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In: 1973.04 Rainbow London
With: 3 Comments

The line up was the same as the Brighton ’72 gig except for Alex St Clare instead of Winged Eel Fingerling. The concert started with Rockette Morton with an electric toaster straped on his head. He said, “Good evening. My name is Rockette Morton. I’ve just come on to do a toast.” Then he leapt into the air and played a short free form solo. He went into the riff from Mirror Man and the band joined in. Beefheart came on playing the harp and exhorting everyone to their feet. Hundreds of people left their seats and ran to the front of the stage. ItRead More →

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In: 1972.03 Brighton
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I was 17. I’d been a fan for 2 years and had all the albums, but this was to be my first (and best) concert. I travelled the 25 miles to Brighton on the back of my mates Yamaha 100 motorbike. The first thing I remember is all the weird and wonderful characters in the audience: people with plastic ray guns, someone had an inflatable robot, and one guy was dressed up like the Trout Mask sleeve, complete with shuttlecock. The support band came and went. I can’t remember anything about them. There was an air of excitement and anticipation in the hall that wasRead More →

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In: 1980 Beacon New York
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Personnel: (Beefheart & Magic Band) Don Van Vliet (Captain Beefheart): vocals, harmonica, Chinese gongs, soprano sax; Jeff Moris Tepper, Richard Snyder: guitars; Eric Drew Feldman: electric bass, synthesiser, keyboards; Robert Arthur Williams: drums; Gary Lucas: guitar on Flavor Bud Living. (Ulmer Quintet) Ulmer: guitar; Julius Hemphill: saxes; Olu Dara: trumpet; Amin Ah: bass; Calvin Weston: drums. Inspired is a word which is frequently misused, particularly when applied to an event or a concept. Yet the pairing of Don Van Vliet (a.k.a. Captain Beefheart) and James “Blood” Ulmer can be described in no better fashion. Performing before a capacity crowd one chilling night after Thanksgiving, BeefheartRead More →

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In: 1980.12 Paradise Boston
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This live review was written by Tristram Lozaw and originally appeared in February 1981 Boston Rock. Pressed in a recent Lester Bangs interview for something he could compare to his music, Don Van Vliet aka Captain Beefheart named the “speed and emotion” of works by artist Franz Kline. Beefheart seems to rely on shapes instead of notes. Word sounds instead of lyrics. Equations that don’t necessarily balance. Approaching music as the artist / sculptor he is, Beefheart’s communiques are more often directed at his band (his canvas) than the audience. A painter doesn’t throw a swash of color onto his creation and then talk toRead More →

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In: 1981 Reseda California
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“You either love it or hate it,” explained the guy standing behind me to his wary girlfriend during Captain Don’s blistering set. “It’s the weirdest music I’ve ever heard, but I love it.” I don’t think the friend was convinced. Captain Beefheart certainly is an original, and with his new band (guitarists Jeff Tepper and “Midnight Hat Size” Snyder, bass and keyboard man Eric Feldman and drummer Robert Williams) he’s launched on a retrenching operation, basically abandoning his sometime commercial attempts and heading for the woods of experimentation again. From the moment he walked onstage with Feldman’s roaring bass solo as fanfare and stuck theRead More →

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In: 1980 Beacon New York
With: 2 Comments

Don Van Vliet, who is better known as Captain Beefheart, writes some of the knottiest, most extravagantly off-center music ever played on amplified instruments. One can remember earlier Beefheart concerts and be familiar with his recordings and still be unprepared for the sheer physical impact of two or three electric guitars, bass and drums hammering out rhythms that seem to trip over themselves in perfect unison, and of Mr. Van Vliet declaiming helter-skelter in a voice that veers edgily from a falsetto hiccup to a buzz-saw rasp. Captain Beefheart has been writing this knotty music, and teaching it to various editions of his Magic Band,Read More →

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In: 1975 New Victoria Theatre London
With: 2 Comments

DON’T BELIEVE what your mother tells you kids, there really is a Legion of Super Heroes. Quiet, mild mannered, and sensitive he may be, but Don Van Vliet is also the Spotlight Kid and with Drumbo and Winged Eel Fingerling he beamed down to London to save us. He also saved his sagging reputation. Forget the self pity that’s haunted the Captain for the last couple of years, he’s once again the gargantuan figure that gave us “Trout Mask Replica” and “Clear ‘Spot”, and if his new material is anything to go by (from the up and coming album with Frank Zappa “Bongo Fury”) heRead More →

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In: 1972 Aragon Ballroom, Chicago
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As we all know, Chicago is renowned for having its roots firmly planted in the blues. That, of course, makes it fertile territory for Captain Beefheart who unmistakingly got his start with the idiom (listen to his Budda LP SAFE AS MILK or an obscure A&M single from the mid-sixties Fryin’ Pan). No matter how far from its standards he journeyed in his avant garde jazz – verbal, imagery period well expressed on TROUT MASK REPLICA and LICK MY DECALS OFF BABY, he never really lost touch with it, he just used it as a launching pad for widely unexplored musical regions. Now, he’s returnedRead More →

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In: 1972 Royal Albert Hall
With: 1 Comment

“I really must apologise for this P.A.,” the Captain said to his Albert Hall audience, “I’m sorry, really sorry.” The audience fell silent – “I’m not THAT serious,” APPLAUSE – “but I am very sorry. The next time I am here, I will bring my own PA.” The long awaited concert was sadly marred by hired PA. trouble (stop me if you’ve heard this story). The Captain was visibly upset by the strange noises being emitted from the massive ($$$) system, and in the middle of one composition, he flung the microphone to the floor. He retrieved it quickly, “Well, I might as well singRead More →

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In: 1971 Ungano New York
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Ry Cooder, with his group, and Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band, bowed to the New York Press at Ungano’s in mid-winter. Both are among the more progressive Warner/Reprise acts, though their use of musical traditions accounts in part for their unique sounds. Cooder, on first, played a brief set composed entirely of country blues pieces from the 1920s and 30s, originated by Blind Willie Johnson, Sleepy John Estes, and others. His bottleneck guitar, and his mandolin styling as well, were classic in that he approached his material as a series of composed pieces. (Few country blues pieces were improvisational in character; most were workedRead More →