Beefheart Cover from Hamamatsu, Japan

Just when I thought I couldn’t be pleasantly surprised by anything posted on YouTube lately, I came across the following two Japanese Indie Bands, Blood Pees with their cover of Don Van Vliet’s “I’m Glad” and New Roman Chitose‘s “PV Volume One” (performed with pole dancers):
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Captain Beefheart – Hoodoo Hoedown

Beefheart

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been just as big a Captain Beefheart fan as a Mothers of Invention fan. True, his is not exactly the music for your everyday, run-of-the-mill music listener who relies on a steady diet of Top 40. Still, the very same can be said about much of the Mothers music. That’s exactly what drew me to Beefheart’s music – the very same eclectic playfulness and creative adventure seldom found elsewhere. That Beefheart (as well as the many musicians who made up the various incarnations of The Magic Band) was so overlooked for so long is, indeed, criminal. As the tracks in this mixtape certain attest, Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band were far, far ahead of their time.

Genius? Egoist? Madman?

Listen and decide for yourself.

Click here to listen to the mixtape, “Captain Beefheart – Hoodoo Hoedown

Update: Belated thanks and apologies to rik walton – the fantastic photographer of the above photograph of Don Van Vliet – for not asking his permission for the use of said image and for not linking to his site. Both of which I have remedied. Fellow KUR-Meisters, go forth and check out rik’s wonderful photographic images at his website here.

Gary Lucas on Captain Beefheart

Filmed at the Swiss Cottage Hotel, London, September 2005, from the 2006 DVD documentary “Captain Beefheart: Under Review” (Prism Productions), Gary Lucas discusses working with Captain Beefheart in the early 80s, and the making of the track “Cardboard Cutout Sundown” from the 1982 Captain Beefheart and The Magic Band album “Ice Cream for Crow”, and explains Don Van Vliet‘s “Exploding Note Theory”.
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Beefheart Demos and Rarities

Long before Don Van Vliet was considered the Godfather of Punk for his avant-garde approach to music – it was first and foremost his unique blend of psychedelic blues that attracted me to his music. On these early demos, live recordings, and select tracks only found on his early albums (and nowhere else since) is the Beefheart sound distilled to its essential. Listen and decide for yourself:
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Mats & Morgan Play Beefheart

In keeping with the general Beefheartian theme of recent posts, I recently found this video of the Mats/Morgan Band performing Captain Beefheart’s “Lick My Decals Off, Baby”.

Line Up:

Freddie Wadling – lead vocals
Morgan Ågren – drums
Denny Walley – guitar, vocals
Jimmy Ågren – guitar
Rolf Hedquist – bass
Mats Öberg – keyboards, harmonica, vocals

This is largely the same line-up that appears on Denny Walley’s album, Spare Parts (a blues album with backing by the Mats/Morgan band).

Click here for more information on the Mats/Morgan Band’s new CD and DVD release from Cuneiform Records, “Heat Beats Live/Tourbook 1991-2007“.

Captain Beefheart — Revisited


A couple of my favorite Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band videos, “I’m Gonna Booglarize You Baby” (The Spotlight Kid/Clear Spot, 1972) and “Hard Working Man” (Dust Blows Forward – Anthology, 1999) — and a reminder to revisit Barry’s Monday, September 29th, 2008 post of BBC’s documentary on The Captain, narrated by the late great John Peel. Click here.