Lets start the week with some BEEF!
Played here by the awesome Gary Lucas
“Flavor Bud Living” (Doc at the Radar Station) Gary Lucas, guitarist, Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band, Théatre De L’Empire, Paris, France, 1980
#garylucas #captainbeefheart #flavorbudliving #docattheradarstation
Thoughts on Mallard: My take on Mallard is that it was a bad name, first off. The second thing is, When I was with them, we were in Humboldt Country, which was and is a culturally and financially-repressed area. Thirdly, I doubt any band could have recovered and "found themselves" and their own unique sound so soon after working with Don. He took everyone to an unrecoverable place, and even he couldn't really ever recover any semblance of a profitable music career. His commercial attempts (the Mercury albums) received pretty bad reviews, though some people loved them. Don was basically a blues singer, so why was he trying to be a "POP" singer in order to "make it?" He took The Magic Band to an unknown destination, and basically left them to fend for themselves -- both physically and musically. His "leadership" consisted of a lot of brow-beating and character assassination. All of us were told constantly that the only thing we had going for us was him, that the only interest was in him, and that we were lucky to be along for the ride, which mostly involved having as close to nothing as possible without completely disintegrating -- it was subsistence living at the worst. When I moved to Humboldt to work with what would become Mallard, I saw the poverty and living conditions first hand, which were in stark contrast to Van Vliet, who lived on a hill overlooking the ocean in a fairly nice house. After everyone moved to SoCal, Ian Anderson offered the band money to do a demo -- and I was on board for a short time, but the whole thing was so rushed that I backed out. We were rehearsing in Palmdale in a dance studio for a short time, but I could see it wasn't a band with a real identity -- it was a bunch of guys who had to meet a deadline -- but had no real identity as a group as of yet. Mallard's first album was that demo that Anderson financed -- at least, according to Bill. I was happy that "A Piece of Me," "Reign of Pain," "One Day Once," and "South of the Valley" were included. "A Piece of Me" was more of a band piece than anything else -- the band had put together the music, and I wrote the lyrics. I was just barely starting to get a feel for writing lyrics. Actually, I thought "Winged Tuskadero" was great -- good lines and Mark's narrative voice worked with it. All in all, it was a bit of a hodge-podge. Everyone was pulling in a different direction -- Bill more towards Jazz and Mark more towards Country. I was probably more Rock/Blues oriented. I think if the band would have had a common place to rehearse for about six months, we could have been great. I think the caterpillar never got a chance to turn into a butterfly, and that's a shame.
Occasionally a new ROIO will turn up and Jeremiah turns up trumps today with a beauty from the Captain . . . now mostly I have everything and pride myself on it but had to check this one out at The Radar Station and Steve the Boss there at Beefheart.com points out it's the sound track for the concert broadcast in France and available on YouTube which of course it is . . . . . . . . not so tragic in retrospect though I get it but even this is better than an absent Captain . . . . . . . IMHO
BEEFHEART Live in Paris France 1974 - Voodoo Wagon
‘yere ’tis!
Thanks Steve and thank you to Jeremiah for wherever he got it from . . . . . . . . .
Of course they were busy that year and managed to drop in for a Whistle Test
Upon The My Oh My
I am not entirely sure how I found this . . . it could have been the Captain Beefheart reference (Radar Station is the name of beefheart.com) and yet . . . . . . . . . . I like this sound and the singer's voice is wonderful.
The Radar Station was born out of the bands 'Barefoot and the shoes' and 'Sun Gods'.
