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 →
[alert_box type=”info”]This cartoon appeared in the June 1999 issue of Tower Records’ free Pulse magazine and is by Justin Green and Ned Hammad.[/alert_box] Many thanks to Peter Haines for sending it along. Click for a larger view:Read More →
[alert_box type=”info”]This excellent introductory article was taken from the April 1998 edition of The Wire.[/alert_box] 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) andRead More →
[alert_box type=”info”]This article first appeared in the April 1998 Record Collector.[/alert_box] 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,Read More →
[alert_box type=”info”]This interview was recently aired on Marc Riley’s Mint radio show on BBC 6Music (broadcast on Don’s 65th birthday!) and is a recording from 1980. Many thanks indeed to Michael Alderson for painstakingly transcribing it.[/alert_box] 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 longRead More →
[alert_box type=”info”]This article was written by James Sullivan and appeared in 6th June 1999’s San Francisco Chronicle to coincide with the releases of Grow Fins, The Dust Blows Forward and the Buddha reissues. Many thanks to Richie for sending it along.[/alert_box] 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. MisunderstoodRead More →
[alert_box type=”info”]This article was taken from the March 1971 edition of Jazz & Pop, author unknown.[/alert_box] [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.” WhenRead More →
[alert_box type=”info”]This splendid article appeared in Zigzag August 1969.[/alert_box] 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 managedRead More →
[alert_box type=”info”]This article was taken from Crawdaddy Volume IV Number I – date unknown.[/alert_box] 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 orRead More →
[alert_box type=”info”]This article originally appeared in the December 1982 edition of Musician magazine. It focuses on the making of the Ice Cream For Crow video, and includes an interview with Don conducted at that time.[/alert_box] 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, anRead More →
[alert_box type=”info”]This article and interview was taken from the May/June 1981 issue of Music & Sound Output[/alert_box] 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 takenRead More →
[alert_box type=”info”]This article was taken from Creem, March 1981, Vol. 12 No. 10. Many thanks to our man in Mexico City, Jesus Quintero for kindly scanning this article and sending it to me.[/alert_box] *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 TroutRead More →
[alert_box type=”info”]This excellent introductory article to the work of Don Van Vliet first appeared in April 1981’s Down Beat.[/alert_box] “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, charmingRead More →
[alert_box type=”info”]This originally appeared in the December 1980 edition of New York Rocker, later reproduced in the Stand Up To Be Discontinued book. Photographs by Laura Levine.[/alert_box] 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 fewRead More →
[alert_box type=”info”]This article was taken from the 27th November 1980 issue of Rolling Stone.[/alert_box] 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,Read More →
[alert_box type=”info”]This piece was taken from Creem magazine of April 1979[/alert_box] 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 willRead More →
[alert_box type=”info”]This article / interview was taken from Trouser Press, Vol. 6, No. 2, February 1979. many thanks to Don Trubey for scanning and sending it along.[/alert_box] “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 soRead More →
[alert_box type=”info”]This brief oddity in which Beefheart gets a bit “mystic” was sent to me by Mikael Djurvall, taken from the American punk zine Search & Destroy in the late seventies. It’s so tiny I thought I’d put Mikael’s scan up as it is.[/alert_box]Read More →
[alert_box type=”info”]This interview was taken from the March 1978 edition of Future Magazine. It is riddled with errors (Muhabbi? Denny Waller?) so don’t rely too heavily on anything they say, but is very entertaining nonetheless. A big thank you to Don Trubey and MJ Stevens for sending it along.[/alert_box] 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 [DonRead More →
[alert_box type=”info”]This article appeared in the 3rd July 1975 edition of Rolling Stone magazine. Many thanks to Mikael Djurvall for sending along the excellent photograph.[/alert_box] 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…Read More →