Personnel: (Beefheart & Magic Band) Don Van Vliet (Captain Beefheart): vocals, harmonica, Chinese gongs, soprano sax; Jeff Moris Tepper, Richard Snyder: guitars; Eric Drew Feldman: electric bass, synthesiser, keyboards; Robert Arthur Williams: drums; Gary Lucas: guitar on Flavor Bud Living. (Ulmer Quintet) Ulmer: guitar; Julius Hemphill: saxes; Olu Dara: trumpet; Amin Ah: bass; Calvin Weston: drums. Inspired is a word which is frequently misused, particularly when applied to an event or a concept. Yet the pairing of Don Van Vliet (a.k.a. Captain Beefheart) and James “Blood” Ulmer can be described in no better fashion. Performing before a capacity crowd one chilling night after Thanksgiving, BeefheartRead More →

Of all musicians loosely considered rockers, Captain Beefheart is the most original. Because his music is a genre unto itself, it’s particularly difficult to describe. Analogy, the efficient critics tool, gets nowhere near the heart of Beefheart’s creations. Beefheart’s late ’60s work was virtually all self composed, and he taught it note by note, beat by beat, to his Magic Bands. This is probably still true; on Run Paint hear Bruce Fowler, occasional db Pro Session writer, whinny on trombone like a rabid equine. In the beginning, Beefheart relied heavily on blues forms and his own intense, rasping vocals – the closest known voice isRead More →

Let there be great rejoicing among the multitudes of Beefheartians: the Captain has returned to the land of the Warner Brothers. For some inexplicable reason this bizarre genius shines on this new LP after several years of uneven recordings for another company (Mercury). Now Beefheart fans who remember the past glory of classics like Trout Mask Replica and Lick My Decals Off Baby can once again look ahead to recordings by the Magic Band. Beefheart is a completely well rounded artist who paints the graphics for his covers, writes music and lyrics, and sings and plays several instruments. His lyrics arc to ’70s rock musicRead 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 →

The Manteno Festival may be the only festival not covered by the usual media overblow – mainly, of course, because Cincinnati is hardly your basic cultural Mecca. Also, no film was made, no records were cut, no one was killed or over-stoned or rioted – only music happened, albeit quite theatrical music, and a good but not revolutionary time was had by all. Well-met at the Ludlow Garage on Nov. 20-21, local entrepreneur Jim Tarbell by beneficent accident had simply assembled a jumble of freaky bands for two evenings of hot licks: The hometown Balderdash, two Georgia gangs (The Avenue of Happiness and the HamptonRead More →