Some time ago Tim Lucas very kindly donated his copy of the original script by Frank Zappa Captain Beefheart Vs. The Grunt People to the Radar Station. At long last I've made a start in getting it all on line. There are over 90 pages of it and the first chunk is now available in the miscellaneous items archive. I've scanned it page by page and included the scans rather than the text for two reasons. Firstly the quality isn't good enough to convert to a text file and I'm never going to type it up, however it is all very readable in this format. Secondly, some pages contain crossings out and corrections which may be of interest to the real completists out there (where you can read them). Hope you enjoy it, there's plenty more to come.

Burundo Drumbi! rolls merrily on with some questions from Steve Ceiro.

Scott Beidelman has very kindly transcribed the lyrics to Crazy Little Thing which I've now added to the archive, and he's also sent along a corrected version of ZigZag Wanderer and suggested some modifications to Electricity. Many thanks indeed to Scott. If anyone has any more additions or corrections for the lyrics archive please send them along to The BozBoz who is now taking care of that side of things.

I've included the Mutts cartoon by Patrick McDonnell that appeared in the Washington (DC) Post on Sunday 10/12/00. Inexplicably riddled with blatant Beefheart references that the majority of readers would have been completely unaware of, you don't expect to see this kind of thing in a mainstream newspaper.

Back home again. I would say 'at last' but that would be dishonest. We had the most fantastic time in Zanzibar and it is very strange to be back in England even if we were just away for two weeks. As I mentioned previously I will hopefully be putting a full account of our small trek up online, along with some photos.

Burundo Drumbi! continues with a mammoth series of questions from Robert Carey. Still more to come.

Zoot Horn Rollo / Bill Harkleroad has a new album out entitled We Saw A Bozo Under The Sea. You can buy this direct from Zoot at his website and also hear a few sound clips. I haven't yet heard the album but the people who have heard it have all said very complimentary things about it. One of us here at the Radar Station will be adding some comprehensive information about it to the site as soon as we can.

Zoot will be interviewed live on KWVA Eugene, on the Big Note show in at least two weeks' time on a Monday evening at 11PM (US Pacific). You can listen to it live over the Internet at the correct time by visiting the Big Note website. Keep an eye out there for the announcement of when the interview will be going out.

I've received word about an expansive (and expensive) Beefheart release from Rhino which is on the horizon. It is a box set containing various desirable items, but will sadly retail for around $1,000 US. So let's all forget about that one then. The following information comes from the Michael Werner Gallery, kindly passed on to me by Mike Barnes:

"In 2002, Artists Ink Editions, a division of Rhino Entertainment, will release a box set devoted to the art and music of Don Van Vliet. Limited to an edition of 1,500, each set will include a catalogue of drawings and paintings; a book of texts , photographs and ephemera from the artist's musical career; a CD of recent spoken word material; and an original color etching signed by the artist."

Even more exciting is some news about a Beefheart DVD containing the BBC documentary, the Anton Corbijn film and some other bits and bobs. Unfortunately I don't know anymore about that yet, but will keep you informed as and when I get more news.

Four more episodes in the unfolding saga that is Burundo Drumbi! are now available.

These are likely to be the last in the series for a little while as I'm off to visit a friend in Africa (Tanzania / Zanzibar to be precise) for a couple of weeks, and it's unlikely I'll be doing too many Radar Station updates from the top of Kilimanjaro. I will, however attempt to track down as much local music as possible, hopefully for a future radio show special and article at Clicks and Klangs. I'll let you know how I get on, more from John French when I return.

Burundo Drumbi! resumes its growth with five new chunks of your questions and John French / Drumbo's answers. I've slightly reorganised the section making it easier for you to come back to the bits that particularly interested you. Thanks indeed to John French for his efforts to get this new batch off to me so soon. Many more to come over the next few weeks.

Brad Poulsen and Dylan Jones have kindly transcribed and sent along the lyrics for two Doc tunes, "Dirty Blue Genes" and "Sue Egypt". Many thanks to them for their effort.

We've got a new volunteer here at the Radar Station. Please welcome aboard The BozBoz who has helped out with enthusiasm and guitar tabs for some time now. The BozBoz has now taken on a couple of key roles here - guitar tab creator and lyric archive manager. So many of you have repeatedly requested guitar tabs and it is great news that we have someone working on developing this section at long last. Please drop him a line to pass on any information, corrections or additions that you think he should see.

I'm hoping to expand the lyric archive to include general trivia about each tune, different interpretations of possible meanings, and anything else of interest. If you have any thoughts about this, please do get in touch either with me or with The BozBoz. Many thanks.

A new link has been added to the links page to eye.spy, a website by Rick McGrath which contains two exclusive interviews that he conducted with Don in September 1971 and March 1973. Thanks to Rick for sending along the link, hope you enjoy them.

There's another oddity lurking round the visitor's stories and tributes section, Tork pa fisk, which nicely demonstrates the kind of influence Beefheart can have over his admirers even in the workplace. Personally I've completely failed in my task to persuade East Sussex County Council (where I work) to give its local councillors nick-names á la Magic Band members, but that doesn't mean I've given up yet. Many thanks to Tom Flackman for sending this little gem along. Any more, anyone?

Nothing new from John French as yet (he's been busy repairing a roof, apparently!) but it's still all on it's way.

The three final instalments of the first quarter of Burundo Drumbi are now online. The second quarter will start appearing very soon, as soon as John French has finished editing them. I hope you're enjoying the series so far.

Another new interview is now available, Captain Finds His Water, from 1973 in which Don considers the commerciality of Clear Spot, expresses his respect for Muhammad Ali (Don's favourite percussionist) and vents his disgust with whalers. Sincere thanks to Simon Sergeant for patiently typing it up and sending it along.

New up today is another segment of Burundo Drumbi!, continuing this fine series from John French. Did you know that line in "Beatle Bones & Smokin' Stones" is actually "Strawberry feels forever"? Well I hadn't a clue.

I've also uploaded an interview with Don Van Vliet from a 1971 issue of Down Beat entitled "Me and Beefheart at Manteno" in which Don talks about making mustard and how many vegetables he'd like to buy. Many thanks indeed to Francisco Vázquez for taking the time to scan it and send it along. Much appreciated.

Four more instalments of Burundo Drumbi!, the series of John French's answers to Radar Station visitors' questions, are now online.

Also up today is a splendid flyer very kindly sent to me by Ken Shaddock from a gig in Austin Texas in 1971. Thanks to the enormity of Ken's scan, it's big enough to print out and stick up if you're so inclined.

I am extremely pleased to make today's main update available!

Regular visitors may recall back in January 2000 the Radar Station posted an appeal by John French for any questions, thoughts or comments that you may have about the book he was (and still is) writing about his time in the Magic Band, entitled Beefheart: Through The Eyes Of Magic, in an attempt to find out exactly what you wanted to learn from reading his book, once it was written.

Some of the questions were fairly specific in their probing and John thought it would be good to address those here at the Radar Station as a thank you to everyone who has helped out and shown him support in the the whole process. Today I've just uploaded his introduction and the first four in a considerably large series of these Q&As entitled Burundo Drumbi!, and there are many many more to come.

I'm hoping to upload chunks every day or two over the coming weeks until I run out of questions and answers (though I'm continuing to have fairly extreme problems with my computer and may be without it for a week or two any time now). I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I have, many thanks to John for his time and effort.

Another slice of good news, Grow Fins vinyl vol. 3 has been scheduled for release at the end of this month, July 2001. Vinyl purists kept salivating for the last couple of years waiting for the final piece to the puzzle need wait no more (well, not much more). As ever, you should be able to order copies from Diverse Vinyl, our favoured independent vinyl specialist.

Both Steve and I have been making numerous 'background' updates over the last few weeks - Steve to his continually expanding discography section, and me primarily to the lyrics archive making numerous corrections on your suggestions. If you have any corrections or addition to make to any of the material at the Radar Station, please do let us know - without your help we simply can't be as accurate as we'd like to be.

Finally, The Saturday Night Live files are at last available to download from the rare music and video archive once more - excellent mp3s of the two songs performed (Hot Head and Ashtray Heart) and as good a quality video as I could capture (the picture is a bit stuttery but don't be put off).

The guestbook is now fully up to date and functioning again and, like the message board, will be updated at least once a week - more often if necessary. The scattered entries and oddities in the guestbook make a great read, should you ever fancy whiling away an idle hour or two in good company.

Thanks, one more time, to James Silberbauer for all his efforts which make it so much easier for me to keep the messages updated. Cheers!

The Radar Station also greets the welcome return of a few of the video files that bandwidth troubles forced me to remove some time ago. Many thanks to Allan Wright for kindly providing some web space. You can now view the Mothers performing a magnificent "King Kong" live at the BBC, the banned Lick My Decals Off, Baby advertisement, and Don's two interview appearances on the David Letterman show in 1982 and 1983. Please see the video downloads page for details.

I've also repaired three broken links which were affecting the streaming audio interviews with Don Van Vliet. Since my cache was stubbornly refusing to allow me to load the new version of that page, I've been unable to check the repairs just as yet. Hopefully all's working well.

Slowly but surely the multimedia files are at last returning! You could speed up the process if you have any webspace to spare, drop me a line if you can help.

A sliver of exciting news - Bill Harkleroad aka Zoot Horn Rollo will be releasing his first solo album in the very near future entitled We Saw A Bozo Under The Sea. Dive into Bill's homepage for more info as and when it appears.

You can download a tune from Gary Lucas' recent album, Street of Lost Brothers over at the Guitar Player website. It, like the rest of the album, is a beauty. Thanks to Matthew Lewis and Floppyboot for the tip-off.

Gary has also just released a collaboration with Peter Stampfel (ex-Fugs) under the name The Du-tels entitled No Knowledge of Music Required. Released on Shimmydisc (also home of alt-country Beef-heads Drazy Hoops) and featuring a tune entitled "Teletubbies Say 'Eh-Oh!'" this is a world away from Gary's solo material and his work with Beefheart. It also seems quite splendid and I'm eagerly awaiting a copy. See Gary's homepage for more info.

Steve Froy has added some more info to the discography - in particular details about the various artists Fast 'n' Bulbous tribute album and the Meridian Arts Ensemble tribute album.

I've updated the information in the book and CD store to include recent releases, Steve's new discography information, and links to the UK Amazon store for the ex-Magic Band members' releases.

Finally, forget the Beefheart for a moment and stick some John Lee Hooker on your stereo. It's the least you could do.

Thanks to James Silberbauer's generosity and programming skills I've now got a quick and convenient way to get your traders' / message board and guestbook entries up online. The message board is now right up to date and I'm currently working on clearing the massive backlog of guestbook entries before scrapping the third-party guestbook that you've been using as a temporary measure. Both will be updated at least once a week from now on and more often if anyone posts anything which seems urgent. Enormous thanks to James for making it possible to get on top of things again.

I hope you find the now regularly updated message board useful. This is not a discussion forum, but is a means to advertise your wants, offers, needs or desires if you would like to trade, meet up, jam, whatever, with other Beefheart enthusiasts. Please remember to drop me a line when you would like your message removed.

Steve Froy has continued his excellent work on the discography and two completely new sections are now available. The first is a detailed catalogue of covers of Captain Beefheart tunes. The second is a fascinating overview of tunes by any artist under the sun with a Beefheart connection. Perhaps they borrow a line or two, perhaps they name-check the Captain - whatever, you'll find it listed in here. If it isn't listed, or if you can provide any further information, please contact Steve. Many thanks to Steve for all his work.

All continues to be fairly quiet in Beefheart land at the moment, however it looks as if Mike Barnes' excellent Beefheart biography will soon be published in the US. Full details to follow.

Steve Froy has made a start on updating the discography and has include some new pages with info about Magic Band members and offshoot projects such as Mallard, Exiles, Mu, Elliot Ingber, John French, Jeff Cotton, Gary Marker and the magnificent Rising Sons. Just keep an eye on the discography section to see what he's been up to. The pages aren't complete yet - Steve is planning to add images and other bits and bobs, but at long last the Radar Station discography is moving in the right direction again, many thanks Steve. If you have any corrections or information to add, drop Steve a line.

Klaas Brouwer has very kindly sent along an excellent set of photographs taken at a Magic Band concert in Roden, Holland on 4th November 1980 which you can find on the photos and flyers page in the music info section.

Thankyou very much Klaas for these splendid shots. If any other visitors have any photographs, articles, reviews, stores to tell please do send them along as we are finally back in action again.

James Silberbauer has been doing some very useful work for the guestbook and traders' message board so hopefully these will both be properly working and up-to-date very soon. Anyone wanting to leave a message in the traders' message board is welcome to fill out the form.

Finally, I'd like to welcome Detlef Juergens to the Radar Station team. Detlef has kindly volunteered for the role of article and artwork editor. If you have any articles, interviews, paintings, reviews, etc. that you think we should include, please send them along to Detlef.

The new team is nicely falling into place here at the Radar Station. So far we've got:

News editor, Rob Fawcett : rob@beefheart.com
Please send all Beefheart news (info about new releases, publications, television appearances, magazine articles etc.) to Rob

Discographer and bibliographer, Steve Froy : steve@beefheart.com
Please send any comments, corrections or info about the discography or bibliography to Steve.

All the other roles have been provisionally filled, but we're still working out the details - I'll let you know who else is doing what as soon as it's finalised. Many thanks indeed to everyone who has offered help, very much appreciated. Hopefully visitors to this site will start to see the benefits very soon once everyone has settled in.

I anticipate that I will update this page about once a week / fortnight listing all the changes and additions that have taken place since the previous update, and anything else that I happen to choose to mention as well. I'd recommend that regular visitors keep this page, Up Sifter, as their first port of call. Could webmasters who have kindly linked to the Radar Station please point their links to the main page rather than this one for the benefit of new visitors? Thanks.

Once all this is sorted out perhaps I can get on with that Gary Lucas competition as mentioned some time ago now....

Thanks again for your support and offers of help.

It seems that my appeal for help has gone out just in time as I've recently been offered a new full-time job and will be starting work on 9th April, by which time I hope that the people who have kindly taken on certain roles here at the Radar Station will be starting to settle in.

Many thanks to everyone who has offered help of some kind, it is good to know that this site is valued so much, very much appreciated. All the roles mentioned below have been filled, with the exception of:

• Creator of interactive sections for online discussion and message posting. The Radar Station urgently needs someone willing and able to produce a script to automate the guestbook and traders' message board.

Once more, I'm sorry about the silence. It's been difficult to keep up with the site recently and the longer I leave it, the more the pile of news and material mounts up, and the harder it is to start tackling it. Let me assure you that this isn't the beginning of the end of the Radar Station, no matter what the signals may tell you. I am very keen to keep the site going, but desperately need a little help. If you feel you could volunteer to work on the Radar Station in any of the following areas, or are willing to take on some other role, please drop me a line:

• News editor - would you like to assume responsibility for keeping the news page up to date? All news items that I receive will be passed on to you to deal with. Over the last month we've had an exhibition in Belgium and UK radio broadcasts of the Beefheart Peel Sessions, neither of which I have managed to post on site. If you think you can help get the news on site promptly and clearly, please do.

• Creator of interactive sections for online discussion and message posting. The old guestbook which I have to manually update hasn't been touched for over a year now, which is clearly appalling. I need someone willing and able to produce a script to automate the guestbook and traders' message board.

• Article scanner - someone to scan in the text of articles, interviews, reviews, photographs, paintings, etc. These, and any items pre-scanned items sent as text files / jpegs, need to be laid out on a page (in keeping with the rest of the site) and indexed.

• Discographer - the discography, although fairly comprehensive, has massive gaps in it which need updating, particularly in the bootleg section and ex-Magic Band members section. I've got the info, but need someone to put it online. If you have any more info to add, or have any anecdotes or photographs that you think belong in the discography, get in touch. Similarly with the bibliography - several Beefheart-related books only have slender info available at the moment which needs to be expanded.

I realise that all this may be a tall order, but if you can help out in any way at all, please get in touch. It would be a shame to merely let the site die out just because my time is now more limited that it once was, especially after all the support that so many visitors have given over the last three years. If you would like to help ensure the continuing success of the Radar Station, now's your chance!

Please, only offer to help if you genuinely have the time (probably only a spare hour a week for most tasks), the ability (some experience with html, a touch of imagination and a close attention to detail would be ideal) and the inclination to do so.

Also, I'm very pleased to let you know that the streaming audio interviews, and a couple of the videos are now back on line. "t23" has very kindly provided sufficient web space to house these files, so at long last, you can once again listen to Zappa and Beefheart's university lecture, Beefheart's live radio interview with John Peel, and numerous other entertaining items. Sincere thanks to t23 for making this possible.