Tag Archives: don van vliet

A Tin Teardrop Falls

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.”  John Peel

Captain Beefheart

It seems odd to feel compelled to write in tribute to someone who stopped making records when I was 11 years old, but normal rules never applied when referring to Don Van Vliet, better known as Captain Beefheart. A quick check of his Wikipedia entry lists the musical genres he worked in as follows:

Experimental rock, blues, blues-rock, avant-garde, psychedelic rock, progressive rock, protopunk, surrealist, outsider

although anyone familar with his work will find even this sprawling list inadequate to describe the Captain’s work, mainly but not exclusively encapsulated on 12 studio LP’s recorded between 1966 and 1982 after which he did what so many of his 1960’s contemporaries failed to do and decided that he had said all he wanted to say and retired from music to become a respected artist.

In this sense, this is the second time that we’ve lost him and I always felt that the blow of his eventual demise would be cushioned by the fact that as a “Beefheart fan-boy” (in the immortal words of Tez Burke) I had long since resigned myself to not hearing any new music from the great man.

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The Blowin Weekly Extra – Go into bright find the light

Blowin 9-10pm Sunday 19th December 2010
More tunes than time…
Blowin now online at blowin.podomatic.com
Listen to BCB on 106.6 FM or www.bcbradio.co.uk

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News has reached us of the death of Don Van Vliet aka Captain Beefheart.

He is said to have died of complications from multiple sclerosis.

A tribute is due. And we will bring it, starting next week as we explore the albums, one every week.

Meanwhile…

Click Clack, live in Paris in 1973

A truly GREAT clip, they’re all enjoying themselves so much. Was this the tour that came through Bradford in the early 70s? n blew our socks off? Best gig and tightest band I’ve ever seen. Better than Miles Davis.

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Captain Beefheart RIP

Yes, yes, I know it’s nearly Christmas and we’re all supposed to be feeling festive.

But spare a thought for the sad news that Don van Vliet has died aged 69.

As Captain Beefheart, he was one of the few musicians to truly merit the description “genuis”.

So in amongst the Yuletide shenanigans, we’ll be paying our own tribute to the Good Captain on Bradford Beat this week (Thursday, 23 Dec 8pm – 9pm)