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We are very pleased to announce that Moris Tepper has agreed to a series of exclusive interviews with the Radar Station about his time with Don and the Magic Band, his solo music career and his work as an artist. Moris was guitarist with the Magic Band from 1976 until 1982, the longest serving guitarist with the band under his full name of Jeff Moris Tepper. He later went on to record a number of solo albums, as well as working with P J Harvey, Tom Waits and Frank Black. These interviews will take place over the coming months and will be posted here onRead More →

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At the end of 2025 Moris Tepper released his seventh solo album, A Hand Carved Life, on his Candlebone label. This is his second album since his return to making and recording music following a brief hiatus of 14 years. This new album is probably his most accomplished to date and showcasing how he has matured as a songwriter. Moris has agreed to do a series of interviews with the Radar Station and we decided that the first of the series would be about this new album. We get to talk about his songwriting method, some of his influences and coming to terms with theRead More →

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In: Blog, Bongo Fury, Lick My Decals Off Baby, Music, New releases
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Well, we’re getting off to a great start this year with a couple of new releases planned. Bongo Fury 50th Anniversary Only a year late but welcome none the less, Bongo Fury gets a deluxe release on CD. This will be available from 20 March 2026. There will be 5 CDs of material (roughly 80% unreleased) including studio outtakes and live tracks plus the two Armadillo concerts complete and remixed from the original 16-Track Masters. Also includes unseen photos and liner notes from band member, Denny Walley, plus Vaultmeister Joe Travers. Blu-Ray features new Dolby Atmos, 5.1 mixes, and high-resolution stereo audio with bonus surroundRead More →

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In December 2025 Gerry Fialka interviewed bass player extraordinaire Greg Cohen for his podcast I’m Probably Wrong About Everything. Greg has played bass for a bewildering and diverse number of musicians over the years. During the interview he told this great story about how he came to be introduced to Don : Seven years younger than me is my little sister Jeannie who followed after my mom. She looked like a little Eskimo when she was born, full head of hair, black hair and from the very earliest age she was creative. From like the beginning. And she would sit by my mom and absorbRead More →

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Published by Anxiety Press 2025 Paperback : 52 pages From the Introduction by Sarah Hajkowski : Captain Beefheart joins Yamrus’ collection of more than 40 books and nearly 4000 publications in inviting those new to its subject matter. Over the lip of a kooky kidney bean pool bobbing with references and forgotten wonderfulness is John Yamrus warmly waving.  …  John  Yamrus wants readers to puzzle with him. Review by Steve Froy Trout Mask Replica is one of those albums that seems to inspire people to want to write about it, whether to say how good it is, how bad they think it is or howRead More →

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Thanks to the tireless work of the group dedicated to scouring recordings of John Peel radio shows for musical rarities a previously unknown version of Mirror Man has been discovered. Found on the tape of John’s show from Sunday 21st January 1968 was a good quality recording of Yellow Brick Road from the Safe As Milk album rather than taken from the band’s first Top Gear session which wasn’t recorded until three days later, and is introduced by Don himself who was obviously in the studio with John. At the end of Yellow Brick Road it cuts into an astonishing version of Mirror Man !Read More →

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On Friday 29th August 2025 Robyn Hitchcock performed the Safe As Milk album live at The Chapel, San Francisco. A second set Deep Cuts & Classic Tracks  included a selection of other Beefheart songs from the later albums. The musical director for the show was Allyson Baker from the San Francisco rock band Dirty Ghosts. She and her husband played a couple of Beefheart songs with Robyn Hitchcock at The Chapel in May 2025 – Electricity and Zig Zag Wanderer – and enjoyed the experience so much that they wanted to do it again. By coincidence the promoter of the show that night had anRead More →

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This is the back story behind the previously unknown song “White Powdered Wigs”, originally co-written in 1968 by Don Van Vliet and Peter Anders, who was then part of the duo Anders and Poncia. Don had mentioned back in early 1968 (Melody Maker 3 Feb 1968 – Those Beefheart Blues … by Tony Wilson) that he had written a song with Peter, saying in an interview, “I wrote a song with Pete Anders. I also wrote another one called ‘Fifth Dimensional Judy’. We physically love England” but no details or confirmation had ever emerged about the track until now. He had also mentioned in laterRead More →

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Back in 2015 Robyn Hitchcock performed the whole of the Clear Spot album live at various UK venues – read about that here. On Friday 29th August 2025 he will be performing the Safe As Milk album live at The Chapel, San Francisco. A second set will include a number of other Beefheart songs from the later albums. At the moment this appears to be the only performance before Robyn heads off to perform Dylan’s John Wesley Harding album at several US venues. Along with Robyn will be some ‘special guests’ (although others, currently unknown,  are promised): Chuck Prophet Kelley Stoltz Blag Dahlia (The Dwarves)Read More →

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The Radar Station’s favourite Beefheart tribute band, Orange Claw Hammer, have a couple of gigs coming up soon. The band will be presenting their jazz inflected take on many Beefheart classics at this year’s Edinburgh Festival under the banner Sugar n’ Spikes and all things Beefheart. They will be performing at Bannerman’s in Edinburgh on Saturday 9th and Saturday 16th August 2025. Tickets are available in advance form the Fringe Box Office or online at www.edfringe.comRead More →

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The photography for the Strictly Personal album was the work of Guy Webster. The wonderfully bizarre inner gatefold photo of the band has been discussed in another post. The other photos for the album were taken at a separate session, probably at Webster’s studio and the resulting images were colourised and mocked up as postage stamps for use on the front of the album to help it look more like a real package that had been through the mail. Apart from these five images that were used on the album there were probably other ones taken on the day too. None of these have everRead More →

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When I put together the Radar Station tribute to Elliot Ingber I approached his brother, Ira, and asked him if he’d like to contribute something. Ira said he’d prefer to talk to me about Elliot. So over the course of three facetime sessions we spoke about Elliot’s career and a whole bunch of other related stuff. It’s taken me a while to collate it all as there was a hell of a lot to sort through, but, finally, here is a transcript of our chat about Elliot. I also took the opportunity to ask Ira about his involvement with the Bluejeans and Moonbeams album. IRead More →

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In March 2025 I spoke at length to Ira Ingber about his brother Elliot when putting together a tribute following Elliot’s death and I took the opportunity to ask Ira about his involvement with the Bluejeans and Moonbeams album. Not much is written about this 1974 Beefheart-lite album because it’s not liked by many hardcore fans. So, I thought it would be of interest to find out a bit more about how it came together from someone who was involved with the recording. Our chat inevitably rambled over other Beefheart topics and so I have also included some of  these reminiscences and comments from IraRead More →

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One of the most exciting pieces of footage of the band is the live version of ‘Click Clack’ filmed at the Bataclan in Paris in 1972 which was broadcast on the French TV show POP2. It was known that more of the concert was filmed and a 30 minute audio of the concert has circulated amongst collectors for many years. This audio also includes a short interview with Don. The question asked by all fans since has been ‘is there more footage of this Bataclan show somewhere?’ A few years ago I was told that no further footage existed in the vaults, only the ‘ClickRead More →

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We are sad to hear of the death of Terry Van Vliet, he was 89 and had been suffering with dementia. Terry was an older cousin of Don’s, and also born in Glendale. His parents were Harold and Winifred Vliet. Like Don, Terry reclaimed the ‘Van’ for the family name. He went to Lancaster Valley High, the same school as Don. It was here that Terry developed  a passion for poetry and literature. When he moved to Las Vegas for a while he joined a small theatre group and found another passion, acting. He returned to Los Angeles and tried to pursue an acting career.Read More →

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Henry Kaiser has put together this video tribute for Elliot featuring some solo guitar inspired by Elliot’s time in the Magic Band and a group version of Alice in Blunderland originally performed in 1995. The video also includes contributions from Scott Colby, Max Kutner plus Jimmy and Morgan Agren.Read More →

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Here at the Radar Station we were saddened to learn of the death of Elliot Ingber on 21st January, he was 83. This is Don’s simple but expressive sketch of ‘Mean E’ taken from the cover of The Spotlight Kid album which also included this poetic sketch, also by Don : No B.O. for this boy it’s like a winged eel fingerling crawling thru lime jello it’s like chrome black eyebrow rolled out real long a paper brow magnifying glass fried brown, edge scorched, yoked like a squeak from a speaker behind forehead of the time, licorice schtick open tube of valuable JuJuBees. Our shortRead More →

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Back in October of 1971, I went to see Captain Beefheart and The Magic Band at the Gymnasium at Tuft’s University in Medford, Mass. This gig was shortly prior to the early 1972 release of their THE SPOTLIGHT KID album. I was 19 years old and I had seen earlier incarnations The Magic Band of going back to 1967. I had all the Beefheart albums in my record collection, and I knew all the songs. Something was different at this show; there were new songs and there were unprecedented improvised blues-rock guitar solos on many of the tunes – from a guy with long hairRead More →