I came to Beefheart via a compilation cassette, or mixtape, in modern parlance, that a pal made for me, when we were both at secondary school. Thanks Edwin Wright, wherever you are (last spotted in Ely!).
Edwin put just one Beefheart track on said tape: ‘Pachuco Cadaver’, from TMR. I loved it, right from the get go. But for quite a long time I had no idea who it was.
At the time – early/mid teens – I was starting to go into Cambridge on my own. My favourite destinations were record shops: Andy’s Records, Parrot Records, Garon. It was at a branch of Andy’s that I finally bought this:
And, lo and behold, within the labyrinth of musical madness herein, I found ‘Pachuco Cadaver’. Hallelujah!
I’ll always be chuffed that, for me, my route into the heart of Beefheart‘s musical genius was – like the music itself – immediate, and visceral. I knew it was unusual. But far from finding it grating, I adored it. Right from the outset.
For years after discovering this stuff, I’d hear about folk ‘finally getting it’, along with the oft-repeated – and ludicrously wide of the mark – myth that Beefheart taught the entire band how to play, and so on.
Many years later I saw John ‘Drumbo’ French, fronting a band keeping Beefheart’s musical legacy alive, at The Junction, in Cambridge (UK). I also interviewed him, whilst I was working for Drummer magazine. The gig was pretty poorly attended. And Drummer chose not to run the Drumbo piece. A sad reflection that Beefheart remains firmly on the outside.