The mention of melding Albert Ayler and Howlin' Wolf was a good one,
though I think you might need to add "and Paul Eluard" (or... fill in
your own truly imaginative rather than just fartin'-around surrealist
writer here), "and Harry Partch/John Cage/etc." (fill in your own
favourite very-American experimental composer). Personally I think his
early-80s stuff - Ice Cream for Crow (except a couple of dud tracks)
and Doc at the Radar Station - are more enjoyable than everything
except Trout Mask Replica, which simply stands on its own as an
avant-rock milestone. The earlier heavily blues inflected crossovers
often sound too much like bad blues, not enough like microtonal
mayhem, and often descend into the same lyrical sex-and-hamburgers
bargain-basement surrealism I associate with the wildly overrated
Frank Zappa (whom I loved when he mostly kept his sophomoric mouth
shut and played his multitrack tape machine, ie., back in the Uncle
Meat period).
It doesn't much surprise me, though, that there are plenty of folks
around the P2 precinct who hear only noise in everything *except* the
Capt's derivative blues workouts... chacun a son gout, naa naa naa-naa
naah.
carl w
