Music : Spotlight Kid, the/Clear Spot

Rating: - Magnet draw day from dark...
I wondered why these two albums had been packaged on one cd. Now I know: they complement each other so well. Now, depending where you get your information from, the albums have either been placed in reverse chronological order, or they haven't. I don't really care. It doesn't really matter. Nevertheless, I listened to The Spotlight Kid a few times first.

Yes, The Spotlight Kid is quite bluesy (for want of a better word). It's slower and less manic than Safe As Milk, and way, way, way less complicated than Trout Mask Replica. That's not a bad thing though. This time around you can listen to the Captain actually sing once again! He's still about as madcap as you can be, but you don't have to twist your mind into unfeasible shapes to be able to appreciate this one. "White Jam", "Blabber n' Smoke", "When It Blows It's Stacks", "Click Clack" and "Grow Fins" are all menacingly driving tracks, and worth the price of this CD alone.

Clear Spot is a different beast altogether, but it works alongside The Spotlight Kid. Here the production is crisp, and the arrangements slightly more complex. This time though we find the Captain straying into soul territory, almost coming off like James Brown on tracks like "Too Much Time" and "My Head Is My Only House..."

For me, the first three tracks of Clear Spot are negligible, but once you've gotten that far, you're in for a treat. The album doesn't let up after that until it's done, and in "Sun Zoom Spark" you really have a gem.

The very, VERY best songs are the ones that just aren't long enough. The ones where each passing verse or chorus makes you sad that you're that much closer to the end. "Sun Zoom Spark" is one of those. In fact, since beginning to listen to Beefheart I've found a few of those, and "Sun Zoom Spark" ranks right alongside "Abba Zaba", "Trust Us (Take 9)", "Moonlight On Vermont", "I Love You, You Big Dummy" and "Woe-Is-Uh-Me-Bop".

Now for some people Clear Spot is the best Beefheart album. For me, it still ranks behind Safe As Milk, Trout Mask Replica and Lick My Decals Off, Baby. It isn't as vibrant as the first, it isn't as crazy as the second, and it isn't quite as genius as the last. In fact, in places it sounds like a slightly more complex "Unconditionally Guaranteed". That's not an entirely bad thing, though. I quite like that album. But Clear Spot is clearly a step towards making that album.

So, in summation, The Spotlight Kid has more songs on it that I like on their own, but Clear Spot is more cohesive as an album. Both have ideas that the Captain has stolen from himself, but both are absolutely essential if you're into Beefheart. If you're not, this might just be the catalyst that starts you on your personal voyage of discovery.

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Rating: - Two of the greatest albums- ever.
If you've never listened to Beefheart before - forget the supremely difficult Troutmask Replica that everyone says is his best (It's not)- these two albums should be heard by everyone.
Ethnic rhythms, cajun rifts, absurdly brilliant guitar work and weird lyrics sung by a weider voice - this is simply superb. The most commercial and easily accessible of his recordings, but still some of the best music ever. Superb, brilliant etc. etc.
And if you like this, then there is Ice Cream For Crow, Bat Chain Puller, Doc at the Radar Station, and the iconic Strictly Personal. All by a brilliant musical genius.

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Rating: - A masterpiece that covers so much.
I was going to start off by saying that this is a piece of blues genius but after listening to the album again I realise that it's much much more than that. There are traces of jazz, soul, rock, freak-out, even rap in places. It's certainly more accessible than some of Beefheart's other works but this is by no means a bad thing. I challenge anyone to listen to this without stamping a foot or tapping a finger. In places it's angry and twisted. In others it's simply beautiful.
If you're even curious - buy it.

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Rating: - Two great Beefheart albums
While `The Spotlight Kid' is ambient music for more serious Beefheart fans; `Clear Spot' is a twisted masterpiece, made up of both musical highs and lows. Not to say though, that `TSK' isn't brilliant because I do think it is. In fact, it is one of my favorite Beefheart `come down' records; but `CS' is, in most peoples opinions, the better of the two albums on show here.

I am going to start with `TSK' because it is the shorter of the two albums. As already mentioned, the music throughout this one is mostly watered down Beefheart, with some cool blues and not much over the top experimentation. This one's more like a commercial flight to Japan than the U.F.O to the centre of the galaxy that `Trout Mask Replica' was.
I think my personal favorite from `TSK' is probably `White Jam', the weirdest hit on the album. It starts out quite soft and with some, I think, beautiful singing from Beefheart before slowly turning into something a little odd and a little alien. Another definite highlight from this one is `When It Blows Its Stacks', a blues track that just simply rocks to the extreme edge of cool.
While there are a lot of great tracks on `The Spotlight Kid', `Clear Spot' is the reason you are buying this album and, excuse me for rushing `TSK', I'm going to get on with the review of that one.

`Clear Spot' is an album that effectively covers Beefheart's expansive range of personalities and musical tastes. It goes from soft and tuneful to craziness at the drop of an atom bomb. It is sometimes simple and easy to make out and sometimes so far gone you can't help but laugh at the inventiveness and diversity.
Tracks like `Too Much Time' even have female backing, which is odd in the context of a Beefheart album but definitely welcome when utilized as effectively as it is. Tracks like `Too Much Time' are also strangely beautiful in a weird Beefheart way and offer a more personal insight into Don Van Vliet's mind.
`Clear Spot' the song is hardcore blues in some places, strange typical Beefheart in others. `My Head Is My Only House Unless It Rains' is another weird one in that it is softer than other tracks here but utterly compelling in its mix of commercial music and other worldliness that you are drawn gently into the swirl of beautiful guitar parts and meaningful lyrics with no resistance.
The real highlight here though is `Big Eyed Beans from Venus' and I don't think anyone is going to argue with me against that. It might even be the best Beefheart track ever. It has everything I look for in a Beefheart song. There are some wonderfully funny lyrics, some great drumming, thumping bass, and most importantly, incredible guitar playing. The guitar playing on this song is so out there that it is hard to accept that this was written by a bunch of mere mortals. Simple earth dwellers. It just can't be. It can't. The music is so detailed, so intense, so emotional that it just couldn't have been written by people of the same species as those who wrote trash like `American Idiot'.

Anyway, I'm listening to `Safe as Milk' right now and writing this review is distracting me from that so I'm gonna stop. I hope this review was helpful to you. If you are already a Beefheart fan then this is an essential purchase, and if you are new to him it is a good starting place. Buy it now.

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Rating: - This album could ruin your CD collection
If this is the first time you've been tempted to buy Beefheart you've probably had him recommended by a friend whose taste you trust. You should love your friend for you are about to inahbit the world of one the towering geniuses of twentieth century music.
Think of Howling Wolf on Acid and a collection of musicians at the cutting edge of their profession and you aren't even close. But don't get the idea this is incoherency masquerading as avante gardist elitism. Its the real thing and it manages to sound deeply knowledgeable about its Delta Blue's ancestory as well as predicting nearly everything of worth in the history of popular music.
What is so rewarding about these albums is that the more you listen to them the better they get. Beefheart's voice is an amazing instrument and the musicianship of the instrumentalists is more of the quality you would expect in a Jazz outfit.
In terms of single-minded uniqueness I can only think of Hendrix and Tom Waits who are comparable.
Beefheart's is perhaps the least commercialy known of a generation of musicians including the Rolling Stones, The Doors, Janis Joplin and Hendrix who all, in their own way, interpreted the legacy of the Delta Blues in their own way. I think time will show that it is at least arguable that out of this generation his was the most authentic and incindiary.
Buy it and ruin the rest of your CD collection.