We here at TNB Music would like to extend a swift kick in the ass with a steel-toed boot to 2012, with menacing threats to never, ever show its ugly mug around here again. That said, this open heart surgery of a year has yielded a rich trove of enduring albums and songs, and as we impatiently wait for 2013 to pull up out front and beep its glorious horn, the intrepid writing corps at TNB Music now pause to share our favorite offerings from 2012.

To our readers, colleagues, conspirators, confederates and harried editors, we wish you all a happy, healthy and hopelessly sexy new year.

-Joe Daly

TNB Music Editor

Some of you may have read my post about the fanzine I put out many years ago. With the recent death of one of my musical heroes, Don Van Vliet, also known as Captain Beefheart, I went back into the zine vault to find an article I’d written somewhere in the nineties about the Captain. It was inspired by a letter I’d received slamming my review of the twistedly brilliant Trout Mask Replica. The letter, written by one Gary Detroit, insisted “Beefheart sucks!” It said “that album blows!” It said “music should totally just rock. That’s why it’s called rock! This is a bunch of noise!” Finally, it said “Fuck you, art rock faggot!”

Below is my response to Gary Detroit, and also to his letter. Of course, if I were writing it now, I’d take out any number of things, edit it and smooth it over. I understand a lot more about Beefheart, and music in general, than I did back then. But it seemed somehow more in keeping with honoring Don’s passing if I just let it run the way it did originally. He was, after all, an exemplar of making the exacting sound like improvisation, embracing imperfection, and finding a way to play between the notes.