# Beefheart vs Zappa



## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

Which of these two eccentric and iconoclastic musicians do you prefer? For me it's Beefheart by a mile. He seems to have a more emotional and sensitive side (sensitive in a masculine way) which I resonate with. His music feels so genuine and sincere. And man I love his voice. But Zappa is pretty good too.

Two great songs from each:


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## Bwv 1080 (Dec 31, 2018)

Why not both?


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

These two are my idols. I can't pick one over the other. And their careers overlap a bit. But they are very different aren't they? Beefheart was truly avant garde in the rock world. A much more raw and intuitive artist. Zappa was the disciplined intellectual who studied composition in college and on his own and learned the business from the ground up working with Paul Buff at Pal Studio which he later bought and re-named Studio Z.

The live album Bongo Fury is a good document of their brief tour in 1975. If they ever get around to producing a box set from that tour I'll buy it!


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

Bwv 1080 said:


> Why not both?


Haha this song is tons of fun!


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)




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## NoCoPilot (Nov 9, 2020)

How about neither? Though both were brilliant and produced isolated masterworks, Frank was devastated by a puerile sense of humor, and Don's later works were simply awful. On the whole I'm glad both artists shared my timeline, but neither gets my unreserved adoration.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Don's later works are excellent! He finished out his music career with three great albums including Shiny Beast, Doc At The Radar Station, and Ice Cream For Crow. And to dismiss Zappa's massive output due to some off-putting lyrics is absurd in my view.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Appreciate Beefheart but Zappa's discography is just so much larger and richer, similar in quantity to most of the great composers, and often similar in quality as well.


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

starthrower said:


> The live album Bongo Fury is a good document of their brief tour in 1975. If they ever get around to producing a box set from that tour I'll buy it!


Yes, this would get the ZFT a key to my wallet as well. _Bongo Fury_ is one of my earliest Zappa memories and one of my favourite albums generally. I have only heard some very poor quality audience tapes from this era, but there's a lot of interesting material that got left off the original record which I would like to hear in an official release.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Appreciate Beefheart but Zappa's discography is just so much larger and richer, similar in quantity to most of the great composers, and often similar in quality as well.


Zappa lived for music. Don had other things to do. He quit music at the right time. He was not a man for the age of MTV.


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## HenryPenfold (Apr 29, 2018)

Voted Don. No question about it. 

Anche, di sicuro, amo molto la musica di Frank Vincent


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## HenryPenfold (Apr 29, 2018)

NoCoPilot said:


> Don's later works were simply awful.


?

wot planet you from?


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

I find it somewhat narrow-minded that people tend to lump CB and FZ into the same flour sifter . . . they're really nothing alike.

I enjoy SOME *Zappa*, but never bought albums of his, because you never knew WHICH Zappa you were going to get. There were two things that Zappa seemed to return to time and time again that I never really appreciated once I reached my mid-20s, and that's the scatological and juvenile, and the goofy vocal. I just don't enjoy that.

I've TRIED listening to the *Capt*., but never find a thing to make me want to hear any of his music again.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Seeing as Zappa was a composer and Meatloaf was a singer (as far as I know he didn't write his own material) - this poll is comparing apples to oranges.


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## Red Terror (Dec 10, 2018)

Not an apt comparison as I don't think Don really had any idea of how to write music.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

SanAntone said:


> Seeing as Zappa was a composer and Meatloaf was a singer (as far as I know he didn't write his own material) - this poll is comparing apples to oranges.


Do you have Meatloaf confused with Don Van Vliet (Captain Beefheart)? They're not the same person.


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

LOL. If anything, sometimes he had too many ideas about how to write music.


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## Red Terror (Dec 10, 2018)

starthrower said:


> Do you have Meatloaf confused with Don Van Vliet (Captain Beefheart)? They're not the same person.


Indeed. Two completely different meats.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

starthrower said:


> Do you have Meatloaf confused with Don Van Vliet (Captain Beefheart)? They're not the same person.


Oh. Yes. I guess ML's death put him on my mind.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

SanAntone said:


> No. Meatloaf is referred to as a singer and actor. Jim Steinman wrote all the music for the Bat Out of Hell records.


But what does that have to do with this thread?


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## NoCoPilot (Nov 9, 2020)

HenryPenfold said:


> wot planet you from?


One where Captain Beefheart is discussed on a Classical Music forum....


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

NoCoPilot said:


> One where Captain Beefheart is discussed on a Classical Music forum....


Are we getting haughty now?


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## HenryPenfold (Apr 29, 2018)

BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist said:


> LOL. If anything, sometimes he had too many ideas about how to write music.


Spot-on (no pun intended) :tiphat:


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## Kjetil Heggelund (Jan 4, 2016)

But why? [video]https://www.whitings-writings.com/images/Berio01.jpg[/video]


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## HenryPenfold (Apr 29, 2018)

NoCoPilot said:


> Captain Beefheart is discussed on a Classical Music forum


And why not?


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## NoCoPilot (Nov 9, 2020)

Next thing you know, you'll give women the vote, and allow men into the club without jackets.


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## HenryPenfold (Apr 29, 2018)

NoCoPilot said:


> Next thing you know, you'll give women the vote, and allow men into the club without jackets.


Heaven forfend!

I'm suitably chastened. I'll reign in my cavalier attitude to such matters henceforth.


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

On the composer/singer distinction. According to Drumbo, the genesis of _Trout Mask Replica_ was Beefheart's observation of Zappa working with Ian Underwood at a piano. He studied what they were doing intently, and the next day Beefheart had a piano of his own. He sat plonking away at it, Drumbo transcribed it, and then he worked with other band members to render it as a composition. The entire album, save (iirc) "Moonlight on Vermont" and "Veteran's Day Poppy", which were of the _Strictly Personal_ mould, was created that way. Beefheart himself was more of a first cause, a stimulus from which everything else followed, than a composer in any real sense.


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## Chibi Ubu (11 mo ago)

So has it become "Meh" to one, and "Puerile" to the other?


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## NoCoPilot (Nov 9, 2020)

Crudblud said:


> On the composer/singer distinction. According to Drumbo, the genesis of _Trout Mask Replica_ was Beefheart's observation of Zappa working with Ian Underwood at a piano. He studied what they were doing intently, and the next day Beefheart had a piano of his own. He sat plonking away at it, Drumbo transcribed it, and then he worked with other band members to render it as a composition. The entire album, save (iirc) "Moonlight on Vermont" and "Veteran's Day Poppy", which were of the _Strictly Personal_ mould, was created that way. Beefheart himself was more of a first cause, a stimulus from which everything else followed, than a composer in any real sense.


That's the story Don liked to tell the press, but Harkleroad says it's a lie. The whole band workshopped TMR in their band house, working out all the parts in detail.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

NoCoPilot said:


> That's the story Don liked to tell the press, but Harkleroad says it's a lie. The whole band workshopped TMR in their band house, working out all the parts in detail.


That's pretty much what crudblud said. "Beefheart was the first cause" and the band hammered out arrangements based around his initial ideas.


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## NoCoPilot (Nov 9, 2020)

starthrower said:


> Do you have Meatloaf confused with Don Van Vliet (Captain Beefheart)? They're not the same person.


Captain Meatloaf - Bat Chain Puller Out of Hell's Canyon


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