Customer Reviews

Strictly Personal

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This album has gotten a bad rap for it's over the top production but I don't care! It's an amazing album and could be the one of the most hallucinatory albums ever recorded! I just played it back to back twice! If the only Beefheart you know is Trout Mask, then you may be shocked to hear this, which is more coherent and rooted in both blues and "song" structure, though in both the Captain proves(as usual) extremely adventerous, inventive and innovative. The album just builds and builds right to the very end...the epic Kandy Korn which has one of the most stunning finales ever! Safe As Milk and Trust Us are unbelievable nuggets and there are two wild psycho-blues workouts that have to be heard to believed(Son of Mirror Man and Gimme That Harp, Boy) Admittedly, some of the production takes the guts out of the guitars but I don't mind the phasing on the vocals. It definitley feels like a totally cohesive, unified album....it just happens to be an acidy album! Finally, if you happen to be a connesiuer of the outer edges of late 60's rock (let's say Skip Spence or Syd Barrett or even Grateful Dead, Zappa or King Crimson) but found Trout Mask Replica too abrasive and scary or found Safe As Milk too mid 60's-ish-early-in-the-career-kind-of-feel,then this album may be the missing link for you! It was for me!

The history of Captain Beefheart and His Magic band fluctuates like a hyperactive echocardiogram. The personal, pointed, dissonant, and impassioned music confounded most record labels (and probably many listeners). Producers probably pondered and whacked thier heads with the question "how can I sell this stuff?" Nonetheless, they seemed to think that this music had market potential (otherwise they wouldnt've bothered at all). This perspective probably lies behind the strange, enigmatic, and now legendary story of "Strictly Personal", the band's second full-length album.

Somewhere between 1967 and 1968 Beefheart and His Magic Band struck out to do a double album magnum opus. The non-commercial project became foiled in record company politics and some other general nonsense. Consequently, the band fell out with their previous label, Buddha Records, over this very project (dubbed "It Comes to You In a Plain Brown Wrapper"). Buddha apparently began to focus on popular and more "happy" (or "bubblegum") music. And subsequently the band found their way to Liberty Records and producer Bob Krasnow.

The band had already recorded quite a bit of material for the failed double-album project. It sat moldering in Buddha's vaults for years (The 1999 CD releases of "Safe As Milk" and "Mirror Man" contain nearly all of this material - released, paradoxically, by the "new" Buddha records). With little rehearsal the band cranked out "Strictly Personal" in the spring of 1968. Much of the material overlapped with the aborted Buddha sessions. Notably, very shortened versions of "Mirror Man" (now called "Son of Mirror Man - Mere Man") and "Kandy Korn". The only new addition was the rough grunting blues number "Ah Feel Like Ahcid". Pieces of the song exist throughout the album. And the final notes of "Strictly Personal" come from a reprise of this song. Beefheart (aka Don Van Vliet) expressed confusion at the suggestion that the song was about "Acid" (a popular pop culture reference at the time). But it contains some greatly evocative Beefheart lyrics (and has some affinities with the later "China Pig").

Krasnow mixed the album while the band toured in 1968 and he subsequently added a mileu of "psychedelic" effects to the songs. Examples of this pervade the album. Supposedly he wanted the Magic Band to cash in on the "far out" music of the time. Some stories say Krasnow did this without the band's consent. Others say Beefheart actually approved of the new mix until the music press delivered consistent negative reviews of the production. Either way, a lot of the nuances of the music became buried in the thick mix or frosted over with psuedo-psychedelia. Consequently, more than any other Beefheart album (excluding his "Tragic Band" recordings from the mid 1970s), this album sounds the least like Beefheart. The album's title then becomes pregnant with irony.

It speaks volumes of the material on "Strictly Personal" that it remains a classic. The songs and the performances manage to shine through the rather annoying production. Mike Barnes, Beefheart biographer, calls "Strictly Personal" the band's "acid-rock statement". This gives too much credit to the production. Without Krasnow's layering the album would have sounded more like "Trout Mask Replica" than "The Piper At The Gates of Dawn". The re-released Buddha recordings (sans psychedelia) reveal this.

Some of Beefheart's strongest songs remain obscurely buried here. "Safe As Milk", the anti-hippie "Trust Us", the Trout Mask presage "On Tomorrow", and the song that cost the band John Lennon's approval, "Beatle Bones 'N' Smoking Stones". This album shows a definite progression from "Safe As Milk" towards "Trout Mask Replica" (which turned out to be a vindicating double-album release). Some of the innovations require work and digging to expose. But they exist down deep in the psychedelic stratifications of sludge. The effort pays off in droves. Beefheart begins to really emerge here, albeit slowly and somewhat frustratingly due to the mix. Still, Beefheart fans should not miss this album that comes with a history as murky as its production.

This disk has an undeserved bad rep. Sure, it sounds beamed in from another galaxy, but why shouldn't it? It doesn't rock out any less because the sound is eerie and distorted, and the suite-like organization of the album makes for as interesting a tribute/parody of Sgt. Pepper as Frank Zappa would have come up with.

Cap'n has been unhappy with all producers and marketers of his recorded opi, as far as I know. I think Bob Krasnow's production tactics are as at least as inoffensive and inobtrusive as any one's else's. Whatever his intent was, I don't believe he sabotaged this recording in any way.

Of all of Beefheart's records, this one gets my vote for his most underrated. That's a pretty easy designation, since most of his albums get high marks from somebody or other, only this one is essentially ignored or dismissed, however. This is due to some phasing that was added by the producer after its completion and without Beefheart's consent. Still, as stupid as this was, and still is, it cannot possibly hide the great music underneath. After several listens, as I focused more on what beefheart and the Band were doing, it was almost as if I couldn't hear the phasing. While Beefheart is a critic's darling mainly because of his odder, more surreal side (hard to understand and alienating to the average listener = quality, this critical conceit is still the bane of the critical world), his hard rocking bluesman side is just as great, and you can really hear it shine through on Gimme Dat Harp Boy, just crank those speakers up full blast and you'll see. This record is cohesive, the songs melodic and beautiful in a very starightforward way. Sure, if it weren't for the phasing this might've been one of his best, but despite the problems it still deserves a listen and frankly I find it a much more enjoyable listen than, say, Lick My Decals Off (this isn't to say it's better). I recommend you buy it, maybe only after you've acquired all the others (not including Bluejeans or Unconditionally), though I think you should get it before you spring for Mirror Man, Ice Cream For Crow, or Clear Spot.

He tried a more "personal" take on the blues here, and moved the rhythms out towards the kind of jazz-influenced polyrhythmic wildness that his bands kept working with for the next 14 years.

The songs and the lyrics are "authentically strange" as John Peel remarked in a documentary. To me they're idiosynchratic and somewhat flawed. They're just not coherent enough for my liking, and the music's a bit uneven - it has great stuff in there, but alternates into more straight, ostensibly commercially viable sections that drag this down a bit.

The production, the mixes are bad.

The better part of this material is available on the "I May Be Hungry But I Sure Ain't Weird" collection, which is alternate takes of these tracks plus a few more things from this time frame, and "Mirror Man" which was cut by the same band (originally to be bundled with this album in a 2-LP set) and has far superior versions of "Mirror Man" and "Kandy Korn". "I May Be Hungry" has been placed, in two pieces, on the new issues of "Safe As Milk" and "Mirror Man".

So, if you buy the new "Safe As Milk" and "Mirror Man", you'll hear all this material in equivalent or better form, except the opening acoustic track (which is just a basic blues) and the words to "On Tomorrow".

This is the first Beefheart album I heard, and it had a profound effect on me. The music is from another world and it is stunning. The first time I heard it I was actually freightened. It's like having a nightmare in the Mississippi delta. Forget all you've heard about the electronic effects. It is a masterpiece regardless. I can't say enough good things about this CD. I've owned the album for over 30 years, I now own the CD, and I never tire of it. I will be listening to this music until I pass on.

This album changed my entire life...in fact it changed my entire tire on the road of godlike white noise and mystery blues virtually unattainable in this cultural black hole called the '90's. Listen to this album...eat this album..digest this album...and most importantly , procreate genius children while this music is at full volume . ******end of transmission*********

I love this album like a brother; it's my most poignant momento of the late 60s. For me, it captures the essence of that time, with its mind-blown style and roman-fleuve character, where every track tells a story, albeit a confusing one. The first three tracks are particularly compelling, in which rambling vocals and ragged guitar trade off each other in a way that would make Jagger and Richards weep, if they paid attention. (Oh yeah, I'm a Stones fan too.) But only the Good Captain invokes that Philip K. Dick world in which everything, including your sanity, is up for grabs. Damn, it's good.

This is the legendary Bob Krasnow ruined album. If he's still alive he should be hung. The material on this album is fabulous, probably the best Beefheart ever made, I would certainly have rated it 10 stars when it was produced in a normal way, Krasnow produced it in such a way that it would sound more psychedellically to boost sales but in fact put a jewel in a pigs sty. Can you imagine heaven? Strictly Personal is heaven seen through a human's eye, you'll try to imagine, but you know you will never be able to get the complete idea. That's Strictly Personal. Still try it out, listen to it and try to listen through the bad production. Then buy "I may be hungry but I sure ain't weird" and enjoy it the way it should have sounded, a master piece.

I had this album on vinyl years ago. I had been searching for it for a long time hoping that it would be on CD. I really did not remember too much about it only that I liked it. I know it has been criticized by others as being overcommercialized by it's producer, and that might be true, but I still like and enjoy this record very much. It was good to hear after so many years. Ooh la light, Ooh la dark.