Time to catch up on just a little of the information you've been sending me. Do keep it coming as I rely on tip offs from site visitors about anything of interest that they've spotted. Thanks to everyone who takes the time to send info along, no matter how trivial it may seem.

Colin Frangos kindly sent along a link to an interview he conducted with Eric Drew Feldman. There are also a couple of mp3s up there of Eric's latest project, the pleasingly titled and very PJ Harvey-esque Knife And Fork which I enjoyed listening to very much, especially the mellotron. Many thanks for the info Colin.

I've been sent a couple of issues of The Rylander, a quarterly Ry Cooder fanzine which are worth a mention. Series 3 Numbers 1 and 2 contain plenty of Beefheart-related material - in particular an interview with Zoot Horn Rollo by Morgen Agren, the drummer on the Music Of Captain Beefheart Live tribute CD (interview available at Morgen's website). Also in these two issues are reviews for Grow Fins, Lunar Notes, the Buddha reissues and The Dust Blows Forward, a transcription of Ry's interview in the BBC Beefheart documentary, some pictures and commentary from Gary 'Magic' Marker, and a mountain of other info about Cooder. Well worth checking out. For more info contact David Kidney who pieces it together or see his website.

Luca Ferrari, author of the book Pearls Before Swine, Ice Cream For Crows, has written to let me know that his book (complete with the mini-CD of Don's 1994 poetry readings) can still be ordered from www.pickuprecords.it (click 'Sonic Book' at that page to find the Beefheart link).

James Rodewell sent me a link to a curious / amusing item up for grabs on Ebay. The auction has long-since expired, but I thought I'd mention it here because I've never seen anything quite like it before. Does anyone know anything about this item? Was it made as a one off by a fan or was there actually a production line for Magic Band memorabilia from which this rolled? Either way, I want one.

Coming up very soon, just as soon as I get the chance to think up a suitable question for it... your chance to win one of two copies of Gary Lucas' excellent live retrospective released last year Improve The Shining Hour, featuring three Beefheart compositions, one featuring the man himself. Watch this space.

The Fire Party (the Radar Station's Beefheart discussion list) now has a working archive again. Hurrah!

Benjamin Horrendous has started work on The Fire Party Musicians Index featuring details about list members who have CDs available to trade of their own original music, or have mp3s to download from the Internet. Anyone interested in what music other Beefheart fans like to produce should have a look.

Interview snippets from the recent marathon Beefheart broadcast on Australian radio can be heard at The Triple J Site, along with a full playlist from the evening's entertainment (thanks to Ben Horrendous for the tip off).

Finally, Monday's chat session was such a blast that we've all decided to make it a weekly occurrence. If you fancy chewing the fat (vegetable fat, naturally) with other members of the Beefheart community, aim to meet up in the Radar Station chat room from 8.30pm GMT every Monday. Of course, the chat room will still be there for you to use at all other times, but you are most likely to find other people in it during these Monday sessions.

Many thanks to those of you who have sent articles / lyrics and tabs in over the last few weeks. I'm currently working full tilt on Clicks and Klangs' Faust extravaganza which will be available at the end of the month. As soon as that is out of the way I'll get up to date with the Radar Station (promise).

See you Monday evening.

Firstly, a very happy New Year to all Radar Station visitors, hope you enjoyed your Christmas break if you had one. I'm back at work again tomorrow after a full two weeks off and the prospect is pretty grim.

On Monday 15th January Don Van Vliet will be 60 years old. To celebrate this event, we're going to have a virtual party, kind of. At 8pm GMT gather in the Radar Station chat room with cakes, jellies and party hats for a casual chat session with other Beefheart fans, Radar Station visitors and Fire Party members. If you can't make it specifically at 8pm GMT, feel free to pop by at any other time that day.

Benjamin Horrendous has made a birthday tribute page at his web site complete with a competition, with the winners being announced in the Radar Station chat room during the party.

You can now order an import pressing (presumably the same Japanese pressing that you've all been ordering like crazy) of Lick My Decals Off Baby from Amazon.com for around $30 US. It's a high price, but if you haven't got it and can't wait for the eventual reissue (whenever it finally comes) then it's well worth it. As ever, all purchases made after following a link to Amazon from this site bring the Radar Station a small amount of commission at no extra cost to you.

Trout Mask Replica is due for a limited edition audiophile vinyl reissue, probably in February. I'll keep you posted with more info as and when I get it. Most of my information comes from Paul at Diverse Vinyl, so you could keep an eye on his site for news about this as well.

Also out in February will be a book of classic interviews by the journalist Kristine McKenna, one of which is with Don. The selection of artists featured are certain to appeal to many Beefheart fans, as will the quality of her writing and interview style. The book is entitled Book Of Changes and is published by Fantagraphics. As a bonus / preview Fantagraphics will be featuring one interview a week from the book on their web site, and Don's interview is due up on 13th July 2001. This may be ages away but I'm sure you would enjoy a look at all the interviews that will be appearing between now and then. Besides, the schedule has already gone slightly awry so keep an eye out.

For more information, the schedule of interviews appearing on the Internet, and the link to the interview of the week, see Fantagraphics' web site.

Gary Lucas will be playing in London on January 12th at the Borderline which is probably not to be missed (though sadly I can't make it). Gary has been getting such good reviews recently and releasing such strong material, that this is probably the perfect time to see him.

Finally, Beefheart continues to invade the mainstream (ever so slowly) and last month he made an appearance in the Washington (DC) Post in Patrick O'Donnel's weekly cartoon strip 'Mutts'. The dialogue in the strip consisted of quotes from Trout Mask Replica and was a very bizarre sight in such a setting - the Sunday funnies in a national newspaper. Many thanks indeed to everyone who e-mailed me about this - if anyone is able to send along a clean scan of the whole cartoon I'll stick it on site. Cheers.

Hope to see you in the chat room on the 15th for Don's Birthday Party!

The lack of updates at the Radar Station over the last month or so hasn't just been because I've been blighted by a cursed day-job which has eaten up much of my time, but also because it's been surprisingly quiet in Beefheartland. I do however, have some snippets of news to pass on:

Two new Gary Lucas albums are now either available or on the way: Level The Playing Field - Early Hurlyburly 1988 - 1994 (12th December) and Street Of Lost Brothers (now available) are both fine examples of Gary's superb guitar style. Street Of Lost Brothers, a new mostly-studio album, includes Gary's unique takes on Ride Of The Valkyries and Velvet Underground's European Sun, hard as it may be to imagine those two sitting together on the same CD! I'm hoping that my other site, Clicks and Klangs will soon feature an interview with Gary along with reviews for these two albums, but I'll let you know if / when that happens.

Gary's also been on tour recently and you can watch a short video interview and live snippets at the BBC Radio 3 web site. Keep an eye on garylucas.com for more news.

Animal World Recordings will soon be putting out a Beefheart tribute CD entitled "Neon Meate Dream of a Octafish" featuring Mike Watt, Jad Fair, Weasel Walter, Don Fleming, Bright, Old Time Relijun, Om Myth, Monotract, Ortho, Brian McMahon of the Electric Eels, Moy, 25 Suaves, Warm Palindrome, Dapper (featuring Thurston Moore) and much more. As soon as I get any more news about this promising project I'll let you know.

You can also read an interview with PJ Harvey at Music365.com in which she says the following about Don:

We talk a lot on the phone and no conversation with Don lasts less than an hour or two. He's very excited about his latest drawings and he’s very well and strong. I send him everything I record and he hated the demos for this album. He thought I’d gone soft, I think. Then I sent him the finished album and he said he really loved it. He plays me records down the phone. One day he said 'you've got to hear this, this is a great singer'. And then he played 'The Sky Lit Up' from my last album. I was really embarrassed, but him doing that really meant something. When I'm struggling with anything and I feel people aren't getting what I'm doing, he's the one I ring.

So, according to Polly, Don is "well and strong". I assume, from everything else I have read or heard about Don's health, that she is speaking in relatives ratherthan absolutes. Whatever she means, it's still good to hear. Many thanks to Steve Griff for tipping me off about this interview.

Graeme Baty has sent along the beginning of some guitar tabs for Veteran's Day Poppy, Kandy Korn and Diddy Wah Diddy and would like help finishing them off if anyone has any ideas. You can download all of them here, and the file includes his contact details as well.

That's it for now. Do keep the news coming and I'll carry on getting it on line. I still haven't got the guest book and message boards automated, but hope to do so very soon. That way you'll still have new items to read and will be able to get your Beefheart related news online immediately without having to wait for me to get around to it. Cheers!

Monthly updates? You probably thought I'd given up on the Radar Station. I've actually been having severe computer problems which have largely stopped me getting anything done on it.

Having sorted that problem out, I've got a splendid extra fast ADSL Internet connection and have since noticed just how slow the Radar Station can be at times. This slowness is related to the bandwidth problems which the site has been having. It's since had a cap put on the amount of traffic it can handle which will reduce everything to a crawl during busy times, though visitors with slower connection speeds shouldn't notice a change. Unfortunately there is nothing I can do about this at all, so we'll just have to live with it for now.

My other site, Clicks and Klangs has an extract from Mike Barnes' excellent Captain Beefheart biography on it. Pulled By Rubber Dolphins is the chapter looking at Beefheart's return to form with the recording of Bat Chain Puller and all the events that surrounded it. Hope you enjoy it if you haven't already read the book.

There is also a competition in the current issue of Clicks and Klangs to win five copies of the book. The closing date was meant to be tomorrow, but since I hadn't had the chance to let Radar Station visitors know about it I've extended it to the 21st November.

The three vinyl reissues mentioned in the last update (Spotlight Kid, Lick My Decals Off Baby and Clear Spot) are all now available, please see the vinyl news page for information about these and other audiophile Beefheart releases.

Paul Brown, editor of the excellent Beefheart fanzine Steal Softly Thru Snow is at last back on line and has a new e-mail address. If you have anything to contribute to SSTS, or would like any information please drop him a line at paulb251@ic24.net The next issue is nearly on its way and I'll let you know more information as soon as it is available.

Stephen Kroninger has kindly sent along a pristine scan of his flyer from a New York gig on the Doc at the Radar Station tour. He's also got a poster from the same tour which he has promised to find, scan and send along when he feels "inspired". Hopefully this brief mention will inspire him! Cheers, Stephen.

I've made numerous other background updates to the site over the last month, mainly in the discography, but nothing spectacular to draw your attention to. If you are able to fill in any missing information or correct any errors, especially in the discography section, please do let me know. Cheers.

Daily updates? That hasn't happened for a while!

New up today is something very unexpected, and also just a little strange. It's none other that Don's high school graduation photograph! I kid you not. The man who claimed to have attended only half a day of kindergarten is pictured here clean cut in cap and gown.

It is possible, however, that this is not as it seems. One person who I spoke to about this who was at school with both Don and Frank Zappa is under the impression that he may well have dropped out after all, but managed to wangle having this photograph taken as a joke, and it somehow ended up in the school year book. This is all pure speculation, however, and I have no idea what the true story is. Really, your guess is as good as mine.

I've also added some long overdue information to the discography about Gary Lucas' career retrospective Improve The Shining Hour, which, quite apart from featuring three Beefheart tunes, well worth giving some attention to.

New vinyl reissues on the cards, from Scorpio Records - the same company who recently reissued The Spotlight Kid, are Clear Spot and Lick My Decals Off Baby. Since the latter has been completely unavailable for some years on either vinyl or CD I suspect this will be a sought after release. I've got the beginnings of a vinyl reissue news page up and hope to bring you more info about these as it becomes available. All will be orderable, as usual, from Diverse Vinyl.

I'm now back home, a few days later than expected. Unfortunately my Psion modem decided to completely pack up so I couldn't read or reply to any of your e-mail while I was away. If you've written to me recently I'll get back to you as soon as I can.

The new live Beefheart release from Rhino Handmade, I'm Going To Do What I Wanna Do: Live At My Father's Place arrived while I was away, so I've added some sleeve scans and a review to its page in the discography. If you haven't ordered it yet, I would advise that you do, it's a cracker.

Spencer from Past & Present Records wrote to let me know that their recent audiophile vinyl release of Ice Cream For Crow has now sold out. Since vinyl reissues are becoming more and more frequent, I'm hoping to piece together a specific page to carry news about these items - coming soon. In the meantime you can still read some old information about these releases.

John Atwell has very kindly sent along some lyrics to add to the archive. Sheriff of Hong Kong, Clear Spot and Circumstances are new up and he also sent along a corrected transcript for Nowadays A Woman's Gotta Hit A Man. Many thanks, John.

Many of you have written to me to ask that I send you an e-mail when the rare music archive goes back on line. I doubt I will be able to do this as time and memory are both in short supply. Any news about the restoration of the audio files will appear here in due course.

My first priority is actually the streaming audio interviews rather than the rare and unreleased mp3s since I think these are a much greater asset for the site. Rare Beefheart can be found floating round at Napster, however the audio interviews are not so easily available elsewhere. I'm hoping that the first audio interviews will start coming back on line over the next few days. I'm still in need of more server space, so if you have any to spare please do let me know.

Finally for now, the Radar Station has received another review in The Wire in a feature on the Internet's 200 'essential' websites. I was very pleased to see this site described as 'a model fan site', despite the recent problems with bandwidth and the million other things that need sorting out here. You can read what they have to say at the bottom of the Golden Birdies page, the collection of press cuttings about this site.

It seems that the removal of all the mp3s has been enough to stop the server from going down. Even without them there is still a phenomenal amount of data being transferred each day from the Radar Station, but everything is working perfectly so there are absolutely no worries about that. Now I have to begin work relocating the mp3s and videos which will take a little time but they will be back!

You may recall than The Fourfathers, and excellent band who perform half Beefheart covers and half their own material were playing in the UK a little while back. A recording of the gig is now available and anyone interested to head towards Benjamin Horrendous' website for more info.

I've had an e-mail from Paul at Diverse Vinyl to let me know that they have the new 180gm audiophile vinyl version of The Spotlight Kid released by Scorpio Records. He's also still hoping that Grow Fins vinyl vol. 3 will very soon be making an appearance.

This month's Wire has an advert on p.9 for all three vinyl volumes of Grow Fins with the words "available from Cargo UK", however this appears to be a little premature. The advert doesn't feature any cover art, merely blank spaces which suggests to me that they weren't available when the advert was placed, and still appear not to be. If there have been any sightings out there, please do let me know.

I received an e-mail from Jo Billen about a Beefheart bootleg that I hadn't otherwise heard of. Jo writes:

"There is an Italian bootleg LP on Napoleon records called "and that's how they were born". (red sleeve with white text) It's a bootleg with on the A-side live Beatles stuff and on the B-side Beefheart's legendary A&M sessions. Probably impossible to find in the USA. Real Italian Mafia recordings !!! "

Does anyone have any more info about this? Cheers Jo.

A few people have been in touch because they have been sent messages informing them that Captain Beefheart is to start playing live again and will be appearing in Portland, Oregon. I'm afraid this is a hoax and no such event will be taking place. Sorry folks.

Winston Finlayson has sent along some info about an old release of Lick My Decals Off Baby that I hadn't previously listed in the discography so that has now been updated, many thanks Winston.

The BozBoz has sent along another one of his tabs, this time for the song Electricity which you can find in the music info archive. Many thanks to The BozBoz for this, and apparently there are still more to come. If you have any comments or suggestions about his transcriptions please do drop him a line.

The film Blue Collar is on UK television again this weekend, complete with its 'lewd' version of Beefheart's 'Hard Workin' Man'. However, not wishing to sound like a schoolboy who hasn't done his homework, I don't have the times to hand as the cat threw up on my newspaper last night and I threw it away before I'd noted the time or day. If you're interested, check your TV guides. The cat's fine, by the way, just in case you were worried.

That's about it for now. I'm going away for 8 days but will still be contactable by e-mail at the usual addresses while I'm away. Many thanks to everyone who has been in touch offering small amounts of web space for mp3s and videos, this is very much appreciated. Thanks to your support I'll be able to make a start getting these files back online once I return. If anyone else has any web space going free please do let me know. Cheers!

Since things are still moving at a crawl, I've removed the remaining few mp3s in an attempt to conserve some bandwidth. Even more regrettable, the audio interviews have had to be suspended for the time being as well.

I am truly sorry to anyone who was in the middle of downloading anything and hope to make all the files available again in the very near future. As soon as I know anything I'll let you know.

It seems the site has been a victim of its own popularity, which is probably better than being ignored into oblivion. Dave who runs the server that everything is hosted on has assured me that the pages, text and graphics that are up here are not causing a problem, merely the larger files, so please don't worry about the remainder of the site as it isn't going anywhere. What's recently gone will soon be back.

Hopefully someday soon I'll be getting something new up here instead of just taking things away! Many thanks for your support.

If it is any consolation, the new issue of Clicks and Klangs is now available.

Unfortunately, I've had to temporarily remove the vast majority of the rare and unreleased tunes available to download from the Radar Station due to the strain they were putting on the server. As soon as I can find a new home for them, the pages and files will be back up again, so don't despair if you hadn't yet downloaded something you wanted.

If any visitors have some server space and bandwidth that they would like to make available for these files, please do get in touch. Cheers.

There has been a crisis at the Radar Station over the last week or two due to a severe and sudden bandwidth shortage at the server. Everything has slowed right down to a crawl due to an unannounced reduction in bandwidth available for the small company that hosts beefheart.com (not their fault at all).

The strain that the Radar Station has put on the server has hindered its ability to host numerous sites, not just this one, so it is essential that I take steps to reduce the enormous amount of information downloaded from this site (an average of two gigabytes per day!)

Fortunately the hosts are extremely sympathetic to this site and are hoping that we will be able to get things back up to speed without having to remove any of the information. One way of doing this is to try to reduce the number of 'accidental visitors' - a look at the site stats reveals that the second most popular search term that brings visitors here after 'captain beefheart' is 'corn' (spelled with a 'k'). The most frequently downloaded live tune is Kandy Corn (also spelled with a 'k'), presumably by fans of the rock band Corn (yet again, spelled with a 'k'). In changing the spelling to a 'c' I'm hoping that this will reduce some of the unintended visitors and thus prevent this wasted bandwidth.

There are other things I can do to try to keep the amount downloaded to a minimum, and files will only be removed as a very last resort. Hopefully this won't happen at all. Consequently I'm very busy with smoothing the site out at the moment and haven't been able to get any new updates up here for a while.

I should, however, point out that there is a very pleasing new book of photographs by Rudy Vanderlans entitled Cucamonga which features pictures of the areas in which Don Van Vliet grew up, became Captain Beefheart and, with the Magic Band, realised Trout Mask Replica. Although it contains no pictures of the Magic Band whatsoever, it is an excellent and fascinating collection which demonstrates the unusualness of the environment in which this unusual music was created. There is even a CD featuring some new music by Gary Lucas, John French and Bill Harkleroad, and field recordings made recently around the Trout House at Woodland Hills. It's a beautifully presented book which I'd recommend to any collector of Beefheart-related material. You can order it at Amazon.com.

I'll be featuring more info about this, and including the numerous items sent to me over the last few weeks just as soon as the server problems are sorted out. Sincere apologies for any inconvenience caused, hopefully things will be running on greased grooves again very soon.

Raymond Ricker has spotted an interview with Art Tripp at the Sun Herald in which our one-time Ed Marimba speaks about his move from music to chiropractic and his geographical move down South to escape from 'liberal' Californian ways and 'oppressive' political correctness, stating, "Out there, men and women don't know what they're supposed to do. Everybody's offended about something."

Hmmm.... ok.

The improved Original Bat Chain Puller tunes are now complete and available to download from the rare music and video archive. Thankyou to David Merline for encoding and sending these files. Also to Henry Kaiser for pointing out that the additional tunes available to download from this page are actually Shiny Beast demos, and not BCP outtakes as I had previously listed.

An excellent Beefheart tribute band, The Fourfathers, will be playing a few gigs over the next couple of weeks in Sussex (South UK). I had the opportunity to see them last summer and was thrilled by their performance which almost-seamlessly mixes classic Beefheart with their own original tunes. If you are in or near Sussex, it would be well worth your while to get along to at least one of these dates if you can:

• Sun. August 20th - Six Bells, Chiddingly, East Sussex - that's this Sunday!
• Mon. August 21st - Rose & Crown, Burwash, East Sussex
• Sun. August 27th - Kings Head, East Hoathly, East Sussex

It is likely that a few Fire Party members will be at the gigs so you should be in good company. Unfortunately for me I won't be able to make it this year which is my loss entirely. For further information, contact details and some sound clips, visit Benjamin Horrendous' website.

Gary Lucas has kindly sent along some corrections to the line-up listed for the Merseytrout live album. Gary has also recently sat in with the Zappa tribute band Project Object in New York, performing a few of Gary's songs and a version of Flavor Bud Living. Keep an eye on Gary's site for more information about his activities. Many thanks to 'VEI' for sending along details about this.

Anyone who hasn't yet ordered and read Mike Barnes' new Beefheart biography can read the chapter dealing with Trout Mask Replica in the new issue of the excellent Perfect Sound Forever. [If anyone at Quartet happens to be reading this, could you send me the extract that we agreed upon please? Otherwise I can't put it online. Cheers.]

Jim Neher has sent along some information for the discography regarding sound quality on certain releases of Safe As Milk and Strictly Personal. If anyone else has any details which they think I should include in the discography then please do send them along, with a scan wherever possible.

Finally, thankyou to Tom Rodwell for giving the Radar Station a big plug in the New Zealand Hi-fi magazine, Tone. You can see what he said about the site at the bottom of the Golden Birdies page which contains a few press reviews of the Radar Station.

Sorry for the lack of activity over the last couple of weeks but I've been busy assembling my new site which is now up and running at www.clicks-and-klangs.com, at long last. This doesn't mean that the Radar Station will be swept to one side, it just may get a little quiet here once a month when I'm putting a new issue together, though hopefully not as quiet as it has been.

The first issue contains my lengthy article about gender and the avant garde which focuses on Captain Beefheart's attempts to attract women into his audience. I hope you enjoy it. If you have any comments or criticisms about either this article or the site in general, please do pass them on.

New up at the Radar Station today are a couple of extra Bat Chain Puller mp3s (new and improved on the old ones) in the rare music and video archive. A few of you have written to me to point out that "A Carrot Is As Close..." and "Flavor Bud Living" had been incorrectly labelled and needed to be swapped around (many thanks for pointing out this slip). If you've already downloaded either of them, swap the titles over.

Also, Chris Perry has sent along some scans of his slightly unusual copies of Safe As Milk and Mirror Man which I've added to the discography, many thanks to Chris for his info.

Anyone who has enjoyed Charlie Gee's story about his meeting with Beefheart may want to read the sequel which is now up at Benjamin Horrendous' site.

This Saturday, Zoot Horn Rollo makes an appearance on BBC Radio 2, which non-UK residents will be able to hear from the BBC Radio 2 website. The programme, which begins at 8pm BST, is a look at the history of Chess Records. The Radio 2 schedules say the following:

The Chess Story - The first of two programmes tracing the story Chess Records and its crucial contribution to the evolution of rock 'n' roll. Founded by brothers Leonard and Phil Chess, the label electrified the blues and inspired a generation of British musicians. Narrated by Leonard's son Marshall Chess, with contributions from Bill Wyman, Sam Phillips, guitarist Zoot Horn Rollo, Van Morrison, Jon Mayall, Jeff Beck and Jack Bruce.

Many thanks to eagle-eyed Philip Cowdry for pointing this out.

As many of you have possibly already heard, Rhino Handmade are to release a Captain Beefheart live album entitled I'm Going To Do What I Wanna Do: Live At My Father's Place 1978. This will be a numbered limited edition of 5,000 copies and will only be available from the Rhino Handmade website, with orders commencing at 12 Noon (Pacific) on Monday 17th July (that's tomorrow).

I have a few Rhino Handmade releases, often lavish affairs, and they are certainly worth getting hold of. Particularly this classic gig which has been long available in bootleg form, albeit at slightly the wrong speed. It will be great to hear it properly at last.

You can read all about it at the new information page in the discography. Many thanks to everyone who e-mailed me with information about this.

Also up today is a streaming audio file of a radio interview and phone in from 1987, broadcast by Rado KCRW in Santa Monica. Kristine McKenna hosts this occasionally bizarre 'post music-biz retirement' talk session - I say bizarre due to the peculiarities of some of the listeners rather than anything Don says or does. Many thanks indeed to Steve Froy for the loan of his tapes (which I will be returning safely very soon). You can find the file with the growing selection of audio interviews in the miscellaneous biographical items section. Hope you enjoy it.

I've recently had an e-mail from Mike Barnes to let me know that he now has his own website featuring information about his excellent Captain Beefheart biography. Why not pay him a visit?

Diverse Vinyl have dropped me a line about the vinyl reissues which they are stocking:

I am pleased to announce that the final two titles of the Past and Present Beefheart reissues have just arrived - Doc At The Radar Station and Unconditionally Guaranteed. Ice Cream For Crow is temporarily out of stock, but we are scouring the country for more copies! Blue Jeans and Moonbeams is now back in stock in a very limited quantity, so if you missed that one then I would advise you get in touch straight away.

Yesterday should have brought a new edition of the radio show, however having lovingly pieced it together I discovered that my amp appears to have gone awry and had rendered the whole thing unlistenable. I should be able to get it fixed tomorrow, but that means no new radio show.

This is a shame as this was to have been the last edition of the radio show beamed out from beefheart.com. As of next week, the show will move to my new website, clicks-and-klangs.com and will enjoy a full license, enabling me to spread the word about it more effectively. Clicks-and-klangs.com is a new online underground music magazine, and seems a more appropriate host for the radio show. Visit the new site on Thursday (amp permitting) for the first ever edition of the radio show. First issue of the zine will be available after 1st August. Any lucid contributions will be very gratefully received - see the site for more info.

The slot here at the Radar Station will host an occasional broadcast of music compiled by Beefheart fans for Beefheart fans. If you are interested in having your own selection featured, drop me a line.

There is a Beefheart film night occurring in Auckland, New Zealand on Friday 28th July at 8pm. Admission is $5 and the venue is Beautiful Music, 1st Floor, 300 K'rd. For more details, contact Tom Rodwell who says:

We will show every scrap of Beefheart-related film we can get our hands on. An indulgent evening for the obsessive Beefheart completist in all of us.

There was a very positive review for Mike Barnes' new Beefheart book (which incidentally is out now in the UK) in yesterday's Independent newspaper which is available on their website. Please note that the numerous errors in this review were not taken from the book but were of the reviewer's own invention!

Chris Wojtecki has very kindly sent along some splendid scans of his Diddy Wah Diddy EP which have been added to the 7" and 12" single and EP releases page of the discography. This also prompted me to finally shift the information about CD releases from its own page and onto the relevant album pages. Hope this makes things clearer. If anyone can correct or update any information, or provide rare label scans I'd be very happy to hear from you.

In April 1975 Frank Zappa, Don Van Vliet and George Duke gave a lecture to a class of students at Gifford Auditorium, Syracuse. While it's hard to believe that this strange event really hapenned, you can now listen to the evidence with the collection of audio interviews in the miscellaneous biographical items section. Many thanks to Steve Froy for very kindly lending me his tapes.

Also, two more of the improved Original Bat Chain Puller mp3s are now available in the rare music and video archive.

At last, two days later than promised, Benjamin Horrendous guest DJ slot for the Tromblown Orchestra Radio Experiment is finally available. I hope you enjoy Ben's choice of music and many thanks to him for his time and effort.

I've added some information to the discography about the new Merseytrout - Live In Liverpool CD which is commonly being listed simply as Live 1980.

David Merline is currently in the process of encoding and sending along vastly improved versions of the Original Bat Chain Puller mp3s. Although we both used a similar quality source, my mp3s of these tunes were quite flawed whereas his sound fantastic. Three improved tunes are already up with the rest to come over the coming weeks. Many thanks to David.

A couple of new reviews for Mike Barnes' Beefheart biography have materialised. The first, from The Wire gives it a well deserved thumbs up, while the second from the Observer is a deliberately misleading piece of obscenely lazy journalism, and I've included it here merely to let my absolute contempt for the writer be known. Don't miss it!

The Wire magazine is currently offering its subscribers the chance to purchase a signed copy for the discounted price of £10 UK Sterling. Full details about subscribing can be found at their website at www.thewire.co.uk. It's worth taking the plunge even without the special offer.

Finally for today, I've included a copy of Quartet Books' advertisement for the biography which has flattered me greatly by including a quote from the Radar Station's review of the book.

No actual update today, just a note to let you know that I'll be away again until Saturday 1st July when you can hear Benjamin Horrendous' special edition of the radio show. I will be contactable by e-mail in my absence, however.

I'd also like to remind you that Grow Fins Vol. 1 on vinyl should now be available again for a short while, so if you missed it the first time, this is your chance. Read all about it at the info page.

I've just got back from this year's Glastonbury Festival and had one of the best times I've ever had there, despite my reservations about the weather, the line up and nagging doubts that I may be getting too old for this kind of thing. In the end the sun shone, the drink flowed, I danced my pants off and am currently gagging for more. Musical highlights included Eat Static, The Wailers, Reprazent, Terry Callier and Eric Truffaz, not to mention a mountain of great stuff that I never caught the name of and far too many acts that I really wanted to see but couldn't make it along to such as Gil Scott Heron and Badly Drawn Boy. Normal service at the Radar Station will be resumed as soon as I come back down to Earth.

A new edition of the radio show is available now, and the next show which will be appearing on 1st July will be a guest slot from Benjamin Horrendous.

This will be the last update for over a week as sense failed to get the better of me and I'm off to the Glastonbury Festival yet again this week despite the forecasts of thunder, wind, rain and mud, and the line-up which seems like even more of a wash out than the weather. See you next week!

A mammoth update today, folks:

At last I have some (brief) news about the vinyl editions of Grow Fins:

• Volume 3 should be with us in September this year.
• A second pressing of the first volume should be available in about two week's time.

Visitors to the Radar Station's Amazon associated on-line store are now able to order from UK branch of Amazon as well as the USA branch (all orders placed through the Amazon links at this site earn the Radar Station a small amount of commission to help cover costs).

Amazon.co.uk has a few Beefheart items available which are not listed in the US branch, and often at much cheaper prices. You can now place pre-release orders for Mike Barnes' Captain Beefheart biography and order the seemingly semi-legitimate live recordings Live 1980 and Don's Birthday Party.

Does anyone have any information about the legitimacy of either of these last two releases? Don's Birthday Party is currently available in the rare music and video archive, and, if legitimately released, should therefore be removed. Can anyone offer any informed advice? Thankyou, and many thanks to The Bozboz for pointing this out.

I've added some info to both the discography and the FAQ page about the Japanese pressing of Lick My Decals Off Baby which is currently available to order. For full info, please see the FAQ page. Many thanks to Richard Kolke (and others) for sending his comments about his order along.

Perry Amberson has sent along some info about a Safe As Milk release that I didn't previously have listed in the discography (along with a scan of the back sleeve). Many thanks to him; if anyone else notices any omissions, or can add to or correct any of the discography entries already listed, please do let me know.

Clinton E Kirby recently got in touch to let me know about a new Gary Lucas audio interview that he conducted, now available to listen to at the WUSM-Public Radio For South Mississippi web site. The interview contains some discussion about Don and shouldn't be missed. Thanks for the tip-off, Clinton.

George Minton has very kindly encoded and sent along mp3s of the ultra rare Peel Session of Electricity and Beatle Bones 'N Smokin' Stones. The sound quality is fairly poor, but I have never heard better versions. Many thanks indeed to George for plugging this hole in the rare music archive.

Mark Hawling has sent along a corrected version of his guitar tab for A Carrot Is As Close... find it in the tab section of the music info archive.

I've also received a message from Howard Fields who is a dealer specialising in back issues of Rolling Stone magazine. He sent me an impressive list of all the articles on Captain Beefheart from Rolling Stones' history, all of which he currently has available to sell. He also provides a photocopying service for between 4 and 7 US dollars. Any collectors interested may want to check out his site, Rock Paper.

Many thanks to those of you who responded offering to help with the automation of the guestbook and message board, much appreciated (though I'm still yet to contact those who kindly offered their services). Hopefully this facility will be available very soon.

Yet again, apologies for the delay in answering your messages. I'm still working my way through the backlog caused by the drain on my time that was the end of my degree course. I've set up an automated response to everyone who e-mails me explaining that I can't necessarily answer all my e-mails any more, though I assure you that I do read every one of them and enjoy doing so. If your message requires a response I will get back to you ASAP, otherwise I may not be able to reply (but will try to do so). Don't be put off getting in touch as it is extremely useful to receive your encouragement, criticisms, suggestions, information, insults and simple hellos.

That's it for now, and it's barely made a dent in the backlog. More very soon. Many thanks to everyone who has sent information along that hasn't yet appeared on site. It's on its way, I promise!

Finally for today, a side issue:

I'm currently working on a new web site which will cover a wide variety of adventurous music and will feature all original content. You can view a preview of the site at www.clicks-and-klangs.com to see what it is all about, but please bear in mind that this is a work in progress (no actual content as yet and many areas of the design need improving) and is not yet configured for a range of browsers (so it may look a bit odd at first).

It will be an on-line monthly magazine and the first issue will be arriving at the end of July. The Radar Station's web-radio show will move to the new site (though the format will remain more or less identical) and new regular shows will be available as well as my own. This first issue will contain (amongst many other things) the result of my year researching the relationships between gender, Captain Beefheart and the avant garde.

If you are at all interested in helping out with clicks-and-klangs.com in any way at all then please do get in touch. Any lucid writers interested in producing quality reviews, interviews, articles or other features for the site would be very welcome to join the team.

Phew, good-day to you all.

After spending every spare moment reading the soon to be published Beefheart biography form Mike Barnes, my review is now written and on-line.

I've updated the message board with a few more offers and pleas and am currently working on updating the guest book with your recent comments. If you have a message listed which is out of date, please let me know and I'll remove or update it for you.

I want to automate the posting of messages to the guest book and message board so that I no longer have to spend these marathon sessions adding your comments, and you don't have to wait for me to get around to doing so before your messages appear. If anyone has any experience of producing the necessary code, please do get in touch as I would greatly appreciate some help and advice.

I've received a mail-out from Key Mail Order informing me that they now have the Beefheart live album Live 1980 in stock and ready for order for £11.99 plus p&p. Send them an e-mail or telephone on +44 208 770 0300 for more details.

Jim Morse has written an overview of the bootleg album What's All This Booga Booga Music? which you can find in the discography.

Photographer Rik Walton has kindly given permission to the Radar Station to reproduce thumbnails of his photographs of Captain Beefheart circa 1974. He is offering prints of these photographs for sale, and you can find full information about this on his web site Rik has a few more shots of Beefheart other than the three featured here and I hope to be able to include these as well in the near future.

The Mike Barnes interview recently broadcast on BBC Radio 2's Jools Holland show, in which Mike talks about his soon-to-be-published Beefheart biography is now available to stream. Mike's comments about the book have also been updated, see the info page for details of both these items.

Rick Snyder has very kindly sent along a striking promotional shot of the revitalised Magic Band taken for Discreet Records in 1975.

The 'Booglarized By Beefheart' section of Filtered Thru Dust Speakers has a new tune to download. Kindly sent along by Josh Price, this is a cracking version of Orange Claw Hammer recorded live with Zappa and band on the Bongo Fury tour in 1975. Sound quality is a little distorted and murky but still very much worth the download.

Mark Hawling has sent along his transcription of A Carrot Is As Close As A Rabbit Gets To A Diamond which you can find in the guitar tab section of the music info archive, along with a new one from the BozBoz (who now appears to go by the name Spackhandy Chopchubes!) this being the first part of Big Eyed Beans From Venus. Part two to follow, many thanks to both Mark and Spackhandy / BozBoz for these.

A proof copy of Mike Barnes' biography Captain Beefheart has just flopped through my letterbox this morning. So far I've had a good flick through it and am extremely impressed. I'll be posting my review and much more information in the very near future. The book is certainly not to be missed! See the updated info page for more details.

Don Trubey has very kindly scanned and sent along an article / interview with Don Van Vliet from Trouser Press, 1979, entitled This Is Your Captain Speaking. The introductory article mostly retells the inaccurate 'Beefheart legend', but the interview is well worth a look. Don covers topics such as Shaun Cassidly, not sleeping, and his book-writing habits. Many thanks indeed to Don Trubey (who has his own web site) for his time and effort.

Carlton B. Morgan sent along a small clip from the first issue of Sniffin' Glue about Diddy Wah Diddy which you can find on the Legendary A&M Sessions page in the discography. Thankyou, Carlton.

Phil Plencner dropped me a line a short while ago to point out that there is a new Gary Lucas interview available at guitar.com which you may be interested in reading. Cheers for the tip-off, Phil.

You may recall that I mentioned ages ago that Detlef Juergens had very kindly sent along numerous paintings by Don Van Vliet which I didn't have up in the archive. At last I can resume uploading these scans to the Radar Station and new up today are Cholla from 1987 and Ghost Lemon from 1991. Thanks again to Detlef for sending these along (plenty more to come), and don't forget to have a good look at his Beefheart timeline, the best on-line chronicle of the Magic Band's musical career.

There is still so much for me to catch up on here at the Radar Station, many thanks for your patience.

I've just recently discovered that the server hosting beefheart.com keeps a continuously updated statistical analysis of the log files, so you can see accurately what kind of traffic the Radar Station is getting (select a particular month to get detailed information, should you wish to). In the list of rankings you can see that beefheart.com is almost twice as popular as new-labour.com. That's something that the official polls don't tell us ;o)

Moris Tepper (ex-Magic Band) has a new solo album out called Moth To Mouth which is only available through his web site at www.candlebone.com. This album contains a very brief snippet of a recent telephone conversation with Don Van Vliet on the track Frankenstein's Daughter - effectively Don's first recording since the 1994 poetry CD. Click the cover sleeve at his web site to find audio snippets, including a complete mp3 of the DVV song (do bear in mind that it is a tiny sample of Don!).

Finally, I'm after some help with the Radar Station. While I don't have quite the same amount of time available that I had as a student, I very much want to keep the Radar Station going at full steam, hopefully improving on past performance. If you would like to join a small team of article scanners / review writers / information gatherers then please drop me a line detailing what you would like to do in particular to help out.

The Radar Station's longest silence ever is now over. All my coursework is complete and I've been enjoying not having to spend about 10 hours a day sat at my computer getting everything written up. Again, thanks for your good luck messages, much appreciated.

I haven't been able to make a start at working my way through the two-and-a-half month backlog of mail just yet but hope to try to get everything up to date again over the next couple of weeks.

The radio show makes its return today, hope you enjoy it. The next edition will feature a 'guest DJ' slot from Bob DeBorculo, many thanks to Bob for his effort.

Finally for today, I've just received a date of publication for Mike Barnes' long awaited Beefheart biography, Captain Beefheart, which is set for 10th July. More information coming very soon.

Many thanks to everyone who has sent along good wishes regarding my dissertations. I now have two weeks left to get everything finished off and am heartily sick of it all, but things are going well. As some of you may recall, one of my courses is focusing on gender and the avant garde, specifically looking at why so few women are interested or involved in experimental music, using none other than Captain Beefheart as a case study. I'm currently putting the finishing touches to it at the moment and I hope to put it up here at some point in the near future.

Not only have I not done anything at the Radar Station for three weeks, I also haven't been able to answer any of your mail. Sincere apologies if you've written and haven't had a reply, I shall get back to you as soon as I can.

A lot has been happening recently which I hope to summarise briefly here, though I'm bound to have forgotten something.

There is a new Gary Lucas album out now called Improve The Shining Hour which is a retrospective of Gary's musical career so far. While this is certainly worth listening to for many other reasons, Radar Station visitors shouldn't go without hearing the three live/rare Beefheart tunes on this collection. You can find full information and samples at Gary's web site and can order the album and listen to other samples at Amazon.

Irwin Chusid's new book looking at 'outsider musicians' Songs In The Key Of Z is out now and features a chapter about the Captain. In fact, it even refers to the Radar Station's Beefheart discussion list, the Fire Party. You can read all about it at the info page and can order it at Amazon. There is also a CD available featuring artists covered in the book, including Captain Beefheart's Vampire Suite, again available at Amazon.

Anton Corbijn has at long last released his illuminating and charming short film Some Yo Yo Stuff on video. This is a highly recommended glimpse into the world of Don Van Vliet circa 1994 and is absolutely not to be missed. The State home page is the only place where you can order it at the moment. Have a look at a few coloured stills from the black and white film while you are waiting for the video to arrive.

Mike Barnes' Beefheart biography, called (rather aptly, I feel) Captain Beefheart, should be with us very soon (no date set as yet). The author will be appearing on Monday 8th May's Jools Holland BBC Radio 2 show at 8.30 pm (BST) chatting about Beefheart and his book and also playing a few records. The BBC Radio 2 web site webcasts some of its programmes in RealAudio, and although I'm unsure whether this show will go out on the Internet, it's always worth a try.

I've received an e-mail from the company currently selling a Japanese CD pressing of Lick My Decals Off Baby who asked me to let you all know that they will be receiving more copies of this lost treasure very soon (probably available now). Their web site is moving as of 1st May (tomorrow) to www.musicselection.com so head along there for what appears to be the only current source for Beefheart's finest hour. I've had numerous positive e-mails from those of you who have ordered and received their copies, many thanks for the feedback.

The series of John French's answers to your questions for his book is still on its way, though I won't be able to get anything up here until after my deadlines. Sorry for the delay, but it's worth waiting for.

Finally, time for a little 'misplaced ego-tripping' - this month's Select magazine has featured a small but satisfying plug for the Radar Station in its guide to music on the web. You can see what they said on the page of press cuttings about the site, Golden Birdies.

That's all for now, many thanks for your patience with the abysmally slow updates at the moment. I hope to bring you more information about all these snippets in the near future. Normal service will be resumed as soon as I get my life back again (not long now).

It's been very quiet here recently, hasn't it? It seems that I haven't been able to keep to my promise to update the site once a week and put out an edition of the radio show once a fortnight. As you may already know, I am a mature student rapidly approaching graduation and am currently battling to get everything done before my deadline on 15th May.

I think it is probably best if I decide now to put the radio show completely on hold until after my deadline. To take its place until I start doing things properly again, I've uploaded a streaming audio file of a marvellous Magic Band show recorded on 5th January 1973 at The Troubadour, LA.

Don't think that there won't be any new updates up here for the next month, however, as I have something very exciting to announce which will be beaming out from the Radar Station in the very near future. So many of you have sent probing and helpful questions and suggestions to John French / Drumbo for his book. A lot of the questions have had very specific parts to them which would be tricky to incorporate into the context of the book. Rather than discard them John has decided to answer these questions and publish them exclusively here at the Radar Station.

I've read the first draft of his answers and, needless to say, it is fascinating and frequently moving stuff. These notes offer us a genuinely candid glimpse into John French's often painful experiences as a member of the Magic Band and are a pleasing and compulsive read, if occasionally unsettling.

The first instalment is coming soon....

For the third update running, the Radar Station has another exclusive, this time John French's response to Angel's photographs of the Woodland Hills house where he and the rest of the Magic Band lived and rehearsed Trout Mask Replica. Don't forget that you can still contact John via the Radar Station if you have any questions or suggestions for the book that he is currently writing about the Magic Band - see the info page for more details.

Also, I've completed the uploads of the Best Batch Yet boot, hope you enjoy them.

I am very pleased to present a Radar Station exclusive - a brand new interview with Zoot Horn Rollo entitled Prague meeting filé gumbo: an interview with Zoot which can be found in the music info / articles section. It was conducted early this year by Robert Carey and tells us exactly what Bill is up to at the moment, his plans for recording, and how his more conservative friends have finally come to terms with his time in the Magic Band. Many thanks indeed to Robert and Bill for all their efforts. Recommended reading!

Craig Pritchard has very kindly sent along some scans of his copy of Moonchild which I have included on the singles page of the discography, thankyou Craig.

I've recently received a message from James Binless who informed me that you can order two PAL format VHS Beefheart video boots from:

HIGH TIME RECORDS, 7 ASTONWOOD ROAD, BIRKENHEAD, CH42 6PJ, UK Tel: (0151) 644 9000 Fax: (0151) 512 0418

They cost £10 each, and James says he has seen a few clips and they seem good quality. Write or phone for more information. If you do order from them, please let me know what you think of the end result so I can include your verdict here, cheers.

I've added Kandy Korn to the Best Batch Yet downloads in the rare music and video archive.

Finally for today, Leon Lazarus has sent me the following scan of an advertisement in his local newspaper in Melville (a suburb of Johannesburg, South Africa) - has any one else ever seen this brand before? After Abba Zaba bars, Candy Corn candy and Webcore tape recorders, it seems the commercial world is waking up to the vision of Don Van Vliet. Now you can keep your pets happy with a bowl of Captain Beefheart. Yum!

At last, I've edited the Rick Snyder chat-transcript into a readable form, and you can now find it in the music info / articles section. I hope this makes it up to those of you who either couldn't make it along or who couldn't get in the chat room. Many thanks to Rick and everyone who contributed for producing such an entertaining read.

I've included another two of the painting scans sent to me by Detlef Juergens in the gallery. Have a look at One Bent, One Straight and Boat & Locks No.2.

You can also download a few more of the Best Batch Yet tunes from the rare music and video archive, and listen to this fortnight's radio show which is now available.

Apologies to those of you who have written to me recently and not yet received a reply, I will get back to you as soon as I can. I'm still bogged down with university work at the moment, though the scariest hurdle (the oral presentation) has been crossed at last and I appear to have survive it intact. Now I've just got two months to write about 26,000 words...... Many thanks for your good wishes.

This fortnight's radio show is now available.

There is an interview from August 1999 with Zoot Horn Rollo at http://www.morganagren.com/ conducted by Morgan Agren, the drummer from the excellent Music of Captain Beefheart Live tribute CD which I will be adding to the discography very soon. Many thanks to Markus and Haken for the tip-offs.

Anyone interested in Beefheart concert posters may want to have a look at David Faggioli's site which contains numerous scans from his collection. Follow the link to his main page or go directly to the Beefheart page.

Amazon would appear to have found some copies of the Mallard CD which contains their two albums - Mallard and In A Different Climate. I've put my order in and you can now do the same.

Finally, I should say that I currently have a large amount of work to get through as my graduation is impending, so updates will be a little more sparse than usual and I may be slower to answer your messages. This is only a temporary state and things will return to normal here in the near future.

I will still post any news items as soon as I get them, and aim to make an update at least once a week. The only possible change that you might notice is that there will probably be fewer additions to the archives over the next couple of months.

If you have a specific question about Beefheart, please consider checking the FAQs and the rest of the site before you get in touch as this would save me a lot of time, many thanks.

A very brief update today - I've updated the guestbook and added two more Best Batch Yet tunes to download.

Detlef Juergens has very kindly sent me a mountain of images to add to the picture gallery which I will gradually sort through and put on site as time allows. To start with, I've added Last Of A Dying Breed to the gallery of Don's paintings. Many thanks to Detlef for his trouble.