’Violent white apes in a restaurant with red necks had an uprising…’ (‘Snow Apes’ by Don Van Vliet, via Doyle)

You could spend your whole life on Gary Lucas’ Soundcloud page; indeed, the way things are going, you probably should. There’s heaps of Gary Lucas music—Gary plays Fellini and Hitchcock scores; Gary plays Bob Dylan, T.Rex, Pink Floyd, the Stones, Sun Ra, Duke Ellington, and a Miles Davis/Suicide medley; Gary plays with David Johansen, Alan Vega, Nick Cave, the Andrew Oldham Orchestra, and Kevin Coyne—and there’s slabs of poetry and music by Don Van Vliet.

Even the jaded Beefheart aficionado who can play the harmonica part on “Little Scratch,” the prized outtake from The Spotlight Kid, with her toes and a vacuum cleaner may not know such gems as “The Sand Failure,” “Flat Mattress,” “The I Saw Shop,” “The World Crawled over the Razor Blade,” “Let’s Get to the Good and Go,” “Luxury Crunch,” “Skol in a Hole,” “Hearts Aren’t That Casual,” “Pork Chop Blue around the Rind,” and “Away from Survival,” among others. True, some of these tracks appeared on Rhino Handmade’s Riding Some Kind of Unusual Skull Sleigh (which is hopelessly out of print and retails for about a grand), but some, as far as I can tell, have not appeared anywhere other than in Gary Lucas’ monster sound hoard.

Much of this Beefheart stuff is spoken, but there are fragments of melodies and lyrical ideas, too, and some actual songs. As on “Pork Chop Blue around the Rind” and its second part, “Skol in a Hole,” both recorded in Lucas’ West Village apartment in 1983, Van Vliet has some kind of percussion accompaniment on “Seaweed Beard Foam Bone Tree,” but whether it’s thumbs drumming on a dinner table, tape artifacts or the endogenous thudding of a reel-to-reel I cannot say. 
 

 
And here’s Gary Lucas playing “Evening Bell” and talking about his time in the Magic Band at the Captain Beefheart Symposium in Copenhagen in 2011:
 

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
David Lynch recites Captain Beefheart’s ‘Pena’

Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band,1972
 

French radio interviewer in 1972: “In your music—and even if you don’t agree—there are a whole lot of influences from blues and free jazz. Do you listen to people like Albert Ayler or Sun Ra?”

Captain Beefheart: “No. I myself am an artist too, you see. I’ll tell you once again: I have i-ma-gi-na-ti-on…. It isn’t polluted, and believe me, people have always tried to put labels on me…. What’s the story with that? ‘Blues’ and ‘jazz’? The more often people say it, the more difficult it gets for me to come here. It took five years to play here in Europe, because the critics had written I was sort of avant-garde, jazz, blues and such. It’s wrong. I am an artist; just like Albert Ayler is one, like Muddy Waters or John Lee Hooker. i know John Lee Hooker and even in my boldest imagination, I can’t see myself using the music of Hooker, Ayler or anyone else. Why should i do that, when I have so much myself? You have heard it tonight—so why all those classifications? Tell it to the Rolling Stones, to the Beatles, the Jefferson Airplane—but not to me!”

The late Don Van Vliet, the artist who was formerly known as Captain Beefheart, was always an extremely prolific visual artist from a very early age. By the age of ten he was already being recognized regionally in Southern California for his life-like clay sculptures of animals, and was considered a bit of a child prodigy. He was still creating art throughout his career as a musician, and many of his paintings and sketches have appeared on his album covers. In the early 1980s Van Vliet gave up music entirely and concentrated on making fine art until his death in 2010.

The Michael Werner Gallery in Manhattan has a new exhibition of Van Vliet’s works on paper. The exhibition of smaller work—drawings and paintings on paper from the 1980s through 2000—is the first solo showing of Van Vliet’s art in New York City for a decade.

The artist’s bracingly stark and decidedly naive primitive style of abstract expressionism (as opposed to a more sophisticated abstract primitivism represented by the likes of say, Jean-Michel Basquiat) was highly influenced by the landscape, plants and animals of his home in the California desert. The earliest pieces in the show are abstracts rendered in watercolor and gouache, while work from his later years tends to leave the paintbrush behind for colored pencils

Whereas I’m a huge fan of Van Vliet’s massive paintings—and have seen them in person several times—I’m less sold on these smaller works. His large canvasses are absolutely awe-inspiring and have an oddball power to them. They are huge and they are as weird as they are huge. These works on paper are simply less impressive than their gigantic counterparts, if admittedly I am judging them off a computer screen. If some of these were nine feet tall, and slathered with paint and texture, then I’d say yeah.

Still, some of them are quite interesting, even if, as it would appear, most of the really good Van Vliets have probably already been sold a long, long time ago. The show is open through September 9th at the Michael Werner Gallery.
 

“Untitled”, 1987, India ink, gouache on paper 30 x 22 1/2 inches
 

“Untitled”, 1985, India ink, gouache on paper, 10 x 7 inches
 

“Untitled”, 1985, India ink on paper, 7 x 10 inches
 
More after the jump…

 
Joe Coleman’s 2010 portrait of Don Van Vliet, AKA Captain Beefheart, seems like an appropriate thing to post here on John Peel Day. You can get a better look at this detailed masterpiece in the artist’s monograph, Auto-Portrait, which accompanied last year’s Coleman show at the Dickinson Gallery in New York.

Acrylic on artist board and painted frame 24.25 x 21.5 inches. Larger online version here.

Below, seldom-seen clip of “When Big Joan Sets Up” from the local Detroit music show, Tubeworks. Recorded at WABX TV on January 15, 1971.
 

 
Well, well, well, at long last the LA City Council has actually done something I can respect: On January 5th, they adjourned a meeting early in honor of the passing of Don Van Vliet, AKA Captain Beefheart and presented this certificate of (??) at the recent Beefheart symposium in Los Angeles.

I guess any excuse to get off early with that lot, but the sentiment is appreciated (and at least they weren’t at work further messing up the medical marijuana situation in the city!)

Via Michael Simmons/Gary Lucas

 
In 1966, among releases by Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass, Sergio Mendes & Brasil ’66, and the Sandpipers, Jerry Moss—the “M” in the label name A&M—gave the OK to release a buzzy, growly cover of Bo Diddley’s “Diddy Wah Diddy” by a cadre of misfits called Captain Beefheart & the Magic Band.

The single apparently became enough of a hit in L.A. to raise the eyebrow of Dick Clark, who features the tune for the kids to jump around to after a penetrating fan interview with Dear Leader below. Unfortunately, even though Clark had moved American Bandstand from Philly to L.A., Don Van Vliet & co. were kept at phone’s length for this “appearance.” One would think the band could have ambled over to ABC Television Center for an appearance, but who the hell knows what the circumstances were?
 

 
Don Van Vliet, better known as Captain Beefheart has apparently died at the age of 69 after many years of rumored ill-health. I’m in shock at the moment. He was one of my greatest musical heroes and one of the most powerful and distinctive vocalist/lyricist/composers of the last century.  Play Orange Claw Hammer (below), an a capella powerhouse from Trout Mask Replica as loud as you can and know that there was a real depth of feeling in the man’s work that went beyond weirdo freakishness. Bon voyage, good captain. We’ve lost a true original.
 
via Rolling Stone :

Don Van Vliet, who became a rock legend as Captain Beefheart, died today from complications from multiple sclerosis in California. His passing was announced by the New York-based Michael Werner Gallery, which represented his work as a painter. His Trout Mask Replica was Number 58 on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. “Don Van Vliet was a complex and influential figure in the visual and performing arts,” the gallery said in a statement. “He is perhaps best known as the incomparable Captain Beefheart who, together with his Magic Band, rose to prominence in the 1960s with a totally unique style of blues-inspired, experimental rock & roll. This would ultimately secure Van Vliet’s place in music history as one of the most original recording artists of his time. After two decades in the spotlight as an avant-garde composer and performer, Van Vliet retired from performing to devote himself wholeheartedly to painting and drawing. Like his music, Van Vliet’s lush paintings are the product of a truly rare and unique vision.” Van Vliet leaves behind a wife, Jan. The two were married for more than 40 years.

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds: Leaving your holes open with Captain Beefheart: 1969 interview LP