Gary Lucas first made a name for himself in the music business as being Captain Beefheart’s manager and then guitarist during his resurgence in the late 70s and early 80s. Lucas played on Doc at the Radar Station and Ice Cream for Crow showing his nimble picking on “Flavor Bud Living” and “Evening Bell”.
Recorded live throughout 1990, Skeleton at the Feast has some of the most exciting and imaginative guitar playing of all time. “Strong Seed” is the first of many picking exercises sound like a ballet for nymphs as Lucas plays solo increasing his speed and sound to mimic two and almost three guitarists at the same time, which blows a fuse in the ethereal “Guerillas in the Midst”.
Lucas shows that his virtuosity can sustain itself without the crutch of electronics in “Robert’s Johnson”, a crazed blues solo guitar in the vein of the old bluesmen from the 20s and 30s, but sounding like a couple of them at the same time. “Hard Werken Fucked Over Man/The Reckoning” wanders the same astral planes as Hendrix’s psychedelic blues. “Christmas in Space Medley: Bells/Little Drummer Boy/Are You Experienced?” mixes his maniacal guitar dancing with Christmas standards and Jimi Hendrix to haunting and psychotic ends.
“Hitchcocked”, “Aguirre/The Sheep Look Up”, and “Music for The Golem” are soundtrack instrumentals, something Lucas would continue to do through the 1990s and 2000s, the latter being a live performance with Walter Horn (on keyboards) for the 1920 German expressionist film Der Golem, wie er in die Welt kam [The Golem].
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