Captain beefheart biography book
Captain Beefheart: The Biography
The unclassifiable music of Don Van Vliet--alias Captain Beefheart--and his departure from performing in the 80s have mystified fans and followers for years, and kept the rumor mills busy. Mike Barnes' Captain Beefheart: The Biography puts those rumors to rest as it tells the strange but true tale of a musical genius and his otherworldly odyssey from the California desert to stages and studios across the world. Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band arrived in the public consciousness in 1969 with the two-album set Trout Mask Replica, eventually praised by Rolling Stone as one of the best records of all time. Distilling a new audio experience from blues, psychedelic rock, and free jazz, the Captain and his band went on to confound journalists, intrigue reviewers, and amaze listeners with a decade and a half of albums and performances. Yet after recording his final album Ice Cream for Crow in 1982, Beefheart left music to begin a successful career as an internationally exhibited painter. His reluctance to give interviews has only enhanced the Captain Beefheart mystique. For his thoroughly researched biography of Beefheart, journalist Mike Barnes interviewed friends, acolytes, and members of the Magic Band to get the full story of Beefheart's collaborations and conflicts with kindred spirit Frank Zappa, his 're-education' of the members of the Magic Band, and the legal battles that kept the album Bat Chain Puller from ever being released. Barnes' biography illuminates the enigmatic artist, and brings the reader to an understanding of his creative drive. Previously published only in the U. K., the U. S. edition of Captain Beefheart: The Biography contains new material and new photographs.
Captain Beefheart: The Biography
24th March 1969.
JOHN FRENCH'S DIARY
I woke to hear the sound of padlocks and strong chains being removed from the front door of the Trout House. It crashed open to reveal a burly man. Don was back. The Magic Band cowered in fear.
“So, boys, what have you got for me today?”
“Please master, food, food” we cried, “or at least drugs and new guitar strings”
“You know the rules! No food and absolutely no drugs until you give me more songs! Now! Cmon! French – what have you got for me hmmm?” Don unlocked my handcuffs.
“We made up lots of songs, boss – all based on those telepathic thoughts you’ve been sending us!” I moaned. “We got one called about a tourist in Italy called “It’s too much for my lire”
“What baloney!” shouts Beefheart – “change it to..hnnn ‘She's too much for my mirror’”
“Genius idea!” bleated Rockette Morton.
"and we got one called ‘The 1010th day of the Magic Band’s Cruel Incarceration’ – you wanna hear that one?”
“Naw , save that one for later." Beefheart turned a deaf ear to my feeble attempt to ameliorate our plight with humour. "Now cmon, is that all? Two songs in three days? You know it’s gonna be a DOUBLE ALBUM
doncha? So you better git crackin”
Beefheart whirled around, kicking Jimmy Semens on his recently healed arm and opened the single door to leave but remembered to cuff me back to the piano before he did. “Doin a good job, John, but remember – it might look as if I have it easy living in five star hotel in the superior part of Sunset Strip up to my neck in acid and connubial bliss, but it’s me sending you all of these telepathic thoughts to turn into these songs – you better remember that.”
As he leaves he tosseS the starved band a couple of loaves of white sliced bread and a jar of gherkins.
“I’ll be back in two days. Remember – DOUBLE album.”
****
AND NOW SOME ACTUAL QUOTES FROM THIS REAL BOOK
Ex-membe
Captain Beefheart – the biography by Mike Barnes
UK second edition
- Publisher: Omnibus / Music Sales Limited
- Date of publication: November 2004
- ISBN: 1844494128
- Dimensions: 210 x 135mm soft back
- Extent: 400 pages
- Price: £16.95
- Order:Amazon.co.uk
Mike Barnes has made considerable updates to this new edition but confusingly the book has been published with the same cover as the first edition (apart from the addition of a John Peel quote) and no obvious indication that changes have been made.
This second edition was reprinted in 2009 with a different quote, this time from ‘Mojo’ magzine, on the front cover.
A competition was run to win copies of the UK second edition – see the fiendish questions and the detailed answers for a full Beefheart trivia fix.
UK first edition
- Publisher: Quartet Books
- Date of publication: 10th July 2000
- ISBN: 0 7043 8073 0
- Dimensions: 210 x 135mm softback
- Extent: 400 pages
- Price: £14
- Order:Amazon.co.uk
US first edition
- Publisher: Cooper Square Press
- Date of publication: March 2002
- ISBN: 0815411901
- Dimensions: 1.11 x 8.48 x 6.10 inches
- Extant: 416 pages
- Price: $27
- Order:Amazon.com
The US edition is a hardback version which contains corrected text and a few extra pages (including the infamous Gary Marker yam story, for example).
The Different editions
There are differences between each of the three UK editions. Here is what Mike has to say about them:
The first edition came out in 2000 on Quartet. The second edition came out in 2004 on Omnibus- this contained about 5,000 extra words including a new introduction, new interviews with Ace Farren Ford, Mark Boston, Denny Walley, Greg Davidson and Nick Kent. corrections and other bits and pieces.
The third edition came out in 2011 after Don died, also on Omnibus,with a revised ending including about an extra 2,000 words of text.
Availability
Widely available in all good UK and US book sho
Captain Beefheart: The Biography - Hardcover
From Publishers Weekly
Captain Beefheart was the musical persona of Don Van Vliet, the avant-garde 1960s and '70s musician (best known for the 1969 hit record Trout Mask Replica) whose inimitable psychedelic rock influenced such diverse groups as the Clash, Pulp and Sonic Youth before he abruptly ended his music career in 1982 to become a painter and notorious recluse. Barnes, a drummer and music journalist, concentrates on Van Vliet's creative life, tracing his unusual career trajectory from his childhood as a local art prodigy to his role in the '60s avant-garde California rock scene and his collaborations with Frank Zappa, Ornette Coleman and a young Ry Cooder. Barnes also includes a cursory discussion of Van Vliet's painting career. The book was written without Van Vliet's cooperation, so Barnes had to rely on previously published statements and secondary sources. He's careful not to take liberties with his subject's inner life, but while this conscientiousness is admirable, it also makes the story rather leaden. Lacking a thesis, Barnes recounts detailed episodes and long lists of events in Van Vliet's life. These give glimpses of an obsessive, paranoid, humorous artist, but never quite bring Van Vliet to life. The book reads like the work of a passionate, well-informed fan, but not necessarily that of an astute biographer. Photos.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.