Just unearthed from Gary Lucas’s archives:
A phone interview Gary conducted with Don Van Vliet broadcast on Yale University’s radio station WYBC FM January 18th 1972 three days before Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band’s show at Yale University’s Woolsey Hall January 21st 1972.
Gary was Music Director of WYBC at the time, and had seen Beefheart’s first gig in NYC at Ungano’s the year before, a show which changed his life–as after witnessing that concert he vowed that if he ever did anything in music professionally, his number one priority would be to join Beefheart’s Magic Band–which he eventually did in 1980.
This interview was conducted while Don Van Vliet and his band were on tour in the US and had a day off in Boston, before a swing through the Northeast, which would bring them to play at Woolsey Hall. This was the very first time Gary Lucas had ever spoken with Van Vliet, who he was soon to meet and hang out with when Beefheart and the Magic Band came up to Yale to play 3 days later.