Today is Captain Beefheart's 74th birthday and, normally, as I'm a gushy Beefheartist, I'd be getting gushy and whatnot, right? Well, I'm also a MST3K/Riff Trax fan and I just discovered my Beefheart and Riff Trax worlds collide over the awesomely awful Mexican B-movie called The Brainiac!
HUH?! Yup, turns out, details from The Brainiac is incorporated into the narrative for “Debra Kadabra,” the first track off Frank Zappa and the Captain’s collaborative album, Bongo Fury. It's a sweetly damaged song, with Beefheart's bent boogie meeting Zappa's prog while the narrative is about a teenaged Captain Beefheart's allergic reaction after bathing in Avon cologne! Zappa said poor Beefheart "looked like an alligator!" Eesh. It seems his face was in such bad shape he did go hide out at a relative's house in East LA till the swelling subsided!
Anyway, here's the movie, The Brainiac, in full, if you can stand it. I highly suggest watching it with the Riff Trax commentary and in the spirit of the horror that was the Captain's swollen teenaged face!
The Brainiac 1962 by lbines
h/t: Dangerous Minds
