Talk about everybody's favorite outsider musician here. Not, not Alice Cooper (who's more metal than outsider but was on Straight, Frank Zappa's label for outsider musicians.)
...but the guy who locked his band up and made #56 on the 500 Greatest Albums List by Rolling Stone.
I'd wish they would add his other albums. They were win. I'm serious.
I also have the albums in case if anybody wants a taste of him.
Or just get a big torrent and download these selections:
- Trout Mask Replica (essential, but hard to listen to)
- Lick My Decals Off, Baby (essential and poppier than Trout, but suffers from faulty production like "Katy Lied")
- Safe as Milk (essential, to see Don's roots in weirdness and blues music)
- Doc at the Radar Station (essential/respectable, was played on SNL one time)
- Shiny Beast (respectable, if you want to hear songs from his failed second album redone. No, not "Strictly Personal", but "It Comes to You in a Plain Brown Wrapper")
- The Spotlight Kid/Clear Spot (essential, if you want to hear Don as the commercial artist)
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I first heard of Don in 2003 while searching up Frank Zappa and Ween. Don always intrigued me, since everybody talked about Frank Zappa, so I started to listen to his best albums. At first I laughed at the sloppiness of his arrangements, but a closer listen told me that he's making a new musical revolution. Even his blues songs sound like raw punk rock. I'm dead serious.
Him in 1994:
Him in 1982:
Notice the difference? He's not sick. He's just older. I'd like for him to produce my albums. I think he'd be good in the music community if he'd get out of his shell and become a producer. Plus, he could hawk his music via YouTube.
But he speaks too slow because he sang like Howling Wolf. But he still has his energy, wit, health, and his musical talent. He'd like to go back, but he's too busy trying to rub Jan Vliet's feet.
So that's Don Van Vliet for you.
