The Oxford American Book of Great Music Writing

The Sex Pistols: IN ENEMY TERRITORY: THEIR SOUTHERN TOUR OF ’78

1SMIRNOFF_pages.qxd 8/27/08 10:43 AM Page 244 Rock& RollII 1SMIRNOFF_pages.qxd 8/27/08 10:43 AM Page 245 1SMIRNOFF_pages.qxd 8/27/08 10:43 AM Page 246 Captain Beefheart WE COULD REALLY USE SOME MYSTERY IN OUR MUSIC THESE DAYS by Mark Richard Come back, Captain Beefheart, come back! I was a mere prat of a child when my friendBobdroppedaneedleinto ClearSpot.Iwasjusttwelve,maybethirteen,the youngestdiscjockeyinthecountry,orsosaidthemanwhosworehecouldgetme on Johnny Carson but never did. My friend Bob used to come to the little 1,000wattAMstationwhereIworkedintheafternoonsafterschool ,andhewoulddrop offalbumsformetoplay.Bobtoldmeyouwereachildprodigy,CaptainBeefheart, and people were buying your sculptures when you were four, is that true? That youmetFrankZappawhenyouweretwelve,maybethirteen,isthatright?Iknow you played on Zappa’s Hot Rats and Bongo Fury. How old were you then? When Bob came into the little radio station that afternoon, I think I was playing Savoy Brown.Bobjustcameintothestudioandstoppedtheturntableanddroppedthe needle into Clear Spot, and we turned up the studio monitors so loud the ladies next door at Town and Country Beauty Parlor complained. But the station manager didn’t call. He had quit calling after the times he called up to say Clapton’s soloontheextendedplay“Layla”soundedlikesomeonekillingacat;thatGrand Funk Railroad made him want to drive his car into a telephone pole; that he had seenthealbumwrapperforMotttheHoopleandtheywereobviouslyallqueeras three-dollar bills. Why couldn’t I just play the old rock & roll like Pat Boone and Simon and Garfunkel? Yousee,CaptainBeefheart,ourswasasmallSoutherntownandthiswasthe late’60s,early’70s,beforealbumrockmadeittoourFMstations.Myvoiceplummetedovernight .Ihearthat’smorecommoninAfricaamongboyswho’vegrown 247 1SMIRNOFF_pages.qxd 8/27/08 10:43 AM Page 247 up chanting. I would have said to you that my voice, in its depth and inflection fromthatdaytothis,isacrossbetweenBarryWhiteandRichardBurton,theebonics honestly homegrown in our black-majority though Nat Turner–killing Tidewater Virginia county; the anglophonic faux Brit Os merely leftover cradle rotfromthespawningsofnearbycolonialWilliamsburg.RichardBurton?Mywife laughed in my face when I told her. More like Barry White and Foghorn Leghorn, she snorted. I got the job at the radio station because my father thought working for two dollars an hour would keep me out of trouble with the police in whose jail I had already sat, age twelve. Tiny, tiny, small was our radio station, with its antenna spearedontheedgeofourcemeterysothatwhenweweredrivingpastthetombstonesonthewaytoschool ,thesignalbroadcastitselfthroughthecarradioeven if it was turned off. Some people said they could hear our radio station playing in some of the graves, having something to do with the metal vaults and the fillings in the heads of some of our deceased moldering down there. Your music, you couldfaintlyhearit,Captain,rattlingthemolars,tweetering,woofingintheskulls of old dowagers way down in the ground, songs like “Click Clack” that I played overandover.Thatsong,thattrainride,amasterpiece.Amasterpiece.Doyousee how your songs became a secret language in a small Southern town among me andBobandourfriendswhousedtocomebythestationonSaturdayswitharmloads of albums for me to play so they would have something to listen to when they took their hippie girlfriends out to the sand pits to smoke reefer and drink beer and all go skinny-dipping? My other friend Steve and I used to scrawl your songandalbumtitlesacrossgirls’lockersatschool.LickMyDecalsOff,Baby.They used to love that one. And how easy to put off our mothers or teachers, or somebody ,withashrugandanswer,“Thereain’tnoSantaClausontheevenin’stage.” SteveandIwereinourgothic,pre-driver’s-licensedays,himalreadyoversixfeet, and both of us shrouded in our Army-surplus trenchcoats, ghoulish and processional through neighbors’ yards at dusk just as they were sitting down to their chicken-fried, bacon-seasoned dinners, both of us chanting through their open windows, “Bring out your dead!” There was nothing to be done with us, no reason to call the station when we played “I’m Gonna Booglarize You Baby” instead of the National Anthem on Saturday night sign-offs. Your music, Captain, was a passport to a place from which I never returned. They say your first album that you made with the Magic Band, Safe As Milk, was John Lennon’s favorite album, is that for real? Your album The Spotlight Kid I think is my favorite. When I went to college I wrote a collection of short stories I presumptuously titled The Adventures of the Spotlight Kid. Some of the stories were about going to the sand pits to smoke reefer and drink beer and skinny-dip with hippie girls. I wrote a novel called Fishboy based on your song “Grow Fins” (“Ifyadon’tleavemealone,I’mgonnatakeupwithamermaid,an’leaveyouland248 THE OXFORD AMERICAN 1SMIRNOFF_pages.qxd 8/27/08 10:43 AM Page 248 lubbin’ women alone”). Come...