The BBC World Service just told me of the sad death of Mr Don Van Vliet alias Captain Beefheart. He was one of those wonderful musicians who was introduced to me by the equally very wonderful DJ John Peel. I have to hold my hands up and admit that the first few times i heard Beefheart and the Magic Band, i didn't really know what the hell was going on but suddenly one sunny afternoon in my bedroom at my mothers house with an old friend and the aid of a small joint of rather nice Mexican Marijuana, everything fell into place. The seeming cacophony resolved itself into a series of tour des force journeys into the unknown, or at least unknown to me and the majority of the members of the world of Rock and Roll which was already getting bogged down into12 bar heavy metal repettition and seemingly headed for early oblivion.
The Good Captain, aided by one of the most skillful and inventive stage or studio bands i have ever heard even to this day prevented this however. Mixing Blues and African melodies and rhythms, Strange meandering melodies and polyrhythms to die for, many of them worked out on two fingers by the Captain at an old piano and interspersed by concrete and free form verse he saved me from death by mainstream obscurity and awakened me to new possibilities. The result was that i learned an entirely new way of listening and was thus ready to absorb Reggae, Folk, Dub and all kinds of World and classical Music when they eventually evolved.
I saw him play three times, twice with his magic band and once when he paired up with the equally disturbing Frank Zappa. Three of the most stimulating evenings of musicl culture i ever experienced. After ,my first taste of the live sound of the Magic Band, my musicl blood brother Joseph Seaberg turned to me, his eyes shining and said, "now do you see why they are called the Magic Band. ?" Indeed i did, Joeseph,, and indeed i still do.
I first heard a couple of tracks on John Peels legendary Perfumed Garden Show in the late sixties when Peel said, there goes a man who knows how to walk the fine line between Genius and Madness. Surely an essential skill in the late 20th Century. My faveorite moment happened in his first gig in Manchester at the Free Trade Hall, a fine classical venue but not blessed with accoustics suitable for strongly amplified music. Because of this and the strongly folky audience which attended virtually any famous act who ventured into Cottonopolis, the FTH could be a tough room as the comics say. At the end of two barely recognisable tunes, distorted by white noise and standing waves from the PA system, the Captain paused looked around and up into the high vaulted ceiling and said. I would like to apologise for the sound quality, everything seems to be going right up there, as he gestured a large arc over head. Bob Dylan should have learned this lesson from the Captain and he would have avoided being called Judas. He was right of course but so was the other old time freak at the back of the hall who shouted an immediate response " In that case, take us all up there Captain. Cued only by the fall of the drummers monocle, the ensemble launched into a truly rousing rendition of Big Eyed Beans From Venus.
Dont let anything come between us Captain, not even Death!
