Knebworth 75 memorabilia

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In his memoirs, the concert promoter Freddy Bannister tells his version of why Captain Beefheart formed a new Magic Band just to play Knebworth Festival in 1975. According to Bannister, Beefheart’s manager Herb Cohen was so impressed by the $15,000 fee offered for the performance that he replied, “We’ll put a band together even if it means my mother will have to play.” Be that as it may, the latest Knebworth memorabilia to be offered for sale by the Bannister family is a reproduction 1975 stagecrew tee shirt. “We weren’t very ‘merchandise’ oriented in those days and didn’t have any T shirts to sell toRead More →

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In: Tenuous
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My inbox most days contains links to newspaper and magazine articles referencing Beefheart. New bands love to drop the Beefheart name, music journalists likewise. I send about 99% of this stuff to trash. What remains is some fun stuff, such as Liverpool band The Zutons who claimed to have named themselves after a Beefheart song. For the mp3 generation, who don’t read sleeve notes, that long lunar note was played by a Mr Zuton Rollo. So when a musician with no need of fame by association places ‘Lick My Decals Off, Baby’ at the top of his list of favourite albums – as David LoweryRead More →

Frank Xavier Weyerich's photo

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In: Life
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Frank Xavier Weyerich’s photo of two whiskery gents in convivial conversation will be familiar to anyone who has ever done an Image Search for Beefheart. Who, I wondered, is that other chap, and what was he talking about with Don? The website hosting the photograph (thank you Webster70.com) led me to an email address for somebody called Tom Ray. Ray, who is now owner of one of the largest independent record stores in the American Midwest – Vintage Vinyl – kindly wrote back with the details of his meeting with Don, correcting me on where it occurred. Yes, I had that pleasure back in theRead More →

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In: In the press, Multimedia
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Another new Beefheart blog – Captain Beefheart Project – has been created this weekend. The first three entries deal with particular concerts, giving background information and links, including links to a site where torrents of audio files of Beefheart concerts can be found. I’m looking forward to seeing how this develops.Read More →

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Fast ‘n Bulbous, the acclaimed Beefheart brass band which includes Gary Lucas on guitar, take the stage at Jazz em Agosto Festival in Lisbon at 21.30 GMT on 13 August 2005. The performance will be broadcast live from Portugal to your computer at Rádio Interna do Instituto Superior Tecnico.Read More →

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Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart and the Secret History of Maximalism is the title of a new book which is to be published by Salt Publishing on 1 September 2005. Salt Publishing’s website tells us that, “this book is not another critical biography, but an interpretive essay investigating what we feel is the cultural and historical importance of Zappa and Beefheart in the context of a wide-ranging network of references that run from Michelangelo and Arcimboldo to William Burroughs and Vaclav Havel.” The authors are Michel Delville & Andrew Norris, both of whom teach at The University of Liège, Belgium. There are samples of their writingRead More →