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Foreward to Bill Harkleroad's LUNAR NOTES by Henry Kaiser As I read the manuscript of this book I couldn't help wondering if Zoot Horn Rollo (aka Bill Harkleroad) weren't being too modest about the incredible pioneering musical achievements of the Magic Band members during his tenure in the band. Not to forget the tremendous impact and influence that Zoot and his fellow players have had on the evolution of both pop and experimental music since those days. So, let me step in here for a moment and try to voice some thoughts in those directions. I first saw Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band back in 1967 at the Avalon ballroom in San Francisco, a little after the Safe As Milk album was released. Before the show started, I remember a big pile of pink and green SAFE AS MILK bumper stickers being given away under the black lights up on the Avalon balcony. I took a pile of those home. "Abba Zabba" was being played a lot on the local underground radio in those days and I was really excited about seeing this band for the first time. When they finally came out to play I was bowled over by the intensity, impact and originality of their performance. Sure, Don Van Vliet was an impressive figure with a giant voice and harp sound - chanting out the lyrics to "Trust Us" he seemed possessed, like some kind of religious prophet of music from another dimension. But what really impressed me was the band! John French's drumming and body language was more dynamic and exciting than Keith Moon of The Who. Alex and Jeff's guitars mixed feedback with bottleneck neck lines like nothing else in pop music at the time. The rhythms referenced back to the swing, complexity and power of the old Mississippi Delta blues that I loved so much. This was a band with a power, intensity and expression beyond anything else in pop music at the time. For the following five years I went to see every Magic Band gig that I could. While the personnel changed, up until 1973 all of the Magic Bands had this incredible - well - MAGIC! And as each new album came out I listened over and over on headphones to the new sounds and surprises that were on each release. I remember one show that I went to at Tufts University in the Boston area back in October of 1971. Mississippi Fred McDowell was the opening act - one of his last gigs - and you could hear the direct connection between his Delta blues and the space age blues of the Beefheart band. I recall Bill and Mark playing a thundering "Peon" in that college gymnasium and finally an incredible improvised solo from Elliot Ingber on "Alice in Blunderland" that made the floor fall away below my feet and impelled me to go out and purchase my first guitar, a black telecaster that I would later modify with a DeArmond pickup to emulate Zoot - a guitar that I still sometimes play today. At that time I was running a film society at a residence hall on my college campus. After a few months I was hankering to see the Magic band again. I thought that our film society might branch out and do a concert; so I called up Warner Brothers Records and got the number for the Beefheart management and spoke to Bill Shumow. He told me that the band did not plan to be in my area for a while as they were finishing up a new studio album. He said he'd call me. A month or so later he did, saying that the band was stuck in Boston for a week. He then asked if I had a place where they could rehearse? Fortunately a friend's church basement provided the perfect spot and I got to watch the band rehearse (without Don, of course) for several days. I got to hear the whole Clear Spot album played live before it was released and several of my old time favorites such as "Veteran's Day Poppy". Bill kindly answered many of my young, "beginning-to-play the guitar type" questions and passed along some guitar tips that have served me to this day. I also went along to the Jazz Workshop with Don and Mark to see Joe Henderson play. I remember bringing my roommate, Charlie Olchowski, a Beefheart sceptic (who was sick of hearing Trout Mask Replica played over and over in our dorm room) to see the band rehearse and watching his instant musical conversion to a total, rabid fan as the band stood around him in front of Artie's drums and played "Big Eyed Beans from Venus" as an instrumental at bone vibrating volume. That was the real thing! The band and Don told me to come visit them the next summer up in Trinidad, California and I did so. I stayed in touch and I went to see them play many times. In 1973 I went to a gig in LA (I had spoken to Bill a couple of weeks before and planned to see him at the show) but I was completely shattered when the Blue Jeans and Moonbeams new and not-so-Magic Band came out on the stage instead of my friends. Later, I happened to be in England when Mallard was recording their first album and visited their recording session in a barn on a farm. I talked at length with Mark and Bill about the break-up of the band. They seemed glad to get out of bad situation, but on the other hand they were sad that that musical era had come to an end. Everyone was feeling a mixture of hurt and relief. I stayed in touch with Don, visiting him from time to time and eventually met John French in 1975 before the original, and still unreleased, Bat Chain Puller album was recorded. That was the beginning of my long friendship and many musical collaborations with Mr. French (aka Drumbo). Back in 1980 I asked French if he would play drums on a track on my second solo album, Aloha. He said yes. Knowing that the Captain could be quite paranoid, I mentioned this to Don. He said that was fine; go ahead. After the album came out I sent a copy to Don. He called me up on the phone and SCREAMED: "My drummer, my drums! Send back that painting I gave you! I don't care if I ever said it was OK! I never want to speak with you again." And he hasn't since. Well anyway, I've been around this Magic Band music for a long time, I know it well and I've met most of the players. I must say that having observed personally and talked to most of the principals that none of the Beefheart albums would have been the same without the specific members who were in those Magic Bands. As much as Don contributed with his fantastic lyrics and "musical sculpting" to the band's efforts to create new sounds, in my view, the main musical creativity and expression came for the players. Don seemed quick to take as much credit as he could (all, as was his way), but I'm pretty sure that much of the magic came from the other musicians. Even the latter period magic of Shiny Beast, Doc at the Radar Station and Ice Cream for Crow, owed so very much to the "real magic" of the bands that contained Zoot Horn Rollo and/or Drumbo. Twice I've had the job of going through the unreleased Beefheart material in the Warner Brothers Records vault. The first time to evaluate things for possible release and the second time to look for material for the Ice Cream for Crow band. Many of the songs on Beefheart's last three albums were reconstituted versions of songs originally recorded in the studio or in rehearsal by previous Magic Bands. Sometimes the same titles are used for different songs and it gets confusing. Here then is a handy list to nominate many of those compositions:
This list is only songs that I know for sure to have come from earlier bands since I have heard those earlier recordings myself. Probably several more came from old rehearsal tapes, too. The influence of the Magic Band members since 1972, both acknowledged and unacknowledged, has been tremendous. Neither European art rock from Henry Cow onwards, or the entire Punk Rock movement, would have been the same without them. From Paul McCartney to Mick Jagger to Kurt Cobain and many more mainstream artists owe inspiration to the Magic Band, and they've all said it in print at one time or another. For my generation of guitar innovators and improvisors, Zoot Horn Rollo is of paramount importance. I've learned so much from him and have continued to do so over the years. Many of my colleagues such as Eugene Chadbourne, Davey Williams, Jim O'Rourke, Fred Frith, David Torn, Elliott Sharp and Bruce Anderson say likewise. Zoot played things that would have been impossible on guitar. The Trout Mask Replica guitar parts are unprecedented. Listen to the complexity and elegance of his playing on Decals - it has been surpassed by nothing since. On Clear Spot he is an economical rhythm guitar master fusing the stances of American roots artists such as Hubert Sumlin, Fred McDowell, Bukka White and Steve Cropper with a unique slide guitar approach creating something new and different. On all of the Magic Band and Mallard recordings Bill displays a carefully attained and unique tone and timbre. You can tell with one note or chord that it is him. Look back at any of the albums that Bill is on and you will hear him playing with subtleties of swing, micro-rhythmic feel, and control that is unprecedented in rock music. Most experimental and art rock lacks the grounding in American roots that the best Magic Band music exemplifies. Bill is an innovative and adventurous pioneer who staked out unknown territory and created many beautiful works. I've always thought it a disservice to the music that the Magic Band members never got their fair share of the credit and were so seldom written about by critics who completely bought Don's version of the genesis of this music. What's been in print up to now has not been consistent with the realities that I have observed and researched. I'm pleased that Zoot's story of the music is finally available here and I hope that it will help others to access and understand this rich musical tradition. (From LUNAR NOTES : Zoot Horn Rollo's Captain Beefheart Experience by Bill Harkleroad, 1998.)
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