Five for the Funk: Captain Beefheart's Magic Band

Image: The Magic Band

The music of Don Van Vliet, who was more infamously known as Captain Beefheart, will be remembered when original members of The Magic Band, 'Drumbo' John French and 'Rocket Morton', delve back into the band's seminal pocket of influential hits on a forthcoming tour.  

Reaching as far back as 1964, Captain Beefheart, who'd previously been working with local R&B groups after meeting Frank Zappa, started to form the foundations of The Magic Band. 

Together, they started playing blues-rock before being signed to A&M Records with whom they recorded their first full length album. After the record was labelled as "too negative" by the label head, Don recruited John "Drumbo" French along with several other musicians. 

As the story goes, after a nine hour frenzy in which Captain Beefheart written 28 songs, Captain Beefheart finalised the line up of The Magic Band with bassist Rockette Morton joining the fold. Although never reaching commercial heights during their tenure, the band's influence and impact on modern music is unparalleled with releases like formative album Trout Mask Replica.

To get a greater sense of Captain Beefheart and The Magic Band's legend, we asked original band member 'Drumbo' John French to give us his five favourite Captain Beefheart records ahead of their show at the Kazimierz.   

'On Tomorrow'

Don was the most involved in the arrangements of the pieces that became known as the album Strictly Personal, later re-released on the earlier recorded Mirror Man sessions. Of course, this was a great vehicle for me as a drummer, as there were so many rhythmic kicks.

The lyrics really work with the music. Don later made fun of the whole idea of these “heavenly realm” lyrics, laughing at how exuberant Jeff Cotton was about singing, “we won’t have to walk.” However, at the time he wrote it, he seemed to have a certain (perhaps drug- induced) belief in a dimension where freedom reigned.

'Kandy Korn'

Whimsical lyrics set to a composition that starts out as a bit of a farce-opera, flowing into a dark, minor-ish swing piece, then suddenly to an almost classical ¾ power-chord section that then translates to a driving 4/4 section ending with an almost-cliché classical ending.

It began as a blues riff I made up on guitar while we were sitting around the tiny dinner table in a house made from chicken coops in Tarzana, California. I said the riff was in three sections, like a piece of Candy Corn. Don immediately sang, “Kandy Korn, yellow and orange and…”.

'Electricity'

Don’s answer to the Beach Boy’s 'Good Vibrations' complete with Theramin played by the late Dr. Samuel J. Hoffman who died in December of the same year. Herb Bermann’s music are accompanied by Don Van Vliet’s musical ideas in collaboration with the group.

The music on the original demo was more celestial with a flotation and suggested rhythm. Later, Don changed it, added a line very similar to 'The Handsome Cabin Boy' in the intro and outro. The music became extremely rhythmic but Don floated the lyrics above the music.

'Dachau Blues'

Don’s riveting statement on the holocaust is one of the most chilling and brilliant pieces on the album Trout Mask Replica. Though I’m not a big fan of Don’s woodwind-playing, he nailed it with the bass clarinet on this piece, painting the wails of the ghostly haunts of a time with sound when part of the world went temporarily insane.

Though the description of the horror more suitably describes Auschwitz, this maze of discordant remnants coupled with free-form poetry evokes the imagination to contemplate the potentials of horror that hover beneath the surface of civilization.

'Orange Claw Hammer'

Watching the birth of this piece was a marvel. We had just come back from Pauline Butcher’s birthday party at Zappa’s new house. I ran the tape deck on which seven inch reels captured the creation of an acapella avante-garde sea chantey. It had mixed images of a fractured former victim of the press gangs re-visiting his place of origin, only to discover his daughter - to whom he sang “gimme your little dimpled finger” and yet later turns out to be at least 30 - in a place where sage brush and jackrabbits exist.

Is he a hobo (a match struck blue on a railroad rail) coming home? Does he view his daughter as a child because of the way he remembers her?

The Magic Band to play the music Of Captain Beefheart at The Kazimier in Liverpool on Sunday 8th November - Tickets available in the box below

Find the rest of the tour dates by reading: The Magic Band to celebrate the music of Captain Beefheart on tour

Tickets are no longer available for this event