Hero Worship: Cliff Martinez on Captain Beefheart
JINGLE BALLS.
Soundtrack composer (Drive, Only God Forgives, Sex, Lies and Videotape) and former drummer for Red Hot Chili Peppers and The Dickies, Cliff Martinez tells us of his lifelong love for Captain Beefheart, and what it was like to work with him
ARIES With your guts heaving you scour the streets this Christmas for somewhere to use the loo only to be told there is “no room at the inn� time after time. Desperately you knock once more, and miraculously a kindly landlord explains that although the toilets are for customers only, you’re welcome to take a dump out back, “in the manger.�
with Mystic Mark
TAURUS You’re amazed to find your banging 400-strong Christmas parties are paradoxically categorised as ‘anti-social’ by the police.
Cliff Martinez
D
on Glen Vliet, better known as Captain Beefheart, has been my musical idol since I was 13 or 14, and remains so to this day. Usually, your musical heroes fade as your tastes change, but his music is still a big inspiration to me. I’d like to think that in some way he has had a powerful influence on my music. In a nutshell, he invented his own unique vocabulary for the music he made. The first thing that sucked me in was this completely new language for the drums. John ‘Drumbo’ French played the drums like nobody else. I don’t even know where it came from, that style. I’ve talked to him, and he mentioned his own influences – Sandy Nelson, Ginger Baker, and some other guys – but it just didn’t sound like anybody I’d ever heard before. It sounded like a completely fresh take on an instrument that millions of people play, and that millions of people have recorded – somehow he found something completely and totally new and different. A different way of thinking about it and approaching it. It was the same for the bass, same for the guitars and the other instruments. It’s the same for Beefheart’s composition – I don’t think there’s anything like it. You can’t even describe his music without using the word ‘Beefheart.’ To this day, that’s what I want to be when I grow up. Working with Beefheart, he was really demanding – it was very hard to keep up. You had to have a tape recorder running at all times, because a lot of the things he wanted to capture would be spontaneous, improvised things that he would not be able to repeat. That might be a vocal performance, or he might sit down and get you to play the drums, giving you directions like ‘Give me that thing that’s meat on a plate
GEMINI A silver lining to your teenage daughter’s pregnancy is that she’s a shoo-in for Mary at the school play.
CANCER This year, after Obama is controverwith red asparagus dangling through the teacup,’ sially moved to Santa’s naughty list, the or ‘You know! Giant blue babies levitating over US Military begin drone strikes in Lapland. The mountaintops.’ And you were on your own! So it toll on the elf population is horrific, with entire was really, really hard work, but it was my Gary families obliterated on a daily basis. Santa Claus Cooper, High Noon moment. I had a front row releases a video saying that he will not stand for seat to experience his process. I don’t think there such attacks but the strikes continue, blowing will ever be another chance like that. up elves even as they tend to the wounded. On There was some punk spirit in his approach. Christmas Eve, a solemn Santa announces that He wanted that ferocity. Most people who do enough is enough and rides a sleigh loaded with Dada or avant garde music approach it from a high-explosives directly into the White House. cerebral point of view – he approached it with a very primal, Neanderthal sensibility. Everything LEO There’s more than one way to skin was spontaneous, never premeditated. He wanted that fury. He wanted you to play every note like a cat, but there’s really only about it was the last note you would ever play. That was half a dozen ways to fuck one. very punk rock. When we were recording Ice Cream for Crow, VIRGO In an attempt to improve efficiency you his last album, one of the things in my drum set was a fire alarm. It was this really dense metal undergo a surgical procedure to turn thing that you had to hit really hard to get any sound out of. He kept telling me to hit it harder and harder. I already had the biggest drumsticks made – I had 3S drumsticks, which are like parade drumsticks; they’re like baseball bats. So Eyes to the website I’ve got the biggest drumsticks possible, I’m hitting this thing as hard as I can, and he says, ‘Hit it harder.’ I hit the alarm so hard that the drumstick shattered and hit me just below the eye. It broke Broken Social Scenester Brendan Canning joins the skin, and my eye started bleeding. Beefheart us for a chill-out session; ex-Wild Flag and Sleater said ‘Stop the tape! Stop the tape! My music’s not Kinney drummer Janet Weiss discusses her musical legacy ahead of playing with Quasi on worth an eye.’ That was the level of intensity he their UK tour (The Deaf Institute, Manchester, 8 demanded, and that’s also what appealed to me Dec), and Cliff Martinez looks back on more than about punk rock. Whatever it is you’re going to 20 years of soundtracking: theskinny.co.uk/music do, you have to really mean it.
LIBRA It turns out mistletoe is a parasitic plant that survives by penetrating and then sucking the life out of a host tree, making it the perfect symbol for a chance romantic encounter with you.
SCORPIO You’re a bit short of money this Christmas and instead of getting a proper turkey from Iceland, you decide to have Bernard Matthews instead. It takes all night to dig him up and drag him back home. To make matters worse, once you’ve stuffed and got him in the oven the putrid green and black juices never seem to run clear.
SAGITTARIUS It’s probably better if you don’t know.
CAPRICORN Your local church’s nativity play focuses heavily on the Virgin Mary’s miraculous 22-hour labour. Soaked in sweat and blood, she screams at the top of her lungs and gnaws on Joseph’s hand. When the Three Wise Men show up she barks at them to “get to fuck!� before sobbing into the straw and quietly whimpering that there is no God.
AQUARIUS You receive a Christmas Card from Cash Converters saying they’re looking forward to seeing you again this Boxing Day with all your children’s gifts in tow.
PISCES You enjoy spending time with your family.
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Only God Forgives is released on Blu-ray, DVD & Steelbook from 2 Dec. The soundtrack is out now on deluxe, limited edition coloured vinyl from Invada Records invadarecords.bigcartel.com
December 2013
Photo: Ricardo DeAratanha
your eye sockets, mouth, nostrils and ears into one large facial orifice. This should really help speed things up at work.
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the comedy clubs are full of terrible people having terrible office parties; and we’ve an Esoteric Christmas Gift Guide: theskinny.co.uk/comedy We’ve also got some slightly more normal Books and Film gift guides: theskinny.co.uk/ books, theskinny.co.uk/film Aaand finally there are tons more disturbing Christmas Cards in the online Showcase: theskinny.co.uk/art
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