Captain Beefheart & the Magic Band – Glider

After 1970’s ‘Lick My Decals Off baby’, an album that was possibly the closest thing to Don Van Vliet’s vision, the man himself decided that the music was ‘too far out’; this, according to John ‘Drumbo’ French, was after deciding that the music wasn’t far out enough before ‘Trout mask Replica’. The albums that followed started to get a lot tamer, before bouncing back (think ‘Doc At the Radar Station’, the unreleased ‘Bat Chain Puller’, and ‘Ice Cream For Crow’) and almost hitting the same heights as the ‘classic’ period. Now this reigning-it-in-period resulted in two of the worst albums in Beefheart’s back catalogue, ‘Unconditionally Guaranteed’ and ‘Bluejeans & Moonbeams’, and it could even be said that those two albums aren’t even really Beefheart (that’s a whole other story and probably best not to be explored here). Now, the immediate two albums that followed ‘Decals’ are the, frankly, overrated ‘Clear Spot’ (it has great moments, but then there are tracks such as ‘Low Yo Yo Stuff’ –  nuff said), and the album that this track is from, 1972’s ‘The Spotlight Kid’. ‘Clear Spot seems to get all of the praise from this period, but ‘The Spotlight Kid’ beats it hands down. From the opener ‘I’m Gonna Booglarize You Baby’, right through to this track, the closing ‘Glider’, we’re getting straighter Blues….but still Blues as imagined by Don Van Vliet. ‘Glider’ is a great closing song; a track where you can almost see the sun setting around you. It’s a shame because the band members reported hating making the album; and even hated playing songs from it live more. Zoot Horn Rollo stated that ‘it sucks’, and a lot of critics complained about the albums tempo and labelled it as ‘ponderous’. Don’t let the criticism put you off, just let The Spotlight Kid shine down upon you.