Track Listing

1. Sure Nuff 'n' Yes I Do
2. Zig Zag Wanderer
3. Call On Me
4. Dropout Boogie
5. I'm Glad
6. Electricity
7. Yellow Brick Road
8. Abba Zaba
9. Plastic Factory
10. Where There's A Woman
11. Grown So Ugly
12. Autumn's Child
13. Safe As Milk
14. On Tomorrow
15. Big Black Baby Shoes
16. Flower Pot
17. Dirty Blue Gene
18. Trust Us
19. Korn Ring Finger

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7421 in Music
• Released on: 1999-09-04
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.co.uk Review
"I may be hungry, but I sure ain't weird," Don Van Vliet, a.k.a. Captain Beefheart, famously intones on this bright-sounding re-mastered version of the 1967 debut by Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band. Safe as Milk is a bold, tough-ass distillation of Delta blues stomp and 1960s garage-punk swagger, fused with a radically polyrhythmic and tempo-shifting style that one might term "art rock". Listening to the delightfully playful, absurdist "Abba Zabba", it's easy to see why Lester Bangs called Beefheart "the only true dadaist in rock"; the song is a good indication of the intricate, rule-breaking music the Magic Band would continue to hone. But there are also formidable ballads (the psychedelic "Autumn's Child", the lachrymose "I'm Glad"), mid-tempo pop-soul tunes (the Otis Redding-ish "Call on Me"), and straight-ahead blues-rock workouts ("Plastic Factory"), all of which showcase the fretwork of a young Ry Cooder. Much has been made of Beefheart's multiple-octave vocal range; he sings menacingly on "Dropout Boogie" and allegedly broke a very expensive microphone on the eerie "Electricity". The last seven tracks on this reissue (for the most part fascinating, unfinished instrumentals) were recorded with a different line-up; they are outtakes from Mirror Man Sessions. --Mike McGonigal

CD Description
The genesis of the first Captain Beefheart album SAFE AS MILK is suitably shrouded in mystery, but the result is a collection of performances that meld blues, R&B, avant garde rock, and West Coast pop in a unique and heady mix that's like nothing else in the Captain's oeuvre. While subsequent outings would emphasise the full-on weirdness of Beefheart and his Magic Band, songs such as "Yellow Brick Road", "Sure 'Nuff'N Yes I Do" and "Abba Zabba", while not without their own sonic quirks, still sound fresh and accessible today.
With uncredited appearances by such luminaries as Taj Mahal andRy Cooder, SAFE AS MILK's overall feel is adventurous, freeflowing, yet with an underlying discipline that Beefheart would throw to the wind on subsequent releases. There's even an attempt at doo-wop harmonies on "I'm So Glad", though theharp-flavoured "Plastic Factory" finds him in more familiarR&B territory. Beefheart would never again sound this conventional, or, some might venture, this coherent.

Customer Reviews

Far out in spades - take yourself there
The Magic Captain is wierd (wired?) & strange by any popular measure but this first album is more accessible than Trout Mask or Strictly Personal or even the Spotlight Kid. Whoever takes any notice of popular measure anyhow. Critics invariably get it wrong, and maybe this review is no different. Check it out for yourself.

Really there are so many varied opinions about this album that there's little sense to be made of them all. The only opinion that counts is yours but, for what it's worth, I think this is five star stuff. But then wierd & strange is okay by me (I still like Syd Barrett!) It's certainly original, unique, unusual and powerful.

New favourite band
Amazing. I have found my new favourite band, thanks to seeing the film "Captain Beefheart: Under Review".

This is EXACTLY the kind of music I like. It seems criminal that I should be 29 years old before I hear this music, but at the same time I'm glad because it shows that there are still amazing things to discover.

This music is so groovy yet so complex at the same time that I just find it irresistible. The first track, "Sure 'Nuff N' Yes I Do" is a little throwaway, but once you get to "Zig Zag Wanderer" you're just grooving. It sounds so fresh, and just blows anything else out of the water. I used to think The Doors were good, but compared to this... they just seem so lame!

Since I've been listening to this record it seems I've had a different track in my head each day: "Dropout Boogie", "Abba Zaba", "Yellow Brick Road", "Plastic Factory"... they're all so infectious.

I love the production: vocal in one ear with a spiky clean guitar, and rhythm section in the other ear (for the most part). The performances are on the money - especially Beefheart himself whose combination of blues and soul-like singing with some weird eccentric moments ["Eeeeeelec-tri-city....ngaa-ngaa-ngaaaaa-aaaahh!] are like nothing I've heard before. This music is just audacious. It's so refreshingly brilliant I just found myself laughing out loud at it's genius.

So this CD contains the original 12 tracks from Safe As Milk as well as 7 (I think) bonus tracks - totalling about half an hour each. To experience this record properly I listened just to the album tracks a few times first before trying the bonus tracks. True enough, the bonus tracks aren't up to scratch with the album tracks, but when isolated, they are still original examples of quality work. They just lack the swing and groove that the album has.

So anyway, if you haven't already, discover this now. I know it's not for everyone, I just find it hard to understand how anyone that's into quality, groove-based rock n' roll could not like it.

Postscript: I was wrong about "Sure Nuff N' Yes I Do". I really like it now, it's just not one that sticks in my head. I love the pause every couple of bars when the music kicks in. It's logical, but somehow totally chaotic.

A bit more postscript: "Sure 'Nuff N' Yes I Do" stuck in my head yesterday. I don't usually keep adding to my reviews, but this record just keeps revealing more and more to me as time goes on.

Fat grooves on: "Sure Nuff N' Yes I Do", "Zig Zag Wanderer", "Plastic Factory".

Crazy genius on: "Electricity", "Abba Zaba", "Dropout Boogie".

Incredible singing on: "So Glad Baby", "Autumn's Child".

Great drumming on: "Dropout Boogie", "Electricity".

Got Milk?
This is a band that developed FAST during the 60's. To think that this album was recorded the year after their 1966 single "Diddy Wah Diddy" - a Bo Diddley cover performed in a manner that made the group sound like any mediocre pop group of early/mid 60's, and 2 years before the revolutionary 1969 Frank Zappa production "Trout Mask Replica" (for which Van Vliet was given 100% artistic freedom)...
Blues elements have always been apparent in Beefheart's singing as well as in his music, and it's probably the strongest element on "Safe as Milk;" the album starts off with a slide-guitar dominated tune, played over a commonly used blues structure used by Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, among others.
"Grown So Ugly," though not a 12 bar structure completely in 4/4, is also a blues tune and cover of blues singer/guitarist Robert Pete Williams. The guitars on the other tracks are also very bluesy, with perhaps the exception of the 3/4 R&B/doo-wop tune "I'm Glad," which--Beefheart's voice aside--musically sounds unlike the rest of the album.
Another bluesy element is Beefheart's distorted tremolo harmonica (introduced on "Plastic Factory") which, just like his emotional singing on "Where There's Woman," is performed from his heart in a skillful, personal way.

The overall sound has been digitally improved. It's not only clearer than on the original LP record, but also compared to earlier CD releases of the album. This has made the audio picture wider and the listening experience "easier" if you will. Some might disagree and call this kind of "updating" rape of art. While I can appreciate such a point of view, I must say that I prefer the digitally re-mastered version (of THIS album) for a number of reasons:
- The Captain's singing in the left channel on "Sure 'Nuff 'N Yes I do" doesn't suffer from being too low in volume anymore.
- The balance between the instruments is more accurate to how it was intended from the start (though no BIG changes have been made - it's not re-MIXED). The reason some tracks originally suffered from "bad balance" is that the music was recorded on 4 tracks, but due to a low production budget, had to be mixed on 2.
- Though improvements have been made by shifting certain frequencies it still sounds dirty and "old" like it should.
There is, in my opinion, a downside to this, though: the guitar sound on "Call On Me" is a bit brighter than earlier - the pogo stick/fast feather sounding kind of tremolo/vibrato effect is much more obvious now than before (I had barely noticed it earlier.) It makes the guitar sound a bit out-of-tune, and the whole mix of the song seems a bit thicker because of this, but it's no BIG problem, though I could have lived without the uplifting of that element.

With the 7 bonus tracks the CD runs over 71 minutes, but the original "Safe as Milk," i.e. the 12 first tracks, is a bit under 34 minutes long.
Several of the bonus tracks are quite interesting; take 5 of the song "Safe as Milk," which originally appeared on the 1968 "Strictly Personal" album, is featured here, with--in comparison to the "Strictly Personal" version--a much sharper mix.
This also goes for take 9 of "Trust Us," - a song that also originally appeared on "Strictly Personal."
The takes are quite similar to their "true form" though the bonus track "Safe as Milk" runs a bit shorter - it lacks the minute of hectic drumming at the end.
The instrumental "Big Black Baby Shoes" is an early version of "Ice Rose" (which wasn't further developed and re-recorded until 12 years later.) "Ice Rose" is included on the 1979 album "Shiny Beast/Bat Chain Puller," where the main melody is played on trombone by Bruce Fowler. "Big Black Baby Shoes" isn't as organized or skillfully played as "Ice Rose," but it's an interesting listen for comparison.
"Dirty Blue Gene" is an early version of "The Witch Doctor Life," which wasn't re-recorded until the making of "Ice Cream for Crown," where no original Magic Band members were featured, and lyrics had been added. Again, the version played 15 years earlier wasn't played as skillfully, but it's still candy for your ears.
On "Korn Ring Finger" Van Vliet introduces the "manual tremolo" effect by turning the mic on and off while singing a long note - this effect was to be used a lot during the "Mirror Man" session.

"Safe as Milk" was, upon its release, John Lennon's favorite album. With the original LP release of this album, a "Safe as Milk" sticker was featured, and there's a famous picture (famous to Beefheart fans anyway) of Lennon laying in his apartment on a couch and reading a magazine, with two "Safe as Milk" stickers on the doors of a cupboard in the background.

Aside from the orginal Magic Band--which consisted of John "Drumbo" French, Alex St. Clair Snouffer, Ry Cooper and Jerry Handley--Doug Moon, Russ Titelman, Milt Holland, Taj Mahal, Sam Hoffman and Richard Perry participate on various instruments here and there throughout the album.
Don't expect it to be another "Trout Mask Replica" if that's all you've heard by Captain Beefheart, but don't think that you're unable to like this music just because you like "Trout Mask" - I like both. This album has perhaps more commercial potential than any other Magic Band release, and should appeal especially to fans of slide guitar/harmonica dominated 60's rock with a raw, bluesy sound.
Just like the sticker on the CD-case reads, this is "one of the most extraordinary debut albums in history."