" on "his" latest release People, Hell, and Angels... "it must be the acid".
     
    Sorry for the thread drift. It triggered some thoughts...

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    Bert Guy
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    Re: Captain Beefheart's 10 Commandments of Guitar Playing 2015/04/26 02:07:02 (permalink)
    JBow,
    That's pretty much true about the Byrds- they were a famously lousy live band. Chris Hillman was, and is , a good musician, but in 1965 he was learning electric bass on the job. They did however, play the instruments on their first album, Mr Tambourine Man, except for the title track and I Knew I'd Want You, on which the Wrecking Crew (including Leon Russell playing an electric piano part I've never been able to hear) played with McGuinn on 12 string Rick.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Tambourine_Man_(album)
     
    Cheers,
     
    Bert

    Silence is so accurate
     
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