Ry Cooder on Beefheart
Ted Alvy
by John Tobler, ZigZag, February 1977
And I gather that not long after that you met Captain Beefheart. Were you ever
in his band?
No, I wasn't. I knew him because I'd run into him from time to time, not
knowing anything about him. He was a guy appearing on the periphery one night
in a place, and started talking to me. One thing led to another, and he said "I
have a group, and I'm called this, and we do this, that and the other thing".
He was preparing to make an album, and he asked me if I would play with him,
and I said OK. That lasted about two weeks — there was very little reason for
us to play together. He had entirely different musical interests. In other
words, he was interested in what he was doing in a sort of self-expressionist
kind of way.
Did he try to teach you how to play, as he has claimed for many subsequent
musicians?
He did teach people to play what he wanted them to play. That isn't to say he
taught them how to play, if you understand what I'm saying. He would get guys
and tell them to do this or that — whether they could play or not, he would
instruct them. But he didn't tell me anything, except he wanted me to play some
notes. He was a note person, like the Japanese. I mean, very truthfully, in a
selection of notes he wanted this and he wanted that. How you did it wasn't
important, it's just that he wanted a sound.
Fascinating.
No, it's not so fascinating, it's just that he had this exact idea of
something. Because he'd look at music in this real un-linear way. The guy at
that time seemed an odd person to me, like a circus figure, a carnival sideshow
guy who's entertaining for a while, and then I began to be less entertained by
this spectacle, so I just decided to continue doing what I was doing without
him. Which was nothing at that time, but I couldn't see that we had any future
together; and besides, he ran a pretty militaristic routine, and everything was
very brownshirt-like with him. But I think that Safe As Milk is a nice record.
Ted Alvy COSMOS TOPPER Home Page http://members.aol.com/tedalvy/ 60's L.A.
Underground Radio, Little Feat, Neon Park, Firesign Theatre, Theodore Sturgeon,
Mallard, Zoot Horn Rollo, Captain Beefheart, Paul Krassner, Bruce Lee, Zen
Judaism
Don Kehoe
Ted Alvy wrote:
Opinions expressed herein are my own and may not represent those of my employer.
mrhatigan
>
> "Into The Purple Valley Of Romance And Adventure With Ry Cooder..."
> by John Tobler, ZigZag, February 1977
>
> Which was nothing at that time, but I couldn't see that we had any future
> together; and besides, he ran a pretty militaristic routine, and everything was
> very brownshirt-like with him. But I think that Safe As Milk is a nice record.
IIRC, Ry felt similarly about John Hiatt during their time together in
Little Village.
---
Marc R
Don Kehoe
Village was one of Hiatt's best (along with Slow Turning) imho.
mrhatigan wrote:
Opinions expressed herein are my own and may not represent those of my employer.