Arthur Lee died on Thursday. Guardian article Guardian obituary Independent obituary Luckier in Love than later in life BBC news item Your tributes at the BBC Arthur Lee videos on YouTube Needless to say it’s a very sad day here at beefheart.com. It’s hard to grasp that the charismatic, vital and seemingly unstoppable performer that re-emerged five years ago on a determined mission to raise the profile of his great music has gone and there are no more shows. No more “Seven And Seven Is” encores, no more spine tingles caused by a solitary tambourine tap tap tapping the intro to “Little Red Book”, noRead More →

It’s not quite a full theme, but certainly enough sound files to “annoy your colleagues, family and friends” to quote Simon Pardoe who created them. The Beefheart sound files are available at Simon’s website.Read More →

Still of the Trout House from The Artist Formerly Known As Captain Beefheart

  The legendary house in which Trout Mask Replica was endlessly rehearsed is up for sale. For $849,900 you can own and (hopefully) preserve a property of considerable historical importance to all Beefheart fans. Why is it so important? This is the house where a poverty stricken Magic Band were kept under virtual house arrest while honing the impossibly intricate album Trout Mask Replica, and subjected to virtual brain washing sessions to “help” coax the unique music out of them. The music was written here; painstakingly transcribed by John French, taught to the band and many tracks on Trout Mask were even recorded here –Read More →

After over seven years of beaming it out from the Radar Station, I’ve finally decided to call it a day for our streaming radio show (only the radio show, the rest of the site is very much here to stay!). The web is now awash with music and far better radio shows and there just doesn’t seem to be any need for me to add to the hubbub any longer. It was a fairly innovative idea back in early 1999 when I first started broadcasting via the web – I wasn’t aware of any other fan sites which gave their visitors something to listen toRead More →

Anyone into downloading music legally but without the annoying restrictions that come with most online music services may be interested to know that several Beefheart and Beefheart-related albums are available on E-Music now. E-Music offers top quality mp3s free of all DRM restrictions – you can copy them, keep them, burn them to CD, transfer them to a portable, delete them and download them again all at no extra cost. It’s also very reasonably priced. You will currently find the following Beefheart related items on E-Music: Grow Fins (essential Beefheart rarities box set from Revenant) 21st Century Mirror Men (excellent reformed Magic Band live album)Read More →

The new documentary DVD is out today and, although I’m yet to see it, the pre-release reviews have got me salivating. See reviews at: Idiotbastard (scroll right down to the videos section) Video Watchdog Entertainment Weekly You can also view a short 1.6mb clip at MVD featuring a segment of the Cannes Beach performance. Update 26/04: See our Derek’s review for beefheart.com in which he goes into much more detail about his misgivings for this project than those expressed in the comments within this post. Order Captain Beefheart Under Review from Amazon.co.uk Order Captain Beefheart Under Review from Amazon.comRead More →

A box-set collection of Knebworth Festival-related memorabilia is available to accompany a book of memoirs by Knebworth organiser Freddy Bannister; including some Beefheart material. Frederick Bannister was the promoter of many of Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band’s UK concerts in the 70s. He also organised the famous Knebworth Festivals at which not only Captain Beefheart and Frank Zappa appeared but a host of other important acts too. Bannister has written his rock ‘n’ roll memoirs (which include quite a few Beefheart anecdotes) and has published them under the title ‘There Must Be A Better Way’. The book is available as part of a boxedRead More →

The second part of Derek Laskie’s interview with Herb Bermann, legendary writing partner of Don Van Vliet in the early days of the Magic Band is now available and is just as fascinating as part one. At one point Herb expresses his annoyance with something written about him in Mike Barnes’ biography of Don Van Vliet. I’m puzzled by his suggestion that Barnes should “do his homework” – I’d like to stress on the writer’s behalf that this is clearly a very well researched biography. Herb Bermann features only very briefly in the story which, despite his momentous contribution to one of my all timeRead More →

Ivor Cutler died on Friday. He will be very much missed in this household and I’m sure many people who found something invaluable in Beefheart will also have found something invaluable in Ivor Cutler. The following obituaries have appeared in the mainstream UK press so far: The Guardian The Guardian’s Culture Vulture blog entry The Telegraph The Times The BBC Andy Kershaw’s tribute – Andy’s show this Sunday night will feature a classic Peel session from February 1979. I still have some unused tickets for what would have been his last appearance here in Brighton about 4 years ago. The concert was postponed due toRead More →

Not strictly Beefheart related, but I thought I’d let you know that WFMU’s fund-rasing marathon is now on and I’d urge any of you who ever enjoy WFMU to support the station and make a donation to keep them going another year. If any of you haven’t ever enjoyed WFMU then it’s about time you started. It’s entirely listener-supported, no advertising, no government grants and so they play exactly what they want to play – the broadest range of specialist, adventurous, odd and downright fun music available anywhere in the world. Beefheart related items from the WFMU archive: The Golden Birdies comic 2002 Don VanRead More →

The Radar Station is very proud to present the first part of an extensive telephone interview with Don Van Vliet’s early writing partner, Herb Bermann. This partnership has been such a mystery for the last four decades that many have postulated that he didn’t even exist. Herb Bermann would like to happily confirm that he does exist and has spoken exclusively to Derek Laskie about his work with Don Van Vliet. Herb’s interview reveals a wealth of previously unpublished detail about the early history of Captain Beefheart and may well be the most historically significant item yet on beefheart.com for those trying to unravel theRead More →

Our Beefheart discussion list, The Fire Party is now fully functional once more, come and join us. We’ve had a few technical problems over the last few weeks since the whole website and list moved to a new host and these have now been resolved thanks to much help from Conor McMahon – thanks Conor. The Fire Party is a lively group consisting of Magic Band members past and present, various young and old farts at play, the informed and the curious, and has the finest collective taste in music this side of funeral hill. Short of the Sheriff of Hong Kong himself, if youRead More →

BBC 6Music broadcast an archive interview last week from 1980, conducted by David Hepworth. Don was in bullish mood – not at his wittiest or most charming in my humble opinion, desperately asserting himself as a legitimate composer and artist and lashing out at those who he saw as a threat. Genius, without doubt, but not a very genial one on this occasion. Nevertheless, it’s classic Beefheart and Michael Alderson has very kindly, painstakingly transcribed the whole thing for you. Many thanks to him for his trouble, and to Marc Riley’s Mint for making the air-time to broadcast it. Incidentally, this week’s archive interview onRead More →

Today is Don Van Vliet’s 65th birthday. All of us here at beefheart.com would like to send Don our sincere congratulations and very best wishes. Today’s world of contemporary music would be a hollower place without him and, let’s face it, this website would be a whole lot less interesting too. Poet, artist, raconteur, visionary, musician, environmentalist, genius and booglariser extraordinaire, we salute you!Read More →

BBC radio’s 6Music will be airing an archived Don Van Vliet interview this weekend on Sunday 8th January on Marc Riley’s Mint. I don’t know yet which interview it is exactly, but you can listen live online at 10pm (GMT) or whenever you want to via the “listen again” facility for up to one week after broadcast. Many thanks to Simon Pardoe for the tip off. I usually try to listen to Marc Riley’s shows anyway as they are always entertaining and he is a big Beefheart fan. You might have to endure an occasional tune by Coldplay but there is always tonnes of goodRead More →

The whole beefheart.com site is currently moving from one host to another. Everything will still be available exactly where you’re used to finding it here at beefheart.com (and beefheart.org too) but you may notice a few technical glitches as we settle into our new home and get everything working again behind the scenes. I will post a comment here when I’m sure everything is working again. In the meantime, thanks for your patience.Read More →

I recently received a message from John Drumbo French to update me on progress with his new recordings: So here Rockette and I are at Proper Record’s wonderful new studio recording my new CD “City of Refuge” which is basically a Magic Band influenced compilation of music I’ve put together over the last year and a half. I’m listening to Rockette put a bass line on a song called “Maybe That’ll Teach Ya” which is based loosely on a jam that was done by Don, Doug Moon, and myself. I used the Moon riff and Don’s line “Maybe That’ll Teach Ya” and wrote a wholeRead More →

Zoot Horn Rollo passes comment on the 25th anniversary of John Lennon’s murder by an idiot in Oregon’s Register Guard paper: Local guitar teacher Bill Harkleroad, named one of Rolling Stone magazine’s “100 greatest guitarists” ever in 2003, admired Lennon more for his social and political views, for taking “risks to say what he thought,” than for his musical legacy. Harkleroad, better known as Zoot Horn Rollo when he played guitar for Captain Beefheart & the Magic Band more than three decades ago, said Lennon and U2’s Bono are among the few rock legends who had the ability to use their fame that way. “ImagineRead More →

Foma Skilliton kindly alerted me to a website selling a small range of Beefheart t-shirts. I have no idea about the quality nor the legitimacy of the images (photographer’s royalties?) but since this is one of the most frequent questions I get asked I thought I’d pass along the info. The pictures on the site are quite poor quality, so please be warned. There are sharp images of the shirts themselves but they are very pixelated around the actual print on the shirt, looking like the image has just been superimposed over an image of a shirt. If you are tempted you can check themRead More →

I was recently sent a photograph of a Beefheart-related Cal Schenkel art work by Peter Warner who was sent the photo by Schenkel himself in 1981. A much larger version is also available. Entitled “Apes Ma”, it was produced in January 1979 and, although labelled “10 in a series” the rest of the series is not Beefheart related (according to Peter a couple of the others are Zappa related and the rest… who knows?). The picture features (l-r) Don, unknown bearded person – possibly John Thomas, Jeff Moris Tepper, Denny Walley, John French and Apes Ma him/herself. Many thanks to Peter for sending this alongRead More →