Captain Beefheart
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Review by David Rensin, Phonograph Record, November 1972
THERE ARE TYPICALLY three schools of thought surrounding Captain Beefheart. The first love him and feel he can do no wrong. The second find him ...
List of articles in the library
Captain Beefheart, The Remains: Too Many 'Diddy Wahs'
Profile by Louise Criscione, KRLA Beat, 4 June 1966
ONE GROUP is from Boston and claims to be protesting the British influence on American music. The other group is from California and proudly declares ...
Albums from Bobbie Gentry, Aretha Franklin, Big Brother, Captain Beefheart and the Animals
Review by Pete Johnson, Los Angeles Times, 10 September 1967
New Album From Bobbie Gentry ...
Report by Nick Jones, Melody Maker, 25 November 1967
NICK JONES SORTS OUT THE NEW U.S. SOUNDS ...
Captain Beefheart — electric magic!
Report by Hugh Nolan, Disc and Music Echo, 6 January 1968
CAUTION: ELECTRICITY can be hazardous to health — but Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band are as Safe As Milk. And London is due for ...
Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band: Safe As Milk (Pye)
Review by uncredited writer, Disc and Music Echo, 13 January 1968
COMBINE A subtle, blues-based group, magic, snarling savage vocals, ridiculously good songs, electricity and perfect held-back recording and what do you get? Right — Captain ...
Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band: Middle Earth, London
Live Review by Hugh Nolan, Disc and Music Echo, 27 January 1968
CAPTAIN BEEFHEART BLOWS WILD! ...
Captain Beefheart: The Magic Music from the Desert
Profile by Wesley Laine, Record Mirror, 3 February 1968
CAPTAIN BEEFHEART (real name Don Van Vliet) and his Magic Band are a group of 'progressive blues' musicians, whose unusual rock-blues format is starting to ...
New Albums from Fleetwood Mac, Paul Butterfield, Captain Beefheart et al
Review by uncredited writer, Melody Maker, 24 February 1968
PETER GREEN'S FLEETWOOD MAC: Fleetwood Mac (Blue Horizon). One of the group events of last year for blues fans was the formation of the ex-Mayall guitarist Peter Green's ...
Interview by Norman Jopling, Record Mirror, 1 June 1968
MOST PEOPLE who play pop music and seem to be successful (judging by the conventional criteria of success) seem to have a little musical talent ...
Captain Beefheart: Strictly Personal (Blue Thumb S1)
Review by uncredited writer, Melody Maker, 16 November 1968
(From One Stop Records, 40 South Moulton St., London W.1, or other import speciality shops) ...
Review by Miles, International Times, 28 November 1968
THE ALBUM of huge underground word-of-mouth reputation in the States these days, an album far removed from the fashion changing ladder of the high chart ...
Captain Beefheart And His Magic Band: Strictly Personal (Liberty)
Review by David Griffiths, Record Mirror, 4 January 1969
APTLY TITLED. The unique Beefheart outfit have thoroughly fulfilled the promise of their first album. ...
Captain Beefheart is Alive in Hollywood
Interview by Miles, ZigZag, October 1969
IT’S THE BLIMP, IT’S THE BLIMP ...
Report and Interview by Richard Williams, Melody Maker, 8 November 1969
Frank Zappa breezed into London last week in an orange tee-shirt. His aim was to launch the British end of his record label, Straight, who ...
Captain Beefheart And His Magic Band: Trout Mask Replica (Straight)
Review by uncredited writer, Melody Maker, 15 November 1969
THIS YOU will either love or loathe, and we love it. Beefheart is a true original, and this double-album is testimony to his wayward genius. ...
Review by Lester Bangs, Rolling Stone, 7 March 1970
THIS RECORDING brings together a set of mostly little-known talents that whale the tar out of every other informal "jam" album released in rock and ...
Frank Zappa: Listen With Mothers
Profile and Interview by Chris Welch, Melody Maker, 11 July 1970
FRANK ZAPPA has emerged as one of the most interesting, lucid, energetic, entertaining and creative figures in contemporary music. He has frequently complained of being ...
Profile and Interview by Ben Edmonds, ZigZag, August 1970
Beefheart is and always was a Zigzag hero; we get more letter about him than any other artists, I should think – asking for news ...
Captain Beefheart & the Magic Band: Bitter End West, West Hollywood CA
Live Review by John Mendelssohn, Los Angeles Times, 5 December 1970
CAPTAIN BEEFHEARTS MAGIC BAND PERFORMS ...
Captain Beefheart: Lick My Decals Off, Baby
Review by Ed Ward, Rolling Stone, 10 December 1970
WHEN I FIRST heard Trout Mask Replica, I about puked. What is this shit, I thought. People I met talked about it in glowing terms ...
A Candid Conversation With Beef The Chief: The Don Van Vliet Interview
Interview by Rick McGrath, The Georgia Straight, 1971
This interview was found in the vaults by Harold Colson, an ace Librarian at the University of California at San Diego. Harold is researching the Stones ...
Captain Beefheart: Lick My Decals Off Baby
Review by Richard Williams, Melody Maker, 2 January 1971
ALREADY, I'M THINKING that this is the Captain's most satisfying album to date. ...
Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band: Ungano's, New York NY
Live Review by Mike Jahn, The New York Times, 28 January 1971
CAPTAIN BEEFHEART & the Magic Band, a Los Angeles group, is playing through tonight at Ungano's, 210 West 70th Street. ...
Captain Beefheart & the Magic Band: Lick My Decals Off, Baby
Review by Lester Bangs, Creem, March 1971
GAZING ACROSS pop music's stale horizons, past all the cynical ineptitude, pseudo-intellectual solemnity, neurotic regression and dismal dead-ends for great bands, there is one figure ...
Discography by Nick Tosches, Fusion, 19 March 1971
"The Chatanooga Choo-Choo careens headlong into the hub of an exploding galaxy. The cadavers of 19 raped and strangled astronauts float de-pants'd, froggish in the ...
Captain Beefheart: Lick My Decals Off, Baby (Bizarre)
Review by Charlie Gillett, Cream, May 1971
INSIDE CAPTAIN Beefheart is a corny old ballad-singing crooner, aching to sing those same old songs of sorrow and devotion. But the knows that kind ...
Captain Beefheart: The Spotlight Kid (Reprise)
Review by Richard Williams, Melody Maker, 29 January 1972
THE FURTHER adventures or the Captain, Zoot Horn Rollo, Rockette Morton, Drumbo, and their new friends Ed Marimba and Winged Eel Fingerling are, somewhat surprisingly, ...
Captain Beefheart: The Spotlight Kid (Reprise)
Review by Danny Holloway, New Musical Express, 5 February 1972
THE CAPTAIN is back with this latest album of Space Blues and poetry in motion. ...
Captain Beefheart: The Spotlight Kid (Reprise)
Review by Colman Andrews, Phonograph Record, March 1972
WHO'S THE greatest white blues singer in America today? Shame on you if you said John Hammond or Dave Van Ronk or maybe Kate Taylor. ...
Captain Beefheart: The Spotlight Kid (Reprise)
Review by Ben Edmonds, Dave Marsh, Creem, April 1972
The Kid is gonna Booglarize ya ...
Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band: Royal Albert Hall, London
Live Review by Danny Holloway, New Musical Express, 1 April 1972
AS A PRELUDE to the good captain, a ballerina dressed in white, with a crown to match, did her stuff, followed by a belly dancer ...
Captain Beefheart: A Trip Into The Mind Of The Spotlight Kid
Interview by Danny Holloway, New Musical Express, 1 April 1972
RECENTLY MOVED FROM his desert domain in Lancaster to the remote forests of oceanside Eureka in Northern California, The Captain, at a comfortable 31, is ...
Captain Beefheart: Zappa stole my ideas, says the Captain
Interview by Caroline Boucher, Disc, 1 April 1972
CAPTAIN BEEFHEART is talking about his home, Eureka, where the snails are THIS big — he indicates about nine inches with his hands — and ...
Come Out, Paul... Beefheart's Here!
Report and Interview by Peter Jones, Record Mirror, 1 April 1972
UNDERGROUND hero Captain Beefheart surfaced in London with a plea: "Where are you, Paul McCartney?" and being a helpful sort of diary page, we echo: ...
Love Over Gold: Captain Beefheart Talks To RM Readers
Report and Interview by Norman Jopling, Record Mirror, 8 April 1972
FIVE YEARS ago, the magic name of Captain Beefheart was no more than an imported LP in the window-display of clique-ey One-Stop Records. There ...
Beefheart: Rough Trade From Venus Hits It Big
Interview by Nick Kent, Friends/Frendz, 28 April 1972
PROLOGUE – a true story: Mark, like most other 17 year-old boys, was going through the usual hassles which come with being young in the ...
Captain Beefheart: The Spotlight Kid (Reprise 2050)
Review by Nick Tosches, Fusion, May 1972
POTENTIOMETERS pop (the odor of electricity) behind the silvery mugs of android dervishes. A gasket goes. The old Aristotelean construct programs splatter into a mess ...
Report by Norman Jopling, Record Mirror, 13 May 1972
Maybe if you're young enough, from a dreary home environment with nothing but a soul destroying future, then maybe you could enjoy a festival like ...
Captain Beefheart: Clear Spot (Reprise K54007)
Review by Mark Leviton, Redbrick, 18 October 1972
EVEN IF you've never heard Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band, or heard them and hated them, you must hear this year's most interesting musical ...
Interview by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 9 December 1972
On himself, BEEFHEART and RANDY NEWMAN — and backing JAGGER by remote control. ...
Interview by Joel Selvin, San Francisco Chronicle, 17 December 1972
NOTE: Nobody was ever more fun to hang out with than Don Van Vliet. We took a number of dinners over the years, including one ...
Getting Closer To The Captain: Clear Spot
Review by Lester Bangs, Creem, January 1973
"AND THAT PANTALOONED DUCK / white goose neck / quacked, 'Webcor, Webcor.'" Those are the last lines on Clear Spot, from a song called 'Golden ...
Captain Beefheart Sings For Women
Interview by David Rensin, Rolling Stone, 4 January 1973
NORTH HOLLYWOOD – Striding into the small but copiously equipped Warner Brothers recording studio like a bull dressed for a Chinatown parade, Captain Beefheart extends ...
Know What I Mean? The Don Van Vliet Interview...
Interview by Rick McGrath, The Georgia Straight, March 1973
Beefheart at The Commodore. Do you know what I mean? ...
Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band: Free Trade Hall, Manchester
Live Review by Caroline Boucher, Disc, 14 April 1973
"THAT WAS just TERRIBLE," said Captain Beefheart after the opening performance of his tour at Manchester Free Trade Hall last Thursday. ...
Captain Beefheart: The Beef Of The Matter
Interview by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 14 April 1973
DON VAN VLIET and his orchestra are here for their third British tour. The current line-up of The Magic Band features Zoot Horn Rollo (first ...
Captain Beefheart: Low Yo Yo-Ing It In Blunderland
Review and Interview by Gary Lucas, Zoo World, 10 May 1973
"I don't want to kill my china pig/No I don't/A man's gotta live/A man's gotta eat/A man's gotta have shoes/To walk out on the street..." ...
Captain Beefheart and his Tragic Band
Report by Martin Hayman, Sounds, 8 June 1974
WHO WOULD WANT TO WRITE THIS? ASKS MARTIN HAYMAN ...
Captain Beefheart: Bluejeans and Moonbeams (Mercury SRM-1-1018)
Review by Bruce Malamut, Crawdaddy!, January 1975
VAN VLIET stepped through the black hole and never quite looked or saw the same again. Eventually taking to earth as the Spotlight Kid, he ...
Captain Beefheart — Pre-Knebworth Interview
Interview by Ed Jones, Melody Maker, 5 July 1975
"SO THAT band is called Mallard, eh? Well, they'd better duck! Just a bunch of quacks!" So quips Captain Beefheart, briefly in town for his ...
Pink Floyd, Steve Miller, Captain Beefheart, Roy Harper, Linda Lewis: Knebworth Park, Hertfordshire
Live Review by Mick Brown, Sounds, 12 July 1975
Floyd fly high with support ...
Interview by Chris Salewicz, New Musical Express, 19 July 1975
CAPTAIN BEEFHEART (AKA Don Van Vliet) moves in sufficiently mysterious ways for me to believe that Zoot Horn Rollo (aka Bill Harkleroad) may just possibly ...
Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart: Bongo Fury
Review by Mick Farren, New Musical Express, 8 November 1975
THE STORY SO far. ...
Captain Beefheart: New Victoria, London
Live Review by Chas de Whalley, New Musical Express, 22 November 1975
DON'T BELIEVE WHAT your mother tells you kids, there really is a Legion of Super Heroes. ...
Don't Argue with the Captain: A Rap Wit’ de Cap
Interview by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 22 November 1975
Captain Beefheart is back in Britain, and despite those hassles over Bongo Fury he has lots of laughs... ...
Zappa and Beefheart: Penguins In Bondage
Interview by Robot A. Hull, Creem, January 1976
Master MasterThis is recorded thru uh flies ear 'n you have t' have uh flies eye t' see it it's the thing that's gonna make ...
Frank Zappa & Captain Beefheart: BLLLAAAaaaaahhhhh
Memoir by Miles, New Musical Express, 3 January 1976
Actually, it didn't work. However, something that did work was the re-uniting of THE CAPTAIN and FRANK ZAPPA a few months ago for a tour ...
Beefheart Discovers “World's Greatest Band” Sensation
Interview by Miles, New Musical Express, 20 November 1976
I CALLED Captain Beefheart the other day. His huge voice came booming down the phone even though I'd probably woken him up. ...
Captain Beefheart: The Return of the Zig Zag Wanderer
Interview by Kris Needs, ZigZag, January 1978
HAAARRRM!!! Captain Beefheart's amazing throat lets out a ferociously powerful blues-roar, which in the "relaxed atmosphere" of the Montcalm hotel bar has a resounding effect ...
Musical Rash of Capt. Beefheart
Profile and Interview by Richard Cromelin, Los Angeles Times, 27 January 1978
CAPTAIN BEEFHEART'S songs aren't exactly the sort to replace 'You Light Up My Life' in America's heart. The jagged, jerky music of such numbers as ...
Captain Beefheart: The Number One Weirdo Comes Back To Earth
Interview by John Morthland, Gig, February 1978
ON PAPER, IT probably sounds like just another Captain Beefheart comeback. Lord knows he's had his share. Yet for his fans, it's a most welcome ...
Interview by Lester Bangs, New Musical Express, 8 April 1978
THE KOOK WHO FEEL TO EARTH. ON THE 8th DAY HE BOMBED OUT. ON THE 9th HE WAS RESURRECTED. ...
Captain Beefheart: Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller)
Review by Paul Morley, New Musical Express, 4 November 1978
OUR FRIEND makes its long overdue appearance, a record of fragments that has a bewildered Beefheart crawling out of the messes of '74/'75 and trying ...
Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band: Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller) (Warner Bros. BSK 3256)
Review by Gary Lucas, Feature, January 1979
THIS ALBUM is certified Grade A 100% Beefheart. After three years without a domestic record contract, Don Van Vliet, one of the seminal figures of ...
Captain Beefheart And The Magic Band: Doc At The Radar Station
Review by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 20 September 1980
IN THE Beefheart Universe, you see everything that you see in other places, but it always seems different. ...
Profile and Interview by Lester Bangs, The Village Voice, 1 October 1980
He's Alive, But So Is Paint. Are You? ...
Captain Beefheart: Tales Of Transmutation From The Mojave Magic Man
Interview by Paul Rambali, New Musical Express, 1 November 1980
"GOD-DAMN THAT BEAT!" Don Van Vliet slams out a foursquare tattoo on the dashboard of his blue Volvo estate. "That mama heartbeat. That bom...bom...bom! Why ...
Captain Beefheart: If It Weren't For Bad Luck
Report by Andy Schwartz, New York Rocker, January 1981
NEW YORK – Did ever a man suffer such unrelenting abuse, incomprehension, and just plain bad luck at the hands of the American record industry ...
Captain Beefheart: The Country Club, Reseda
Live Review by Mark Leviton, BAM, 27 February 1981
"YOU EITHER LOVE it or hate it," explained the guy standing behind me to his wary girlfriend during Captain Don's blistering set. "It's the weirdest ...
Interview by Dave DiMartino, Creem, March 1981
MAY 1970. High School kids in my living room. Singing "Hot and slimy weenie, knocking at my door/Hot and slimy weenie, crawling 'cross the floor/Hot ...
Interview by John Morthland, Music & Sound Output, May 1981
IN 12 ALBUMS SPREAD out over 13 years, Captain Beefheart has created a body of work that breaks most every rule in American music and ...
Ted Templeman on Captain Beefheart
Interview by David Gans, BAM, 10 September 1981
What did you expect when you did Captain Beefheart's Clear Spot? ...
Book Excerpt by John Tobler, Stuart Grundy, 'The Record Producers', BBC Books, 1982
IF ANY PRODUCER could be said to have an instantly identifiable sound, aside from the obvious case of Phil Spector, it would be Richard Perry. ...
Interview by David Gans, BAM, 1982
The super producer talks about Little Feat, Van Halen, the Doobies, and staying sane in a world of crazies. ...
Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band: Ice Cream For Crow (Virgin V2237)*****
Review by Edwin Pouncey, Sounds, 11 September 1982
TO THE casual observer, Captain Beefheart's vibe must appear to be similar to the window blind painting he has created to adorn his latest batch ...
Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band: Ice Cream For Crow (Virgin)
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 11 September 1982
THE TIME has come and gone for Captain Beefheart to evade the confines of 'criticism'. If we posit Trout Mask Replica and Lick My Decals ...
Captain Beefheart Kids Himself Gracefully
Profile and Interview by Bill Bentley, L.A. Weekly, 2 December 1982
SEARCHING FOR the sense of Captain Beefheart is a lot like taking a ride on Mobius strip. Once you get used to the fact that ...
In Search Of Captain Beefheart
Profile and Interview by Jim Green, Trouser Press, February 1983
The elusive Don van Vliet tracked to his lair ...
Captain Beefheart: A Wacky Way Of Knowledge
Profile and Interview by Roy Trakin, Creem, May 1983
"If you've got ears, you gotta listen," – Don Van Vliet, aka Captain Beefheart ...
Captain Beefheart: The Legendary A&M Sessions
Review by Don Snowden, The Boston Phoenix, 23 October 1984
SINCE HIS ear-bending 1969 breakthrough, Trout Mask Replica, Captain Beefheart's reputation as rock's most unvarnishedly unconventional artiste has overshadowed the earthy R&B roots of his ...
Interview by Roy Trakin, Musician, November 1985
Doctor of Applied Song Medicine, Studio Psychology, R&B Analysis and Chart Metallurgy... ...
Colin David Webb: Captain Beefheart - The Man And His Music
Book Review by Andy Gill, Q, February 1990
PUBLISHERS MAY BE willing to publish books on fairly marginal artists such as (to choose two recent examples) R.E.M. and Tom Waits, but a cult ...
Profile and Interview by Mark Dery, Guitar Player, September 1990
"THE MUSICAL landscape is completely moribund," says Gary Lucas. "It's one of the worst periods in memory, worse than the mid '70s. My music is ...
Captain Beefheart: Dropout Boogie
Retrospective by Miles, MOJO, December 1993
IT WAS 2am, September 1969, and I was having a cup of styrofoam coffee with Don Van Vliet in the 24-hour automated snack-bar of TT&G ...
Captain Beefheart: 'Yeah, I'm Happy!'
Retrospective by Dave DiMartino, MOJO, December 1993
He is alive. A recluse. Painting in seclusion up near the Oregon border. There have been weird signals through the ether since he stopped making ...
Profile and Interview by Ben Thompson, The Independent, 21 August 1994
DON VAN VLIET lives in the small and beautifully named town of Trinidad in Northern California, up by the Oregon border, 135 ft from the ...
55 Years Of Goin’ To The Toilet: Captain Beefheart
Interview by Fred Mills, Zia Zine, 1 April 1996
NOTE TO THE PURIST OF HEART: Please take the date of publication into account as you peruse this piece. And no, Don Van Vliet did ...
Review by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 9 February 1997
WHILE NOBODY questions his status as one of rock's great originals, Captain Beefheart's madcap variations on the blues are an acquired taste. Armed with a ...
The Artist Formerly Known as Captain Beefheart (Dir. Elaine Shepherd, BB2)
Film/DVD/TV Review by Caroline Boucher, The Observer, 17 August 1997
WE AT the Observer can boast a couple of ancient links with Captain Beefheart, subject of tonight's Rock Cults programme, The Artist Formerly Known as ...
Hello Goodbye: Jeff Morris Tepper & Beefheart's Magic Band
Retrospective and Interview by Mike Barnes, MOJO, January 1998
Hello: August 1975 I WAS UP in the California Redwoods to check out housing and schools, and I saw Don drive by in this orange pumpkin-coloured ...
Captain Beefheart: Grow Fins: Rarities (1965-1982)
Review by Byron Coley, The Wire, May 1999
ALTHOUGH IT WAS their third released album, Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band arrived with 1969's sprawling Trout Mask Replica. The ability to appreciate its ...
Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band: Grow Fins
Review and Interview by Jon Savage, MOJO, June 1999
"That’s right, the Mascara Snake." And even if it isn’t, someone will put it in a box set one day. A feast of leftover Beefheart ...
Review by Richard Gehr, The Village Voice, 1 July 1999
SINCE THE 1969 release of Trout Mask Replica, the artist dubbed Captain Beefheart has incarnated the gold standard by which "weirdness" in rock music has ...
Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band: Grow Fins (Revenant); The Dust Blows Forward (Rhino)
Review by Ben Edmonds, Detroit Metro Times, 7 July 1999
NOW THAT Don Van Vliet’s abandonment of music in favour of his career as a painter appears to be permanent, what are we finally to ...
Albums from Michael Bolton et al
Review by Barbara Ellen, The Times, 26 November 1999
Bolton 1, Redding 0 (after tons of extra time) ...
Three Decades Inside The Mask: Captain Beefheart
Retrospective and Interview by Byron Coley, unpublished, December 1999
NOTE: This article appeared in a much-shortened version in the December 1999 edition of Spin entitled "The Strangest Album Ever Sold: The Making Of Trout ...
Don Van Vliet (Captain Beefheart)
Essay by Tim Page, The Washington Post, 12 December 1999
BACK IN THE early 1970s, when Captain Beefheart was at the decidedly sub-stratospheric pinnacle of his fame, there was no faster way to clear out ...
Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band: Trout Mask Replica
Book Excerpt by Mike Barnes, 'Captain Beefheart: The Biography' (Quartet), 2000
"If there has been anything in the history of popular music which could be described as a work of art in a way that people ...
Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band: Dust Sucker (Milksafe)
Review by Edwin Pouncey, The Wire, May 2002
THE FULL STORY of Captain Beefheart's ill-fated Bat Chain Puller – potentially his greatest musical statement after Trout Mask Replica – has already been admirably ...
Another Music In A Different Kitchen, Pt. 1: Captain Beefheart and Pere Ubu
Comment by Michael Goldberg, Neumu, 21 June 2002
From Trout Mask to Dub Housing: how did music that once seemed so harsh and incomprehensible come to sound so good? ...
Another Music In A Different Kitchen, Pt. 2: Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica
Comment by Michael Goldberg, Neumu, 21 June 2002
WHEN THE noble savage theory of punk rock was first laid out in the early-to-mid-'70s, I bought in. According to one version of the mantra, ...
The Captain's Conjurors: The Magic Band
Retrospective and Interview by Mike Barnes, The Wire, April 2003
With the 1982 LP Ice Cream For Crow, the legendary Don Van Vliet, aka Captain Beefheart, laid the final incarnation of his Magic Band back ...
Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band: Trout Mask Replica (Straight, 1969)
Retrospective and Interview by Mark Paytress, MOJO, March 2005
A disciplinarian visionary and his inspired acolytes create genuine Outsider Art. ...
Captain Beefheart: Low Yo-Yo Stuff
Retrospective by Kris Needs, Record Collector, February 2009
"It's always irritated me that people labelled him weird. It was a kind of super-reality."– John Peel ...
Captain Beefheart: Trout Mask Nightmare
Retrospective and Interview by Kris Needs, Record Collector, February 2009
The shocking story behind the making of Beefheart's greatest album ...
Post-Modern Rock 'N' Roll Musings: Step One
Retrospective by Robot A. Hull, Rock's Backpages, 4 September 2009
IT BEGAN AS a dream in the minds of two teenage companions, Don Van Vliet and Frank Zappa, isolated in the barren town of Lancaster. ...
Obituary by Caroline Boucher, The Guardian, 18 December 2010
DON VAN VLIET, better known as Captain Beefheart, who has died aged 69 of complications from multiple sclerosis, was one of the most influential American ...
Captain Beefheart: Rock's Father of Invention
Obituary by Sean O'Hagan, The Observer, 19 December 2010
BACK IN 1969, a self-confessed "teenage weirdo" from Portland, Oregon, fell under the spell of a newly-released double album called Trout Mask Replica by Captain ...
The Dust Blows Forward, 'N The Dust Blows Back: Remembering Beefheart
Memoir by Gene Sculatti, recordmecca.com, 19 December 2010
IT'S IMPOSSIBLE for me to think what the world would be without Captain Beefheart's music in it. Amidst the bad news, the good is that ...
10 Essential Captain Beefheart Songs
Guide by Will Hermes, Rolling Stone, 20 December 2010
Tracks that mixed free-jazz with the blues, and influenced everyone from PJ Harvey to the Black Keys. ...
Captain Beefheart: A Surreal Singer in Pursuit of an Audience
Comment by Mick Brown, Daily Telegraph, 20 December 2010
DON VAN VLIET, aka Captain Beefheart, who died last Friday, could be a difficult man. His idiosyncratic recordings – a bizarre goulash of delta blues, ...
The Cap'n & His Magic Mutant Boogie Band
Retrospective by Don Snowden, Rock's Backpages, 21 December 2010
FUNNY, I HAD IT in mind to write something on Captain Beefheart for a few months, probably because I happened to be listening to his ...
A tour through Captain Beefheart's back catalogue
Retrospective by Jon Savage, The Guardian, 22 December 2010
Don Van Vliet shouldn't be seen as a "weirdo" – he had pop tricks up his sleeve and his most difficult music entered the top ...
The night Captain Beefheart drove me into the hills in a red Corvette
Memoir by Caroline Boucher, The Observer, 20 August 2017
It's 1974, and a young Caroline Boucher is in Los Angeles to meet scary legend Don Van Vliet… ...
How Nona Hendryx Captured the World of Captain Beefheart
Interview by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 9 November 2017
Drawn together: Gary Lucas and Nona Hendryx channel Captain Beefheart on their new album. ...
Don Van Vliet and Frank Zappa: Two Peas In A Misshapen Pod
Retrospective by Gary Lucas, Please Kill Me!, 14 January 2021
Guitarist Gary Lucas found himself smack dab in the middle of two of America's musical geniuses, Don 'n' Frank. Captain Beefheart and Frank Zappa were ...
see also Jeff Moris Tepper
see also Gary Lucas
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