HAPPY BIRTHDAY CAPTAIN BEEFHEART

[Don Van Vliet]

The good Captain would have been 78 today on this, his birthday. My favourite artist, poet, singer songwriter and all round wonderful being . . . . . . 

I miss him and we are all the poorer for his no longer being amongst us with his special brand of art and wordplay 

Here is an Old Grey Whistle Test session of what became know as the 'tragic band' which I don't agree with and I certainly didn't feel as critical as many. I am known for being accepting and uncritical perhaps but it is not that I don't have tracks I don't like or don't like as much as others but the love song era, Blue Jeans and Moonbeams and Unconditionally Guaranteed are streets ahead of the initial tinkering disaster of Bob Krasnow's phasing glut on Strictly Personal and Mirror Man made me feel robbed and was clearly a jam extended to fulfil contractual obligations. Only the earlier 'Safe As Milk' turned these ears on and and I had to wait until Zappa allowed Don full reign to produce Trout Mask Replica did I really start to enjoy the Captain again.  This song is great and is the Captain on fire at his booglarizing best . . . . . I am fascinated by EVERYTHING he did including this band. He didn't treat his fellow musicians always in the best of ways it would seem to be largely accepted now but again not unlike Jimi Hendrix was he merely trying to get music to catch up with the sounds he heard in his head. He bullied the original members of The Magic Band that's for sure and it is well documented elsewhere but today on his birthday all I have to say is 'I'm gonna booglarise you!"


Well I was born in the desert came on up from New Orleans 
Came up on a tornado sunlight in the sky I went around all day with the moon sticking in my eye 






For some earlier successes
Captain Beefheart and The Magic Band - Click Clack

Trout Mask Band - Don, Antennae Jimmy Semens (Jeff Cotton), Zoot Horn Rollo (Bill Harkleroad), Rockette Morton (Mark Boston), Drumbo (John French) missing personnel The Mascara Snake (Victor Hayden) and other later members were uncredited

There are only forty people in the world and five of them are hamburgers.