As regular readers will know, we (and by 'we' I mean Gonzo) have a Captain Beefheart DVD out very soon in the massively groovy (oh how I enjoy being in my early fifties and still being able to indulge in the patois from my childhood) 'Lost Broadcasts' series. Well, we have some very groovy Beefhearty stuff planned for you (my brother-in-law is a fan, and I try not to disappoint family) including a chat with one of the original Magic Band, and some exclusive bits and pieces from the DVD, but in the meantime I found the following, rather poignant article:Near the end of the 100-page history that came with the 1999 box set Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band: Grow Fins, there's a heartbreaking story from one-time Beefheart guitarist/manager Gary Lucas, which happened in the early 1980s, close to the end of the Captain's (aka Don Van Vliet) recording career. Lucas and Van Vliet approached the latter's old high school pal and kindred 1960s iconoclast-crank Frank Zappa to retrieve the master tapes of Bat Chain Puller, an album the Magic Band had recorded for Zappa's label in 1976, before a lawsuit with Zappa's then-manager Herb Cohen stopped its release. When asked about taking the masters back, Zappa flatly replied: "I thought there might be a higher market value out there in 'BeefheartLand' if I didn't split up the set." By this point, Zappa had held the tapes for over five years, and the Band needed to fill the side of their last album, 1982's Ice Cream for Crow, so Zappa cut them a deal: "Well, I got a track about 12 minutes long called 'Do You Want a Pepsi?' Don sings on it. I wrote it." Needless to say, they declined.
Read on...
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