“New York is a slow turtle with diarrhea” says Captain Beefheart, alias the Spotlight Kid, alias Don Van Vliet. The Anderson Theatre is in that areaRead More

The first thing Don Van Vliet does when you meet him is to bring you immediately into his world. “Those people over there take too manyRead More

WHAT DOES one say to a man who, at the age of three, used to talk with lions inside their cages? How does one cope withRead More

Beefheart has been called a genius and that is unfortunate. Geniuses for the most part are people who die poor and unrecognised only to then receiveRead More

Don Van Vliet has just spent the last fifteen minutes wandering around the conference room at Warner Brothers’ New York headquarters, investigating the possibilities of undoingRead More

Budding guitarists take note. 1. Listen to the birds That’s where all the music comes from. Birds know everything about how it should sound and whereRead More

It takes an outsize ego to make great art. By all accounts that was the case with Don Van Vliet, a.k.a. Captain Beefheart, leader of theRead More

After 16 years and a dozen albums, the world has finally caught up with Don van Vliet. IT’S A DOGSHIT DAY ON West Forty-second Street, theRead More

This article / interview first appeared in Sounds 14th April 1973. Many thanks indeed to Simon Sergeant for typing it up and sending it. I mustRead More

The introduction merely relates the Beefheart ‘legend’, however the interview itself is particularly interesting as the Captain discusses the formation of the Magic Band and theRead More

DH: Don, it’s been five years since you last came to England and played. What have you been doing since? DVV: Trying to get the rightRead More

*May 1970. High School kids in my living room. Singing. “Hot and slimy weenie, knocking at my door/Hot and slimy weenie, crawling ‘cross the floor/Hot andRead More