CAPTAIN BEEFHEART to Tour & Release New Album

[omg wtf bbq]

http://harpmagazine.com/news/detail.cfm?article=11056


HARP has learned that legendary Captain Beefheart, whose last foray into the music industry was in 1982, has recorded a new album and will be reconvening his Magic Band to tour behind it.

The tour will have its official debut at Bonnaroo in June and then get into full gear in late July, to run through October. The opening act is to be P.J. Harvey, whose John Parish will also be pulling double-duty on guitar in the Magic Band due to Gary Lucas’ prior commitments with his own Gods And Monsters. The other players include John “Drumbo” French and Michael Traylor on drums, Rockette Morton on bass, and Denny Waller on guitar, plus an as-yet-unnamed keyboard player.

The eponymous album is described as “a mixture of folk, rock and extemporaneous da-da boogie, along with at least one avant-garde Tex-Mex medley, and a freewheeling cover of Robert Johnson’s country-blues classic “Me and the Devil Blues.” Sessions were produced by Ry Cooder and featured the Magic Band augmented by some of the same players who appear on Cooder’s recent My Name is Buddy (e.g. Jim Keltner, Mike Elizondo, Cooder’s son Joachim and, on the aforementioned Tex-Mex number, accordionist Flaco Jimenez). Captain Beefheart will be released by Nonesuch (also Cooder’s current label) on July 10.

Beefheart (a/k/a Don Van Vliet), in typically left-field manner, didn’t make the announcement via the usual channels (his official MySpace page, Pitchfork.com, etc.) but at a news conference held at the Annual Van Vliet Family picnic, located at a state park near his home in Mojave, Calif. A small handful of reporters had been tipped off in advance by Beefheart’s manager, Herb Cohen, who in an official statement noted, “With my longtime friend Don’s re-emergence, the musical world will finally get a firsthand taste of the quality rock ‘n’ roll that it has been sorely missing for the past quarter-century.”

Beefheart read Cohen’s statement aloud at the press conference and, according to HARP’s Byron Coley who was on hand, the notoriously curmudgeonly performer snorted, ripped the document in half, and said, “'The higher you go, the rarer the vegetation.' Salvador Dali said that, although I don't know where he got it. I think I've read it in a classic of one sort or another. Or older classic. What do you think about that? Am I right or wrong? Although there really is no right or wrong. The truth has no patterns.”

For those not in the know of truth and its patterns, Beefheart, born in 1941 in Glendale, Calif., emerged in the early ‘60s as a protégé of Frank Zappa. His 1969 album Trout Mask Replica regularly figures on Top 100 Albums of All Time lists, and he also exerted a huge influence among the punk and new wave bands of the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, who embraced his final trifecta of albums—1978’s Shiny Beast, 1980’s Doc at the Radar Station and 1982’s Ice Cream for Crow as benchmarks of DIY bloody-minded artistic inventiveness.

According to Wikipedia, “Since the end of his musical career around 1982, Van Vliet has made few public appearances, preferring a quiet life in his California home where he has concentrated on a career in painting. His interest in art dates back to a childhood talent for sculpting and his work—employing what has been surmised as a ‘neo-primitive abstract-expressionist aesthetic,’ has received international recognition. Several of Van Vliet's former band members recently reformed as a group, and toured as The Magic Band from 2003 to 2006.”

Meanwhile, Precision Made, a newly-formed imprint of Handmade, which itself is an imprint of Rhino Records, will be issuing a limited-to-5000-copies Beefheart box set, provisionally titled Flight of the Blimp. The five-disc collection will contain rarities, outtakes, and live material culled from the artist’s Straight/Reprise/Warner Brothers years and reportedly does not overlap with the Revenant label’s earlier Grow Fins rarities box. It’s set for a late July or early August release.

Captain Beefheart & the Magic Band Tour Dates:
06-17 Manchester TN - Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival,
07-29 San Diego, CA - Street Scene
08-06 George, WA - The Gorge (Sasquatch! Festival)
08-07 Vancouver, British Columbia - Orpheum
08-08 Vancouver, British Columbia - Orpheum
08-10 Portland, OR - Keller Auditorium
08-12 Berkeley, CA - Greek Theatre
08-15 Los Angeles, CA - The Greek Theatre
08-16 Los Angeles, CA - The Greek Theatre
08-17 Los Angeles, CA - The Greek Theatre
08-18 Los Angeles, CA - The Greek Theatre
08-19 Phoenix, AZ - Dodge Theatre
08-22 Denver, CO - Red Rocks
08-23 Kansas City, MO - Starlight Theater
08-24 St. Louis, MO - Fabulous Fox Theater
08-26 Minneapolis, MN - Orpheum Theater
08-27 Minneapolis, MN - Orpheum Theater
08-29 Chicago, IL - Auditorium Theater
08-30 Chicago, IL - Auditorium Theater
08-31 Chicago, IL - Auditorium Theater
09-08 Milwaukee, WI - Eagles Ballroom
09-09 Indianapolis, IN - Murat Theatre
09-10 Columbus, OH - Ohio Theatre
09-12 Cincinnati, OH - Music Hall
09-13 Louisville, KY - Palace Theatre
09-14 Cleveland, OH - Playhouse Square Center State Theatre
09-16 Toronto, Ontario - Molson Amphitheatre
09-19 Providence, RI - Performing Arts Center
09-20 Boston, MA - Opera House
09-21 Boston, MA - Opera House
09-24 New York, NY - Keyspan Park
09-27 Columbia, MO - Merriweather Post Pavilion
09-28 Atlantic City, NJ - House of Blues
10-02 Detroit, MI - Masonic Temple Theatre

(Photo credit: courtesy A.P. Rilfool, RETNA Images)

[summerkid]

holy shit! holy shit! looks like i'm going to street scene. I said i wouldn't go unless they blew me away with something. Well they did it.

[soupbandit]

yay!! this is very awesome. Seems so very uncharacteristic of street scene, but we'll see.

Maybe an LA date would be a better choice

[fober]

Who?

[summerkid]

Who?

Captain fucking Beefheart! he played with Zappa and stuff this is insane.

[omg wtf bbq]

Who?

i hope you are kidding.

[summerkid]

yay!! this is very awesome. Seems so very uncharacteristic of street scene, but we'll see.

Maybe an LA date would be a better choice

I might just have to go to both.

[omg wtf bbq]

Captain fucking Beefheart! he played with Zappa and stuff this is insane.

Beefheart > Zappa

[summerkid]

Beefheart > Zappa

yeah I agree, but I love Zappa too.

[Boourns]

April Fools

[summerkid]

April Fools

lol it better not be...I will kill someone, but the thought did cross my mind that it might be.

[summerkid]

(Photo credit: courtesy A.P. Rilfool, RETNA Images)
[/I]

FUCK!

[suprefan]

Its fake. July 29th is a SUNDAY and Sasquatch isnt in August.

[rage patton]

FUCK!!!!!!
I was so excited!!!
Like, you have bo idea how idea how bummed I am. Like... this is biggest let down of the year. Argh. FUCK!!!

[omg wtf bbq]

tehehehehe

[smokealotapotamus]

Its fake. July 29th is a SUNDAY and Sasquatch isnt in August.

and a glorious sunday it will be (daft punk in Seattle)

[rage patton]

and a glorious sunday it will be (daft punk in Seattle)

Agreed.
But I am still so bummed about this being a fake tour! I got so fucking excited!
I was actually ready to give up my Daft Punk tix for this show! (Due to the liklihood of getting the time off work for both concerts would be slim to none.)
However, that will no longer be needed. I guess that is good and bad news...
Fuck that actually! I would quit work to go to those concerts!!!
Come on Captain! One more tour!
Goddamn you April Fools!

[summerkid]

FUCK!!!!!!
I was so excited!!!
Like, you have bo idea how idea how bummed I am. Like... this is biggest let down of the year. Argh. FUCK!!!

seriously, fucking ruined my whole day.

[dorkfish]

even though was debunked...

...doesn't Van Vliet have MS and just sit around painting?

[ttboy80]

damn... i am a fool! I was so pumped!

[omg wtf bbq]

for whatever its worth, i was fooled too

[TeamCoachellaHellYeah]

Jesus Christ..I was fooled hard core. I was going to scream and sing Hobo Chang Ba, All day...

[ttboy80]

YOU DAMN BAT CHAIN PULLER!

[summerkid]

even though was debunked...

...doesn't Van Vliet have MS and just sit around painting?

yes...yes he does.

[rage patton]

He has MS? I had no idea.

Anyone else notice these "tour dates" were the same White Stripes "rumoured tour dates" for thier 2007 tour... while really they were their 2005 tour dates. These are the exact same dates. I cant believe I didnt notice that when I read over them.

[SunDevil]

I feel like I'm as open minded as just about anyone when it comes to music, but I think "Trout Mask Replica" is seriously one of the worst musical recordings I've ever heard (and trust me, I listen to some weird shit). With all the praise it gets from the indie community I wonder if the album is just some big inside joke I'm not a part of. I gave it a chance and I don't get it. In fact, I literally cannot listen to the album without laughing out loud. Its that bad, IMO.

I dunno, maybe someone can "clue me in"...

[ttboy80]

you may try starting with some other albums first... i am really digging shiny beast and Doc at the Radar Station right now.

Not claiming that will 'work' but that is just what I am digging right now.

[rage patton]

Safe As Milk is great

Actually no. Just dont. Stop right now. If you dont like it, you dont like it.
He is an aquired taste. It wouldnt be right if everyone liked his music actually. He stopped working with Frank Zappa, because he thought Zapp had become to mainstream. He thought Frank Zappa was to mainstream for Christ's sake! And Frank Zappa is more famous today then he ever was.
Personaly, I cant explain why I like his music. Its so not good, that it's amazing. I think thats the best way I can describe it.

[soupbandit]

this was fake?! god dammit

[bmack86]

This thread had me briefly very excited until I remembered that there was no way he could tour because he has multiple sclerosis. And, yeah, Trout Mask Replica is crazy, but it's also genius. It's one of those albums that, after repeated (and I mean REPEATED) listens, it goes from sounding like utter shite to a finely tuned and precise melange of ideas.