Anyone heard of him/like his music? I got into him through my Dad and I always tend to get snorts of derision when I mentioned him to anyone under forty who thinks of themselves as hipper-than-thou...But I've also noticed that he has become a popular name to namedrop even when the bands doing so don't sound massively close to his sound...although plenty of people have and do continue to rip him off and not acknowledge it.

Anyhow, I think he's great.

Yeah, Beefheart is an odd one. But musically, he really did some fantastic stuff with The Magic Band. And Trout Mask Replica never EVER gets old.

Is there anything else quite like it?

I think its a case of it becoming fashionable to like him.

Kinda like what happened with the Velvet Underground-when they were a going concern, only a handful of people really 'got it' and bought the records...but then a few more people got into them and copied aspects of the music (hello David Bowie, Jesus & Mary Chain, The Cure etc), selling more records and namedropping the V.U. Nowadays, any serious rock fan is expected to at least have heard the first V.U. LP, if not owning that and all the other ones.

I recon it could be the same with Beefheart-he had a semi-cult following, didn't sell massively the first time around, had a lot of critical kudos. Kids who bought "Trout Mask Replica" when it came out grew up to become a lots of the punk/new wave/early hardcore and art-wave artists. They 'got' him, copied aspects of the sound and stuff in their own music, then years down the line, the new wavers and punks get copied and then the brave souls who twig something look further back to the source and discover Beefheart himself...

I think for a lot of younger guys (I'm 22), because Beefheart isn't "heavy" and doesn't really rock hard, per se, and because its not massively immediate, they pass him over. I think its a real shame as he could well have been rock's only true genius.

a big YES to him. trout mask replica is such an amazing work.

I love Beefheart, but i only have one album of him, and thats Bongo Fury, a coop album with Zappa. Want to buy some more stuff of Beefheart in the future. On Bongo Fury i like Debra Kadabra and The Muffin Man a lot. Yes Beefheart was a genius. Just like Frank.

The muffin man is seated at the table in the laboratory of the utility muffin
Research kitchen... reaching for an oversized chrome spoon he gathers an
Intimate quantity of dried muffin remnants and brushing his scapular aside
Procceds to dump these inside of his shirt...
He turns to us and speaks:

Some people like cupcakes better. I for one care less for them!

Arrogantly twisting the sterile canvas snoot of a fully charged icing
Anointment utensil he poots forths a quarter-ounce green rosette (oh ah yuk
Yuk... lets try that again...!) he poots forth a quarter-ounce green rosette
Near the summit of a dense but radiant muffin of his own design.
Later he says:

Some people... some people like cupcakes exclusively, while myself, I say
There is naught nor ought there be nothing so exalted on the face of gods grey
Earth as that prince of foods... the muffin!

Girl you thought he was a man
But he was a muffin
He hung around till you found
That he didnt know nuthin

Girl you thought he was a man
But he only was a-puffin
No cries is heard in the night
As a result of him stuffin