This article was written by Jeffrey Peisch and was taken from
the January 1981 edition of Trouser Press. It was originally titled
simply "Captain Beefheart".
The first thing Don Van Vliet does when you meet him is to bring
you immediately into his world. "Those people over there take too
many showers," he said to me seconds after I walked into his manager's
Greenwich Village apartment for our interview.
"There." He led me over to a window and pointed across the courtyard
to a large living room. "They parade around there in their bathrobes!"
I hadn't even taken my coat off, but I felt comfortable already.
Van Vliet / Captain Beefheart is a fun guy to be around.
We sat down and he pointed to my light blue socks, commenting,
"Those are nice." At that moment I realized my long-held impression
of Van Vliet was wrong. There's nothing distant or unapproachable
about the man.
Yes, he articulates his thoughts in a novel way. At one point I
asked him if he had a dog.
"No," he replied.
"You don't?"
"No. I have one, though, a West Highland terrier. She catches
birds and eats them, no matter how much we feed her. Maybe she likes
the bird feathers to tickle her throat."
As with Van Vliet's music and paintings, trying to define his talk
in traditional terms is a frustrating task. But surrender yourself
to his magical world and it can be quite enjoyable on its own terms.
Van Vliet was in New York to promote his new album (his eleventh),
Doc at the Radar Station. It may be his finest, full of wonderful
juxtapositions - grotesque next to beautiful, dissonant next to
consonant - that make Captain Beefheart's music so alarmingly original.
Although he should know better after 13 years of bad experiences
with record companies (his current Virgin contract is his seventh),
Van Vliet sees no reason why this can't be the album that finally
reaches a wide audience.
"Commercial potential? Why not? Since I breathe air, I am
commercial. Everybody's commercial. There just aren't that many
good publicists and ad people and there aren't that many good record
companies. I think kids are bored enough that if they got a chance
to hear my music, they'd like it."
While he says he's happy with his Virgin Records affiliation, Van
Vliet's new record will probably receive less promotion than any
of his past releases. Virgin has terminated its distribution arrangement
with Atlantic Records and is now working with RSO Records on a limited
basis. Doc at the Radar Station, the last Virgin/Atlantic release,
is no doubt lost among the latest Foreigner and Genesis albums.
Doc at the Radar Station has a punchy clarity not found on past
Beefheart LPs (although it is similar in many respects to Lick My
Decals Off). Beefheart, however, is completely disinterested in
discussing the new record, comparing it to older ones, or explaining
the genesis of particular songs. He accepts compliments graciously,
and responds, "Yeah, that's right," to a particular interpretation
of a song. He would probably agree to a completely different interpretation
as well.
When asked about the two instrumentals on Radar Station, he replies,
"My baby was in an instrumental mood."
What about the new emphasis on guitars? "My baby's idea."
The reference to his baby is not a freaky word game, nor is it
a tribute to his wife, Jan (who served us Tiger's Milk at the outset
of our conversation). Van Vliet's baby is his artistic self - whatever
puts lines like "Gnats fucked my ear" and "I feel like glass shrimp
in a pink panty" into Beefheart's mouth.
The idea that an artist has an outside force for inspiration is
not a novel one. The Russian writer Aleksander Blok wrote in 1908
of "an intangible 'third force' that does not belong either to me
or to others. It is this force which makes me see things the way
I do and interpret all that happens from a particular perspective,
and then describe it as only I know how. This third force is art."
What Blok refers to as his "third force," Van Vliet calls his baby.
Fifteen years ago it forced him (so he claims) to stay awake for
one-and-a-half years, writing 180 pages of autobiography a day.
It also keeps him and his wife childless: "My baby won't let me
have a baby."
Van Vliet's baby forces him to run rehearsals like a dictator and
demand no creative input, only subjugation, from his band members.
"My baby and me are the artists," he says. "It won't let me have
anything else. If you're a painter you sure don't want anything
to do with group paintings."
When he's in New York, the baby pouts. "I usually spend all my
time drawing, and since I've been doing all these interviews I haven't
had any time for that." Calling himself Captain Beefheart can be
seen as coming to grips with a third force - the baby.
The baby keeps Van Vliet in the Mojave Desert in a trailer. He
doesn't have time for dinner parties and other people. He eats breakfast
standing up and has over 5000 songs on tape. Whichever songs he
happened to be working on immediately before a recording session
appear on an album.
It's tempting to think of Van Vliet as a recluse chained to piano
and easel by his baby - an old-line hippie who rejects society.
The album art from his early records (check out Trout Mask Replica)
certainly supports this, but he's not the hippie recluse at all.
If Van Vliet weren't constantly painting or writing songs he'd explode
with creativity. He seems happy with his plight.
In many ways his values and priorities are quite traditional. Van
Vliet shows off his $70 Pierre Cardin belt, asks his interviewer
if he's read the latest Esquire, and whines about missing a Charles
Laughton movie on TV the night before that his New York host forgot
to tape on a VCR.
And, contrary to what you'd expect from someone who lives in a
trailer away from civilization, Van Vliet loves people. He treats
everyone like a long-lost friend, and his love songs are as touching
as you'll find anywhere. "I miss you more hour by hour," he wrote
for "Love Lies" on his previous album, Shiny Beast. "The roses seem
to smell sour / Street lamps flutter like fireflies / I wish I hadn't
told you all those love lies."
It's typical of Van Vliet to employ plant and animal images in
describing human emotions. His bizarre metaphors and descriptions
reflect an obsession with all living things. We can learn through
the simplicity and natural beauty of plants and animals, he seems
to be saying. A poem off the back cover of Lick My Decals Off is
titled, "You Should Know by the Kindness of uh Dog the Way uh Human
Should Be."
"Have you ever seen a blow-up of a mosquito?" he asks. "What a
machine. I mean, ooh, what a beautiful thing. [Animals are] utterly
amazing. People should see this too. Yoga is from small animals
- the way a cat will get up and stretch before it moves...."
The doorbell suddenly rings with the next eager reporter. As I
finish my glass of Tiger's Milk and head out of the room, I can
almost hear Van Vliet's baby whimpering, sad because he is too busy
to paint.