The Radar Station's editor pictured shortly after the release of Clear Spot.

The Radar Station is an unofficial, non-profit making fan site dedicated to Captain Beefheart and The Magic Band, and Don Van Vliet the painter. Set up in 1998 to promote Don's art and music, it is entirely independent of any record or publishing companies.

The primary aim of the Radar Station is to help ensure that Don's extraordinary contribution to and influence upon 20th Century alternative culture is never forgotten or overlooked.

The Radar Station features a vast online archive of all kinds of items relating to the life, art and music of Don Van Vliet, including exclusive interviews with band members and associates, countless press cuttings, photographs, tributes from admirers, paintings by Don Van Vliet, news, rare videos, and so much more. Containing around two and a half thousand files, I suspect it is the biggest collection of publicly accessible Beefheart memorabilia in the world (if you've got a bigger collection, let me know and we'll team up!).

beefheart.com also features its own streaming audio radio show, serving up a small slice of all kinds of adventurous music from hip-hop to Krautrock, free-jazz to drum and bass, post-rock to psychedelic punk, country blues to electronica, exotica to bebop.

The Radar Station welcomes contributions from readers and we are constantly on the look out for new people to join the team. If you would like to write a one-off article, produce something more regular or offer assistance in any way at all, please see the how to contribute section.

Your writings / thoughts / tributes / stories on any vaguely Beefheart-related subject are very welcome indeed.

The Radar Station is an independently funded venture, consequently run on half a shoestring. All contributors offer their work voluntarily and the coffers are empty so if you can't work for free, please don't offer your time.

This is not a profit making venture - if it was you'd have to wonder why we chose to focus on Captain Beefheart and vaguely odd-sounding music. Any support - whether financial or otherwise - is always gratefully received. Please see the info on making a donation if you would like to help out.

If you have a website and would like to link to the Radar Station, please do so - I'd be very grateful indeed.

Feel free to link to the main Radar Station page at http://www.beefheart.com or to any specific page of your choice.

You are also welcome to include our banner, again pointing to the main pages or at any specific page of your choice:

If you do want to feature a banner on your site, please save the above image to your own server and link it to us, rather than using it in its beefheart.com location. This will help to reduce any strain on the beefheart.com server. If you're not sure about this, please do ask.

If you do link to beefheart.com, please drop me a quick line so I can say thank you!

What the media says about the Radar Station - Yes, we have been noticed by the outside world...

Credits - A thank you to a few of the people who have specifically helped make this site what it is.

Copyright - Everything's owned by someone, you know.

Detailed site stats - Contrary to what your experience may have told you, there are a lot of Beefheart admirers out there!

Disclaimer - It weren't me...