There's so much to tell you about in the Beefheart world at the moment (recent gigs, upcoming gigs, lavish box sets of Don's artwork - see the news page for more info) but this is just a hasty update to explain my recent absence.

My PC is about to be put in storage for a while, along with all the rest of our possessions since we are technically homeless from tomorrow afternoon. We sold our flat, agreed a date to vacate and then things have gone wrong with the purchase of our new home, causing the whole process to drag on a ridiculously long time.

For the next few weeks (hopefully no longer) we'll be staying on friends' floors, in a holiday let, a B&B and possibly with family too until our new house is vacated or we decide to give up and start again to find another one. It's a worrying time and I appear to have a dose of full-on flu for the second time ever right at this moment. Things have certainly been better for us!

I'll still have email access on friends' PCs but won't be able to spend much time responding. Steve and Derek will still be doing great things with the discography and news sections of the site, and the Fire Party discussion list will still be up and running should you want to chew the cud with other Beefheart fans from all over the world.

I won't be able to update the Radar Station's web-radio show over the next few weeks. To try to compensate for this, you can listen to a 6+ hour Kosmische Krautrock special. All you favourite Krautrockers including Amon Duul (both I and II), Can, Golem, La Dusseldorf, Faust, Xhol Caravan, Ash Ra Tempel, Guru Guru are featured and so much more.

So, all the best and I hope it's not too long before I can update this page again!

I was planning to bring you a roundup of everything that's been going on in the world of Beefheart online over the last month, but it seems we've all been hibernating over Christmas and there's very little to report.

I had a note from Russell Burn of late seventies / early eighties Beefheart admirers The Fire Engines letting me know that they have reformed and will be supporting The Magic Band for their Edinburgh show later this month. Named after a 13th Floor Elevators' song with band members later appearing in Win and Nectarine Number 9 (who covered "Frownland"), their Beefheart pedigree is assured. You can currently hear some Fire Engines on our web-radio show.

Those of you who keep an eye on beefheart.com's Beefheart news page will already know that The Fall are supporting the Magic Band on their London gig later this month. Anyone considering arriving late or propping up the bar during the support act would be wise to reconsider.

In their recent review of 2003's best releases, Rolling Stone considers The Fall's Words of Expectation: The BBC Sessions:

The leap from his opening harangue in June, 1978, "Rebellious Jukebox," to the '96 cover of Captain Beefheart's "Beatle Bones 'N' Smokin' Stones" affirms Peel's famous loving description of the Fall: "always different, always the same."

This cover of "Beatle Bones" does indeed fit Peel's comment perfectly, being both a surprisingly faithful cover of the Beefheart classic and also unmistakably Mark E Smith. Just in case they don't play it when they support The Magic Band on their up coming London dates, you can hear it circulating on our web-radio show.

While on the subject of beefheart.com's web radio show, I have recently given the format of the show a complete overhaul. It now uses a higher bit-rate and thus has a significantly improved sound quality. Hope you enjoy it.

Finally, all the best to our regular visitors for a happy new year and many thanks indeed for your continued support over the last year.

Dusted Magazine have a review of the Magic Band's recent ATP show, including a pre-gig interview with Gary Lucas and Denny Walley and lots of great photos. Denny comments in the interview about their recent London show:

When we did our first [reunion] gig in London, we didn’t know what to expect. They didn’t know what to expect. They thought they were going to wheel out a bunch of wizened prunes with IV units hanging off of them and wheelchairs and shit. We came out and we ripped their heads off. The first five rows, it looked like an AC/DC concert. A lot of people who hadn’t ever heard us before, and some who were the children of people that were listening to us when we first started. You had people in their 60s to 15. And they were digging it. We were laughing on stage. We didn’t know what to expect. You never know—the English can be really dicey if they want to be, they can rip your heart out.

Fast 'n' Bulbous: The Captain Beefheart Project which startled New York gig goers last year with their inspirational new interpretations of Beefheart's music are playing tonight in New York at Joe's Pub, 425 Lafayette Street, East Village. If you're in the area with a loose end, consider it fastened.

The New York Times wrote:

Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band, with its clashing meters, crisscrossing melody lines vaulting over wide intervals and precision timing, was always several steps closer to jazz than to rock. And so the great intuitive artist of rock, Captain Beefheart (real name: Don Van Vliet) — who is said to be in poor health, at home in Northern California after 20 years of forswearing music for a successful second career in oil painting — now has a proper repertory project dedicated to his music.

A septet led by the guitarist Gary Lucas, who played with Beefheart in the 1980's, and the saxophonist Phillip Johnston, who played with the Microscopic Septet, Fast 'n' Bulbous is a studious, energetic and reinterpretive band, a bit like what jazz-repertory orchestras aim for these days. As an extra, the estimable improvising guitarist Henry Kaiser is scheduled to sit in with the band.

The musicians among you hungry for Beefheart tablature may be interested to have a look at Gut Suitman's page of guitar tabs and midi files which includes the following tunes:

• My Human Gets Me Blues
• Veteran's Day Poppy
• I Love You, Big Dummy
• Alice In Blunderland
• Bat Chain Puller
• Brickbats

Stewart Osborne and Nils Homme both wrote in to say they'd recently got hold of a bootleg Beefheart DVD called Portable People which is available at www.vvmo.com. The track listing is as follows (complete with errors!):

• The Artist Formally [sic] Known As Captain Beefheart - BBC special 1997
• Cannes Music Festival, France 27 Jan 1968
  Electricity / Sure Nuff 'N' Yes I Do
• Beat Club - Bremen Germany 1972
  I'm Gonna Booglarize You Baby
• Psychomania - clip 1974
  Upon The My-O-My
• French TV 1974
  Mirror Man / Upon The My-O-My / Full Moon / Crazy Little Thing / Improv / Peaches / Take Me To Your House / You're Gonna Need Somebody
• Saturday Night Live - Nov 1980
  Hot Head / Feel Like An Ashtray Heart

Stewart also sent along a scan of the sleeve and the following comments:

There's a professional-looking menu screen (although it only actually offers the one option!) with a picture of the TMR band that's familiar from the Grow Fins box; sound quality is pretty good throughout.

Picture quality is not bad either - the red's a little faded and displaced slightly to the right on TAFKACB, which makes Drumbo, Zappa and Ry Cooder look a little washed out in some of the interview footage and creates some ghosting. The Cannes footage is particularly poor (especially when compared with the extract in the documentary) alternating between too dark and too bright and so lacking in colour as to be almost monochromatic.

Over all definitely worth having 'though - although I can't help but wish that they'd found room for the ICFC video, even if it meant cutting some of the '74 footage.

Incidentally, I love the bit which says "duplication is a violation of applicable laws", proving that bootleggers have a strong sense of irony.

Thanks to Stewart and Nils for the info.

Name-droppers' corner:

Familiar as we all are to every strand of vaguely left-field music being compared to Captain Beefheart, one journalist has recently taken things to a new level and started comparing musicians' hair to Captain Beefheart. Writing about the absurdly great shambles that was Rocket From The Tombs, Peter S Scholtes states:

Old photos show a group almost suspended out of time, a diverse set of individuals cobbling their fashion sense - a leather jacket here, Beefheart hair there - before punk became a uniform.

What next? A band with Beefheart skin secreting a Beefheart aroma?

William Whitmore provides journos with a much better opportunity to drop the Captain's name. An obvious Beefheart admirer, this tattooed skateboarding banjo-playing hard-core fan has nicely lifted elements of "Orange Claw Hammer" and "Dust Blows Forward" style Beefheart and made it his own. Tunes from Whitmore's new album Hymns For The Hopeless are currently circulating on our web-radio show. See also recent pieces from The Courier and lawrence.com

An intriguing Beefheart comparison can be found in The New York Times' overview of the year's box sets. The review of Dust To Digital's gospel set Goodbye Babylon (which apparently comes packaged with cotton balls in a cedar box!) states:

The sixth disc compiles sermons, including "That White Mule of Sin" (1929) by the Rev. George Jones, a confounding mishmash of prayer and parody. The so-called reverend sounds more than a little like Captain Beefheart, and he ascends to absurd heights of incomprehensibility ("Saddle up the road every whichaway and every whichabout," he declaims) while Sister Jones offers an updated version of the Lord's Prayer: "Our Father, who art in heaven/ The white man owed me 10 dollars, and I didn't get but seven/ Thy kingdom come, thy will be done/ I took that or I wouldn't have got none/ Amen."

Although priced way beyond my pocket, my curiosity is pricked, my appetite whetted and this is something that I have to hear!

Our last instance of Beefheart name-dropping for this update was sent along by Gene Hopstetter who wrote about a recent gig he attended:

Robyn Hitchcock, during a performance at Maxwell's this Halloween, did an impromptu recitation of "My Human Gets Me Blues" and "Neon Meat Dream Of A Octafish". He asked his audience, "You don't know that one? I'll have to buy you all a copy of Trout Mask Replica for Christmas."

star-telegram.com has a piece responding to Rolling Stone's latest 500 greatest albums of all time list in which they consider the current lack of a musical generation gap. Apparently our children are now just as likely to listen to Pink Floyd as we are - I'm hoping this means sales of The Wall and Dark Side of The Moon are plummeting but suspect they didn't quite mean it like that.

They also set the following challenge:

Whistle a tune by the band called Love. Try "Bummer in the Summer".

Now name a favourite Zombies song. How about the one that goes, "What's your name? Who's your daddy?"

For the final test, hum a bit of Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica. Anyone who can do all three is either approaching retirement or an avid reader of Rolling Stone.

I'd take issue with this comment since my retirement day is sadly still dim and distant, and Rolling Stone seems more concerned with celebrity gossip than with good music journalism. It seems that we don't need a mountain of spam in our inbox to enable us to see Britney Spears naked nowadays, we just need to glance at the cover of Rolling Stone. How this helps us to know anything about the Zombies, Love or Beefheart is beyond me.

Finally, Steve and Derek have been updating the Beefheart news page, including a host of details about two Beefheart / Zappa film nights on the 25th and 26th January at The National Film Theatre in London.

News about a new Beefheart cover has come in from Anchorage Press:

Another import-only treat comes from Screaming Trees' vocalist Mark Lanegan, with his new EP entitled Here Comes That Weird Chill (Methamphetamine Blues, Extracts and Oddities). As a teaser for his upcoming Bubblegum album the set features a cover of Captain Beefheart's “Clear Spot”.

I was never a fan of Screaming Trees' music which I always ignorantly assumed was just a watery reflection of Nirvana without the integrity. This faithful and pleasing cover, along with Lanegan's charming version of "Cripple Creek" from the Skip Spence tribute album, may prompt me to rethink.

Here Comes That Weird Chill is out now and I've tucked Lanegan's "Clear Spot" into beefheart.com's web-radio show.

A relatively new electronica compilation features Captain Beefheart doing some entirely non-electronic music. An Anthology of Noise and Electronic Music Second - A Chronology 1936-2003 features "She's Too Much For My Mirror" and "My Human Gets Me Blues", recorded live at the Belgian Amougies festival (also available on Grow Fins).

Despite the slightly misleading title, An Anthology Of Noise and Electronica (the second part in a series) makes an attempt to pin down a specific musical attitude rather than a certain genre or mood. Other contributors include Autechre, Luc Ferrari, Yoshihiro Hanno and Sun Ra.

Speaking of Sun Ra, his film Space Is The Place is now available on DVD in the US (fortunately region 0 which means we can buy and watch it here in Europe too). Like his music, the film takes a scenic and devious route in explaining his unusual and fascinating philosophy through a blaxploitation-esque mix of the Arkestra's music and science fiction.

This DVD edition also contains some home video shot in Egypt. Although I haven't seen this extra bit of film yet, I imagine it as being equally odd and revealing as the home video sequences of the Magic Band around the time of Trout Mask Replica where, among other things, we see Don "playing" a sax while wearing his carp head and shuttlecock during the album cover photo shoot. The prospect of seeing Arkestra members getting up to high-jinks in Egypt - their natural Earthly setting - is just as winsome.

Coincidentally, I've just stumbled across the BBC's succinct outline of Beefheart's importance. Despite his entirely non-cosmic concerns, they suggest that those of us into Beefheart would also be interested in "groovy pictures from around the solar system" which are indeed both interesting and groovy.

Since I'm one of those people who searches for my own name on the web, I naturally checked out Earth first and looked at the break-up of the world's largest iceberg as seen from space. Funny that this can be seen from beyond our atmosphere, yet such phenomena are invisible to George Bush and his fellow global warmers.

Erich Geis kindly emailed to let me know that a bootleg Beefheart DVD and VHS video are available in NTSC format from the horribly designed but well stocked www.vvmo.com

This week's non-Beefheart discovery comes courtesy of Julian Cope. Cope's new album, Rome Wasn't Burned In A Day, comes with a limited edition bonus CD of some of the acts which played at his recent weekends of barbarian rock in London and Liverpool. The first track on this bonus disc is by The Sunburned Hand Of The Man and I'm hooked. It's a tremendously shambolic mix of electric Miles, Faust and the kind of music which Cope should be making himself.

The Sunburned Hand Of The Man's music is available in a series of CDR releases from Byron Coley's www.yod.com and you can catch the epic "Jaybird" from Rome Wasn't Burned In A Day on beefheart.com's web-radio show. Copey also reviews the album Jaybird on his own site.

I've had no further news at all about Don's possible health scare as mentioned below, and, in the absence of any real information, have comfortably assumed that it was nothing serious.

Some of you may have already seen a worrying message which I sent to the beefheart.com discussion list concerning Don's health. I was sent the following fragment from a very reliable source about some events which occurred at the Van Vliet home on Thursday:

At 4 PM today, the local CDF truck came roaring into the Van Vliets with sirens going and then an ambulance came, also with sirens. 20 mins later the ambulance left, sirens again, and then Jan in the black Mercedes, with the CDF truck waiting to go out last.

I would like to stress a couple of things about this fragment of a story. Firstly, there has be no further word since then about this matter and if it was serious, I am certain that some more news would have been heard by now, three days later. It may not even concern Don at all, I have absolutely no further information.

Secondly, I would like to reassure anyone reading this who may suspect that the Van Vliet home is under surveillance by obsessed Beefheart fans that this is not the case. It is an eyewitness report from someone who was in the area legitimately. I would never include information on this site which had come from any such "spy network" as I know how much the Van Vliets value their privacy, and I would strongly discourage anyone from personally invading that privacy.

If people want to be left alone in peace then I believe that should be their right. Consequently I also feel very uncomfortable about putting this news up on beefheart.com, but it just didn't seem right to sit on it and ignore it.

We all know that they just want to be left alone to get on with their lives, so please do them a favour and cancel any plans which you may have for a trip out to their home. Sincerely, thanks.

On a more upbeat note, the Magic Band played at the LA All Tomorrow's Parties festival last weekend. The general consensus in all the press reviews that I've seen are that the Magic Band towered head and shoulders above the already impressive line-up.

Michael Traylor, the band's drummer for the tunes in which Drumbo sang, seems to have hit the spot and sent the following few words to beefheart.com:

Well, what can I say.... it was a beautiful night on Long Beach harbour and the moon was in eclipse mood. The stage faced out over the audience and then to the Queen Mary in the not so far distance.

Matt introduced us to the mostly too-young-to-remember crowd and The Magic Band took them to a place and time that only a few musicians would dare go, cracking open the sounds of an artist that is admired and misunderstood.

After several masterfully performed instrumentals, John invited me to the drums to back him and the rest of the guys in bringing Don's words back to the fore. John did him honour by his honest performance of songs that spanned the bulk of the Captain's career.

I would like to thank the Magic Band and the old (and hopefully some new) fans of Don's contribution to the music world, for allowing me to be even a small part of this musical experience.

The Honolulu Star Bulletin had this to say about the performance:

Groening also took it upon himself to introduce the act that inspired him to curate ATP. The reformed Magic Band is basically an all-star cast of musicians who played with the indomitable Don Van Vliet, a k a Captain Beefheart, now retired as a fine art painter.

Once again, Mississippi Delta blues was gleefully mixed with knotty, free jazz and bizarre lyric imagery, thanks to John French (who sang Beefheart's lyrics in almost the same Howlin' Wolf-like growl as the Captain), Gary Lucas, Mark Boston and Denny Walley. It was a rare and happy opportunity to see these elder men tear into music with disciplined glee.

The LA Times featured a picture of John French and Gary Lucas (scanned and made available at Gary Lucas' site). The portion of the review about the Magic Band stated:

There were some special attractions too, and Groening himself introduced the one that initially inspired him to take on the job: the reunion of the Magic band, the group that backed the visionary Captain Beefheart on his blazing forays to rock's wild frontiers in the 60s and 70s.

The reunion actually gathers players from different eras, with the heavier mystique borne by drummer John French and bassist Mark Boston, known respectively as Drumbo and Rockette Morton when they anchored Beefheart's legendary 1969 album Trout Mask Replica. Guitarists Gary Lucas (Mantis) and Denny Walley (Feelers Reebo) were later, short-term members.

The strangely structured set opened with a long stretch of the band's more difficult instrumentals, but when French came to the front of the stage (Michael Traylor taking over on drums) to fill in for the retired Beefheart on vocals, the show took off.

Strange though was the complete absence of any mention of Beefheart, the man who conceived and designed this music. It's understandable that the players may want to shed their reputation as Beefheart puppets who simply followed orders. Maybe it was an oversight. In any case, it cast a slightly unpleasant light on an otherwise wondrous hour.

Considering the eloquent and often touching tributes which all members of the band have repeatedly expressed for their retired leader both in interviews and from the stage in recent months, I have to wonder how much longer the band will be expected to trot out the same platitudes before we can all allow ourselves to just enjoy their great music.

Variety.com:

The spirit of Captain Beefheart was felt as forcefully as the inspiration of the Velvet Underground on the first day of All Tomorrow's Parties, "curated" by The Simpsons creator Matt Groening. Featuring not a reunion but a kind of Magic Band all-stars, their performance was a testament to Beefheart's visionary mix of Delta blues with free jazz.

Todd Martens, Billboard:

The one must-see group was the Magic Band, comprised of members of Captain Beefheart's former backing crew. While it's safe to say that the music of Captain Beefheart can be a required taste [sic!], it can also be marvellously demented, and few can play it.

While the Captain himself has officially retired from music, those who played with him at various points throughout his career, which at ATP was John "Drumbo" French (drums/vocals), Gary "Mantis" Lucas (guitar), Denny "Feelers Reebo" Walley (guitar), Mark "Rockette Morton" Boston (bass) and Michael Trailer (drums), recently reformed.

The 60-minute set began with the more avant-garde side of the group, where free-jazz crashed into the blues to create a perfectly orchestrated mess. Compositions were created out of what were seemingly fragments of songs, in which a guitar may etch out paranoid squiggles one second and tauntingly flirt with a recognisable melody the next, and all of it was held together by a constant rhythmic force.

When French took over on vocals, he provided an adequate substitute for the Captain, pounding on the Son House-inspired riff of "The Floppy Boot Stomp," growling through the blues breakdown of "Circumstance" and singing "Electricity" as if the lyrics were pulsing through his blood.

Judging by the wide-open field, it was far from the largest draw of the day, and that was a shame. The Magic Band gave a surprisingly frantic set that illustrated just how far rock's boundaries can be stretched. With much of the afternoon relying on what Groening determined was the path to Sonic Youth, it was a rag-tag group of '60s revivalists who served to remind that there's plenty of musical territory yet to be explored.

The Fire Party's own eyewitness, Angel, said it was:

Awesome
Awesome
Awesome....

The Magic Band KILLED, they SMOKED, they SHREDDED... I had a huge grin on my face from start to finish! I had goose-bumps during "Big-Eyed Beans". I closed my eyes for a moment and let the chords penetrate every cell of my being. I nearly cried.

Matt Groening introduced them lovingly, saying that as a special treat, he was going to sit in on every song on cowbell! (he didn't) And a miraculous thing happened: a lunar eclipse was just beginning as the Magic Band took the stage.

John French explained about how he was up high on a ladder and fell about 6 feet onto concrete a few weeks back. It was apparent he was in some pain and he said he was on morphine. Still, they played for an hour and gave it their all. The crowd was reverent and still the whole time, all except for me, bobbing around excitedly, totally unable to stand still.

After the band was done, I wandered around to see if there were people I knew and I saw Richard "Midnight Hatsize" Snyder standing by the side of the stage. I said hello and he gave me a big hug and was effusive. He was hanging with his pal Ace, from their band the Mystery Band, waiting to see if they could gain access to the MB. Well we all hung out for about 15-20 minutes and the security guard had overheard that Rick was an ex-band member and said, "look, I'm not supposed to do this, but you guys just slip on in."

So we bound in and one of the first people we see is Matt Groening. We head on over and Rick introduces himself as a former MB member and then introduces Ace and me. I shake Matt's hand and thank him for getting the MB to play. He said, "it's like going to the store and picking out a greeting card, you want the best one to show off." I tell him that hearing "Big Eyed Beans" live was brilliant and he replied "WASN'T it?"

Then we see Rockette Morton and Gary Lucas. Gary is just a doll, real sweet and chatty. I listen in as Rick and Gary talk Beefheart tales. John French rushes by preoccupied but stops to say hello to Rick, then bounds up to the stage to clear his gear.

While I was thoroughly enjoying all of this, I was also absolutely starving. I'd thought that I would arrive with plenty of time to grab some dinner before the MB started, so I hadn't eaten since morning. So I hesitatingly tore myself away to find sustenance, floating on a cloud!

Now that we're all feeling a bit nostalgic, I thought I'd pass along Kerry Frye's account of a recent visit to the Trout House where Trout Mask Replica was endlessly rehearsed:

As I write this message I am sitting in my hotel room in Marina del Rey, California. Thanks to your "A Trip to the Trout House" page I was able to make a personal pilgrimage to the legendary site earlier this evening. The house is still there, jackhammered between what are surely million-dollar homes all around it, and it occurred to me that it still holds it own in this neighbourhood, being the landmark that it is.

I pulled up outside the house as the sun set over the hills. I was nervous as I got out of my car, as I didn't come to the site to be a disturbance to anyone or thing, but rather to bask in the appreciation I have for what happened there over thirty years ago. I stood gazing up to the house for quite some time, and quietly observed, looking, listening, smelling. The house is in an obvious state of decay, and for a time I wondered if it was still inhabited, a thought that was confirmed when I saw a cat scurry across one of the front windows from the inside. As I was carrying a camera, I so badly wanted to walk up the narrow steps to the front of the house and get a closer view, but I couldn't muster up the courage to do so. I snapped several shots from varying angles out front, walked about a bit more, then left.

I think the Trout House bears historical significance on par with Big Pink (where Bob Dylan and The Band recorded so many of their seminal works) and other landmarks of rock history. Reading John French's narrative of his return to the Trout House made me appreciate even more my own experience.

Many thanks Kerry for sending this along.

Beefheart trivia spotted on the web:

Robert Plant briefly drops Captain Beefheart into conversation while talking about Arthur Lee in an interesting new interview in tomorrow's New Zealand Herald:

Asked to name the most arresting person he has met this year, Plant opts for Arthur Lee, the American singer and songwriter best known for fronting esteemed 60s acid-pop band, Love.

Both Plant and Lee played at the Canterbury Fayre this year, and their paths crossed in the lobby of a Holiday Inn. "It was a brief encounter," says Plant. "Arthur looked up at me over his dark glasses, and I put my hands on his shoulders and said, 'I'm really glad for you. Glad that you're back.'

"There were so many things I wanted to ask him, but sometimes it's fantastic just to stay a fan and not have your bubble burst. I mean, do you want to meet Captain Beefheart in Waitrose? Of course not.

Funnily enough, I saw Arthur Brown in The Crazy World of Waitrose a short while ago, wearing a pointy hat with a big floppy brim and carrying a huge wooden staff with a giant snake carved into it while he rummaged through the fruit and veg. Far from bursting any bubble, that image inflated it.

Guitar Player featured a short interview with Ry Cooder about working with Don in which Cooder enlarges upon the stories familiar to those who have seen the BBC's Beefheart documentary.

Anyone considering going back to college may be interested to learn that Indiana University offers a course entitled "Beach Boys, Beefheart and The Residents" in which items such as Mike Barnes' Beefheart biog, the BBC documentary and Lick My Decals Off baby are required texts. It actually took place earlier this year but if anyone reading this attended the course, please do drop me a line.

Danny Baker interviewed Wreckless Eric a couple of months ago on his BBC London radio show and you can hear his amusing tale about meeting Beefheart. The Beefheart segment crops up about 14 and a half minutes into the clip and an intimidated Eric refers to Don as being like "a monument, twice his size" at a 1980s art exhibition.

This week's non-Beefheart musical discovery: Iron and Wine's stunningly fragile The Creek Drank The Cradle from earlier this year. If you like either Elliott Smith or Bonnie Prince Billy then this is an absolute must. The Sub Pop label had given us something autumnal, raw, vaporous and very pretty. An acoustic album featuring only guitar, slide, banjo, the delicate voice of Sam Beam and catchy hooks aplenty.

Finally, to return to the item which kicked things off with this update, I would like to wish Don and Jan Van Vliet my very best and hope that they are both well and happy. They have a lot of old friends out there who care very much about both of them and wish them well.

Here's an unexpected update primarily to let you know that you can now read Derek's interview with the new Magic Band drummer Michael Traylor. Many thanks to Derek for his time and effort giving us this excellent bit of background.

Please see the reunion page for all up to date news about the Magic Band's gigs and a host of exclusive material about the shows.

Rhino Handmade have announced that their "Internet only" releases will now also be made available in retail outlets. Among the initial releases to benefit from this distribution deal is their excellent Beefheart album, I'm Going To Do What I Wanna To.

Since there were only 5,000 copies of this legitimate, quality live recording pressed up and this site gets up to 3,000 unique visitors every day there must be an awful lot of you out there who haven't yet bought this album. Really, it's worth it.

Thanks go to a couple of you who have written about earlier comments I posted on this page. Firstly, Andrew Bowsher wrote in response to the item below about John Peel:

Good day fair crew,

No misleading paraphrasing on Don from Mr McNeil. I was elated to hear 'Hot Head' on Peel's show, and insisted upon total silence from everyone at the party I was at to hear Peel's commentary at the end of the song.

He did indeed say that he dreaded Don's conversations, given he doesn't talk much (wouldn't you dread a conversation from someone you hadn't seen for 10-15 years who was really quiet?). However, filter the words through Peel's droll delivery and it just seemed like a natural harmless aside, with a lot of reverence for Don.

Personally I dread the the "damned gleaming white bone" ringing, period. Why I also carry another one around with me everywhere is a source of constant confusion - I haven't even installed the "Electricity" ringtone on it yet, either!

Also, Arnon Gilboa wrote with some more info related to the item below about Tom Zé:

As a veteran fan of the Captain and a visitor of your site for many years, I must tell you that since my last visit in Brazil in 2001 during my long trip in South-America, I fell in love with the magical music of Tom Zé, who I can easily compare, both in his creativity and originality to Beefheart.

I know some of my friends might think it's nonsense and even attack me, but please give his 1972 and later albums a try and you will not regret it. His earlier stuff is more conservative, but beautiful as well. I was at his live show in Sao-Paulo and it was thrilling. And I do not speak Portuguese.

Many thanks for the recommendation. Arnon also sent along some links to Zé sites which you may be interested in visiting at www.slipcue.com and www.luakabop.com.

A couple of great interviews with Magic Band members have appeared online.

Firstly, Chris Summerlin interviews Zoot Horn Rollo and also wrote an accompanying column on Beefheart in which Chris enthuses about "Big Eyed Beans From Venus" which causes him to start...

...jumping up and down, trying to get out of my skin because it's just not big enough, I am too busy humping the air and wanting to lick and rut ANYTHING and run naked, unafraid and free in the streets screaming newly invented words at the top of my lungs because the old ones I know just won’t do. It’s so good I don’t know what to do with myself and it makes in depth intellectual analysis redundant.

Secondly, Ben Tausig has recently interviewed John French about the Magic Band reformation in which French comments:

"I heard that Don was 'grumpy' about the reunion. However, he's actually being given a high compliment by all of us – and by me, the highest form of flattery. I may not have been too happy with Don's rather bizarre approach to leading a band, but artistically speaking, I'm still his biggest fan."

My non-Beefheart discovery of the week: I've just stumbled across an album from last year by Kelly Stoltz called Antique Glow which is so beautiful I thought it worth mentioning here.

You can read an article about this Beefheart / Bunnymen obsessed musician or just tune in to our web radio show in which you will hear a couple of tunes from the splendid Antique Glow.

Finally, if you spot anything online which should be mentioned on this page, drop me a line.

Last Sunday's Observer has an interesting article about Julian Schnabel, the artist who befriended Don Van Vliet when he first moved into the art world and later made some unreleased recordings with him after he retired from the music business.

Labelled as "vulgar, arrogant and the epitome of 80s excess" Schnabel likens hearing such criticisms to "a rhinoceros with birds shitting on its back. It stopped me getting comfortable but it never worried me."

I've just stumbled across the following Beefheart reference in an edition of the Daily Telegraph from the summer, in an article about Brazilian sampa nova music. Those Beefheart comparisons just get stranger and stranger:

If sampa nova had a precursor, it was perhaps the work of the veteran Tom Zé, who was born in Bahia, in the north-east of Brazil, but has lived in São Paulo for more than 25 years. As one of the founders of the rebellious, psychedelic Tropicalismo movement of the 1960s, alongside Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil, Zé is the connecting link between generations. While Gil and Veloso became superstars, Zé retreated into obscurity, making his own instruments and using household sounds such as blenders and saws to create music.

Zé credits former Talking Heads singer David Byrne with reviving his career, after Byrne found one of his old records in a bargain bin in a record store and signed him to his Luaka Bop label. His most recent CD Jogos de Armar saw Zé making some of the best music of his career. Zé gets fed up being called an eccentric, although he is clearly marching to a different drum from anyone else. He's a South American equivalent of Frank Zappa or Captain Beefheart, a genuinely original composer and lyricist; references jump from Fidel Castro and Jesus Christ to Luis Gonzaga, a local country-style forro singer.

Familiar as we probably all are with everything under the sun being compared with Captain Beefheart, this one seems like quite a stretch by anyone's standards. That's no criticism of the artist, however - Zé's first two albums, Grande Liquidacao (1968) and Tom Zé (1972) are well worth buying if you stumble across them.

This month's Wire magazine (November 2003) briefly reviews Neon Meate Dream Of A Octafish: A Tribute To Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band:

Although this idea has been done badly before, it hasn't deterred a further gathering of Captain Beefheart neophytes from paying their own personal homage to their hero and mentor. On Neon Meate Dream Of A Octafish: A Tribute To Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band (Animal World Recordings AWR020 CD), the full spectrum of Beefheart and The Magic Band's musical legacy is rudely ransacked by a bunch of ageing punks, art hippies and experimental goofballs who try their hardest to fashion something new from the ripped remains. Culprits include Mike Watt, Jad Fair with Daisey Cooper, Don Fleming, Azalia Snail, Electric Eel's Brian McMahon and Trumans Water, whose version of "Hair Pie:Bake Two" is one of the more inspired slices on a fractured, freaky and creaky set.

Personally I rather liked this creaky set when I first heard it and as soon as I can track down my copy I'll stick some tunes from it on beefheart.com's radio show. Most of my CDs and vinyl are currently stashed away in disorganised towers which threaten to engulf us all following a potentially disastrous leak from the flat upstairs. Unnoticed for hours, it dripped away all over them but very little real damage has been done, incredibly. I count myself lucky and look forward to the day when they're all back on the shelves (alphabetised by artist and each artist's works in date order, naturally) and order is restored to my currently chaotic life.

The Wire's website features an mp3 of their recent broadcast (51MB) on Resonance FM, which includes a couple of tunes from the new Beefheart bootleg, Dichotomy. This archived show will be available for about 3 weeks to download, many thanks to Derek for pointing this out.

I should stress in big letters that Dichotomy is a bootleg, regardless of the claims put about by those manufacturers of aural snake oil, Ozit. Mike Barnes recently sent along a persuasive argument outlining why we should all avoid it like the plague (or like Bluejeans and Moonbeams at the very least):

I just got an advance copy of the new Ozit/Morpheus Beefheart compilation Dichotomy - an outtakes, demos and rarities album "from the 60s and 70s".

It seems that since Grow Fins it's been open season for anyone with some old tapes to stick out a CD and pass if off as 'official', such as Ozit's Dust Sucker version of the Bat Chain Puller bootleg. Dust Sucker was shoddy to say the least and its appearance in record stores has possibly led to the postponement or cancellation of a properly mixed and mastered release by the Frank Zappa estate, who own the master.

I entered into e-mail correspondence with Ozit as I didn't believe all their story about it being "Don's own mix" (and later found out it was never mixed beyond the commonly heard rough mix version). I also disbelieved their story that Don gave it to the late Roger Eagle (an English DJ Don knew since the 60s), imploring him to release it. No one who I spoke to involved in the Magic Band at the time gives this story any credence. I questioned this in my e-mail to Ozit and asked about royalties. They assured me Beefheart would be getting his dues. I then asked what arrangements - like Revenant - they had made to give royalties to the group members involved. I received no further replies to that or queries about the veracity of the Roger Eagle story.

Then, to preserve the company's level of achievement, along comes Dichotomy. The compilation has got some great music that deserves to be heard - but this is mostly stuff that fans have anyway and not any better quality. There are no sleeve notes and some of the stuff is taken from the Trout Mask house sessions heard in far higher fidelity on the Revenant Grow Fins set. It seems they haven't even got the wit to nick them from that source.

The version of "Key To The Highway" from rehearsals with Zoot Horn from 71-72 is as hissy as my old bootleg tape and is still slightly too fast. There's also the early version of "Seam Crooked Sam" (w/Drumbo tap-dancing although Ozit seem to be unaware of its provenance calling it "Harmonica Blues Rehearsal"). "Moody Liz" is here (from I May Be Hungry But I Sure Ain¹t Weird), there's a Shiny Beast demo and some tracks from the 1966 Avalon Ballroom boot. There are also a four instrumentals from the extensive post-Spotlight Kid Record Plant sessions (loads of bits and pieces recorded to use up the time that had been booked). These of course aren't the masters that someone (you know who you are although you probably aren't reading this) copied from the Warner Bros vaults, as the snowstorm of tape hiss on these attests. And the titles from these sessions are all wrong here, with a single exception. Excellent!

What looked to be a 'different' version of "Neon Meat" [sic] raised an eyebrow. I was almost 100% per cent positive that there were no Trout Mask outtakes and I can confirm that this 'alternative' version is in fact just the version from Trout Mask but of dreadful quality. Astonishingly, the 'version' of "Hot Head" is unquestionably the Doc At The Radar Station version again dubbed from a primitive source and missing the first few bars. Absolutely incredible! What a bunch of clowns!

The problem of Dust Sucker's appalling sleeve notes is circumvented by this issue having none and this hotch potch of cuts isn't even in chronological order. Who would get anything out of this? You'd have to be a fan to figure out what's going on, in which case you'd probably have better versions of these recordings anyway. It seems Ozit/Morpheus feel they can go on putting out this shoddy stuff with impunity. There must be enough old tapes in their drawers for ten more.

Don¹t buy this record, you can easily get the recordings elsewhere.

A new book "guest edited" by multimillionaire Beefheart admirer and Simpsons creator Matt Groening, the somewhat unimaginatively titled Da Capo Best Music Writing 2003, is now available.

I'm not sure yet how much Beefheart (if any) is in the book but that's no matter - there's plenty of Tom Waits, a piece on the refreshingly grimy Fat Possum Records, James Brown and even a contribution from satirical news site, The Onion. Consequently my copy is speeding its way to me as I type.

Another Beefheart tribute compilation should be seeing the light of day soon, entitled Mama Kangaroos. This stands head and shoulders above the rest (with the possible exception of Eugene Chadbourne and Jimmy Carl Black's convivial Pachuco Cadaver) and features an entirely female take on Beefheart's music. Project co-ordinator and token male Mike Villers has been sending not only regular updates on progress, but also tunes form the album as and when they've been recorded.

It's inspirational stuff - each artist has taken their own personal approach to Don's music and has done so highly successfully. The latest tune to be sent over is a splendid version of "Orange Claw Hammer" by Mrs Bob with the Kings of Siam which sea-shanties things up a notch or two with fiddles and penny whistles. It's a keeper and is currently in rotation on beefheart.com's radio show.

Mike recently sent along the following update on the project:

Essra Mohawk - www.rockersusa.com/EssraMohawk/ - who you know from Zappa days past and much other wonderful music, has agreed to assume the vocalist's spot in EDO's version of "Party of Special Things To Do".

Though Essra makes her home in Nashville these days, she is a Philly native, so we're still sticking to the rules of all Philly women doing the singin'. I also expect to very shortly send you a lovely, "Strawberry Fields Forever" inspired version of "Her Eyes Are A Blue Million Miles" by another pair of Philly ex-patriots - the highly respected jazz musician and composer Skip Heller, along with newcomer Faye Davis. They're old friends of mine who I thought would be right for the gig, so I called them up out in LA and they came through big time. They're finishing up the mix and I expect to have it within a week or so.

I can't wait. This really is an inspired and enlightening project - an all-female take on a notoriously male form of music. If you want to wade through my thoughts on why Beefheart and other forms of experimental music are so male-dominated, feel free to do so.

I'm unlikely to be able to update this page again before the Magic Band play at All Tomorrow's Parties in LA next weekend so hope any of you going have a great time with their gloriously spiky music. If you haven't already seen them and haven't heard their recent album, you're in for a very pleasant surprise. Incidentally, ATP Recordings has some good information about their Magic Band album on the official ATP website.

The only sad note is that Elliott Smith won't be playing at ATP as originally intended. My stereo seems to have became a monument to the dead after 5 - 6 weeks of solid Johnny Cash following the great man's death, and now Elliott Smith has replaced him in heavy rotation.

If you're still in the land of the living and are going to see the Magic Band, please do let me know what it was like.

Finally for today, Robert McNeil, while lauding John Peel's Radio 1 show and dissing his Radio 4 show, Home Truths, states:

Most heartening, he played Captain Beefheart, a genius from a golden age (i.e. my youth), and revealed he regularly received calls from the artist ("I always dread these. He’s not very chatty at all, but it’s a great honour to be called by him.").

It's surprising to hear John Peel refer to "dreading" calls from his old, absent friend who I'd understood he was no longer in touch with. I suspect a bit of misleading paraphrasing has been going on here. Or has it?

Hello, still here?

I refuse to begin another update with an apology for the lack of updates, so instead the Radar Station has done the decent thing and expanded it's team, bringing on board a news editor, Derek Laskie.

Derek has sent me mountains of snippets of information over the last couple of years and seemed like the ideal person to bring you all the news about Beefheart related events, publications and releases. He will be working with Radar Station discographer Steve Froy on all news here at beefheart.com and between the two of them I think we can just about guarantee the most comprehensive, informative and entertaining Beefheart news service that you're likely to find. Can you tell that I'm pleased?

You can contact Derek by emailing derek@beefheart.com - please send any news items that you think should be added to the news pages to him.

Derek and Steve have kicked things off by bringing you some long overdue news about Don's first recording for 9 years (or first musical recording for over two decades, depending on how you want to look at it), the upcoming Magic Band live dates, and a new Beefheart bootleg release from the same label of dubious honour which brought you Dust Sucker. Soon to come is an interview with Drumbo's deputy drummer for the new shows - Michael Traylor.

For all these items, and more as they emerge, please check out the Beefheart news page.

The page you are on now, Up Sifter, will continue to carry info about this site's other updates but will also become more of a weblog affair, in which I'll point you in the direction of all kinds of Beefheart related items elsewhere on the net and you can see who's currently name-dropping the good Captain.

To kick things off, The Observer considers Captain Beefheart the third greatest rock eccentric while it's sister paper joins the rest of us salivating at the prospect of some Fresh Beefheart.

Jason Pierce from Spiritualized likens the experience of listening back to the early takes of his Amazing Grace album to hearing the Magic Band or the Elevators for the first time. Lovely as Amazing Grace is, it reminds me more of hearing Spiritualized for the first time.

The Village Voice reviews William Parker's Scrapbook and considers the Parker / Morris / drake album Eloping With The Sun to be a Beefheartian "ethnographic homily" similar to "The Dust Blows Forward". While we've all heard meaningless Beefheart comparisons a million times, I was struck by this album's similarity to Eugene Chadbourne and Jimmy Carl Black's Beefheart covers album Pachuco Cadaver.

In Peter Hill's pleasing new book about the joys of being a hippie Scottish lighthouse keeper in the 1970s, he recalls the qualities which made him suitable for the task: "My hair hung well below my shoulders. I had a great set of Captain Beefheart records and I walked about with a permanent grin on my face as I had recently, finally, lost my virginity. I rolled my own cigarettes, was a member of Amnesty International and had just read Kerouac's Desolation Angels. In short, I was eminently suitable for the job."

More soon, I'm off back to my lighthouse for a while.

The postponed All Tomorrow's Parties festival featuring the Magic Band has finally been rescheduled for 8th / 9th November 2003 and will take place at Queen Mary Ship in Long Beach, California.

Full information and tickets can be found at the ATP website.

Many thanks to those of you who prodded me into activity (of a sort) by enquiring if there was still life to be found at beefheart.com. Since I've been silent throughout your excitement about the magnificent new Magic Band album I can well understand why some of you may think the only possible explanation was that I'd snuffed it.

I apologise for the lack of updates but, as ever, life gets in the way sometimes. Frankly I've been so exhausted (but very happy) recently that I'm completely unable to summon up anything other than the dullest comment which really wouldn't do the album justice. Better keep quiet, I felt.

I've been thrilled by the new Magic Band album, Back To The Front, like so many of you. If you haven't heard it yet you can hear a selection of tunes on the Radar Station's web-radio show and I'd highly recommend that you get a copy now from amazon.co.uk or amazon.com

That LA Magic Band gig is still due to be rescheduled for later on in the year, more news as and when there is any. I've added a few more links to the reunion info page as well to press articles and reviews.

I'm very pleased to learn that the classic and highly sought after film Some Yo Yo Stuff will be released on 8th September in the UK on DVD.

Anton Corbijn's illuminating and charming short film Some Yo Yo Stuff is a highly recommended glimpse into the world of Don Van Vliet circa 1994 and is absolutely not to be missed.

Pre-order now from amazon.co.uk. The US / Canada region 1 version is still available from amazon.com.

More soon.

John French has just sent along the following message.

The Magic Band is sad to announce that the LA ATP concert scheduled for June 22nd, 2003 had to be postponed. The new concert date is tentatively scheduled to be September 27th 2003.

Although disappointed, we're determined to make the September performance be even BETTER than the June show would have been. Thank you for your support and we apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused.

John French has very kindly sent along his thoughts about playing Beefheart's songs live for the first time in 20 years, and singing them live for the first time ever. Find them on the still-expanding reunion info page.