Recorded sometime between 1965 and 1967 and originally released in 1971, Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band‘s Mirror Man album was a bit of a hot mess when it was released. It was compiled of four tracks taken from a recording session that was supposed to be for a double album called It Comes to You in a Plain Brown Wrapper that was never finished or released due to them being dropped by their label (Buddha Records). According to John Platt’s liner notes for this 1999 re-release, “In 1971 someone at Buddha reviewed all the extant tapes, and a decision was made to issue a single album’s worth of material under the title Mirror Man. What they chose were the three live-studio cuts plus ‘Kandy Korn.'” The Mirror Man Sessions includes those four tracks as well as five more previously unissued cuts by the good Captain and his lads. The four original tracks were also placed in an alternate order than the original album “for aesthetic reasons” that Buddha Records claims “for the time being at least…is as close as we can reasonably get to the Captain’s original intentions.”
The four original tracks are (in this album’s order) “Tarotplane,” “25th Century Quaker,” “Mirror Man,” and “Kandy Korn.” I’m not sure anything I can write would do justice to “Tarotplane.” It’s a nearly twenty-minute psychedelic freak-out masterpiece with the Captain’s harmonica, shinei, and vocals sounding like a warped, scratched 78rpm record you found in the back of an old blues honkytonk. “25th Century Quaker” is so freaky that its beats from John French sound like a bag of oranges rolling down the stairs.
“Mirror Man” starts out with some of Captain Beefheart’s signature grungy harmonica work before Jeff Cotton and Alex St. Clair Snouffer‘s guitars let loose with warped chords that sound like they’ve been left out in the sun all day. The Captain’s vocals are either distant and funky or sound like they’re coming through a damaged megaphone. “Kandy Korn” is, on its face at least, about the waxy, sugary Halloween snack (“They look so good, I wanna eat ’em.”). I’m willing to bet it’s about something else, but I’ll let you make the call. It melts like candy on the roof of a VW van, and it practically sends you into a trance around the three-minute mark.
“Trust Us (Take 6)” has the Captain encouraging all of us to trust not only him and the Magic Band, but also people outside our comfort zones. The rhythm of it is more urgent than you realize at first. It becomes a toe-tapper and lingers a bit in jam band land. It also has a neat fake fade out and fade in that I’m sure has fooled many DJs in its time. It gets more warped the longer it goes. “Safe As Milk (Take 12)” is one of the Magic Band’s biggest hits. It has a cool, weird groove to it that’s hard to describe and the right amount of fuzz without being overwhelming. The Captain’s vocals are playful and you can tell that his singing style influenced everyone from Tom Waits to Mike Patton and Les Claypool.
“Beatle Bones N’ Smokin’ Stones” is an obvious poke at the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. The Captain has fun with “Strawberry Fields Forever” lyrics (reverbed and stuttering) and Keith Richards’ blues riffs (turning them into almost calliope music). “Moody Liz (Take 8)” has near-country guitar licks that transform into psychedelic oddities. The lyrics are barely recognizable, but that’s okay because the track is more a showcase for Cotton and Snouffer’s bizarre yet fascinating guitar work. The album ends with “Gimme Dat Harp Boy,” and the Captain getting to strut his stuff on harmonica while the Magic Band drives the funk bus.
This might not be the best place to start your Captain Beefheart musical journey, but it’s essential listening if you’re a fan of his work and psychedelic blues.
Keep your mind open.
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