Captain Beefheart has definitely functioned as the guru for me.
I was always on the lookout for something strange, something different. Not just a different kind of music, but a different kind of experience. All great artists transmit a genuine form of experience by allowing the creative potential and energy of their consciousness to be shared with others. Only the purist artist does it for free. What I am talking about is freedom. Beefheart’s music, art, words and presence for me has always been a great experience of the reality of freedom. You don’t need to take drugs in order to experience the infinite. Just pay some attention to Don Van Vliet. You can’t help but love him if you’ll let him help you.
As Jimmy Carl Black said, ‘Beefheart’s the real thing’.
-David Ramsey