Dead Rider - Dead Rider Trio (ft. Mr. Paul Williams)

What could be the connection between Chicago’s Dead Rider Trio (headed by Todd Rittman, formerly of U.S. Maple) and London experimentalist (Mr.) Paul Williams (former manager of Crispin Glover) except that all four are possibly raving lunatics?

On the evidence of their self-titled joint effort, the conclusion could be - they are true fans of Captain Beefheart. Then it fits perfectly with raving lunatics and that they have exquisite and excellent taste in music. Welcome, friends!

Different to Beefheart, aka the ‘revered one’, it took the pairing three live to tape sessions at three different locations to record this album. Beefheart, on the other hand, was known at exercising his band days on end, before he would even let them close to the studio.

Still, you would hardly know the difference with this exercised mayhem. It goes basically like this - the band would get behind their instruments and Williams would start vocalizing, basically whatever would come up to his mind. And it worked! Mostly.

You realize what is going on when “Candles on Crabs” literally kick in, one of the better Beefheart homages recently. Then comes “Not a Point On a Scale”, and you think PiL might have sneaked in, but then you remember that Lydon was a member of the Beefheart fan club too. “Glistening Sap on Leaves” follows, and sounds like a variation on Tom Waits’ “What’s He Building In There?’, and that you remember that Waits, as a big fan himself, wrote a eulogy poem after Beefheart’s death.

“On The Listener, Mr. Williams He Farts” piles the first three together, but there’s too much pile-up, and it is not exactly a fart from a title but is certainly the weak track on the album.

From there on, the combination starts stamping on more personality of their own, with “Of The Men Who Stay In Their Rooms” being quite a brilliant thing, promising that the possible future collaborations might be something to really look forward to.