Please check out this page for Mark Boston aka Rockette Morton.
Now I love Mark’s artwork (nearly as much as I love his bass playing - perhaps my favourite Magic Band Bassist ever since seeing them in Oxford ’73 around the time of Clear Spot and the Magic Band on their own back in 2005 at The Zodiac
so to hear he has fallen on hard times and is in need of a bit help to find new accommodation is hard to deal with but we can help by supporting the Go Fund Me page organised by J Turner
Captain Beefheart American Bandstand Phone-in Interview June 16 1966
with Dick Clark!
It's Captain Beefheart on the Hot Line at American Bandstand on June 18, 1966. After Don answers some probing questions from one of the shows dancers everyone gets to jump around to Diddy Wah Diddy! Of course . . . .
oops nearly forgot we should celebrate Don’s birthday with some music for Pete’s sake ( who IS Pete and why is he drinking sake?) Big Eyed Beans From Venus . . . . ya get me?
Captain Beefheart - Big Eyed Beans From Venus (Recut/Synced)
wirewehear says: Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band, footage from The Rainbow Theatre 17th April 1973. This was broadcast by the Old Grey Whistle Test with
audio from the 'Clear Spot' LP & a right botch job they made of it too. Firstly some creative genius thought it would be a good idea to add all those fairground-from-hell light effects all over the invaluable footage. That was bad enough, but then there was no effort at all made to sync the film to the audio, so I've rectified the latter at least. I also upgraded the audio.
Incidentally I don't think the band are even playing 'BEBFV' in this clip. In the original cut you can briefly see Don playing mouth organ at one point, an instrument which doesn't feature in the song. Therefore it stands to reason that it's not exactly synced, but re-edited & cut to fit the images, as best as I could manage. Smoke & mirrors me dears.
Don Van Vliet's art on the original back cover of the 1980 Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band album "Doc At The Radar Station" - Don's art also featured on the front cover of the album.
Terry Bozzio, the award winning drummer, talks about his experience of being around Don Van Vliet aka Captain Beefheart in the mid 1970s when he was working with Frank Zappa during the Bongo Fury album and beyond.
'The big revelation (about Captain Beefheart) came when we were in Austin, Texas recording Bongo Fury. Frank asked me to come over to his room. He’d sent someone out to buy a portable record player and he put on Trout Mask Replica. I listened to this stuff and it was just out. I mean completely random noises happening that was unbelievably… out there. It didn’t seem organised in any way. Frank said, “You know they played this exactly the same way every time.” And then I went, “Oh my fucking god!” [Laughs] and then I began to realise that on a whole other level, Beefheart was just as deep as Frank, y’know? I think Frank told Don how shocked I was at his music – I’d never heard it and didn’t know anything about it – and Don and I became more friendly. I got into the drawing thing and he encouraged me and that was really sweet. He’d say, “I really like the freedom of what you’ve got going on here”, and it helped me move into more abstract areas.'
He’s still regarded as something of an enigmatic figure, isn’t he?
'As a person, you need a thesaurus of mythological and symbolic and maybe even jazz bebop terminology to even understand what he was saying. He spoke in symbols. And they were very idiosyncratic symbols. It was really a journey and adventure to be around the guy. One time, in my second year with Frank, Beefheart had finished his stint and was forming his own thing. Frank rented a suite at the Beverly Hilton hotel where there was a record company convention going on. He was trying to sell and do his deals. We got into the elevator. There was Patrick O’Hearn, who’s got an amazing sense of humour; myself; Frank, who is just on another level of being able to say something that’s really funny; Gail, his wife, who’s really smart and capable; and there’s Beefheart. We’re in this elevator and out comes Herb Alpert’s muzak version of A Taste Of Honey. The space in there was electric, everybody’s eyes were darting around, wondering who was going to say something first, whose gonna rip this music. Beefheart jumps in and says, “Y’know there’s only one kind of thing you can do with this music.” He snaps his fingers and shouts, “Dig it!” [Laughs].'
" In 1971 Warner paired Captain Beefheart and Ry Cooder on tour together. Ry had played on the Captain's first LP Safe As Milk and had just released his first solo LP. The tour was promoted by Warner with the following items sent to local radio stations along the tour: 1) a 12" interview disc of Captain Beefheart on one side and Ry Cooder on the other; 2) a 7" disc of "radio spots" advertising the tour to be played on air; and 3) a promo pack with flyers, profiles, photos, and other interesting things about the artists and the tour. There was also a poster used along the tour with specific dates printed at the bottom of the poster for each city.
The rarity of these items vary. The interview disc pops up for sale fairly regularly for about $250. The poster appears less often for sale. I've seen some without the city printed on the bottom. The 7" Radio Spots disc is extremely hard to find. The promo packet in the picture is the only one I've ever seen. I've never seen the full set together before."
I have never seen this promo either . . . . .like looking for hen’s teeth!
I recently compiled all the "Bush Recording" Trout Mask Replica instrumental takes from the Grow Fins boxset into a playlist (without all the dead air between takes on the boxset) in tracklist order. I've found this to be great as a way to isolate the astonishingly tight musicianship of the Magic Band. I thought I'd share it here for anyone interested!
There's a great bootleg of instrumental takes from the Decals sessions that I've found similarly enjoyable to dive into (hearing Japan in a Dishpan and Flash Gordon's Ape without the horn overdubs is revelatory!), and the newest deluxe reissue of Clear Spot had some beautifully clear instrumental takes that really let you soak inBill Harkleroad AKA Zoot Horn Rollo's incredible guitar lines.
so much was this noted that Drumbo dropped by to comment (he does that!)
"The guys all worked their asses off on the "Decals" stuff, and probably more so on the Trout Mask Stuff, because it was acompletely new musical world we all entered, so it took a complete alteration of how we thought about music. "
"It also marked the first time in years that Ry Cooder (who was a band member when they recorded 'safe as milk' back in 1967 - t.t.) had worked with Don Van Vliet, aka Captain Beefheart.
'He was living in the Mojave desert', reminisced Cooder. 'Nitzsche said: 'I need someone who can sing like Howlin' Wolf to do 'Hard Workin' Man'.' I said: 'I know just the guy!’.
I hadn't seen him in years, I called him up, and man, it took me an age to persuade him just to come down to the studio. And when he got there, he read the lyrics and said: 'I won't do it!' It came down to me locking him in the studio and telling him I wouldn't let him out until he had sung it! I can still remember his face as he was banging on the sound control room window, screaming to be let out!
I thought: 'I've finally got revenge on all he put me through during 'Safe As Milk’!’"
Photo by Philippe Gras of Art onstage with Beefheart
at the Bataclan Paris, April 1972.
Ed Marimba
Art Tripp :
"Don Van Vliet was primarily a painter and sculptor. What he did in music was no different from what was represented by the images in his wonderful paintings. You could say that whenever Don was with other people, in most circumstances, they were participants in a painting. That was predominantly Don's view of life: as an art statement, with reality being a nuisance. Symbolism took precedence over substance."
The cover photo from the Clear Spot album, released in late 1972. This photo was taken by Jim McCrary at the Griffith Park Observatory planetarium controls and features Don Van Vliet, standing next to Warner Bros. vice-president Carl Scott. In the control booth are engineer Donn Landee and producer Ted Templeman.
In 1972 Don Van Vliet was asked about who was in this cover photo and he replied: 'Donn Landee, who we have dubbed "the Mit", Ted Templeman, who is the one with the blonde hair. We called him "the Mit" because he caught everything we threw at him, and there's some other unidentified person there.'
As noted by Gary Lucas over on his Flickennabok page, actually really well recorded!
Son House - Shetland Pony Blues
At 1:07 you can hear an actual steam-powered freight train chug past the recording studio in Klack’s Store Lake Cormorant Missippi where this classic Son House side was recorded by Alan Lomax. The makeshift studio abutted a railroad track. I played this for Don Van Vliet who remarked: “He’s singing about a Shetland pony and here comes the Iron Horse!” G.Lucas
Note he mentions a book Old Fart at Play, a collection of poetry Singing Ink and a new album Brown Star . . . . . . . . . . .
After "The Artist Formerly know as Captain Beefheart" was aired, BBC Producer Elaine Shepherd sent me a bunch of footage on VCR tape. This was one of the pieces sent to me. My ex-girlfriend can be seen in the very end with her friend Pat ( last name forgotten). This is NOT shot in Liverpool, but in L.A. on Wilshire Blvd. My ex lived just down the street. And there's no way that she could have been in Liverpool. People have argued with me about this, but I'm absolutely positive it was footage shot in L.A. because she told me about going to this exhibit”
John ‘Drumbo’ French
Personally I’ll take John’s word any and every day!
visitors at the Bluecoat Gallery ’72 photo George Tate
Captain Beefheart - Michael Tearson WMMR Interview (February 1972)
Michael Tearson of WMMR in Philadephia, Pennsylvania interviews Don van Vliet sometime in February, 1972. The topic is mostly about his new album at the time, the Spotlight Kid.
Picture is of Don at the time.
"Never read a book in my life . . but my wife reads to me . . . . . . “ the crow and the wolf . . .”
etc etc . . . .
Don at the BluecoatGallery 1972 copyright The Bluecoat Gallery
