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Well, here’s news that’s going to annoy a few people, especially some of those who recently bought the Sun Zoom Spark package. Rhino Records are now releasing the ‘remastered’ versions of Lick My Decals Off Baby, The Spotlight Kid, and Clear Spot as separate CD albums. No news on vinyl versions as yet. Lick My Decals Off, Baby features an 8 page book with original lyrics The Spotlight Kid features lyrics and a 4 panel poster fold book (folds into a CD size square), keeping the original LP back cover intact on the inside Clear Spot – no information about this The Sun Zoom SparkRead More →

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Don Van Vliet’s works will be shown in a special exhibition entitled “DON VAN VLIET: BEATLE BONES N` SMOKING STONES Paintings and Drawings from the late Seventies and Eighties”. There are 12 paintings and 11 drawings included in this exhibition. Two are shown here and some others are visible on the link below. The exhibition begins September 5, 2015 and runs through to October 24, 2015 at Michael Werner Kunsthandel in Köln, Germany.     Striped Light & Meaty Blond People Danced At The End Of The Hall Yellow and White © Estate of Don van Vliet, Courtesy Galerie Michael Werner Märkisch Wilmersdorf, Cologne & New YorkRead More →

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Updated: 5 November 2015 The Magic Band are touring again during November this year. These are the confirmed venues: 4 November 2015 – The Rescue Rooms, Nottingham 5 November 2015 – Band On The Wall, Manchester 7 November 2015 – The Continental, Preston 8 November 2015 – The Kazimier, Liverpool 10 November 2015 – The Greystones, Sheffield 11 November 2015 – Brudenall Social Club, Leeds 12 November 2015 – The Studio, Hartlepool 13 November 2015 – Arts Centre, Norwich 15 November 2015 – Arts Centre, Colchester 16 November 2015 – Robin 2, Wolverhampton 17 November 2015 – The Fleece, Bristol 18 November 2015 – Winter Gardens,Read More →

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Update: 15 Oct 2015 It was touch and go there for a while with this project going right to the wire but it’s good to see that it has been fully funded. Great work from all the fans who contributed! ——————————————————- With one Indiegogo crowdfunding project successfully completed the band have set up another one! This time it’s for another DVD called Singing Through You which is a recording of the 2013 show at London’s Under The Bridge. A fine venue and by all accounts a very fine show. The release of this on DVD has been talked about for a while now, and hopefully itRead More →

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Updated: 3 Sept 2015 Great news – after only 4 days this has already reached its target! ——————————————————- John French has started a crowdfunding project on Indiegogo to finance the release of The Magic Band’s latest DVD. Called Magnetic Draw this is a two disc set which includes, on one disc the concert performed at “The Engine Shed” Lincoln, UK on 23 May 2014, and on the other interviews with all the band members. All monies raised will go to the production of the DVD, and more importantly all profits will go directly to all the Magic Band members who have taken part. Here’s  a chance for allRead More →

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A compilation of live tracks from the 1970s. Song list Side A China Pig A Carrot Is As Close As A Rabbit Gets Alice In Blunderland Orange Claw Hammer Carson City Old Black Snake One Nest Rolls After Another Side B Golden Birdies The Blimp Find A Woman Dali’s Claw Lo Yo Yo Stuff Grow Fins Sam With The Showing Scalp Flat Top Notes From Ozit blurb: Batlight Clearkid 1970’s is an LP compilation of great Captain Beefheart live material recorded in the UK and in Europe. The tracks are taken from John Peels personal collection of live reel to reel tapes and this albumRead More →

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Somewhere Over Kansas Song List Mirror Man Upon The My-0-My Crazy Little Things Full Moon, Hot Sun Sugar Bowl This Is The Day Keep On Rubbing Be Your Dog Sweet Georgia Brown Abba Zabba Peaches Notes From the publicity blurb: There are very few truly iconoclastic figures in the history of popular music since the mid 20th century, but Don Van Vliet (1941-2010), aka Captain Beefheart, is certainly one of them. By the time of this April 1974 broadcast, Captain Beefheart – and the 29th incarnation in along line of ever-mutating Magic Bands – had reverted to more traditionally-structured compositions, to the chagrin of someRead More →

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by Don R. Aldridge, November 2011 It was a Tuesday night, or more accurately very early Wednesday morning in 1966. I had just gotten off my shift at Lockheed Aircraft in Burbank, California and had made it back to Lancaster in just over an hour. Good time for the Thanksgiving Day traffic, which had already begun its bleed on the Los Angeles freeway system, out of the city. I had driven straight through, pulling up in front of the house on Carolside Avenue at just after 1 a.m. I was coming for Thanksgiving dinner with Captain Beefheart. It’s a little remarkable to me that so few people,Read More →

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Author Recounts Friendship with Avant-garde Icon By Don R. Aldridge, December 2010 American pop music has lost an artist of enormous influence. Captain Beefheart, composer, singer, bandleader, and avant-garde musician who was perhaps one of rock’s greatest unheralded geniuses, died in a Northern California hospital, Friday. His death was attributed to complications due to multiple sclerosis. He was 69 years old. Born Don Glen Vliet, January 15, 1941, he became known to his worldwide fan base simply as Captain Beefheart. Of Dutch ancestry, the artist, who turned to painting after retiring from the stage in the 1980s, changed his surname to Van Vliet in the 1960s. I knew Don wellRead More →

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by Don R. Aldridge, December 2010 Before I go into the details of my visit to Captain Beefheart’s home in Woodland Hills, early in 1969, I want to spend some time laying the background for the circumstances that brought about the visit in the first place. I hadn’t seen Don Van Vliet in a few months but I knew he was working on a project and that the moment probably wasn’t ripe for a visit. My instincts proved to be on target; in all of the years of our friendship, my visit to the Trout Mask Replica house on Ensenada Drive was the only time that I did notRead More →

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by Don R. Aldridge, October 2010 In 1965, I walked into the world of Don Van Vliet, the man who would become renowned internationally as the avant-garde rock artist Captain Beefheart. What I did not realize at the time was that I would be a witness to the complete evolutionary process of both the man and the artist. My birth name is Don Aldridge and knew Don Van Vliet for twenty years. I still consider him my friend although we have not spoken in many years years. And I miss Don Van Vliet. I miss the esoteric banter and friendly discussions we had in the earliest days of CaptainRead More →

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The Man Formerly Known as Captain Beefheart by Don R. Aldridge, September 2010 Stepping into the world of Captain Beefheart in 1965, was like walking through a portal into the Twilight Zone – everything was normal, to the extent anything is ever normal, and everything was strangely disjointed. Television sets had a way of finding themselves twisted into Technicolor snow, conversations could turn from blasé exchanges on politics or music, to Dadaistic rants or wordplays, and the most mundane objects became puppets for Don Van Vliet’s life production. My birth name is Don Aldridge, and I met Don Van Vliet, who would become better known asRead More →

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The Transcendency of the Magic Band by Don R. Aldridge, August 2010 In the early, what I will call formative years, of Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band, Don Van Vliet would bounce ideas off me. I don’t believe for one moment, and didn’t even then, that he was seeking my advice, but I’m still not sure why he chose to share some of these revelatory thoughts with me. The best I can say, by way of analogy, is that my relationship with Don Van Vliet was something like Jim Morrison’s friendship with Danny Sugarman: for some reason I am still at a loss to explain, the guy tookRead More →

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Frownland Gets a Face Lift by Don R. Aldridge, August 2010 Much has been written over the years about Don Van Vliet’s, relationship with his parents, and I remain uncertain as to whether any of us who actually witnessed it understood what we were witnessing. I’m tempted to title this article, Captain Beefheart: Live at the Delivery Room: Bake One. Because much of what I saw was classic Only Child Syndrome, if I may coin a phrase. (JAMA will pick this up and put it on Oprah, I’m sure). Interviews I’ve read with people who have witnessed an incident or two between Don and his mother, Sue,Read More →

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by Don R. Aldridge, August 2010 Don Van Vliet, the man who was known for more than two decades as Captain Beefheart, always jealously guarded his privacy. Much has been made over the years about Don’s reclusiveness, but I’m not sure that would – at least during the Magic Band era – be an apt description. I don’t know of any time when I was not welcome at Don’s house or wherever he happened to be. I can’t recall being invited to any sessions, but he always made it clear to others that I was welcome. I was in all of the sessions at Sunset Sound, whenRead More →

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What the Fans May Not Know by Don R. Aldridge, August 2010 In 1965, Don Vliet followed his boyhood chum Frank Zappa into the world of avant-garde rock ‘n’ roll with his group Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band. My birth name is Donald Aldridge, and I grew up in Lancaster, California, where Don and I became close friends in the mid sixties. He later changed his surname to Van Vliet. Don’s songs have appeared in several Hollywood movies and TV shows over the years, including The Big Lebowski, Things We Lost in the Fire, and Entourage. Some of the experiences revolving around my relationship with Captain Beefheart can be found in Mike BarnesRead More →

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Looking Back at Captain Beefheart by Don R. Aldridge, July 2010 According to the half-dozen or so dedicated-to-the-point-of-delirium fan websites one surfs on the internet today, the bizarre 1960’s avant-garde rock icon Captain Beefheart is: a paranormal savant with a four-octave vocal range; a primitive artisan who didn’t attend a day of school after the age of five; a musical genius who slapped music on vinyl the way Jackson Pollock did paint to canvas. Captain Beefheart was born Don Glen Vliet on January 15, 1941, to Glen Alonzo and Willie Sue Vliet in Glendale, California. He attended public schools in Glendale and Mojave, California and Antelope ValleyRead More →

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A look at the new book from Herb Bermann, Don’s co-writer on Safe As Milk. It’s not that long ago that many people thought that Herb Bermann was just another myth created by Don Van Vliet. Although he shared writing credits on eight songs on the Safe As Milk album, and, much later, one on Shiny Beast, he seemed to have disappeared off the radar. But the Radar Station kept looking for him … You can read about my and Derek Laskie’s search here. We were certain he was out there and Derek eventually managed to secure an exclusive interview with him for the RadarRead More →

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Song List Side A Poofters Froth Wyoming Plans Ahead (200 Years Special) 3:10 George Duke’s Incredible Show (Improvisation) 5:50 Willie The Pimp 9:23 Side B The Torture Never Stops 14:40 Let’s Make The Water Turn Black 4:03 Overview Recorded live on the Bongo Fury Tour at the Boston Music Hall, Massachusetts on 27 April 1975 (Late Show). Only 5 of the 13 songs performed that evening are included on this single disc pressed on purple vinyl. At least Beefheart’s contribution is represented on here. Releases 2008 Germany Vinyl on Hedgehog Records  HDG 0020 Help us If anyone is able to complete or update any of the information above, then pleaseRead More →