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Making Love to a Vampire: Captain Beefheart and The Magic Band at Mudd Club, 1980
08.27.2012
02:58 pm
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This treasure currently has fewer than 60 views!

According to YouTube poster, bookheaven1thousand, the Captain and his band came onstage at 3:00 a.m. on the morning of December 10, 1980.

1. Hair Pie Bake 3
2. Best Batch Yet
3. Dirty Blue Gene (cut)
4. Sugar ‘n Spikes
5. Ashtray Heart
6. Doctor Dark
7. Sheriff Of Hong Kong (cut)
8. Making Love To A Vampire With A Monkey On My Knee
9. Suction Prints (cuts 20 seconds before end)
10. Big Eyed Beans From Venus

This set killed me. It’s one of the best and funkiest live performances I’ve ever heard from this band.

Some additional background from the YouTube post:

Peter Warner: Anyone ever come across a video of Captain Beefheart’s Mudd Club performance (the day [He means 2 days] after John Lennon’s death)? I was one of the handful of fans there and know it exists (Gary Lucas told me he confiscated the master: it was standard practice by the club for all performance to be taped). It was a wild night. Some girl in a big red sweater (good looking and drunk as all hell) was hangin’ all over me. She kept throwing change at the Captain telling him to shut up. I told the Cap I didn’t know who this chick was. (in hindsight, I shoulda gone for the chick.)

The Cap and I got into a stareing match—he singing away inches from my face as I growled back. What the hell, I was an obnoxious, drunk 17 year old. I actually made it to class the next morning.

Raymond Ricker: The band played there at 4 in the morning just a few hours after their Irving Plaza show concluded. I was about 1 of 30 people in attendance for that show (Don spent a good portion of the show putting up with an obnoxious girl who was drunk out her mind). If it wasn’t for Moris inviting me I would never have known there was going to be a performance there. As far as I know, this was the only time that band performed Making Love To A Vampire With A Monkey On My Back [He means “Knee”]

The Magic Band will be performing live at the three-day Greg Dulli/All Tomorrow’s Parties-curated “I’ll Be Your Mirror” music festival in NYC on Sunday, September 23rd.
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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08.27.2012
02:58 pm
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Captain Beefheart and The Magic Band, Knebworth 1975

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Captain Beefheart and The Magic Band perform at the Knebworth Festival, England, 1975-07-05.

Headlining was Pink Floyd, with the Steve Miller Band and Captain Beefheart in support. The festival also had Roy Harper with Trigger, Linda Lewis, John Peel and Monty Python‘s Graham Chapman and Friends.

Ben Waters at Captain Beefheart Radar Station writes:

Beefheart was introduced by John Peel with the words “Here he is, the guv’ner, Captain Beefheart!” The drums beat a couple of times, and they launched into a gloriously lurching, cacophonous version of “Moonlight on Vermont”. There were two distinct reactions from the audience. The Pink Floyd fans put their hands over their ears and looked at each other as if to say “What is this shit?!”. The Beefheart fans lunged forward, electrified by the sound. It was so off kilter; so alien; so “other” to what we’d been hearing all day, yet so much better, deeper; so RIGHT.

The line up was a strange one: Winged Eel Fingerling and Ella Guru Davidson (who he?) on guitars; Drumbo on guitar and drums; Jimmy Carl Black (introduced as Indian Ink) also on drums; and, instead of a bassist, Bruce “fossil” Fowler on trombone, or air bass as Beefheart called it. You couldn’t really say they were tight; one or two songs sort of slowed down halfway through, and the trombone made the rhythm kinda slurry; but it was a great sound; like a load of drunks trying to play impossibly complex music, and threatening to collapse into chaos at any moment, but always just avoiding it.

Captain Beefheart Don Van Vliet vocals, saxophone, harmonica
Indian Ink Jimmy Carl Black drums, percussion
Greg Ella Guru Davidson guitar, slide guitar
Bruce Fossil Fowler air bass, trombone
Drumbo John French drums, percussion
Winged Eel Fingerling Elliot Ingber guitar, slide guitar

Here’s the whole show, track-by-track - sound quality isn’t perfect, but it’s Beefheart.
 

01. “Moonlight On Vermont”

02. “Abba Zabba”

03. “Band Introductions”  04. “Orange Claw Hammer”
 
Full concert performance plus bonus TV clip, after the jump…
 

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Posted by Paul Gallagher
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07.17.2011
06:34 pm
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