Captain Beefheart

  I was planning on starting something like an artist spotlight on this site and with the unfortunate passing yesterday of Don Van Vliet, better known to the music world as Captain Beefheart. 

  The video above this is a documentary that aired on the BBC in 1997. If you don’t know who Captain Beefheart is, it’s a must watch. Your life will be changed for the weirder. In my opinion, The Captain is in a very special group of musicians. Along with Syd Barrett, Daniel Johnston and Wesley Willis, Captain Beefheart is truly unclassifiable. You cannot pin The Magic Band down. Don is absolutely unique and indescribable. The best I can do is tell you my “how I found Beefheart” story.

  Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band started me on the path to “weirdo” music. I discovered Beefheart from the most unlikely of sources, my friend Todd, who usually has pretty safe taste when it comes to music. What sparked both of our interest was a picture of John Lennon:

  On the cabinet behind him are two ‘Safe as Milk’ stickers, which is Captain Beefhearts debut album. If it’s good enough for John Lennon, I had to hear it. The album starts with a a blues lick on guitar and this voice, a lizard. A demon. After the first trademark Beefheart squeal the whole band kicks in with a shuffling groove that left my jaw hanging. By the end of side one, and that insane sound that ends ‘Electricity’, I wanted to cry. I had wasted so much time trying to write music like others when all along I could just be my weird self. That’s what Captain Beefheart did for music. He showed everyone, weird can be good. Without him, the world seems a little too, grey. Nothing will ever be fast and bulbous again. 

 Any favorite tracks from The Captain or a story of your own? Let me know and I’ll put it up.