This splendid cartoon and interpretation of the Beefheart story was drawn and kindly sent to me by Mark Beebe – many thanks to him for his permission to feature it here. Click for a larger view:Read More →
Many thanks to Peter Haines for sending it along. Click for a larger view:Read More →
Mike Barnes follows the pioneering trail blazed by Captain Beefheart and The Magic Band. Don Van Vliet, aka Captain Beefheart, was born in Glendale, a suburb of Los Angeles, in 1941. 16 years after his last record was released, he is still one of the most talked about musicians of his generation. His most famous work, the double album Trout Mask Replica, inevitably makes an appearance in any chart purporting to feature the best albums of all time (most recently it featured in Channel 4’s Music Of The Millennium) and he is still cited as an influence and inspiration by musicians of all persuasions, fromRead More →
The Legendary A&M Sessions Pop-flavoured R&B from the Californian outback, these rare mid-60s sides are nevertheless notable for the Captain’s Wolf-like growl and harmonica squeals. Some wonky slide guitar, and one or two odd time changes hint at the Magic Band’s wayward future. Safe As Milk Not as psychedelic as its ’67 vintage might suggest, “Safe As Milk” instead provides a thrilling new take on garage-blues. The arrangements are stranger, the voice booms with intimidating authority, and the guitars start to revel in the new rock-era freedoms. Mirror Man Not recorded live in 1965, as the sleeve legend has it, but a live–in-the-studio set datingRead 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 right group to play my music. DH: Aha – you had a lot of trouble? DVV: It wasn’t that much trouble, it was just a lot of childish nonsense, you know, like, uh, with the other group – I mean it takes a long time to get to play what I do. Now I have the perfect thing. Wait till they hear this group. DH: You reckon this band is better than any band you had before? DVV: Best, ohRead 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 the quintessential cockeyed rock ‘n’ roll band. Creators of perhaps the most obscure critically revered rock record of all time, 1969’s “Trout Mask Replica,” California’s Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band epitomized rock’s version of art for art’s sake. Misunderstood – even openly reviled – in its day, the band has been an inspiration for such disparate musicians as PJ Harvey, Joan Osborne, Tom Waits and the late Jeff Buckley. This month, Revenant Records, a small, meticulous reissue label inRead More →
[youtube video_id=”LRlmTzDyw7s”] A black and white 60-second television commercial for Captain Beefheart’s latest album on Straight/Reprise, Lick My Decals Off, Baby, was refused recently by KTTV in Los Angeles for airing on any of the station’s programs. When asked by the record company as to reasons for not accepting the spot, KTTV station manager Charles Young said, “I just don’t like it. I think it’s crude and don’t want it on my air.” [His air?!] “Let’s say I find the commercial unacceptable and let it go at that.” When asked for a specific reason, Young declared the album title is “obscene.” Time had been scheduledRead More →
IT’S THE BLIMP, IT’S THE BLIMP… And how. Beefheart is the blimp. The Captain is unique. No band in the world could manage what he and his magic men achieve. They tear and slash at the guts of their music, ripping its lungs out, grinding and crushing the bones, then pull it all together in a couple of bars. Their songs both lyrics and rhythms – destroy the tired-out bullshit conventions of every contemporary musical field. Saxes jag in and out among rasping guitars, the drumming is what ‘heavy’ used to mean, and Beefheart hasn’t managed a drink or a screw since he climbed outRead More →
In this day of dubious miracles, when lucky new arrivals on the rock scene are spotted, slated for super-stardom, and hyped to oblivion, all in a matter of a year or so; when the ability of the American Kulture-Complex to absorb revolutionary ideas and turn them into profit reaches weird osmotic states, the enlightened listener tends to become somewhat cynical when confronted with the term ‘underground music.’ We all know what the underground is; we can read about it in ads for Columbia Records: The Man Can’t Bust Our Music or Know Who Your Friends Are. Who are our friends? Who is the man? AsRead More →
Don Van Vliet was born in Glendale California on January 15 1941, the Only child of Glenn and Sue Van Vliet. Don began showing artistic talent at a very young age, but Glenn and Sue were none too keen on the prospect of having an artist in the family (“‘Cause you know, all artists are faggots,” is how Don explained their rationale), so they moved to the Mojave Desert, an isolated, harsh environment guaranteed to bleach the creative juice out of anybody. But Don Van Vliet just had too much to dry out. The drive to translate the world around him (and the one insideRead More →
In 12 albums spread out over 13 years, Captain Beefheart has created a body of work that breaks most every rule in American music and results in something that couldn’t possibly be anything but American music. Hey, man, take a look at these,” Captain Beefheart exclaims, holding some slides up to the bare bulb in his dressing rooms at the Beacon Theater in Manhattan. “These are some pictures!” Taken by a local freelancer, the slides show Beefheart standing at the microphone, blowing his soprano sax. “These were taken in 1969 at Ungano’s, the first time I came to New York” he exclaims, and it’s hardRead 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 and slimy weenie/hot and slimy weenie/hot and slimy weenie… WHERE ARE YOU NOW?!?” The tape still exists, us mindlessly wailing away over the same bass pattern with our 1970 rock band equipment, seconds later me grabbing the microphone and reciting the words to “The Blimp” from Trout Mask Replica and then all of us playing as loudly and as randomly and as “weird” as we thought Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band would be if they were in the sameRead More →
“My music is terribly personal,” Don Van Vliet says, his eyes fixed intently on me. “I think any artist is that way. I think there’s a lot of people out there that are kidding about art. I mean, literally kidding.” Van Vliet speaks in a soft, slow Southern California drawl that sounds nothing at all like the raw, rasping bellow he usually affects when he’s singing under the name Captain Beefheart. But his intensity is the same, and he is every bit as captivating, clever, charming and sometimes exasperatingly difficult to follow in conversation as he is in performance or on record. One of theRead More →
Whatever the relationship between the music of Don Van Vliet (Captain Beefheart) and new wave, it must be more than coincidence that after fifteen years as a largely ignored but legendary eccentric, he is making music that is as strong and strange as any he has ever made, and is receiving more recognition than ever before. Captain Beefheart has always represented the final frontier of rock weirdness, but his vintage records were only taken seriously by a few at the time of their release. Few critics (Langdon Winner foremost among them) tried to negotiate the maze of the music’s roots and the essence of Beefheart’sRead 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, the neon-choked main drag of Manhattan’s cheap-thrills district. As the daily midmorning traffic jam congeals into an unmoving mass, Don Van Vliet peers out a drizzle-streaked car window at the shuffling tribe of hookers, hustlers and head cases that clogs the sidewalks, then squints up at the lewd movie marquees looming above: SLAVES OF THE CANNIBAL GOD. SUGAR BRITCHES. THAT’S PORNO! Reeling out into the street, a sputtering madwoman, dizzed-out and in full rant, does battle with her demons, flingingRead 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 undoing the corporate environment. He has painstakingly adjusted and readjusted the dimmer switch until the lighting in the room matches the twilight outside, and he has also managed to pry open one of those standard office building windows, the kind that no one who works in places like this ever even gets near for fear that if they do try and get some fresh air in, some alarm will ring and a team of security guards will haul them awayRead More →
“Beefheart was a major influence on Devo as far as direction goes. Trout Mask Replica… there’s so many people that were affected by that album that he probably doesn’t even know about, a silent movement of people.” — Devo, quoted in Search & Destroy #3, 1977 I have been a staunch admirer of Captain Beefheart since 1970. The singular nature of his music, and the joy, excitement and mystery that are an inextricable part of it, are so extraordinary and exhilarating that I find myself compelled to celebrate the man whenever I have the chance. My first opportunity came late in 1970 while I wasRead More →
As we approached Captain Beefheart for an interview he was remarking to a small gathering of fans seeking photos “I wish I was an octopus, I really do though. I mean, could you imagine standing there octopied like that. No, I mean man, that’s beautiful, really… I love dolphins, and octopus…” We met the Captain [Don Van Vliet] in the parking lot, between concerts at the Red Creek Inn here in Rochester recently, during his North Eastern tour, and recorded the following interview: GREG: [photographing Carl and the Captain holding a ‘Trout Mask Replica’ album, leaning against a white station wagon] Hafta stand back aRead More →
PASSAIC, NEW JERSEY – Captain Beefheart, rock’s sometime genius, had just finished a show with Frank Zappa, with whom he’s touring after the end of their longtime feud. Slumped backstage at the Capitol Theatre, he scratched his shaggy head and slowly related the latest bizarre turn in his odd life. “I said some silly things,” Beefheart noted, “because I’m a spoiled brat and I don’t understand business to the degree that Frank does. I probably felt neglected. I’ll admit it… and I told him so. I said, ‘I’m sorry Frank and I don’t mean that for an excuse.’ We shook hands and that was that.”Read More →
