All songs (unless noted differently) Produced by Don Van Vliet Engineered by Phil Brown Recorded (mixed and mastered) at Warner Brothers Recording Studios, North Hollywood, California Mastered by Phil Brown All music and words by Don Van Vliet (not Vleit, as the outside case states!) Note: This album is a very special one. The Magic Band was made up of entirely new musicians with the exception of Jeff Moris Tepper (also Richard Snyder had been on the “final” tour). The first part of the album (ICFC, Ghost, Semi, Garland, Sundown, Past Sure is Tense) was recorded gradually on an extremely low budget. The remaining 15Read 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 →

Anton Corbijn taking Don's photo

I am a photographer who is a friend of Beefheart’s, rather than being an authority on him. When I met Beefheart on an NME assignment in September 1980, I didn’t know much about him at all. I met him at the County Museum of Art in LA and suggested photographing him in the desert, where he’d just come from. He said yes rather reluctantly, and we drove for two-and-a-half hours. It helped that I could pronounce his name properly. Once we’d found the spot to do the pictures, he took off his hat for one shot only and then put it back on, saying, MyRead More →