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Orcutt Shelley Miller and legendary frontman David Yow of The Jesus Lizard join forces for a feral rendition of Captain Beefheart’s Hot Head, b/w Neil Young’s A Man Needs A Maid by Orcutt Shelley Miller, to be released as a digital EP out April 7th and on 7-inch vinyl May 29th on Silver Current Records.
Orcutt Shelley Miller follow their critically acclaimed self-titled 2025 debut album with a 7-inch EP that presents an unexpected pair of covers and a perfectly tailored guest vocalist appearance by David Yow for Beefheart’s Hot Head.
Ethan Miller, known for his singing in bands like Howlin Rain and Comets On Fire handles the intimate and glass-fragile vocal duties on OSM’s cinematic rendition of Neil Young’s A Man Needs A Maid.
On how Hot Head came about OSM bassist Ethan Miller says, “Beefheart is definitely one of our big, as Bill would say, Venn diagram intersections for OSM. Bill had been playing the Hot Head riff and throwing it into the middle of one of our tunes that had a similar tempo on certain nights on tour.” Miller continues, “We just kept digging in further and further to it until it was a full song embedded in this surrounding other 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.”
On the subject of Beefheart David Yow says, “I am extremely grateful for Don Van Vliet and the stuff he made, both the things you look at and the things you listen to, but no more so than OSM. That may or may not be the truth.”
The b-side cover of Neil Young’s A Man Needs A Maid came about when Uncut magazine asked OSM if they could turn around a Neil Young cover for a compilation cd very quickly. Over text message Ethan asked Bill what song he thought would be a good choice to which Bill replied by text: A Man Needs A Maid. Later Bill told the band that he was joking when he suggested that song, but not being able to read tone through the text message Ethan shortly sent him basic tracks of acoustic guitar, a vocal and strings to work with and Bill and Steve’s electric guitar and percussion elements quickly brought the song to completion.
