| Don Van Vliet | |
|---|---|
 Van Vliet performing as Beefheart
at the Convocation Hall, Toronto in 1974 |
|
| Background information | |
| Birth name | Don Glen Vliet |
| Also known as | Captain Beefheart |
| Born | January 15, 1941 Glendale, California, U.S. |
| Genres | Experimental rock, blues-rock, psychedelic rock, progressive rock,[1] spoken word, protopunk, outsider |
| Occupations | Musician, songwriter, artist, poet, composer, record producer, film director |
| Instruments | Vocals, harmonica, saxophone, bass clarinet, keyboards |
| Years active | 1964–1982 |
| Labels | A&M, Buddah, Blue Thumb, ABC, Reprise, Straight, Virgin, Mercury, DiscReet, Warner Bros., Atlantic, Epic |
| Associated acts | The Magic Band, Frank Zappa, Ry Cooder, Zoot Horn Rollo, Rockette Morton, John French, The Tubes, Jack Nitzsche, Gary Lucas, Moris Tepper |
Don Van Vliet (pronounced /væn ˈvliːt/; born Don Glen Vliet,[2] January 15, 1941) is an American musician, artist and poet best known by the stage name Captain Beefheart. His musical work was conducted with a rotating ensemble of musicians called The Magic Band, which was active between 1965 and 1982, with whom he recorded 12 studio albums. Noted for his powerful, idiosyncratic singing voice with its wide range,[3] Van Vliet also occasionally played the harmonica, saxophone, bass clarinet and keyboards. Often impossible to conventionally categorize, Van Vliet's compositions drew upon a range of influences, blending rock, blues and psychedelia with free jazz, avant-garde and contemporary experimental composition.[4] They characteristically feature a mix of shifting time signatures, complex rhythms, atonal melodies, jagged, dissonant guitar playing, and surreal, poetic lyrics,[5] that were crafted through his often dictatorial control over his music and musicians.
Born in Glendale, California, Van Vliet moved with his family to the town of Lancaster, where he acquired an eclectic musical taste and befriended fellow teenager Frank Zappa, a mentor with whom he sporadically competed and collaborated. Van Vliet adopted his Captain Beefheart persona in 1964 and began performing, joining the original Magic Band in 1965. The group drew attention and acclaim with their first album in 1967, the blues-rock-rooted Safe as Milk. However, Beefheart's uncompromising individuality and volatile nature caused him and The Magic Band to be dropped from and rejected by numerous record labels. They then signed to Frank Zappa's newly formed Straight Records. Zappa as a producer granted Van Vliet the unrestrained artistic freedom to compose 1969's Trout Mask Replica, an album that was ranked fifty-eighth by Rolling Stone magazine in their 2003 list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.[6] Frustrated with a lack of commercial success after seven studio albums, and fed up with Van Vliet's abuse, paranoia and authoritarianism, The Magic Band disbanded in 1974. After a brief and critically panned flirtation with more conventional rock music, resulting in two albums he later disowned, Beefheart formed a new Magic Band with a group of younger musicians and produced three final albums (1978–82) that returned him to prominence through contemporarily revisiting the eccentricities of his earlier work.
He has since been described as "one of modern music's true innovators" with "a singular body of work virtually unrivalled in its daring and fluid creativity".[7][4] Although he received few critical accolades from those who often perceived him to have been willingly unlistenable,[8] and never achieved mainstream commercial success during his musical career,[5] Beefheart has in recent years attained a devoted cult following as a "highly significant" and "incalculable" influence on an array of New Wave, punk,[5][9] post-punk, experimental and alternative rock musicians.[5][7][9]
Van Vliet is known for his enigmatic personality and relationship with the public; he has made few public appearances since his retirement from music (and from his Beefheart persona) in 1982 to abruptly devote himself to a career in art, an interest that originated in his childhood talent for sculpture. His critically respected paintings, variously described as abstract, neo-expressionist, modernist, figurative and primitivist, demand high prices and have been exhibited in several countries.[4][10][11][12][13]
Van Vliet was born as Don Glen Vliet in Glendale, California, on January 15, 1941, to Glen Alonzo Vliet, a service station owner of Dutch ancestry from Kansas, and Willie Sue Vliet (née Warfield), who was from Arkansas.[2] He claimed to have an ancestor, Peter Van Vliet, who was a Dutch painter and knew Rembrandt. Van Vliet also claimed that he was related to adventurer and author Richard Halliburton and the cowboy actor Slim Pickens, and that he remembered being born.[4][14] He allegedly refused to talk until he was two years old.[15]
He grew up with an interest in painting and sculpting,[16] which he first engaged in at the age of 3, beginning with an "obsession" with animals, particularly dinosaurs, fish, African mammals and lemurs.[17] When he was 9 years old he won a children's sculpting competition organised for the Los Angeles Zoo by a local tutor, Agostinho Rodrigues.[18][19] Van Vliet lived with Rodrigues for some time during the 1950s, and bizarrely claimed to have been a lecturer at the Barnsdale Art Institute in Los Angeles at the age of 11.[17] This story often includes Van Vliet's statement that he was sculpting on a weekly television show,[20] and that his parents discouraged his interest in sculpture, turning away several scholarship offers,[7] including one for him to travel to Europe with six years' paid tuition to study marble sculpture.[21] He would often say that they regarded artists to be "queer".[4]
Van Vliet claimed he had never attended public school, alleging "half a day of kindergarten" to be the extent of his formal education, and saying that "if you want to be a different fish, you've got to jump out of the school." Zappa and other associates have stated that he attended through high school, albeit sporadically. Van Vliet's artistic enthusiasm became so fervent, he claimed that his parents were forced to feed him through the door in the room where he sculpted. When he was 13 the family then moved from the Los Angeles area to the more remote town of Lancaster, near the Mojave Desert. With the presumed intention of subduing their son's creative spirit,[4] it was instead an environment that would greatly influence Van Vliet creatively from then on.[20] Van Vliet remained interested in art; his paintings, often reminiscent of Franz Kline's,[22] were later featured on several of his own albums. Meanwhile he developed his taste and interest in music, listening to jazz artists such as Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane and Cecil Taylor, and the Chicago blues of Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters.[4][20][23] His earliest musical work was with local groups such as the Omens and the Blackouts.
He had dropped out of school by that time, and spent most of his time staying at home. His girlfriend lived in the house, and his grandmother lived in house, and his aunt and his uncle lived across the street. And his father had had a heart attack; his father drove a Helms bread truck, part of the time Don was helping out by taking over the bread truck route [and] driving up to Mojave. The rest of the time he would just sit at home and listen to rhythm and blues records, and scream at his mother to get him a Pepsi.
While attending Antelope Valley High School in Lancaster, Van Vliet became close friends with fellow teenager Frank Zappa, the pair bonding through their interest in Chicago blues and R&B.[20][25] Van Vliet is portrayed in both The Real Frank Zappa Book and Barry Miles' biography Zappa as fairly spoiled at this stage of his life, as the center of attention as an only child, spending most of his time locked up in his room listening to records, often with Frank Zappa, into the early hours in the morning, eating leftover food from his father's bread truck and demanding that his mother bring him a Pepsi.[24] His parents tolerated such behavior under the belief that their child was truly gifted. Zappa and Van Vliet began collaborating on pop song parodies and a movie script called Captain Beefheart vs. the Grunt People,[26] the first appearance of the Beefheart name. It came from a term used by his Uncle Alan. Alan had a habit of exposing himself to Don's girlfriend, Laurie. Alan would urinate with the bathroom door open and, if she was walking by, mumble about his penis, saying "Ahh, what a beauty! It looks just like a big, fine beef heart."[27] In a 1970 interview with Rolling Stone, Van Vliet requests "don't ask me why or how" he and Zappa came up with the name.[20] He would later claim in an appearance on Late Night with David Letterman that the name referred to "a beef in my heart against this society."[21]
Van Vliet enrolled at Antelope Valley Junior College as an art major, but decided to leave the following year. He once worked as a door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman, which produced one of his most memorable anecdotes when he sold a vacuum cleaner to the writer Aldous Huxley, pointing to it and declaring, "Well I assure you sir, this thing sucks."[28] After managing a Kinney's shoe store, Van Vliet relocated to Rancho Cucamonga, California, to reconnect with Zappa, who inspired his entry into musical performance. Van Vliet was quite shy[29] but was eventually able to imitate the deep voice of Howlin' Wolf with his five-octave vocal range.[23] He eventually grew comfortable with public performance, and after learning to play the harmonica, began playing at dances and small clubs in southern California.
In early 1965 Alex Snouffer, a local Lancaster rhythm and blues guitarist, invited Vliet to sing with a group that he was assembling. Vliet joined the first Magic Band and changed his name to Don Van Vliet. Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band signed to A&M and released two singles in 1966, a version of Bo Diddley's "Diddy Wah Diddy," followed by "Moonchild," which was written by David Gates. Both were hits in Los Angeles. The band played music venues that catered to underground artists, such as the Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco.[citation needed]
Sometime in 1966 demos of what became the Safe as Milk material were submitted to A&M. Jerry Moss (the "M" in A&M) reportedly described the new direction as "too negative"[7] and the band was dropped from the label. By the end of 1966 they were signed to Buddah Records and John French had joined on drums. French had the patience required to translate Van Vliet's musical ideas (often expressed by whistling or banging on the piano) for the other players. In French's absence this role was taken over by Bill Harkleroad.[citation needed] The lyrics on the album were written by Van Vliet in collaboration with the writer Herb Bermann, who for many years was thought to be a pseudonym. Bermann befriended Van Vliet after seeing him perform with his wife in Lancaster in 1966. The song "Electricity" was a poem written by Bermann, who gave Van Vliet permission to adapt to music.[30]
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The Safe as Milk material needed much more work, and 20-year-old guitar prodigy Ry Cooder was asked to help. They began recording in spring 1967, with Richard Perry producing (his first job as producer). Cooder left shortly after recording the album, which was released in September 1967. Richie Unterberger of Allmusic would call the album "blues-rock gone slightly askew, with jagged, fractured rhythms, soulful, twisting vocals from Van Vliet, and more doo wop, soul, straight blues, and folk-rock influences than he would employ on his more avant-garde outings". Among those who took notice were The Beatles: John Lennon and Paul McCartney were known as great admirers of Beefheart.[31] Lennon displayed two of the album's promotional bumper stickers in the sunroom at his home.[32] Later the Beatles planned to sign Beefheart to their experimental Zapple label (plans that were scrapped after Allen Klein took over the group's management). Van Vliet was often critical of The Beatles however. He considered the lyric "I'd love to turn you on", from their song "A Day in the Life", to be ridiculous and conceited. He tired of what he called their "lullabies",[33] and lampooned them with the Strictly Personal song "Beatle Bones 'n' Smokin' Stones", that featured the sardonic refrain of "strawberry fields, strawberry fields forever". He spoke badly of Lennon after getting no response from him after sending a telegram of support to him and wife Yoko Ono during their 1969 "Bed-In for peace". Van Vliet claimed to have met McCartney, but he had no recollection of this taking place.[34]
Doug Moon left the band due to his intolerance of Van Vliet's disciplinarianism and dislike of the band's enveloping experimentalism, which he described as "hinting of things to come". Ry Cooder recounted of Moon becoming so angered by Van Vliet's unrelenting criticism that he walked into the room pointing a loaded crossbow at him, only to be told: "Get that fucking thing out of here, get out of here and get back in your room", which he obeyed.[24]
The group had been scheduled to play at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival. During this period Vliet suffered severe anxiety attacks that made him convinced that he was having a heart attack. These attacks were likely exacerbated by his heavy LSD use, and the fact that his father had died of heart failure a few years earlier. In a performance at Mt. Tamalpais shortly before the scheduled Monterey festival, the band began to play "Electricity" and Van Vliet froze, straightened his tie, then walked backwards, fell off the ten-foot stage, and landed directly on top of the manager. It was this that made Ry Cooder decide he could no longer work with Van Vliet, dashing Beefheart and The Magic Band's opportunity of breakthrough success at Monterey in the vein of The Jimi Hendrix Experience and Janis Joplin as a result of performing at the festival.[24]
It was January 27, 1968, that saw one of Beefheart's most memorable live performances, when he and The Magic Band performed on the beach at Cannes on the Mediterranean coast of France. Beefheart met Jimi Hendrix sometime between 1968 and 1969; Hendrix had allegedly said to him that with "his guitar and Van Vliet's voice they could have really achieved something".[35]
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In August, guitarist Jeff Cotton was recruited and in October and November 1967 the Snouffer/Cotton/Handley/French line-up recorded material for what would become the second album, Strictly Personal. Originally intended to be a double album called It Comes to You in a Plain Brown Wrapper for the Buddah label, it was released in October 1968 as a single album on producer Bob Krasnow's Blue Thumb label.[36] After the album was released Van Vliet initiated through interviews a myth which alleged that the tapes of the album had been remixed by Krasnow without the band's knowledge, and further, that he had ruined it by adding modish psychedelic effects, particularly phasing. It was known however, that Van Vliet had been aware and approved of the mix before its release.[4] Stewart Mason in his Allmusic review of the album would describe it as a "terrific album" and a "fascinating, underrated release", "every bit the equal of Safe as Milk and Trout Mask Replica".[37] Langdon Winner of Rolling Stone would call Strictly Personal "an excellent album. The guitars of the Magic Band mercilessly bend and stretch notes in a way that suggests that the world of music has wobbled clear off its axis." With the lyrics demonstrating "Beefheart's ability to juxtapose delightful humor with frightening insights".[20] This was also the period in which Van Vliet furthered his own mythology through interviews. Earlier recordings of two of the Strictly Personal songs and two other songs were released by Buddah in 1971 under the title Mirror Man. The original release bore a sleeve note claiming that the material had been recorded "one night in Los Angeles in 1965". This was a ruse to circumvent possible copyright issues; the material was actually recorded in November and December 1967. Essentially a "jam" album, Steve Huey of Allmusic would describe it as pushing "the boundaries of conventional blues-rock, with a Beefheart vocal tossed in here and there. Some may miss Beefheart's surreal poetry, gruff vocals, and/or free jazz influence, while others may find it fascinating to hear the Magic Band simply letting go and cutting loose".[38]
During his first trip to England in January 1968, Captain Beefheart was briefly represented by mod icon Peter Meaden, an early manager of The Who. The Captain and his band members were initially denied entry to the United Kingdom, because of improper paperwork. After returning to Germany for a few days, the group was permitted to re-enter the UK. By this time, they had terminated their association with Meaden. Alex St. Claire left the band in June 1968 after their return from the European tour and was replaced by teenager Bill Harkleroad. Handley also left the band a few weeks later.
Critically acclaimed as Van Vliet's magnum opus,[39] Trout Mask Replica was released in June 1969 on Frank Zappa's newly formed Straight Records label. By this time, the Magic Band had enlisted bassist Mark Boston, a friend of French and Harkleroad. Van Vliet had also begun assigning nicknames to his band members, so Harkleroad became "Zoot Horn Rollo", and Boston became "Rockette Morton", while John French assumed the name "Drumbo", and Jeff Cotton became "Antennae Jimmy Semens". Van Vliet wanted the whole band to "live" the Trout Mask Replica album. The group rehearsed Van Vliet's difficult compositions for eight months, living communally in a small rented house in the Woodland Hills suburb of Los Angeles. Van Vliet implemented his vision by asserting complete artistic and emotional domination of his musicians. At various times one or another of the group members was put "in the barrel," with Van Vliet berating him continually, sometimes for days, until the musician collapsed in tears or in total submission to Van Vliet.[40] Drummer John French described the situation as "cultlike"[41] and a visiting friend said "the environment in that house was positively Manson-esque."[42] Their material circumstances also were dire. With no income other than welfare and contributions from relatives, the group survived on a bare subsistence diet, and were even arrested for shoplifting food (with Zappa bailing them out). French recounted of living on no more than a small cup of beans a day for a month.[24] A visitor described their appearance as "cadaverous" and said that "they all looked in poor health." Band members were restricted from leaving the house and practiced for 14 or more hours a day.
According to Van Vliet, the 28 songs on the album were quickly written in roughly eight hours, though band members have stated that he worked on the compositions for roughly 3 weeks using a piano as his writing tool. It took the band about eight months to actually mold the songs into shape.[43] The entire album was recorded in one six-hour recording session.[43] Van Vliet spent the next few days overdubbing the vocals. The album's title came from its iconic cover artwork, that was taken and designed by Cal Schenkel; Van Vliet playing the saxophone, wearing the raw head of a carp, bought from a local fish market and fashioned into a mask by Schenkel on his face.[44]
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Trout Mask Replica displayed a wide variety of genres, including blues, avant-garde, experimental music, and rock. The relentless practice prior to recording blended the music into an iconoclastic whole of contrapuntal tempos, featuring slide guitar, polyrhythmic drumming (with French's drums and cymbals covered in cardboard), and honking saxophone and bass clarinet. Van Vliet's vocals range from his signature Howlin' Wolf-inspired growl to frenzied falsetto to laconic, casual ramblings. The instrumental backing was effectively recorded live in the studio, while Van Vliet overdubbed most of the vocals in only partial synch with the music by hearing the slight sound leakage through the studio window.[45] Zappa as producer would say of Van Vliet's approach that it was "impossible to tell him why things should be such and such a way. It seemed to me that if he was going to create a unique object, that the best thing for me to do was to keep my mouth shut as much as possible and just let him do whatever he wanted to do whether I thought it was wrong or not."[24]
Van Vliet used the ensuing publicity, particularly with a 1970 Rolling Stone interview with Langdon Winner, to promulgate a number of myths which have subsequently been quoted as fact. Winner's article stated, for instance, that neither Van Vliet nor the members of the Magic Band ever took drugs, but guitarist Bill Harkleroad later contradicted this. Van Vliet claimed to have taught both Harkleroad and bassist Mark Boston to play their instruments from scratch; in fact the pair were already accomplished musicians before joining the band.[45] Last, Van Vliet claimed to have gone a year and half without sleeping. When asked how this was possible, he replied to have only eaten fruit.[14]
Critic Steve Huey of Allmusic writes that the album's influence "was felt more in spirit than in direct copycatting, as a catalyst rather than a literal musical starting point. However, its inspiring reimagining of what was possible in a rock context laid the groundwork for countless experiments in rock surrealism to follow, especially during the punk and New Wave era."[46] In 2003, the album was ranked fifty-eighth by Rolling Stone in their list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time: "On first listen, Trout Mask Replica sounds like raw Delta blues", with Beefheart "singing and ranting and reciting poetry over fractured guitar licks. But the seeming sonic chaos is an illusion -- to construct the songs, the Magic Band rehearsed twelve hours a day for months on end in a house with the windows blacked out. (Producer Frank Zappa was then able to record most of the album in less than five hours.) Tracks such as "Ella Guru" and "My Human Gets Me Blues" are the direct predecessors of modern musical primitives such as Tom Waits and PJ Harvey".[6]
Critic Robert Christgau would give the album a B+, saying that "I find it impossible to give this record an A because it is just too weird. But I'd like to. Very great played at high volume when you're feeling shitty, because you'll never feel as shitty as this record".[47] BBC disc jockey John Peel said of the album: "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 who are involved in other areas of art would understand, then Trout Mask Replica is probably that work."[48]
Lick My Decals Off, Baby (1970) continued in a similarly experimental vein. With a more cohesive instrumentation, many would regard it to be on par with or even superior to Trout Mask Replica.[49] The album was Van Vliet's personal favourite and his most commercially successful in the United Kingdom, spending twenty weeks on the UK Albums Chart, peaking at number 20. An early promotional music video was made of its title song, and a bizarre television commercial was also filmed that included excerpts from "Woe-Is-uh-Me-Bop," silent footage of masked Magic Band members using kitchen utensils as musical instruments, and Beefheart kicking over a bowl of what appears to be porridge onto a dividing stripe in the middle of a road. The video was rarely played but was accepted into the Museum of Modern Art, where it has been used in several programs related to music.[50][51] The LP sees the addition of Art Tripp III to the band, who had joined from the Mothers of Invention, playing drums and marimba. Lick My Decals Off, Baby was the first record on which the band were credited as "The Magic Band", rather than "His Magic Band"; journalist Irwin Chusid interprets this change as "a grudging concession of its members' at least semiautonomous humanity."[45] Robert Christgau would give the album an A-, commenting that "Beefheart's famous five-octave range and covert totalitarian structures have taken on a playful undertone, repulsive and engrossing and slapstick funny".[47]
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The next two records, The Spotlight Kid (simply credited to "Captain Beefheart") and Clear Spot (credited to "Captain Beefheart And The Magic Band"), both released in 1972, while more conventional compared to prior albums, still remained rooted in experimentalism. In 1974, immediately after the recording of Unconditionally Guaranteed, which markedly continued the trend towards a more commercial sound heard on some of the Clear Spot tracks, The Magic Band, which had by then coalesced around the core of Art Tripp III, Alex St. Clair, Bill Harkleroad and Rockette Morton, decided they could no longer work with Van Vliet. They left to form Mallard. Van Vliet quickly formed a new Magic Band of musicians who had no experience with his music and in fact had never heard it.
Having no knowledge of the previous Magic Band style they simply improvised what they thought would go with each song, playing much slicker versions that have been described as "bar band" versions of Beefheart's songs. A review described this incarnation of the Magic Band as the "Tragic Band," a term that has stuck over the years.[52] Mike Barnes would say that the description of the new band "grooving along pleasantly", was "an appropriately banal description of the music of a man who only a few years ago composed with the expressed intent of shaking listeners out of their torpor".[53] The one album they recorded, Bluejeans & Moonbeams (1974) has, like its predecessor Unconditionally Guaranteed, a completely different, almost soft rock sound from any other Beefheart record. Neither was well received; drummer Art Tripp recalled that when he and the original Magic Band listened to Unconditionally Guaranteed that they "were horrified. As we listened, it was as though each song was worse than the one which preceded it."[54] Beefheart later disowned both albums, calling them "horrible and vulgar", asking that they not be considered part of his musical output and urging fans who bought them to "take copies back for a refund".[55]
The Tubes' 1977 album Now featured a cover of Beefheart's Clear Spot song "My Head Is My Only House Unless It Rains"; Van Vliet himself appeared on the album, playing saxophone on the song "Cathy's Clone".[56]
From 1975 to 1977 there were no new records (the original version of Bat Chain Puller was recorded in 1976 but has never been released). In 1978 a completely new band was formed (consisting of Richard Redus, Richard "Midnight Hatsize" Snyder, Jeff Moris Tepper, Bruce Fowler, Eric Drew Feldman, Cliff R. Martinez and Robert Williams). These were from a younger generation of musicians eager to work with him and extremely capable of playing his music. In several cases they had been fans for years, and had learned his music from records. With this band, Van Vliet crafted a final trio of albums, which he produced himself.
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Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller), released by Warner Bros. Records in 1978, was largely regarded as a return to form. It was described by Ned Ragget of Allmusic to "be manna from heaven for those feeling Beefheart had lost his way on his two Mercury albums".[57] Doc at the Radar Station (1980) helped establish Beefheart's late resurgence as possibly the most consistently creative period of his musical career. Released by Virgin Records during the post-punk scene, the music was again accessible by a younger more receptive audience. Van Vliet said at this period, "I'm doing a non-hypnotic music to break up the catatonic state... and I think there is one right now."[24] Huey of Allmusic would cite the album as being "generally acclaimed as the strongest album of his comeback, and by some as his best since Trout Mask Replica", "even if the Captain's voice isn't quite what it once was, Doc at the Radar Station is an excellent, focused consolidation of Beefheart's past and then-present".[58] Van Vliet's biographer Mike Barnes speaks of "revamping work built on skeletal ideas and fragments that would have mouldered away in the vaults had they not been exhumed and transformed into full-blown, totally convincing new material."[4] In this period, Van Vliet made two appearances on David Letterman's late night television program on NBC, and also performed on Saturday Night Live.
The final Beefheart record, Ice Cream for Crow (1982), was recorded with Gary Lucas (who was also Van Vliet's manager), Jeff Moris Tepper, Richard Snyder and Cliff Martinez. This line-up made a video to promote the title track, directed by Van Vliet and Ken Schreiber, with cinematography by Daniel Pearl, which was rejected by MTV for being "too weird." However, the video was included in the Letterman broadcast on NBC-TV, and was also accepted into the Museum of Modern Art.[50][51] Ice Cream for Crow features long instrumental perfomances by The Magic Band with spoken word poetry readings by Van Vliet. Ragget of Allmusic called the album a "last entertaining blast of wigginess from one of the few truly independent artists in late 20th century pop music, with humor, skill, and style all still intact"; with The Magic Band "turning out more choppy rhythms, unexpected guitar lines, and outré arrangements, Captain Beefheart lets everything run wild as always, with successful results".[59] Barnes writes that "the most original and vital tracks [on the album] are the newer ones", saying that it "feels like an hors-d'oeuvre for a main course that never came".[4] Soon after, Van Vliet retired from music, considered by Piero Scaruffi to resent "the hypocritical atmosphere that manages it" and "the consumerist mechanisms that regulate it",[60] establishing a new career as a painter. Gary Lucas tried to convince him to record one more album, but to no avail.
Van Vliet had an early interest in painting and sculpting, and when nine years old won a children's sculpting competition organised for the Los Angeles Zoo by a local tutor, Agostinho Rodrigues.[18] Van Vliet's ancestor, Peter Van Vliet, was a Dutch painter, who Van Vliet claimed to have worked alongside Rembrandt.[4] Throughout his musical career he remained interested in art; his paintings, often reminiscent of Franz Kline's, were used on several of his albums.[22] In 1987, Van Vliet published Skeleton Breath, Scorpion Blush, a collection of his poetry, paintings and drawings.[61]
In the mid 1980s, Van Vliet became somewhat reclusive and abandoned music, stating he had gotten "too good at the horn"[62] and could make far more money painting.[63] His debut exhibition at the Mary Boone Gallery in New York in 1985 was initially regarded as "another rock musician dabbling in art for ego's sake",[16] though his primitive, non-conformist work has received more sympathetic and serious attention since then, with some sales approaching $25,000.[13][64] Two books have been published specifically devoted to critique and analysis of Van Vliet's artwork: Riding Some Kind of Unusual Skull Sleigh: On The Arts Of Don Van Vliet (1999) by W.C. Bamberger[65] and Stand Up To Be Discontinued,[66] first published in 1993, a now rare collection of essays on Van Vliet's work. The limited edition version of the book contains a CD of Van Vliet giving readings of six of his poems: "Fallin' Ditch", "The Tired Plain", "Skeleton Makes Good", "Safe Sex Drill", "Tulip" and "Gill". A deluxe edition was published in 1994; only 60 were printed, with etchings of Van Vliet's signature, costing £180.[67]
In the early 1980s Van Vliet established an association with the Michael Werner Gallery.[68] Eric Feldman stated later in an interview that at that time Michael Werner told Van Vliet he would need to stop playing music if he wanted to be respected as a painter, warning him that he would only be considered a "musician who paints" otherwise.[24] Gordon Veneklasen, one of the gallery's directors in 1995 described Van Vliet as an "incredible painter" whose work "doesn't really look like anybody else's work but his own."[16] Van Vliet has been described as a modernist, primitivist and an abstract expressionist.[13] Morgan Falconer of Artforum concurs, mentioning both a "neo-primitivist aesthetic" and further stating that his work is influenced by the CoBrA painters.[69] The resemblance to the CoBrA painters is also recognized by art critic Roberto Ohrt.[22] Some have compared it to the work of Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline, Francis Bacon,[7][22] Vincent van Gogh and Mark Rothko.[70] John Yau would describe Van Vliet's work, both his music and painting, as neo-expressionist, comparing it to that of Rosalyn Drexler, Bruce Connor and Susan Rothenberg. Commenting that "trying to make Don Van Vliet the painter and Captain Beefheart the musician and songwriter, not to mention Don Van Vliet the poet, fit under one umbrella, is like trying to climb Mount Tamalpais backwards" Of his paintings, Yau says that "there is something stirring about the fact that Van Vliet applies the paint in so many different ways, as well as his irreducible vocabulary of form. One would think the paintings wouldn’t hold together, but they do by some force that has little to do with art historical conventions. Sometimes you feel like four different events are occurring simultaneously and independently of each other, but then you begin to think that it is all one. Even the ground, which might be scratched and elsewhere built up into a thin ridge-like form, is active. Looking is intense and sensual. Depiction and application are not separate in a Van Vliet painting, and these different unities suggest the artist’s deep reverence for the natural world. Nothing should be reduced to a style".[10]
According to Dr. John Lane, director of the Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco in 1997, although Van Vliet's work has associations with mainstream abstract expressionist painting, more importantly he is a self-taught artist and his painting "has that same kind of edge the music has."[24] Van Vliet has stated of his own work, "I'm trying to turn myself inside out on the canvas. I'm trying to completely bare what I think at that moment"[71] and that "I paint for the simple reason that I have to. I feel a sense of relief after I do".[70] He has stated of precedent influences that there are none. "I just paint like I paint and that's enough influence."[16] Although he would note his admiration of the De Stijl artist Piet Mondrian, and of Vincent van Gogh; After seeing van Gogh's paintings in person, Van Vliet quoted himself as saying that "the sun disappoints me so".[72]
Exhibits in 2007 of his paintings through the late 1990s at both the Anton Kern and Michael Werner Galleries of New York City received favorable reviews, the most recent of which was in 2008.[73] Falconer stated the recent exhibitions show "evidence of a serious, committed artist." It was claimed that he stopped painting in the late 1990s.[69] A 2007 interview with Van Vliet through email by Anthony Haden-Guest, however, showed him to still be active artistically. This interview displayed an artistic perfectionism that mirrors Van Vliet's uncompromising approach to music. He has produced few paintings for exhibition as he immediately destroys any he is unsatisfied with.[62]
Van Vliet's condition since his retirement from music has been little known due to his reclusive nature. He was most recently known to reside near Trinidad, California with his wife Janet "Jan" Van Vliet.[62] By the early 1990s he had become wheelchair-bound and was suffering from a debilitating long-term illness,[74] most often considered to be multiple sclerosis,[75][76] and described as such by his biographer Mike Barnes.[4] The severity of his illness has been disputed. Many of his art contractors and friends consider him to be in good health,[75] but associates such as his longtime drummer and musical director John French and bassist Richard Snyder have stated that they noticed symptoms consistent with the onset of multiple sclerosis, such as sensitivity to heat, loss of balance, and stiffness of gait, by the late 1970s.
One of Van Vliet's few public appearances since his retirement from music is in the 1993 short documentary Some Yo Yo Stuff by filmmaker Anton Corbijn, described as an "observation of his observations". Around 13 minutes long and shot entirely in black and white, with appearances by his mother and David Lynch, the film shows a noticeably weakened and dysarthric Van Vliet at his residence in California, reading poetry, and philosophically discussing his life, environment, music and art.[72] In 2000 he appeared on Gary Lucas' album Improve the Shining Hour and Moris Tepper's Moth to Mouth. Van Vliet has often voiced concern over and support for environmentalist issues and causes. In 2003 he appeared on the compilation album Where We Live: Stand for What You Stand On: A Benefit CD for EarthJustice singing a version of "Happy Birthday To You" retitled "Happy Earthday". The track is 35 seconds long and was recorded over the telephone.[77]
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Van Vliet met Frank Zappa when they were both teenagers and shared an interest in rhythm and blues and Chicago blues.[25] They collaborated together from this early stage, and Zappa gave Van Vliet his stage name of Captain Beefheart.[78] In 1963, the pair recorded a demo at the Pal Recording Studio in Cucamonga as the Soots, with the intention of a major label signing them. Their efforts were unsuccessful, as "Beefheart's Howlin' Wolf vocal style and [Zappa's] distorted guitar" was "not on the agenda" at the time.[25]
The friendship between Zappa and Van Vliet over the years was sometimes expressed in the form of rivalry as musicians drifted back and forth between Van Vliet and Zappa's respective groups.[79] Van Vliet embarked on the 1975 Bongo Fury tour with Zappa and The Mothers of Invention, mainly due to the fact that conflicting contractual obligations made him unable to tour or record independently. Their relationship grew highly acrimonious on the tour to the point of them refusing to talk to one another. Zappa became irritated by Van Vliet, who drew constantly, including while on stage, filling one of his large sketch books with ad hoc portraits and warped caricatures of him. Musically, Van Vliet's primitive style greatly contrasted with Zappa's discipline as a classical composer. Mothers of Invention drummer Jimmy Carl Black would consider the situation as "two geniuses" on "ego trips".[24] Their collaborative work appears on the Zappa rarity collections The Lost Episodes (1996) and Mystery Disc (1996). Particularly notable is Beefheart's vocal on "Willie the Pimp" from Zappa's otherwise instrumental album Hot Rats (1969).
The Magic Band were Beefheart's backing musicians from 1965 to 1982. The name of the band was an extension of the "Captain Beefheart" persona that Frank Zappa, Vic Mortenson and others helped Van Vliet create; the idea being that Captain Beefheart was magic, and thus would have a "magic band." He would simply drink a Pepsi, and the band would appear behind him.[80]
The original Magic Band was Alex Snouffer, a local Lancaster rhythm and blues guitarist, Doug Moon (guitar), Jerry Handley (bass), and Mortenson (drums), the latter soon replaced by Paul Blakely. Personnel of The Magic Band for Beefheart's first album were John "Drumbo" French, Ry Cooder, Alex St. Claire, and Jerry Handley. John French would work on five more Beefheart albums, while Alex St. Claire would work with Beefheart on and off on three more albums. Zoot Horn Rollo (Bill Harkleroad) joined The Magic Band as guitarist for Trout Mask Replica and stayed with Beefheart through May 1974.
By all accounts Van Vliet was a severe taskmaster who abused his musicians verbally and sometimes physically, and paid them little or nothing. Drummer John French recalled that the musicians' contract with Van Vliet's company stipulated that Van Vliet and the managers were paid from gross proceeds before expenses, then expenses were paid, then the band members evenly split any remaining funds – in effect meaning that band members were liable for all expenses. As a result French was paid nothing at all for a 33-city U.S. tour in 1971 and a total of $78 for a tour of Europe and the U.S. in late 1975. Shortly after the recording of Unconditionally Guaranteed the entire band quit.
Post-Beefheart, the band reformed in 2003 with John French on lead vocals, Gary Lucas and Denny Walley on guitars, Rockette Morton on bass, and Robert Williams on drums. At the start of their only European tour, Williams left and was replaced by Michael Traylor. The band released two albums, Back To The Front and 21st Century Mirror Men before ceasing their activities in 2006.[81]
Van Vliet has been the subject of at least two documentaries, the BBC's 1997 The Artist Formerly Known As Captain Beefheart narrated by BBC disc jockey John Peel, and the 2006 independent production Captain Beefheart: Under Review. Having already re-formed once without Van Vliet in 2003, The Magic Band, with the same personnel, toured the UK in 2005, playing a selection of small venues. Peel was initially skeptical about the re-formed Magic Band; he played a live recording of the band recorded at the 2003 All Tomorrows Parties festival on his show. Afterwards Peel couldn't speak and had to put on a record to regain his composure. A year or so later the band did a live session for Peel.[82] The band released two albums. Back To The Front was released on London the based ATP Recordings in 2003. 21st Century Mirror Men, followed in 2005. After playing over 30 shows throughout the United Kingdom and Europe, and just one in the United States, the band concluded their activities in 2006.[81]
According to John Peel, "If there has ever been such a thing as a genius in the history of popular music, it's Beefheart... I heard echoes of his music in some of the records I listened to last week and I'll hear more echoes in records that I listen to this week."[83] His narration to the BBC documentary adds: "A psychedelic shaman who frequently bullied his musicians and sometimes alarmed his fans, Don somehow remained one of rock's great innocents".[24] Mike Barnes would call him an "iconic counterculture hero", who with The Magic Band "went on to stake out startling new possibilities for rock music".[4] Lester Bangs cited Beefheart as "one of the four or five unqualified geniuses to rise from the hothouses of American music in the Sixties".[84] John Harris of The Guardian made the dissenting case, calling Beefheart's music "unlistenable" and Trout Mask Replica "fucking awful".[8] A Rolling Stone biography would describe his work as "a sort of modern chamber music for [a] rock band, since he plans every note and teaches the band their parts by ear. Because it breaks so many of rock's conventions at once, Beefheart's music has always been more influential than popular."[39] Indeed, the classical music group, the Meridian Arts Ensemble, perform it.[85] Piero Scaruffi would characterize "three basic elements": "the ballad out of tune, with guitar interlaced with jolting rhythm, vocal miasma and a rogue harmonica".[60] Scaruffi ranked Trout Mask Replica number one on his list of the greatest rock albums of all time.[86] He says that "the distance between Captain Beefheart and the rest of rock music is the same distance that there was between Beethoven and the symphonists of his time". While mostly seen as too iconoclastic to generically define, some critics have dubbed Beefheart's style as a form of "avant-garde blues".[5]
Many artists have cited Van Vliet as an influence, beginning with the Edgar Broughton Band, who covered "Dropout Boogie" (mixed with The Shadows' "Apache")[87] as early as 1970. The Minutemen were great fans of Beefheart, and were arguably among the few to effectively synthesize his music with their own, especially in their early output, which featured disjointed guitar and irregular, galloping rhythms. Michael Azerrad describes The Minutemen's early as "highly caffeinated Captain Beefheart running down James Brown tunes",[88] and notes that Beefheart was the group's "idol".[89] Others who arguably conveyed the same influence around the same time or before include John Cale of The Velvet Underground,[90] Laurie Anderson[91] The Residents[5] and Fred Frith of Henry Cow.[92] Genesis P-Orridge of Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV,[93] and poet mystic Z'EV,[94] both pioneers of industrial music, would cite Van Vliet along with Zappa among their influences. More notable were those emerging during the early days of punk rock, such as The Clash[63] and John Lydon of the Sex Pistols, later of the post-punk band Public Image Ltd.[95]
Cartoonist and writer Matt Groening tells of listening to Trout Mask Replica at the age of 15 and thinking "that it was the worst thing I'd ever heard. I said to myself, they're not even trying! It was just a sloppy cacophony. Then I listened to it a couple more times, because I couldn't believe Frank Zappa could do this to me - and because a double album cost a lot of money. About the third time, I realised they were doing it on purpose; they meant it to sound exactly this way. About the sixth or seventh time, it clicked in, and I thought it was the greatest album I'd ever heard."[96] Groening later declared Trout Mask Replica to be the greatest album ever made. He considered the appeal of The Magic Band as outcasts who were even "too weird for the hippies".[24]
Van Vliet's influence on post-punk bands was demonstrated by Magazine's recording of "I Love You You Big Dummy" in 1978 and the tribute album Fast 'n' Bulbous - A Tribute to Captain Beefheart in 1988, featuring the likes of artists such as the Dog Faced Hermans, The Scientists, The Membranes, Simon Fisher Turner, That Petrol Emotion, the Primevals, The Mock Turtles, XTC, and Sonic Youth, who included a cover of Beefheart's "Electricity" as a bonus track on the deluxe edition of their critically acclaimed album Daydream Nation. Other post-punk bands influenced by Beefheart include include Gang of Four,[8] Pere Ubu,[5] and Mark E. Smith of The Fall.[97] The Fall covered "Beatle Bones 'N' Smokin' Stones" in their 1993 session for John Peel. New Wave artists include David Byrne of Talking Heads, Blondie and The B-52s.[98]
Tom Waits' shift in artistic direction, starting with 1983's Swordfishtrombones, was, Waits claims, a result of his wife Kathleen Brennan introducing him to Van Vliet's music.[99] "Once you've heard Beefheart," said Waits, "it's hard to wash him out of your clothes. It stains, like coffee or blood."[100] Guitarist John Frusciante of the Red Hot Chili Peppers cited Van Vliet as a prominent influence on the band's 1991 album Blood Sugar Sex Magik as well as his debut solo album Niandra Lades and Usually Just a T-Shirt (1994) and stated that during his drug-induced absence, after leaving the Red Hot Chili Peppers, he "would paint and listen to Trout Mask Replica."[101] Black Francis of the Pixies would cite Beefheart's The Spotlight Kid as one of the albums he listened to predominately when first writing songs for the band.[102] Kurt Cobain of Nirvana would also acknowledge Van Vliet's influence, mentioning him among his eclectic range of influences in his Journals.[31] The White Stripes in 2000 released a 7'' tribute single, Party of Special Things to Do, containing covers of that Beefheart song plus "China Pig" and "Ashtray Heart". The Black Keys in 2008 released a free cover of Beefheart's "I'm Glad" from Safe as Milk.[103] Franz Ferdinand cited Beefheart's Doc At The Radar Station as a strong influence on their second LP, You Could Have It So Much Better.[8] Placebo briefly named themselves Ashtray Heart, after the track on Doc at the Radar Station; the band's album Battle for the Sun contains a track called "Ashtray Heart". Joan Osborne covered Beefheart's "(His) Eyes are a Blue Million Miles," which appears on Early Recordings. She cites Van Vliet as one of her influences.[104] PJ Harvey and John Parish would discuss Beefheart's influence in an interview together. Harvey's first experience of Beefheart's music was as a child, as her parents had all of his albums in their record collection, which when she listened to made her "feel ill". Harvey was reintroduced to Beefheart's music by Parish, who lent her a cassette copy of Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller) at the age of 16. She has cited him as one of her greatest influences since. Parish would describe Beefheart's music as a "combination of raw blues and abstract jazz. There was humour in there, but you could tell that it wasn't [intended as] a joke. I felt that there was a depth to what he did that very few other rock artists have managed [to achieve]."[105]
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