Orcutt Shelley Miller and David Yow Cover Captain Beefheart
Photo by R Orcutt
Experimental rock supergroup Orcutt Shelley Miller get a little extra super on their latest single. The trio have teamed with David Yow of The Jesus Lizard and Scratch Acid on a cover of Captain Beefheart's "Hot Head." If you're reading this article, you've probably already pressed play down below, and you should, because this is great. The guitars on this cover sound more like The Jesus Lizard than Orcutt Shelley Miller typically get, but the song sounds funkier than The Jesus Lizard typically are. I'm honestly not too familiar with the original, as Beefheart is one of those artists I know I need to spend more time with. This is kind of a crazy cover, and it's exactly as noisy as you want it to be. Plus, the b-side is a cover of Neil Young's timeless "A Man Needs a Maid" with Ethan Miller of Howlin Rain and Comets on Fire. It's still a noisy affair, but stays relatively true to Young's original.
Bassist Ethan Miller says of the band's Captain Beefheart cover:
“Beefheart is, as Bill would say, definitely one of our big Venn diagram intersections for OSM. Bill had been throwing the ‘Hot Head’ riff into the middle of one of our tunes that had a similar tempo on certain nights on tour. We just kept digging in further and further until it was a full song embedded within another song.
“David Yow and Steve were old friends, and David just seemed like a perfect fit to bring it home and do Captain’s duties on vocals. David is one of the great through-lines helping to carry the spirit of Beefheart’s musical legacy into and beyond alternative music of the ’90s and 2000s. In my estimation, that explosive blending of sonic complexity and visceral, primitive expression is really at the heart of David and The Jesus Lizard’s power, as it is also at the heart of Orcutt Shelley Miller. Beefheart hand-carved the model for that musical dynamic in marble.”
You can listen to Orcutt Shelley Miller's versions of "Hot Head" and "A Man Needs a Maid" below. The single is out digitally now, and a physical 7" is available for pre-order through Bandcamp. For more on Orcutt Shelley Miller, check out the band's Linktree.
"Hot Head":
