This short review for the Beefheart biography was taken from the Sunday 18th June 2000 edition of The Observer. Many thanks to Paul Bryant for sending this along.

What's new about this new biography? Well, it's about the whole artist - the painter and musician - which, roughly translated, means 300 plus pages on CB the musician and about 40 on DVV the painter. Any scandal? This is a critical biography, which means it's based on the work rather than the man. Which is just as well, as "the man" said he "wanted nothing to do with the project". Barnes has made up for this by using secondary sources such as a Tarot card reader in Camden Lock who reveals that DVV "reacts to what he sees with his inner eye and can create nothing but problems". Worth reading then? The truth is that the CB/DVV story is an interesting one...still waiting to be told.

The Radar Station comments:

Who wrote this spurious rubbish and why? Making a reference to the Tarot reading in a 150 word review is deeply unfair and extremely misleading. This bit in the book takes up approximately one line out of 400 pages and is included at the beginning of a chapter as one of a series of entertaining throwaway quotes; in fact the above review quoted the entire reference to the Tarot reading. The book does not in any way rely on this kind of cosmic tittle-tattle, instead it is supported by an impressive quantity of primary source material i.e. interviews with all Magic Band members and associates who Mike could get in touch with and were willing to talk to him (and that is probably a hell of a lot more 'insiders' than you or I could rustle up). His four-and-a-half-year research is absolutely spot-on and I can only imagine that the writer of the Observer's shameful and deliberately misleading review has a personal beef with the author as I cannot understand what else would motivate him or her to write such an idiotic piece of poppycock.

While the reviewer is fully entitled to dislike Mike's style of writing, or to dislike what he is saying, to criticise the book in the way that s/he did is nothing but deceitful and dishonest. I hope it doesn't put anyone off reading the book as it would be entirely their loss.