Dude! Have You Ever Heard Captain Beyond?

Hey man. Have you ever heard Captain Beyond? If you’ve ever have heard Captain Beyond, you probably heard this very question from some buddy of yours before doing so. Am I right? I mean, Captain Beyond is not one of those bands that you could just randomly hear on your own by turning on left of the dial Classic Rock Radio station. Seriously. When did you ever hear a Captain Beyond song on the radio (and no, Sirius XM radio doesn’t count)? Yeah, that’s what I thought. Just turn it on now and I’ll bet you’ll hear Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Boston, some shitty George Thoroughgood song, and maybe if you’re lucky you’ll get some sweet ass deep cut from Jethro Tull. Ok, more than likely it’ll be “Locomotive Breath” or “Aqualung” but you know what I can guarantee? I guarantee that you could listen all fucking day and not hear one song or even one slight mention of Captain Beyond.

When I think back to all of the great, obscure bands of any kind that I love dearly, I clearly remember that they were bands that were pointed out to me by either a close friend or the cool ass burnout long haired dude working at the record store. A friend once told me that the bands you hear on the radio are great bands but the ones that you don’t hear on the radio were usually the cream of the crop. They were bands that were drowned in the wake of those that did achieve stardom and popularity but didn’t necessarily do it better or in some cases nearly as good.

 

I was in my 30’s at the time and the year was 2008. At this point in my life, I felt like I had pretty much heard it all. I wasn’t really on a quest to discover new bands or to even put on my archaeological spectacles and go trudging for unearthed gems. I was completely happy where I was as a music listener until this fateful day when a friend of mine named Wylie came into my office at work. I was working at the time for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as an IT Systems Administrator. I know right? Blows your mind huh? Don’t believe me? Just Google that shit and you’ll find it but this is all beside the point. Where was I? Oh yeah, well, let me start another paragraph just in case Chuck Klosterman’s reading this and calls me out for my shitty paragraph sculpting.

Anyways, my buddy Wylie comes into my office with another friend of mine and we were going to lunch. Wylie asks me, “Hey man, have you ever heard Captain Beyond?” I shook my head and said, “No.” When I did this a sparkle emitted from his eye and a sheepish grin took over his face. He said to me, “I’ll hook you up. It’ll blow your mind.” Later that week he gives me a burned copy of Captain Beyond’s self-titled debut album. There was no artwork, no band photo, no liner notes, nothing. It was just a plain old silver top CDR with the name Captain Beyond scrawled out in Sharpie on it.

 

In all honesty, I just viewed this as another one of those albums that a friend of mine was raving about that I would probably just think was ok or that I would not like in the least. Kind of like how I was let down when I heard Frank Zappa or King Crimson after a buddy of mine described them to me as some life changing source. I mean, as we all know, music is uber subjective so I take all of this with a grain of salt.

I didn’t even really rush to put on this Captain Beyond CD until one evening while my wife was out of town. She had gone to Washington D.C for the summer to do a fellowship for Grad School and there I was home alone. I sat down to clean out my laptop case and there was this Captain Beyond CD just staring at me. I grabbed my bachelor meal of frozen DiGiorno pizza, PBR tall boy and popped in the CD. As the intro drum beats courtesy of Bobby Caldwell filled the cathedral ceiling of our house, my interest was suddenly piqued and the minute the first verse of Dancing Madly Backwards began, my jaw hit the fucking floor. What hell was I hearing? The sonic, cosmic riffs of Larry “Rhino” Reinhardt, the groovy bass lines of Lee Dorman, the acid fueled vocals of Rod Evans. Good fucking God what is this? The band slides right into “Armworth.” “What was my arm worth when they… took it away?” Someone please get me a drip pan for my face… STAT! What’s this? They’re going back into “Dancing Madly Backwards”?

I could barely wrap my head around what I was hearing. Every fucking time I thought I was getting it another song would just slam out of nowhere and send me into this cosmic, ethereal frenzy. Song after song I was just floored by the lyrical content. “Mesmorization Eclipse” had Evans singing “See the bright chipper in the harbor making iridescent waves. Need to try a little harder on the voyage to better days.” Holy shit. Then all of the sudden here comes Evans and Co singing about the “Raging River of Fear”: “Raging River of Fear my friends is a runnin’ through us all… where it comes from and why it’s here is a mystery to us all!”

Every song just topped the one before it climaxing with what I consider to be the single greatest album closer of all time: “I Can’t Feel Nothing (Part 1), As The Moon Speaks to the Sea, Astral Lady, As the Moon Speaks to the Sea (Return), I Can’t Feel Nothin’ (Part 2). Yes, it’s credited as 5 songs but it is literally one of the single most epic suites I have ever heard and when “ I Can’t Feel Nothin’ (Part 2) drew to an end I was left pretty much with my face on the floor, my head in the clouds and asking myself, “What the fuck just happened?” This album was pure fucking magic. It was unlike anything I had ever heard in my entire life and honestly, I have never heard anything like it sense.

 

Captain Beyond did release one other fantastic album.  The follow up was an album called Sufficiently Breathless which is magical in it’s own right but even as good as it is just didn’t come close to the level of pure, unbridled awesomeness of the debut album.  Captain Beyond’s debut album is so much more than a mere album. It’s like unearthing a rare, precious mineral or gem that has the power to change your life forever. This album changed my life because it showed me songwriting, creativity, and a performance with zero boundaries. This is not an album made to be skipped around. Captain Beyond is a listening experience the truest sense of the words. Since the first time I heard this album, I can’t tell you how many people got a silver top CD-R from me with the words “Captain Beyond” scrawled on top of it in Sharpie. No artwork, no band photo, no liner notes, nothing. Captain Beyond is a band that I consider to be one of the greatest gifts a friend could give me and one that I will continue giving for as long as I am breathing.

So with that being said… hey man, have YOU heard Captain Beyond?

 

 

 

 

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