Beefheart

I’ve refrained so far from writing anything in tribute to one of my musical heroes. Mostly, I think, because the plethora of tributes that were paid to him in the weeks after his death seemed to have all bases covered and I felt that what I had to add was not important. I mean, who really gives a toss about what a man in his mid-forties writes on a blog? Not me, that’s for sure.

However, the passing of Don Van Vliet, alias Captain Beefheart, on 17 December 2010 needs to be marked by me in some small way, if only in recognition of the large part he has played in my musical life since I first heard him on the radio back in 1984.

The man responsible for my introduction to Beefheart was the DJ John Peel (in fact I would say that a great deal of my musical taste is either directly or indirectly attributable to the influence of this great man). Back in those days I was in the habit of taping Peel’s two hour show on a battered BASF C120 (ask your grandad) and then filleting the show, transferring the tunes that I liked onto numerous C90s, which I would then play to death.

I remember it very clearly. It was a Thursday night (although it could have been a Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday, really. I make all this shit up as I go along) and I was in bed, listening to the radio, with my trusty C120 rolling again. Peel was playing his usual wildly eclectic mix of tunes – in fact the shows were so varied, I am sure that the only person who enjoyed everything he played was Peel himself – and I was drifting into pre-snooze mode, secure in the knowledge that the whole show would be preserved come morning.

My reverie was rudely interrupted, however, by a tune that was quite unlike almost anything I had heard before. I was wide awake in an instant. Fuck me, what is this?

This was “Circumstances” by Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band. It’s the second tune in the Youtube clip linked below, wind forward 2 minutes and 50 seconds and you’ll get the gist:

So this tune gets transferred to another tape, and is played constantly. I mean it was an obsession. Who was his Beefheart bloke and why did this tune have such a visceral effect on me? I was hooked. I couldn’t get bored with it. Still can’t, as a matter of fact.

Days pass and on a fine Saturday evening I find myself at some kind of gathering at someone’s house. I don’t remember whose house it was, although I’m sure I went there with friends, and I certainly left in a far more inebriated state than the one in which I arrived. None of this is important. What is important is that someone in that house decided to play “Circumstances” by Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band. At volume. Bloody hell it’s that tune again.

And so it began. Later that year I got my first full-time job in an HMV shop and vigorously utilized the generous staff discount, often to the detriment of food. I bought all the Beefheart records I could lay my hands on and immersed myself in them. From the off-kilter rhythm and blues of “Safe As Milk” through to the career epitaph “Ice Cream For Crow”. And I loved all of it, even the bad stuff.

Beefheart’s music has a singular quality about it. Plenty of people have been influenced by him, but no-one, and I do mean no-one, sounds quite like him.

Anyway, I’m not going to bang on too much, as writers better (or better paid) than me have already showered fulsome and fully deserved praise onto The Captain since he died last year. I just wanted to express my gratitude to a man who enriched my life, although I know that 600 or so words cannot do him justice.

(As I write this, I can hear Katy Perry’s “California Gurls” coming from my nine year old daughter’s bedroom).

Mollusc

Mythical creatures abound in literature and folklore – Kraken, Yeti, Cyclops, the Loch Ness Monster, Intelligent Portsmouth Male etc – and yet there remains one whose legend has not spread outside of its supposed habitat. A creature that, despite its enormous size and the frequency of reported sightings, remains almost unknown outside of East Anglia.

I refer, of course, to Xybythgnys - the Giant Fenland Whelk.

I first became aware of this beast while attending an all-night cheese and mescaline shindig, which had been organised by the friend of a friend of an ex-friend of an avowed enemy. I was discussing the best way to cook lobster with a vegan, a Rabbi, and a vegan Rabbi, when our culinary discourse was interrupted by a man who very closely resembled a raving lunatic, possibly because this is exactly what he was.

It is an ancient Mariner, And he stoppeth one of three. 'By thy long grey beard and glittering eye, Now wherefore stopp'st thou me? is what I very nearly said.

And so it came to pass that, over the next seven or eight hours, this briney old sea-hound twisted my brain into plaits with tales of a creature so terrifying, so utterly vicious and repugnant, that the very mention of it had been known to cause outbreaks of alopecia and rickets in even the most bohemian and cynical circles. An omnivorous demon, slithering across the dark flatlands of eastern England, striking terror into the hearts of man, beast and assorted hybrids of same.

While it is easy for modern types, with their iPhones and bootcut trousers, to scoff at the superstitions of web-toed cretins, I was intrigued by the tale this man told and I found myself wanting to discover more. After the party I also discovered I had married a trio of welders from Birkenhead, but that’s not important right now, and anyway it was never consummated.

I began my research by watching a long-forgotten documentary from 1968, “Xybythgnys – Mollusc of Malice”, hosted by Professor Humphrey Pumphrey, which I was able to stream from an Estonian website. After that I streamed some other material from the same website, not directly related to my research, as a relaxation aid.

The story of Xybythgnys has its roots deep in the mysticism of the Far East (Lowestoft) and traces of the myth can be found in most towns and villages (apart from Wells-next-the-Sea, where they shun the whelk in favour of a cult dedicated to the Winkle of Destiny). Statues, battered and eroded by salt spray, still stand as testament to the power of the whelk along the east coast of England.

Xybythgnys (reproduced by kind permission of the Pumphrey Archive)

I visited Professor Pumphrey at his research centre in Hunstanton, from where he curates the Xybythgnys Archive, a treasure trove of information for the committed Xybythgnysphile. Here are stored newspaper articles, books, eyewitness accounts and photos of alleged sightings of this legendary mollusc. From these we can gather that the flesh of the Xybythgnys was much sought after in Tudor England, due to its supposed aphrodisiac qualities, with rich individuals paying huge amounts of money for what they believed to be the creature’s oozing flesh (although which was usually human tissue, illegally harvested from a leper colony).

Here is an extract from an instruction pamphlet, published in 1542, on the correct usage of mollusc tissue in an erotic context (courtesy of the Pumphrey Archive):

“First take ye the muscle, and having examind such as to be not worthy of entrance to thine lady’s chamber, rub the ooze of the welk along its length. Then shalt thou be of such inflamed proportions, and of such rigidity, that yea verily a cat could not scratch it.”

Unfortunately there is little direct evidence of the existence of the Xybythgnys, other than in the folklore collected in Professor Pumphrey’s cupboard. What photographs there are appear to be, at best, blurred black and white Polaroid snapshots of common sea whelks with no surrounding landmarks to help establish the size of the creature, and the “historical documents” are nothing more than yellowed pieces of paper covered in badly typed nonsense, with obscene doodles in the margins. When I questioned Professor Pumphrey as to the providence of his evidence, he said “Where’s Marjorie? She’s normally here by now. She brings me the paper. You don’t look like Marjorie.”

It was at this point that the good Professor soiled himself and I was politely asked to leave the nursing home, as it was getting near nap-time.