On 3 Nov 2000, at 10:16, Michal Young wrote:
> Sorry for continuing an off-topic thread, but I'm confused about this
> message and require enlightenment. (Now! Just do it!)
>
> Captain Beefheart and his Magical Band were a 60's/70's group, and
> definitely not a cover group. Albums like "Trout Mask Replica" (the
> only title I can remember off-hand) we're on the very fringe of the
> avante garde, further out than Pink Floyd before P.F. went mainstream.
> Trout Mask Replica came out in approximately the same time period of
> Pink Floyd's Umagumma, which included the track "Several species of
> small furry creatures gathered in a cave and grooving on a pict."
Lucky me-- I have *every* Captain Beefheart album, in vinyl, no
less. His band did lots of really cool stuff, blues/rock heavily
influenced by the likes of John Coltrane, Roland Kirk, Albert Ayler,
Ornette Coleman, and a bunch of the other free jazz folx, plus
Howlin' Wolf. A lot of the lyrics he did seem something like the
poetry readings Kerouac did while being backed by Steve Allen,
RIP, and Zoot Simms, only electric, with really complex percussion.
The captain is a really wicked reed man, himself.
> I had read somewhere that Captain Beefheart lived in a trailer in the
> Nevada desert.
>
> Has the band been reconstituted and moved to Sweden? Has someone
> appropriated the name? Is it a weird coincidence (twisted minds think
> alike)?
Captain Beefheart, aka Don VanVliet, has retired as a musician.
He's now a very well thought-of painter, who does gallery shows at
places like the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art-- his painting
seems to be a very American take on cubism, and is heavily
influenced by Kadinsky, Gris, and Picasso. He grew up in the
desert, and may still live there.
Cheers,
Dennis
"Custard pies are a sort of esperanto: a universal language."
--Noel Godin
