After Zappa began regular occupation at Paul Buff's
PAL Studio in
Cucamonga, he and Van Vliet began collaborating as
The Soots. By the time Zappa had turned the venue into
Studio Z, they had completed the songs "Cheryl's Canon", "Metal Man Has Hornet's Wings" and a
Howlin' Wolf-styled rendition of
Little Richard's "
Slippin' and Slidin'". The name 'Captain Beefheart' may have come from Vliet's uncle Alan, who had a habit of exposing himself to Don's girlfriend. He would urinate with the bathroom door open and, if she walked by, exclaim that his penis looked like a big
beef heart. Van Vliet enrolled at
Antelope Valley College as an art major, but left after one year. He worked as a door-to-door
vacuum cleaner salesman, and sold a vacuum cleaner to the writer
Aldous Huxley at his home in
Llano, pointing to it and declaring, "Well, I assure you sir, this thing sucks." After managing a
Kinney's shoe store, he moved to
Rancho Cucamonga, California to reconnect with Zappa. Van Vliet was quite shy but was eventually able to imitate the deep voice of
Howlin' Wolf with his wide vocal range. He grew comfortable with public performance and, after learning to play the harmonica, began playing at dances and small clubs in Southern California.
Initial recordings, 1962–69 In early 1965, Snouffer 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, while Snouffer became Alex St. Clair. Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band signed to
A&M Records and, in 1966, released two singles: a version of
Bo Diddley's "
Diddy Wah Diddy" that became a regional hit in Los Angeles, and "Moonchild" (written by
David Gates, later of the band
Bread). That year, the band began to play larger West Coast venues such as the
Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco.
Safe as Milk After fulfilling their deal for two singles, the band presented demos to A&M for what would become the album
Safe as Milk. A&M's
Jerry Moss reportedly described this new direction as "too negative" and dropped the band from the label. Much of the demo recording was accomplished at
Art Laboe's Original Sound Studio, then with
Gary Marker at
Sunset Sound on 8-track. By the end of 1966, they were signed to
Buddah Records and much of the demo work was transferred to 4-track, at the behest of
Bob Krasnow and
Richard Perry in the RCA Studio in Hollywood, where the recording was finalized. By now, Doug Moon had left the band and his tracks were taken up by
Ry Cooder, who had been brought into the band after much pressure from Van Vliet. Drummer John French had joined the group and it would be his patience that was required to transcribe Van Vliet's ideas (often expressed by whistling or banging on the piano) into musical form for the other group members. Upon French's departure, this role was taken over by
Bill Harkleroad for
Lick My Decals Off, Baby. Many of the lyrics on the
Safe as Milk album were written by Van Vliet in collaboration with the writer
Herb Bermann, who befriended Van Vliet after seeing him perform at a bar in Lancaster in 1966. The song "
Electricity" was a poem written by Bermann, who gave Van Vliet permission to adapt it to music. Unlike the album's mostly blues rock sound, songs such as "Electricity" illustrated the band's unconventional instrumentation and Van Vliet's unusual vocals. Much of the
Safe as Milk material was honed and arranged by Cooder. The band began recording in spring 1967 and the album was released in September 1967.
Richie Unterberger of
Allmusic called it "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".
John Lennon displayed two of the album's promotional "baby bumper stickers" in the sunroom at his home.
The Beatles planned to sign Beefheart to their experimental
Zapple label, plans that were scrapped after
Allen Klein took over the Beatles management. Van Vliet was often critical of the Beatles. He considered the lyric "I'd love to turn you on" from "
A Day in the Life" to be ridiculous and conceited. Tiring of their "lullabies", he lampooned them with the
Strictly Personal song "Beatle Bones 'n' Smokin' Stones", with the sardonic refrain of "strawberry fields, all the winged eels slither on the heels of today's children,
strawberry fields forever". Vliet spoke badly of Lennon after getting no response when he sent a telegram of support to him and wife
Yoko Ono during their 1969 "
Bed-in". To support the
Safe as Milk release, the group was scheduled to play at the 1967
Monterey Pop Festival. Vliet was having severe
panic attacks and was convinced that he was having a heart attack, a fear exacerbated by his heavy
LSD use and the fact that his father had died of heart failure a few years earlier. At a vital warm-up performance at the
Fantasy Fair and Magic Mountain Music Festival (June 10–11) shortly before the Monterey Festival, the band began to play "Electricity" and Van Vliet froze, straightened his tie, then walked off the stage and landed on manager
Bob Krasnow. He later said he had seen a girl in the audience turn into a fish, with bubbles coming from her mouth. This aborted any opportunity of breakthrough success at Monterey, as Cooder decided he could no longer work with Van Vliet and quit.
Strictly Personal In August 1967, guitarist
Jeff Cotton filled the spot vacated by Cooder and McGee. In October and November 1967 the Snouffer/Cotton/Handley/French line–up recorded material for what was planned to be a double album called
It Comes to You in a Plain Brown Wrapper for the label–it was released in pieces in 1971 and 1995. After rejection from Buddah, Krasnow encouraged the band to re-record four of the shorter numbers, add two more, and make shorter versions of "Mirror Man" and "Kandy Korn". Krasnow created a strange mix full of "phasing" that, by most accounts (including Beefheart's), diminished the music's strength. This was released in October 1968 as
Strictly Personal on Krasnow's
Blue Thumb label. Stewart Mason in his
Allmusic review of the album described it as a "terrific album" and a "fascinating, underrated release...every bit the equal of
Safe as Milk and
Trout Mask Replica".
Mirror Man In 1971, some of the recordings done for Buddah were released as
Mirror Man, bearing a
liner note stating that the material had been recorded in "one night in Los Angeles in 1965". This was a ruse to circumvent possible
copyright issues. The material was recorded in November and December 1967. It is a "
jam" album, described 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." The album's "miss-credit errors" also state band members as "Alex St. Clare Snouffer" (Alex St. Clare/Alexis Snouffer), "Antennae Jimmy Simmons" (Semens/Jeff Cotton) and "Jerry Handsley" (Handley). 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 Meaden had booked them for gigs without applying for the required
work permits. Press coverage and public outcry resulted in the band being permitted to enter the UK, where they recorded material for
John Peel's
BBC radio show and, on Friday January 19, appeared at
Middle Earth, where they played tracks from
Safe as Milk and some of the experimental blues tracks from
Mirror Man. The band was met by an enthusiastic audience; French recalled the event as a rare high moment: "After the show, we were taken to the dressing room where we sat for hours as a line of what seemed like hundreds of people walked in one by one to shake our hands or get an autograph. Many brought imports of
Safe as Milk with them for us to autograph ... It seemed like we had finally gained some reward ... Suddenly all the criticizing and intimidation and eccentricities seemed very unimportant. It was a glorious moment, one of the very few I ever experienced". By this time, the band had terminated their association with Meaden. On January 27, 1968, they performed in the
MIDEM Music Festival on the beach at
Cannes.
''The 'Brown Wrapper' Sessions'' After returning to the US, the plan was for the band to leave Buddah and sign to
MGM Records, and they re-recorded some Buddah material of the partial
Mirror Man sessions at Sunset Sound with
Bruce Botnick. Beefheart was conceptualizing new band names, including
25th Century Quaker and
Blue Thumb. The idea of
25th Century Quaker was that it would be a "blues band" alias for the more avant-garde work of the Magic Band. Krasnow then set up his own label,
Blue Thumb, which launched with
Strictly Personal. Thus "25th Century Quaker" became a track and a potential band-name became a label. Given that Krasnow had poached the band from Buddah, there were limitations on what material could be released. The raft of material left behind emerged as ''I May Be Hungry, But I Sure Ain't Weird
. Both Blue Thumb
and the stamps on the cover of Strictly Personal'' have LSD connotations, as does the track "Ah Feel Like Ahcid".
Trout Mask Replica ) at the house where
Trout Mask Replica was rehearsed and recorded in 1968 Critically acclaimed as Van Vliet's
magnum opus,
Trout Mask Replica was released as a 28-track
double album in June 1969 on
Frank Zappa's newly formed
Straight Records label. A school-age portrait of Van Vliet appears on the front of this sheet, while the cover of the gatefold shows Beefheart in a modified
Pilgrim hat. The inner spread "
infra-red" photography is by
Ed Caraeff, whose Beefheart vacuum cleaner images from this session also appear on Zappa's
Hot Rats release to accompany "Willie The Pimp" lyrics sung by Vliet. Alex St. Clair had now left the band and, after Elwood Madeo from the Blackouts was considered, the role was filled by
Bill Harkleroad. Bassist Jerry Handley had also departed, with
Gary Marker stepping in–he was soon replaced by
Mark Boston. Thus the long rehearsals for the album began in the rented house in
Woodland Hills that would become the Magic Band House. The Magic Band began recordings for
Trout Mask Replica at
TTG Studios; it was completed at the
Whitney Studios, with some
field recordings made at the house. Van Vliet assigned nicknames to his band members, so Harkleroad became
Zoot Horn Rollo, Boston became
Rockette Morton, John French assumed the name
Drumbo, and Jeff Cotton became
Antennae Jimmy Semens. Van Vliet's cousin Victor Hayden,
the Mascara Snake, performed as a bass clarinetist. Vliet's girlfriend Laurie Stone, who can be heard laughing at the beginning of "Fallin' Ditch", became the
audio typist. Van Vliet wanted the band to "live" the
Trout Mask Replica album. The group rehearsed his difficult compositions for eight months, with everyone living in the two-bedroom house. Van Vliet implemented his vision by completely dominating his musicians, artistically and emotionally. He would berate a musician continually, sometimes for days, until the musician collapsed in tears or in total submission. Bill Harkleroad complained that his fingers were a "bloody mess" as a result of Beefheart's orders that he use heavy strings. French described the situation as "cultlike" and a visitor said "the environment in that house was positively
Mansonesque". Their material circumstances were dire. With no income other than
welfare and contributions from relatives, the group barely survived and some were arrested for shoplifting food. French recalled living on no more than a small cup of beans a day for a month. Beefheart punched him in the face and threatened to throw him out a window. He admits complicity in similarly attacking his bandmates during Beefheart's "talks" aimed at them. In the end, after the album's recording, Beefheart ejected French from the band by throwing him down a flight of stairs, telling him to "Take a walk" after French did not properly respond to a request to "play a strawberry". Beefheart replaced French with drummer Jeff Burchell, a roadie with no drumming experience whom Beefheart called "Fake Drumbo". French's name does not appear on the album credits. According to Van Vliet, the 28 songs on the album were written in a single -hour session at the piano, an instrument he did not play. Band members have stated that the songs were written over the course of a year, beginning around December 1967. It took them eight months to mold the songs into shape, with French bearing primary responsibility for transposing and shaping Vliet's piano fragments into guitar and bass lines. Harkleroad recalled: "We're dealing with a strange person, coming from a place of being a sculptor/painter, using music as his
idiom. He was getting more into that part of who he was instead of this blues singer. The band had rehearsed the songs so thoroughly that the instrumental tracks for 21 of the songs were recorded in a single four-and-a-half-hour session.
Trout Mask Replica incorporated a wide variety of musical styles, including blues, avant garde/experimental, 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), 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 recorded live, while Van Vliet overdubbed most of the vocals in only partial sync with the music by hearing the slight sound leakage through the studio window. Zappa said of Van Vliet's approach, "[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." In 2003, the album was ranked sixtieth by
Rolling Stone on its 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. 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." 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." It was inducted into the United States
National Recording Registry in 2011.
Lick My Decals Off, Baby Lick My Decals Off, Baby (1970) continued in a similarly experimental vein. An album with "a very coherent structure" in the Magic Band's "most experimental and visionary stage", it was Van Vliet's most commercially successful in the United Kingdom, spending twenty weeks on the
UK Albums Chart and peaking at number 20. An early promotional music video was made of its title song, and a bizarre television commercial 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. On this LP,
Art Tripp III, formerly of
the Mothers of Invention, played drums and marimba, along with a returning John French.
Lick My Decals Off, Baby was the first record on which the band was 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 semi-autonomous humanity".
The Spotlight Kid & Clear Spot , Toronto, in 1974. The next two records,
The Spotlight Kid (simply credited to "Captain Beefheart") and
Clear Spot (credited to "Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band"), were both released in 1972. The atmosphere of
The Spotlight Kid is, according to one critic, "definitely relaxed and fun, maybe one step up from a jam". And though "things do sound maybe just a little too blasé", "Beefheart at his worst still has something more than most groups at their best." The music is simpler and slower than on the group's two previous releases; this was in part an attempt by Van Vliet to become a more appealing commercial proposition as the band had made almost no money during the previous two years. Van Vliet said he "got tired of scaring people with what I was doing ... I realized that I had to give them something to hang their hat on, so I started working more of a beat into the music. It's more human that way". Magic Band members said that the slower performances were due in part to Van Vliet's inability to fit his lyrics with the instrumental backing of the faster material on the earlier albums, a problem that was exacerbated by the fact that he almost never rehearsed with the group. In the period leading up to the recording, the band again lived communally, first at a compound near
Ben Lomond, California and then in northern California near
Trinidad. The situation saw a return to the physical violence and
psychological manipulation. According to John French, the worst of this was directed at Harkleroad. In his autobiography, Harkleroad recalls being thrown into a dumpster, an act he interpreted as having "metaphorical intent".
Clear Spot's production credit of
Ted Templeman made
AllMusic's Ned Raggett consider "why in the world [it] wasn't more of a commercial success", and that while fans "of the fully all-out side of Beefheart might find the end result not fully up to snuff as a result, but those less concerned with pushing back all borders all the time will enjoy his unexpected blend of everything tempered with a new accessibility". The review called the song "Big Eyed Beans from Venus" "a fantastically strange piece of aggression". A
Clear Spot song, "Her Eyes Are A Blue Million Miles", appeared on
the soundtrack of the
Coen brothers' 1998 cult comedy
The Big Lebowski.
Unconditionally Guaranteed & Bluejeans & Moonbeams In 1974, immediately after the recording of
Unconditionally Guaranteed, which continued the trend towards a more commercial sound, the Magic Band's original members departed. They worked together for a period, gigging at
Blue Lake and putting together their own ideas and demos, with John French as vocalist. These concepts eventually coalesced around the core of
Art Tripp III, Harkleroad and Boston, with the formation of the band
Mallard, helped by money and UK recording facilities from
Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson. Some of French's compositions were used in the band's work, but the group's singer was Sam Galpin and the role of keyboardist was taken by John Thomas, who shared a house with French in
Eureka. At this time Vliet attempted to recruit both French and Harkleroad as producers for his next album, but his pleas fell on deaf ears. Vliet was forced to form a new Magic Band to complete support-tour dates. He recruited singer and keyboardist Michael Smotherman, bassist Paul Uhrig, drummer Ty Grimes, saxophonist Del Simmons, and guitarists Dean Smith and
Robert 'Fuzzy' Fuscaldo. These were session musicians who had never heard Beefheart's music, so they improvised what they thought would go with each song, playing much slicker "bar band" versions. A review described this incarnation of the Magic Band as the "Tragic Band", a term that stuck. Mike Barnes said 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 had composed with the express intent of shaking listeners out of their torpor." The one album this band recorded,
Bluejeans & Moonbeams (1974) has a completely different, almost
soft rock sound. Neither was well received; drummer Art Tripp recalled that when he and the original Magic Band listened to
Unconditionally Guaranteed, they "were horrified...each song was worse than the one which preceded it". 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".
Bongo Fury and Bat Chain Puller By the fall of 1975, the band had completed a European tour, and added US dates in early 1976, supporting Zappa and
Dr. John. Van Vliet now found himself stuck in a web of contractual hang-ups. Zappa extended a helping hand, with Vliet performing incognito as "Bloodshot Rollin' Red" on
One Size Fits All (1975) and then joining with him on the
Bongo Fury album and its tour. Two Vliet-penned numbers on
Bongo Fury are "Sam with the Showing Scalp Flat Top" and "Man with the Woman Head". He also sings "Poofter's Froth Wyoming Plans Ahead", harmonizes on "200 Years Old" and "Muffin Man", and plays harmonica and saxophone. '' tour The friendship between Zappa and Van Vliet was sometimes expressed in the form of rivalry as musicians drifted back and forth between their groups. Van Vliet embarked on the 1975
Bongo Fury tour with Zappa and
the Mothers, mainly because conflicting contractual obligations made him unable to tour or record independently. Their relationship grew acrimonious on the tour to the point that they refused 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 rapidly executed portraits and warped caricatures of Zappa. Musically, Van Vliet's intuitive style contrasted sharply with Zappa's compositional discipline and abundant technique. Mothers of Invention drummer
Jimmy Carl Black described the situation as "two geniuses" on "ego trips". Their collaborative work appears on the Zappa rarity collections
The Lost Episodes (1996) and
Mystery Disc (1996). Particularly notable is their song "
Muffin Man", included on
Bongo Fury and Zappa's compilation album
Strictly Commercial (1995). Zappa finished concerts with the song for many years afterwards. Beefheart also provided vocals for "
Willie the Pimp" on Zappa's otherwise instrumental album
Hot Rats (1969). Van Vliet played the harmonica on two songs on Zappa albums: "San Ber'dino" on
One Size Fits All (1975) and "
Find Her Finer" on
Zoot Allures (1976). He is also the vocalist on "The Torture Never Stops (Original Version)" on Zappa's ''
You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore, Vol. 4''. In early 1976, Zappa offered his studio and finances to produce the Vliet album
Bat Chain Puller. The band was John French (drums), John Thomas (keyboards) and guitarists
Moris Tepper and
Denny Walley. Much of the work on this album was finished and some demos had been circulated when, in May 1976, the long association between Zappa and his manager/business partner
Herb Cohen ceased. This resulted in Zappa's finances and works becoming part of protracted legal negotiations. The
Bat Chain Puller project went "on ice" and did not see an official release until 2012. In 1977, Beefheart appeared on
the Tubes' album
Now, playing saxophone on the song "Cathy's Clone". The album also featured a cover of the
Clear Spot song "My Head Is My Only House Unless It Rains". In 1978 he appeared on
Jack Nitzsche's soundtrack to the film
Blue Collar. Following Vliet's death, John French claimed the 40-second spoken word track "Apes-Ma" was an analogy of Van Vliet's deteriorating physical condition. The album's sleeve features Van Vliet's 1976 painting
Green Tom.
Doc at the Radar Station during the
Doc at the Radar Station sessions (May 1980)
Doc at the Radar Station (1980) helped establish Beefheart's late resurgence. Released by
Virgin Records during the
post-punk scene, the music was now accessible to a younger, more receptive audience. He was interviewed in a feature report on
KABC-TV's
Channel 7 Eyewitness News in which he was hailed as "the father of the
new wave. One of the most important American composers of the last fifty years, [and] a primitive genius". Van Vliet said he was "doing a non-hypnotic music to break up the
catatonic state ... and I think there is one right now." Steve Huey of
Allmusic cited
Doc at the Radar Station as being "...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". Van Vliet's biographer Mike Barnes writes 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". During this period, Van Vliet made two appearances on
Late Night With David Letterman, and performed on
Saturday Night Live.
Ice Cream for Crow The final Beefheart record,
Ice Cream for Crow (1982), was recorded with
Gary Lucas (who was also Van Vliet's manager), 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 a Letterman broadcast, and was accepted by the Museum of Modern Art.
Ice Cream for Crow features instrumental performances by the Magic Band with
performance poetry readings by Van Vliet. Ned Raggett 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". Barnes writes that, "The most original and vital tracks (on the album) are the newer ones", and that it "feels like an hors-d'oeuvre for a main course that never came". Michael Galucci of
Goldmine praised the album, describing it as "the single, most bizarre entry in Van Vliet's long, odd career." Van Vliet now retired from music to begin a new career as a painter. ==Career as an artist==