The 1st Night of the Living Van Vliet - Captain Beefheart Festival 2013 - 2014

Incredible instrumental on the incredible album called Shiny Beast.

 

Here's the explanation of the origin and the dates.

Thanks to Microdot for the title of the Festival.

Zen Comix tribute

Captain Beefheart Festival 2012 - 2013 - The Last Night of the Living Van Vliet

Happy Birthday Captain Beefheart January 15, 1941 – December 17, 2010  

Instrumental track called Ice Rose
 

I Feel Like Acid - Track #1 from the album Strictly Personal (1968)

Captain Beefheart Festival 2012-2013 - The 23rd Night of the Living Van Vliet

Here's the explanation of the origin and the dates.

Thanks to Microdot for the title of the Festival.

Trust Me from Strictly Personal

 
the path is the mask of love a way a way
the flow is the task above today
there is no other way [2x]
you gotta trust us
when you need a friend
to find us you gotta look within
you gotta trust us [2x]
before you turn to dust [2x]
you gotta see before you see
you gotta be before you be
you gotta trust us
you gotta hear without fear
you gotta feel to reveal
you gotta touch without take
such it is and hate us ain't [2x]
we're for you
love you
with you
love you
just a few
we love you
we tell you
true, we love you
the path is youth
let the dying die
the path is life
let the lying lie
let the dying die
[repeating of parts]

Captain Beefheart - 14th Night of the Living Van Vliet

Here's the explanation of the origin and the dates.

Thanks to Microdot for the title of the Festival.

This is the final cut on Trout Mask Replica.


I cry but I can't buy  
Your Veteran's Day poppy 
It don't get me high 
It can only make me cry 
It can never grow another  
Son like the one who warmed me my days  
After rain and warmed my breath 
My life's blood Screamin' empty she crys  
It don't get me high It can only make me cry  
Your Veteran's Day poppy.

Captain Beefheart Festival - 14th Night of the Living Van Vliet

Here's the explanation of the origin and the dates.

Thanks to Microdot for the title of the Festival.

 
Now, here she comes, 
walkin', lookin' like a zoo 
Hello, moon, hello, moon
Hi, Ella, high Ella Guru 
She knows all the colors that nature do 
High Ella, high Ella Guru  
High yella, high red, high blue, she blew  
High Ella, high Ella Guru
She do what she mean and she do what she do 
Got sumptin' fo' me, sumptin' for you She sho' sumptin', she's young too
Ella Guru, Ella Guru Ella Guru, Ella Guru
Ha, ha, right, right, just dig it  
That's right, the mascara snake  
Fast and bulbous, tight also
Ella Guru, Ella Guru Ella Guru, Ella Guru
Ella Guru

Captain Beefheart Festival 2012 - 2013 - The 10th Night of the Living Van Vliet

Here's the explanation of the origin and the dates.

Thanks to Microdot for the title of the Festival.

The 7th Night of the Living Van Vliet

Captain Beefheart Festival 2012 - 2013, song from Shiny Beast

After recording the album Bongo Fury with Frank Zappa, Don Van Vliet formed a new Magic Band and began recording an album for DiscReet and Virgin Records.

Herb Cohen, DiscReet's cofounder and Zappa's business manager, paid for the album's production costs with Zappa's royalty checks, leading Zappa to end his business partnership with Cohen. Cohen and Zappa each demanded to be paid an advance by Virgin, leading Zappa to withhold the master tapes, leading Cohen to sue Zappa.

 Due to the lawsuit, Van Vliet rerecorded Bat Chain Puller tracks for Warner Bros. Records under the title Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller).

Here's the explanation of the origin and the dates.

Thanks to Microdot for the title of the Festival.

The 6th Night of the Living Van Vleit - Captain Beefheart Festival 2012 - 2013

Here's the explanation of the origin and the dates.

Thanks to Microdot for the title of the Festival.

Prog Archives has good stuff.

Captain Beefheart Festival 2012 - 2013 - 5th Night of the Living Van Vliet

Here's the explanation of the origin and the dates.

Thanks to Microdot for the title of the Festival.

 
Safe as Milk is the début album by Captain Beefheart his Magic Band, originally released in 1967. It is a heavily blues-influenced work, but also hints at many of the features—such as surreal lyrics and odd time signatures—that would later become trademarks of Beefheart's music.

The album is also notable for the involvement of a 20-year-old Ry Cooder, who plays guitar and wrote some of the arrangements.

Captain Beefheart Festival 2011-2012 - Final Night of the Living Van Vliet

Tonight is the final night of the First Annual Captain Beefheart Festival. Thanks to everyone who participated as poster, commenter or reader. We'll see you in December for Zappadan, which this year will segue into the 2nd Beefheart fistival.

Here's the explanation of the origin and the dates.

Thanks to Microdot for the title of the Festival.

Zen Comix has joined the festivities.

via Scaruffi

Possibly the greatest rock musician of all times, and certainly one of the most original and influential geniuses of the 20th century, Don Van Vliet, also known as Captain Beefheart, completely erased all musical dogmas and simply reinvented music on his own terms. Formally, his style blends Delta blues, free-jazz, cacophonous avantgarde and rock and roll, but what is unique about Van Vliet's music is the oblique, skewed, manic, unpredictable and demented structure of his compositions. The desert (where he grew up) could be a better key to understand his art than any of the influences that one can hear on his albums.

Captain Beefheart Festival 2011-2012 - 18th Night of the Living Van Vliet

Here's the explanation of the origin and the dates.

Thanks to Microdot for the title of the Festival.

Zen Comix has joined the festivities.

From Wikipedia:

Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller) is the tenth studio album by Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band. Released in 1978, the album was produced by Captain Beefheart and Pete Johnson and released by Warner Bros. Records.

Shiny Beast emerged out of the production difficulties surrounding Bat Chain Puller, an album Captain Beefheart recorded for DiscReet and Virgin Records in 1976. DiscReet cofounders Herb Cohen and Frank Zappa feuded over the production of the album, because Cohen funded the production with Zappa's royalty checks.

Captain Beefheart recorded a new album, Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller) due to Zappa withholding the master tapes of the original Bat Chain Puller album. Shiny Beast was praised by music critics.

Bat chain
Puller
Bat chain puller
Puller, puller

A chain with yellow lights
That glistens like oil beads
On its slick smooth trunk
That trails behind on tracks, and thumps
A wing hangs limp and retreats

Bat chain puller
Puller puller

Bulbs shoot from its snoot
And vanish into darkness
It whistles like a root snatched from dry earth
Sodbustin’ rakes with grey dust claws
Announces its coming in the morning
This train with grey tubes
That houses people’s very thoughts and belongings.

Bat chain puller
Puller puller

This train with grey tubes that houses people’s thoughts,
Their very remains and belongings.
A grey cloth patch
Caught with four threads
In the hollow wind of its stacks
Ripples felt fades and grey sparks clacks,
Lunging the cushioned thickets.
Pumpkins span the hills
With orange crayola patches.
Green inflated trees
Balloon up into marshmallow soot
That walks away in forty circles,
Caught in grey blisters
With twinkling lights and green sashes
Uuh
Pulled by rubber dolphins with gold yawning mouths
That blister and break in agony
In souls of rust
They kill gold sawdust into dust.

Bat chain puller,
Puller puller.

Captain Beefheart Festival 2011-2012 - 16th Night of the Living Van Vliet

Here's the explanation of the origin and the dates.

Thanks to Microdot for the title of the Festival.

Zen Comix has joined the festivities.

From Bongo Fury



I was sittin' in a breakfast room in Allentown, Pennsylvania, six
o'clock in the morning, got up to early, it was a terrible
mistake... sittin' there face-to-face with a 75 cent glass of orange
juice about as big as my finger and a bowl of horribly foreshortened
cornflakes, and I said to myself: "This is the life!"...

She's 200 years old,
so mean, she couldn't grow no lips
Boy, she'd be in trouble if she tried to grow a mustache

She's two hundred years old
Squattin' down & pockin' up
In front of the juke box
just like she had True Religion.. BOY!

She's two hundred years old
Hoy!, hoy!, in 200 years,
half of this, none of that,
one.. fifty.. oh squattin',
Yeah-ah, ain't she got
Oohhh, she got religion now, boy.

Oohhhh, ?? ?? ??
Oohhhh, she's just mean,
she just, she just can't grow no lips.
Squat.. down, so mean she can't grow no lips.
200 years old, so mean she can't grow no lips

The 10 Commandments of Guitar Playing

Microdot posted this for the Festival.  I loved number 6.

6. Never point your guitar at anyone 

Your instrument has more clout than lightning. Just hit a big chord then run outside to hear it. But make sure you are not standing in an open field.

Captain Beefheart Festival 2011-2012 - 15th Night of the Living Van Vliet

Here's the explanation of the origin and the dates.

Thanks to Microdot for the title of the Festival.

Zen Comix has joined the festivities.




Zig zag wanderer, zig zag wanderer (rep.)
You can huff, you can puff
You'll never blow my house down
You can zig, you can zag
Whoa I'm gonna stay, gonna stay around (rep.)

You can jump, you can holler
Never lose what I found
Heaven's free 'cept for a dollar
You can zig, you can zag
Whoa I'm gonna stay, gonna stay around (rep.)

The zig zag wanderer had a zigzag child
Zig zag traveller for the mercy mile
Found his wheels and nature scene
Quenched his thirst, (in a?) way it never been
Zig zag wanderer (rep.)

You can dance, you can prance
Freeze those timbers, drop some beams
Hide my shield, throw away my lance
Zig zag child, mercy mile
Zig zag dream, zig zag dream
Zig zag

Captain Beefheart Festival 2011-2012 - 13th Night of the Living Van Vliet

Number 13 of Rob Chalfen's "Top 14 Reasons Why Captain Beefheart Was a True American Genius"

13. at 11 had his own show sculpting animals on LA TV. Won a scholarship to study art in Europe, but his folks wouldn't let him go, as all artists were 'fags'. Folks moved to Lancaster to get him away from the decadent element. There he met Frank Zappa

Captain Beefheart Festival 2011-2012 - 12th Night of the Living Van Vliet

Here's the explanation of the origin and the dates.

Thanks to Microdot for the title of the Festival.

Zen Comix has joined the festivities.

Frownland. This one may be a bit rough on first listen, but once it gets in your brain you'll never be the same.



my smile is stuck
i cannot go back to your frownland
my spirit is made up of the ocean
and the sky and the sun and the moon
and all my eye can see
i cannot go back to your land of gloom
where black jagged shadows
remind me of the coming of your doom
i want my own land
take my hand and come with me
it's not too late for you
it's not too late for me
to find my homeland
where a man can stand by another man
without an ego flying
with no man lying
and no one dying by an earthly hand
let the devils burn and the beggar learn
and the little girls that live in those old worlds
take my kind hand
my smile is stuck
i cannot go back to your frownland [2x]

Captain Beefheart Festival 2011-2012 - 11th Night of the Living Van Vliet

Here's the explanation of the origin and the dates.

Thanks to Microdot for the title of the Festival.

Zen Comix has joined the festivities.

The Day Captain Beefheart Outsold the Beatles, the Stones and Pink Floyd

​It is a widely known (and kind of sick) fact of the music business that nothing helps sales of the back catalog of an artist like the death of said artist.

The massive sales bump caused by people rushing to online (and occasionally also to brick-and-mortar) stores and buying up on the classic works of the dead musician can be an event of industry-wide magnitude (many jobs at Sony were basically saved last year on the strength of post mortem sales of Michael Jackson's Thriller and Off the Wall).

So, what happened in the past few hours between the death of cult surreal blues genius Captain Beefheart and today?

Well, on one Amazon.com ranking, he had outsold the Beatles, the Stones and Pink Floyd! And he was holding up at unprecedented sales throughout all the other charts. With Trout Mask Replica--a CD Amazon didn't even have in stock and iTunes wasn't even licensed to sell.

Beefheart outselling the Beatles, the Stones and Pink Floyd? For some people, this is some kind of cosmic justice.

Captain Beefheart Festival 2011-2012 - 10th Night of the Living Van Vliet

Here's the explanation of the origin and the dates.

Thanks to Microdot for the title of the Festival.

Zen Comix has joined the festivities.





She can burn you up in bed
Just like she said
Cos she's a Hot Head, Hot Head, Hot Head
She can throw uh pot t'show(?)
She can start a fire aglow
Cos she's a Hot Head, Hot Head, Hot Head
She puts her head into the fire
Makes you red hot perspire
Cos she's a Hot Head, Hot Head, Hot Head
She was burnt before she was born
Burnin' up a storm
Cos she's a Hot Head, Hot Head, Hot Head
Lick out like flame
'n' burn you to a shame
'n' bite the burnin' flame
Things are burnin' big
She's a red hot pig
She's a hobo wire toaster
She's a circle on a spit
She's a Hot Head, Hot Head, Hot Head
She can stitch you to a wheel
Take you to her fire
'n' spin you round 'n' round
Boy, you take you down
Fire Fire Fire
She's a Hot Head, Hot Head, Hot Head
Burn you up in bed
Just like she said
Cos she's a Hot Head, Hot Head, Hot Head
She can lick out like a flame
Burn you to a shame
Yeah, bite a burnin' flame
She can burn you up in bed
Coil you up instead
Cos she's a Hot Head, Hot Head, Hot Head
She can throw uh pot t'show (?)
She can start a fire aglow

Captain Beefheart Festival 2011-2012 - 9th Night of the Living Van Vliet

Here's the explanation of the origin and the dates.

Thanks to Microdot for the title of the Festival.

Zen Comix has joined the festivities.

from Wikipedia

Lick My Decals Off, Baby is the fourth album by Captain Beefheart & the Magic Band, released in 1970 on Frank Zappa's Straight Records label. The follow-up to Trout Mask Replica (1969), it is regarded by some critics and listeners as superior, and was Van Vliet's personal favorite. Don Van Vliet said that the title is an encouragement to "get rid of the labels", and to evaluate things according to their merits rather than according to superficial labels (or "decals").

woe-is-a-me-bop
oh-drop-a-re-bop-oh
everybody's doing it
please don't let them ruin it oh

Captain Beefheart Festival 2011-2012 - 8th Night of the Living Van Vliet

via The Valley Advocate

Ah, the Internet is a strange place for beings both alive and dead.

You see, back before the Northeast Underground joined forces with the Valley Advocate in January, my blogging persona already existed via wordpress.com. And before changing locations, one of the last posts I wrote for my old site was a short tribute piece connecting the passing of musician/ artist Don Van Vliet (aka Captain Beefheart) to the anniversary of the death of Minutemen songwriter and guitarist D. Boon.

Little did I know then the potential impact such an innocuous story could have. I mean really, how often does a blogger think they have the potential to reach an audience beyond the grave?

But sure enough, months later the following comment was posted on my Beefheart/ Boon story:

“Last night the Captain came to me in my dream. He said he was ‘going to the northeast’ because people like him in the northeast. He wants you to know he is ok. I don’t even believe in shit like that, nor had I ever heard of your site before. But I wondered if it meant anything so I put it in Google. If anyone believe[s] in that shit he says he is better now. He certainly looked well.”

And then Friday, there was this.

Go ahead. Try it. To this day if one types “Captain Beefheart” and “northeast” into Google my old post is the first link that pops up.

So, such unusual circumstances beg the questions: Did Captain Beefheart really reach out to one of his fans after his death? And what indeed are the odds that somewhere in the country a Captain Beefheart fan dreamt of a connection between Van Vliet and the northeast after I posted a tribute to the Captain on my Northeast Underground blog?

The whole situations is almost enough to give one the willies, or at the very least a good case of the “Abba Zaba’s.”