Dylan of The Day : Bob on Beefheart (any excuse!)

Bob Dylan, speaking on his radio show 'Theme Time Radio Hour': 

“Mel Blanc did a million voices, but our next artist just did one, but it’s heck of a voice. Don Van Vliet was born in Glendale, California. He stopped performing in the ’80s and focused on his painting. He was a really good painter, but I wish he made more records. This song is about a frozen treat and a corvid. Wanna know what a corvid is? It’s a type of bird. Crows, ravens, jays, and magpies are all corvids, and they are some of the most intelligent of all the birds. Here’s a song that goes as straight as the crow flies - Captain Beefheart and Ice Cream For Crow.” 

http://www.beefheart.com/beefheart-on-theme-town-radio-hour/

Bob had previously played ‘Click Clack’ in his show More Trains

Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band; directed by Don Van Vliet (with much uncredited assistance from producer Ken Schreiber), cinematography by Daniel Pearl (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre); Don Van Vliet (vocals, harp), Gary Lucas (guitar), Jeff Tepper (guitar), Rick Snyder (bass), Cliff Martinez (drums); filmed on location in the High Mojave Desert near Lancaster, California; clip rejected by MTV USA as "too weird" upon release, now in the Permanent Film and Video Collection of the Museum of Modern Art, NYC; track taken from the 1982 Virgin album "Ice Cream for Crow"

It’s so hot
looks like you have three beaks crow
the moon’s so full
white hat on a pumpkin
you know there’s something
the moon was a stone’s throw
stop the show
I need to say hello
to the crow
light the fire piano
the moon showed up
and it started to show
tonight there’d be ice cream
ice cream for crow
ice cream for crow
sun cream by day
ice cream for crow
ice cream by night
ice cream by day
the sun ain’t stable
ice cream for crow
crow pants the scarecrow
crow dance ah ho ho
crow dance ah panther
scare crow you answer
you can hee and haw
laugh and scratch
ha ha ha
ha ha ha
boss and toss
don’t shake my hand
give me your claw
two tears in a haystack
scarecrow get back
tonight there’s gonna be
a feather treatment
beneath the symbol
we’ll all assemble
oh how we’ll fly
oh how we’ll tremble
cut the cake
we’ll all get well
turn up the speakers
hop flop squawk
it’s a keeper
ice cream for show
ice cream for crow
now now that’s it
now you can go

(1982)

slightly clearer use of the cover painting for Ice Cream here from the EP single

 'Light Reflected Off The Oceands of The Moon'

 

Around t’Interwebbie ThingieMaBob | The Making of a video :: ICE CREAM FOR CROW | CAPTAIN BEEFHEART :: Ken Schrieber

 THE MAKING OF ICE CREAM FOR CROW

“INKY MITT SPUN”

'What a strange trip making this video in the Mojave Desert. The small crew included DP Daniel Pearl (Texas Chainsaw Massacre) and grip Wayne Isham (Director of a ton of music videos) for $5,000. We wanted it to look like Terry Malick’s “Badlands.” We tried our best with such little budget and limited film stock. Wayne Hyde was amazing as editor and doing it in the wee wee hours for free. 

Special thanks to Gary Lucas for bringing me on board. 

Don Van Vliet was great to work with, as were the band members. He was very funny and had unique observations. I visited him two weeks before the video to plan it. We tried to do it by phone but Don didn’t like to pre-plan things. He liked to be spontaneous in all his artistic endeavors. But shooting a video with very limited funds needed to be mapped out a bit. So I flew out to L.A.and visited Don in his trailer near the Mohave. We drove around to find the locations, and spent a couple of all-nighters talking about the video. 

He had incredible stories about Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters, being on the set of a Bergman film where one of the actresses requested an “inky mitt spun.” He asked me if I knew what that was. I told him an inky is a very small light, and you can diffuse the intensity with spun glass, and that they were probably pointing inky mitt spun at the actress’s temples to hide wrinkles. Don howled. During the video he kept asking if I had an inky mitt spun.' 

- Ken Schreiber, the producer on Captain Beefheart's 1982 video for Ice Cream For Crow.

Untitled - Don Van Vliet 1989 

India ink, gouache, gold pigment, silver pigment on paper