I lived in the same desert small town Don grew up in also. In the 60's some of us played music in a band in garages. That's how I met Don. In those days he would go around to the few different ones, and help them out as much as he could. In 72 he had come back from one of the bands tour in Europe. Asked me if I still had the same guitar. I said yes, but it was on it's last leg and in bad shape. He opened the trunk of his car and got out one of his studio guitars and gave it to me. A 65 Fender with a modified hum bucking pickup on it. Very Unique sound. Still have that guitar today. I eventually bought two more guitars, and was going to give that one back to Don, but sadly he had passed away before I made it back there. So kept it for the memories of the good ole days.
@@bobc.5698 I met Frank only one time at the Antelope Valley High School when Eric Burden and his band came there to play music in the high school gym building. Completely free concert too. Great guy to think about the younger people back then. Eric's band went to quite a few other high schools too. I went with an older drummer Frank knew and he introduced me as a kid in one of the local garage bands. Frank laughed and and being older than me said that was how he started too. Told him Don was helping us when he could, and Frank said Don has a special talent that was very rare.
My favourite is in an interview I saw in a documentary about him - it's a clip of an exhibition of some of his art works. The interviewer asks why he'd decided to take up painting, and Cap says "I needed the exercise!"
Love this clip. Not only is Don awesome, but it shows how edgy and truly bizarre David Letterman's show was in the 80s. I think people forget this because he evolved into a typical late night show host in the last 15 years or so of his show. But back in the 80s there was nobody else doing the strange low-budget antics that Dave pulled off.
I like the look of relief on Villets face when he realised the audience liked the song. I know he fretted a bit that his avant garde ideas would be lost on the people (and they usually where), but the positive response from lettermans audience was great. They warmed up to him.
Don't be surprised that audiences would have had at least *some* friends and fans of the artist, so they wouldn't have needed telling how to respond. It was nice to see and hear Letterman be respectful and not mock anything - Beefheart music probably wasn't 'his speed' after all.
Oh man, I am old! Captain always was a character, how can you not love this man? RIP Don, you made the world better in so many ways, sorry I never met you.
@@izzy_ondomink Found a site that said he broke a broomstick on a drummer he was mad at. He also took LSD occasionally. My ex did that broomstick thing to me once, ( I deserved it) they break pretty easily if they're wooden fortunately (no damage).
My roommate and I used to have a bunch of friends over watching Letterman in these days. I recorded this episode on my Berta VCR and watched it probably a hundred times. Nothing beat early & mid-80s Letterman, and Captain Beefheart was the quintessential Dave guest: offbeat, unique and real.
@Rod Berg HumanWrites thanks, I was thinking the same thing when you were taking swipes at both Beefheart and Waits who are actually creative geniuses without providing a real alternative other than an illusionary being.
I love the story about his early job selling vacuum cleaners door to door. A prospective customer opens the door and Mr Van Vliet says “This machine sucks!”
@@jimjohnrayrobby2913 It was The Captain who said it as a reaction to seeing Huxley open the door and the futility of enticing the great man with a mundane accessory.
Bro that bass player must have felt honored that he said he’s very good and took his hat off too him, I love how him and Zappa shout-out the bands like when Zappa was on arsenio hall, it’s so in their core to stand up for musicians
I grew up being introduced to the captain from my dad, doc at the radar station, a great musician, I still listen to him, not every one's cup of tea my mum hated when my dad played it 😁😁😁great memories click clack👍
No one knew when this aired that Van Vliet was already experiencing the early onset symptoms of Multiple Sclerosis. We all thought he was drunk, or simply extremely eccentric, or both. Such characters were commonplace at this early period of the nighttime Letterman show. Brother Theodore and so on. But now... It's only correct to follow this clip with the complete - and now legendary - video for "Ice Cream for Crow." Off you go, then!
@@henryhorker You really should. He was an awful person, at least the way that he treated his members during that time. Remarkable album, though. I commend him on all of his - and his band's - works.
Anytime i feel the need i watch this...i cant even tell u why but i absolutely can tell u why its the most heart warming thing ive ever witnessed. God rest the beef and that old meat man music 😅😅
Don played a big part of my childhood thanks to my older brothers who are now gone or in their seventies now .I knew this guy was different and a genius
Well in 2021 a comment I read in a top 100 LPs of all time that had Trout Mask Replica on it said “ The hold Don Van Vliet has on his fans appears to be lifelong! ! “ Captain Beefheart is still a cult item but remarkably he keeps acquiring newer generations of fans which include Classically trained Conservatory students . I think it is not a snowballing effect but a replacement one . We first generation ones will be gone but the torch has & will continued to be passed . A passing of the torch per se with an eternal flame .
Thanks for this. This is an excellent share. Love the old on-the-fly editing and including it all. Love CB and why I’ve avoided this interview for so long I do not know! Grrrrrrrr urrrghhh. I’m dying. Bye. Just kidding.
I was kind of shocked when he came out, I hadn’t seen footage of him in a while and forgot what a ... massive “presence” he has, I can’t think of a better way to put it. Just sort of a magical, larger than life character.
Listened to it many times in the 90s. Interesting how that came about. Don was broke so Zappa took him on tour, but they didn’t get on, lots of tension arose between them.
I was never a watcher of late night celebrity interview shows, but I remember staying up to watch this to see Captain Beefheart. The sandwich gag at the beginning was a concept "borrowed" from the Bob & Ray radio show, where they would have a big splashy introduction to a celebrity and bring out the sandwich they ordered at a restaurant. I'm sure Letterman was very familiar with Bob & Ray.
Captain Beefheart was first & foremost an artist, but not merely a musical & visual artist - oh, no, this guy was a constant performance artist. His every waking moment was a performance, an artistic vision, a portion of materials & media to arrange appropriately at that time, in that place. Here, we see him, as always, expressing his vision in his own inimitable fashion, freely, fluently, and effectively portraying the world, the universe, etc., in contemporary style, unabashed, and satisfied with the result.
I totally agree with you. Don was definitely a performance artist at heart. While he may have had a significant impact in the music world, as well as the world of painting, he nevertheless wanted to use himself as an expression of art to contribute something to the rest of the world.
I remember as a kid in school, I was the only one who had a Capt Beefheart t-shirt. It was from his "Clear Spot" Album. I knew who he was...but none of the other kids did.
Back in the 1960s, some record albums would have inner sleeves that advertised other records. The inner sleeve of a Frank Zappa LP I bought had an ad for Looney Tunes and Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica LP. I ordered it and fell in love with his music ever since. It's the Blimp Frank, it's the Blimp!
People now should hope to be so candid in their descriptions of reality. God bless you, Don. You were a beautiful Goddammed weirdo, and we need more like you to keep us all in check...
"I've GOT to understand Beefheart!" - Marc Maron ♡ The Captain is so amazing! I am very late. I just started listening a few years ago, and I'm more than happy that I did.
True. And he was typically a lot cooler when he was interviewing people other than regular "show biz" people....and The Captain was about a thousand light years from that.
I forgot to add this.... I was a DJ in Southern Iowa at a real backward radio station at night.we didn't have a lot of things to choose from in albums and I found this "zapped" complitation record and played lick my decals off a few times along with wild man Fisher and and Alice Cooper's earlier stuff.
We used to listen to a Muscatine station in Iowa City. Don't remember the call sign, it was the early 80's and we were stoned in the dorms. Once called to request "Too Drunk to Fsck", but was denied for obvious reasons.
He had ms, used a lot of drugs and smoked, and had schizophrenia according to some sources. I heard he claimed to even stay up without sleep for a whole year so these can all be a factor. Even back when he was 32 he started looking like he was in his 50s real fast.
He seemed like such a good person...And I can see where Tom Waits took his inspiration (to say the least) from the musical style and the story telling....
He was a Beat poet and a great painter. Close friend of Zappa. I think his artwork sells for high price. I got to see him in Philly. He made me laugh so hard I cried. 😇
Close friend to Zappa? Well, Zappa was in the same High School with him, but they were not close, just knew each other. Then Zappa helped him out producing his first album since he couldn't put things together, and in '75 Zappa took him on his tour, since he was completely broke and tied up in different contracts he couldn't fulfill. Then they lost sight. OK, perhaps you can call that close...
Whenever I hear one of the Captain’s songs, it always puts me in mind of when McCoy Tyner had just played a long, intense, free jazz concert with Coltrane and was confronted by an audience member who asked, “come on, man … you cats can’t be serious…” McCoy replied, “as serious as your life…”
Don ain't no freak... that dude was an artiste...able to mix Howlin Wolf with Dali or something like that...I go back to this clip every year. I feel alive when I see this clip
"It is showbusiness, or as close as we can get" Ohhhhhh Dave, all these years on, who would have known just how damn prophetic those words would become.
Scott Davis weird in that hearing ice cream for crow I had a flash of the Chile peppers...but it was the guitar drum combo. Thanks for pointing that out!!!
Played with the Dickies and Weirdos too...might've played on a George Clinton album too...can't recall which one...the one Jack Sherman played on around 1986
Captain had an artistic mentally that few people were capable of understanding in depth. Most thinking on a different level just thought what the hell...
At last! "It's Beefheart because I have a beef in my heart against this civilization"----which elsewhere he called "catatonic." It's a lot worse now, Don!
Captain Beefheart died in 2010 aged 69; I think 'Big eyed beans from Venus' was his finest recording folled by Kandy Korn from the Strictly Personal' LP. And 'Gimme that harp boy' to make it 3.
@@peterryder7941 A lot of Captain Beef Heart's music was too inaccessible to me but when The Magic Band were good they were really good; and even to this day the studio version of Sister Ray is colossal.
John Erkman Mine, too. At that time, I was of course watching this going WTF. Now, 36 years later, I've just gotten done listening to his debut Trout Mask Replica here on this thing called RUclips, and now "Ice Cream For Crow" doesn't sound all that weird to me anymore. It's funny how life works sometimes.
For real--first time I've seen an interview with him. His music was weird as hell---it was like his own deranged,truly whacked-out version of the blues, lol. But,yeah, this reminds me of the time I used to watch the Letterman back around '84, when I first saw it. I loved the weird-ass, genuinely eccentric as hell guests he usually always had on the show. I watched that for years. BTW, Letterman just came out of retirement and just started doing a brand new talk show for Netflix. Guess he got tired of sitting around the house,lol.
If I was in a deserted island I would take the complete works of J.S.Bach, A.Webern and Trout Mask Replica by Captain Beefheart. I need nothing else than the divine music of bach, the minimalism of webern and the craziness of captain beefheart. You?
He is a force of nature, a truly unique artist. I'm guessing you are more visual and less musical than me. I've been into music obsessively since I was a teen (particularly blues, rock and folk) and I guarantee you he is one of the best of all time. You can tell by who he's influenced. Most musicians worth their salt (Beatles, Stones, Pixies, Black Keys to name a few) have nothing but high praise for the Captain. He is to fearless creativity what Muddy Waters is to the blues and Bob Dylan to songwriting.
Because I doubt they're making any money. Therefore they wouldn't care about putting on an entertaining show for the audience as much as they did back then
I remember the day he died. I drove home from somewhere after hearing the news like allllllll broken up. A bit down, the world, dark, the world slower and more physical as it was late and cold, a lonely drive, no music sounded correct for the journey. His would have been fitting.
Wow - a Rick Snyder reference on national TV!!! Why did I not know this? [He used to work at the old Poo Bah Records in Pasadena CA, back when Jay Green owned the store & it was located in an old house on the corner of Walnut & Wilson. I used to buy all my 80s indie pop & rock imports there. By the time Green sold Poo Bah's and it moved to its current location, I believe Rick eventually went into nursing.]
I remember the beak cutting in San Diego too. I think it was around that same time. Maybe late 80's though. So funny: Do you like living in the desert? No.
cool doods ! in the early days of RUclips I came upon the ICRE CREAM FOR CROW video in 2007 someone had uploaded it and it was like finding a treasure or something ..before then I had never heard of captain beef heart in my life!
I lived in the same desert small town Don grew up in also. In the 60's some of us played music in a band in garages. That's how I met Don. In those days he would go around to the few different ones, and help them out as much as he could. In 72 he had come back from one of the bands tour in Europe.
Asked me if I still had the same guitar. I said yes, but it was on it's last leg and in bad shape. He opened the trunk of his car and got out one of his studio guitars and gave it to me. A 65 Fender with a modified hum bucking pickup on it. Very Unique sound. Still have that guitar today. I eventually bought two more guitars, and was going to give that one back to Don, but sadly he had passed away before I made it back there. So kept it for the memories of the good ole days.
Did also jam in Joe’s Garage?
@@lazuliwinters743 When the 65 Fender is looking for a new home....ring me up!
So wonderful
Did you meet Frank Zappa also?
@@bobc.5698 I met Frank only one time at the Antelope Valley High School when Eric Burden and his band came there to play music in the high school gym building. Completely free concert too. Great guy to think about the younger people back then. Eric's band went to quite a few other high schools too. I went with an older drummer Frank knew and he introduced me as a kid in one of the local garage bands. Frank laughed and and being older than me said that was how he started too. Told him Don was helping us when he could, and Frank said Don has a special talent that was very rare.
I loved early Letterman shows. They had a public access vibe to them and had guests no one else would bring on.
Check out Fernwood Tonight w/ guest Tom Waits
Brother Theodore and Harvey Pekar among the stranger guests.
This one had my two favorite things in one segment; the Captain, and sandwiches.
My favorite CB quote: "I wish I didn't have to charge money for my songs, because where I got them from, they were free."
Great stuff
My favourite is in an interview I saw in a documentary about him - it's a clip of an exhibition of some of his art works. The interviewer asks why he'd decided to take up painting, and Cap says "I needed the exercise!"
True that
Great quote. But I'd pay not to listen to his music lol
Great Quote.
Great interview. If Zappa described Captain Beefheart as "a weird guy" you know that he really was.
Love this clip. Not only is Don awesome, but it shows how edgy and truly bizarre David Letterman's show was in the 80s. I think people forget this because he evolved into a typical late night show host in the last 15 years or so of his show. But back in the 80s there was nobody else doing the strange low-budget antics that Dave pulled off.
Yes its such a pity he's gone it was fun off-the-wall and creative and now we have ultra politically correct Stephen Colbert.
@@starcloud4959 Aree!Colbert-Don't-Surf!
That Bob Hope Sandwich bit really cracked me up.
@@starcloud4959 I'm not sure that he's correct.
Conan manned that slot in a mighty fashion in the 90s and early 2000s.
I've watched this so many times and I always enjoy it. A true original. Funny without being a bit driven by ego or false modesty. RIP Don Van Vliet.
I like the look of relief on Villets face when he realised the audience liked the song. I know he fretted a bit that his avant garde ideas would be lost on the people (and they usually where), but the positive response from lettermans audience was great. They warmed up to him.
Shayne O'Neill I was scared that they were just going to keep on laughing, I didn't want captain to think they thought of his music as a joke.
I thought he may have been upset that the audience liked it
@@tomn9094 to me it seemed like he shook his head in disbelief , as if to say "all of you are clapping, but you don't really get it."
ummm.... studio audiences applaud & cheer to everything they are cued to.
Don't be surprised that audiences would have had at least *some* friends and fans of the artist, so they wouldn't have needed telling how to respond.
It was nice to see and hear Letterman be respectful and not mock anything - Beefheart music probably wasn't 'his speed' after all.
Oh man, I am old! Captain always was a character, how can you not love this man? RIP Don, you made the world better in so many ways, sorry I never met you.
Couldn’t agree more.. R.I.P. Captain Beefheart!
''There's-Artists-who-can-wrest-us-up,&-place-us-into-Themselves.
These;Now-These,are-the-'One's'who-continue-to-wrest-us-up...
Even-beyond-Their-rests-in-peace.''-gilpin63019
Man!-i-gotta-get-this-keyboard's-spacebar-dried-out-from-this-mornin's-coffee-spill.
@dwdeline55 he was a taskmaster, would make them keep playing until they got it perfect and could recall it perfectly.
@@izzy_ondomink Source? I've heard he was a perfectionist who drove his band brutally. I'll see if I can find a backstory for that.
@@izzy_ondomink Found a site that said he broke a broomstick on a drummer he was mad at. He also took LSD occasionally. My ex did that broomstick thing to me once, ( I deserved it) they break pretty easily if they're wooden fortunately (no damage).
My roommate and I used to have a bunch of friends over watching Letterman in these days. I recorded this episode on my Berta VCR and watched it probably a hundred times. Nothing beat early & mid-80s Letterman, and Captain Beefheart was the quintessential Dave guest: offbeat, unique and real.
Also Brother Theodore...
I was privileged to see him on stage, about 1972. Awesome.
In Chicago? I was there, too. He wore a blue velvet cape.
Yeah me to at The Theatre Royal. Drury Lane London…Awesome 🎉
I watch this interview and anything from Captain every once in a while. It keeps me down to earth 🌍
The Captain was a genius. Glad I got to see him in concert in 1971
@Rod Berg HumanWrites ask Tom Waits
@Rod Berg HumanWrites who qualifies for you?
@Rod Berg HumanWrites yes, that Black Lesbian in the sky has created some wonders to behold.
@Rod Berg HumanWrites thanks, I was thinking the same thing when you were taking swipes at both Beefheart and Waits who are actually creative geniuses without providing a real alternative other than an illusionary being.
@Rod Berg HumanWrites yawn, OK.
I love the story about his early job selling vacuum cleaners door to door. A prospective customer opens the door and Mr Van Vliet says “This machine sucks!”
It was Auldus Huxley who made that comment upon opening the door to the captain selling vacuum cleaners. Lol that's funny .that sucks.
Hahahahaha!! 🤣😂🤣
@@jimjohnrayrobby2913 It was The Captain who said it as a reaction to seeing Huxley open the door and the futility of enticing the great man with a mundane accessory.
"This machine sucks" was part of Electrox's ad campaign at one time. Don actually never said that. People like to make stuff up.
Bro that bass player must have felt honored that he said he’s very good and took his hat off too him, I love how him and Zappa shout-out the bands like when Zappa was on arsenio hall, it’s so in their core to stand up for musicians
One in a million Don truly saw things from a completely other angle
Legend
From 1972 to 1982 he aged like 40 yrs...
His voice never changed though. Dude still sounded terrific
It's because he was ill you know. MS is a terrible desease.
I grew up being introduced to the captain from my dad, doc at the radar station, a great musician, I still listen to him, not every one's cup of tea my mum hated when my dad played it 😁😁😁great memories click clack👍
Thanks for this Don Giller...this keeps me alive and reminds us that we have to live before we die !
No one knew when this aired that Van Vliet was already experiencing the early onset symptoms of Multiple Sclerosis. We all thought he was drunk, or simply extremely eccentric, or both. Such characters were commonplace at this early period of the nighttime Letterman show. Brother Theodore and so on.
But now... It's only correct to follow this clip with the complete - and now legendary - video for "Ice Cream for Crow." Off you go, then!
Carl Howard he was also Schizophrenic. Which contributes to his insane genius.
Andrew Winters Bell is there any source for this or are you talking out of yr ass?
@@itsgonnbeok7249 His rapid aging and health problems he'd be having in the late 80s, during his art period.
Harvey Pekar, the cartoonist…
Yep, you can hear his dysarthria
I would've loved to see Captain Beefheart on something like the Eric Andre Show lol
Just Another Idiot he’s been dead for a minute
@@itsgonnbeok7249 no really 😐
Odds are he'd get pissed off at them.
ITSGONN BEOK He could have gone on the Tom Green show right? Didn’t he die after 2000?
Eric wouldve met his match
I love him so much. What a sweet, brilliant man. The TV doesn't deserve him.
I agree
What about the torture he did when recording trout mask
@@Noise_H whatever you're referring to, I can assure you, I do not care about it
I’m a huge fan but I’m not sure I’d use the word “sweet”
@@henryhorker You really should. He was an awful person, at least the way that he treated his members during that time. Remarkable album, though. I commend him on all of his - and his band's - works.
Holy cow! Did he say Mel Blanc, Bill Murray and Hunter Thompson??? I gotta catch Monday's show!
Anytime i feel the need i watch this...i cant even tell u why but i absolutely can tell u why its the most heart warming thing ive ever witnessed. God rest the beef and that old meat man music 😅😅
Don played a big part of my childhood thanks to my older brothers who are now gone or in their seventies now .I knew this guy was different and a genius
Well in 2021 a comment I read in a top 100 LPs of all time that had Trout Mask Replica on it said “ The hold Don Van Vliet has on his fans appears to be lifelong! ! “ Captain Beefheart is still a cult item but remarkably he keeps acquiring newer generations of fans which include Classically trained Conservatory students . I think it is not a snowballing effect but a replacement one . We first generation ones will be gone but the torch has & will continued to be passed . A passing of the torch per se with an eternal flame .
Very well said 🤝
Thanks for this. This is an excellent share. Love the old on-the-fly editing and including it all. Love CB and why I’ve avoided this interview for so long I do not know! Grrrrrrrr urrrghhh. I’m dying. Bye. Just kidding.
he's so fucking strange it's amazing
He has multiple scorosis
or schizophrenic
I was kind of shocked when he came out, I hadn’t seen footage of him in a while and forgot what a ... massive “presence” he has, I can’t think of a better way to put it. Just sort of a magical, larger than life character.
@@wastrel09 no
Frank Zappa said to Beefheart when he first met him, you're a real strange guy, I like ya, let's write some music together.
Bongo fury is to this day my favorite album of all-time.
Listened to it many times in the 90s. Interesting how that came about. Don was broke so Zappa took him on tour, but they didn’t get on, lots of tension arose between them.
I was never a watcher of late night celebrity interview shows, but I remember staying up to watch this to see Captain Beefheart. The sandwich gag at the beginning was a concept "borrowed" from the Bob & Ray radio show, where they would have a big splashy introduction to a celebrity and bring out the sandwich they ordered at a restaurant. I'm sure Letterman was very familiar with Bob & Ray.
Captain Beefheart was first & foremost an artist, but not merely a musical & visual artist - oh, no, this guy was a constant performance artist. His every waking moment was a performance, an artistic vision, a portion of materials & media to arrange appropriately at that time, in that place. Here, we see him, as always, expressing his vision in his own inimitable fashion, freely, fluently, and effectively portraying the world, the universe, etc., in contemporary style, unabashed, and satisfied with the result.
I totally agree with you. Don was definitely a performance artist at heart. While he may have had a significant impact in the music world, as well as the world of painting, he nevertheless wanted to use himself as an expression of art to contribute something to the rest of the world.
Stop waxing lyrical...you are shit at it
I remember as a kid in school, I was the only one who had a Capt Beefheart t-shirt. It was from his "Clear Spot" Album. I knew who he was...but none of the other kids did.
Ice Cream for Crow was a frenetic masterpiece by the Captain.🐺
What's even more fascinating than his music is how he composed and recorded it. Rulebook-out-the- window bananas.
He wrote all the music and lyrics? That repetitive guitar 🎸 riff in Ice cream for crow, he wrote that himself?
Letterman used to have such great guests in the days when he was hosting Late Night.
What happened? Now everyone in media are just prostitutes pretending to be actors, not a drop of talent in the bunch.
Beefheart on Friday night and Mel Blanc and Hunter S. Thompson on Monday night. You don't get much better.
The Bob Hope sandwich was the best.
Back in the 1960s, some record albums would have inner sleeves that advertised other records. The inner sleeve of a Frank Zappa LP I bought had an ad for Looney Tunes and Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica LP. I ordered it and fell in love with his music ever since.
It's the Blimp Frank, it's the Blimp!
People now should hope to be so candid in their descriptions of reality. God bless you, Don. You were a beautiful Goddammed weirdo, and we need more like you to keep us all in check...
"I've GOT to understand Beefheart!" - Marc Maron ♡ The Captain is so amazing! I am very late. I just started listening a few years ago, and I'm more than happy that I did.
Sometimes you could tell how Dave felt about his guests, especially if he didn't like them. This interview was straight up love.
True. And he was typically a lot cooler when he was interviewing people other than regular "show biz" people....and The Captain was about a thousand light years from that.
We ate trout for breakfast lunch and dinner.knew the lyrics like one would know Beatles songs...the dust blows forward the dust blows back......
I forgot to add this.... I was a DJ in Southern Iowa at a real backward radio station at night.we didn't have a lot of things to choose from in albums and I found this "zapped" complitation record and played lick my decals off a few times along with wild man Fisher and and Alice Cooper's earlier stuff.
We used to listen to a Muscatine station in Iowa City. Don't remember the call sign, it was the early 80's and we were stoned in the dorms. Once called to request "Too Drunk to Fsck", but was denied for obvious reasons.
12/17/2019 Today marks nine years that captain beefheart checked out. R.I.P. captain beefheart.
He's only about 41 here, but talks and acts like a man in his late 50's or 60's.
He had multiple sclerosis
LATE 80's
He had ms, used a lot of drugs and smoked, and had schizophrenia according to some sources. I heard he claimed to even stay up without sleep for a whole year so these can all be a factor. Even back when he was 32 he started looking like he was in his 50s real fast.
Regardless of other health problems I would've visibly aged fifty years if I made those albums he did, never mind a mere twenty.
Wow! That's crazy!
He seemed like such a good person...And I can see where Tom Waits took his inspiration (to say the least) from the musical style and the story telling....
Robyn Hitchcock too.
Great to see a REAL person..refreshing
@Dave Breckon Don Van Vliet had multiple sclerosis.
A REAL artist, a real original, hes great.
I HAVE A SOFT SPOT FOR "ORIGINALS" Don was a true Original.
Yes. People who value intuition. Einstein is a good example. Lee Perry also. Originals, like you say.
He was a Beat poet and a great painter. Close friend of Zappa. I think his artwork sells for high price. I got to see him in Philly. He made me laugh so hard I cried. 😇
Close friend to Zappa? Well, Zappa was in the same High School with him, but they were not close, just knew each other. Then Zappa helped him out producing his first album since he couldn't put things together, and in '75 Zappa took him on his tour, since he was completely broke and tied up in different contracts he couldn't fulfill. Then they lost sight. OK, perhaps you can call that close...
I just recently "got" his music and yeah, he makes me laugh too.
@@NN-ul4oy Zappa and Beefheart used to listen to Doo Wop records together in high school.
Whenever I hear one of the Captain’s songs, it always puts me in mind of when McCoy Tyner had just played a long, intense, free jazz concert with Coltrane and was confronted by an audience member who asked, “come on, man … you cats can’t be serious…”
McCoy replied, “as serious as your life…”
I almost forget HOW COOL DAVE WAS WAY BACK THEN ...went to see his show so many times ...Always love the captain too
This man was like the Marcel Duchamp of rock......totally unique. Saw him in Birmingham in the 70’s....front row,scary!!!!!
I know what you mean. Saw him in a small theater in '71. The whole audience was scared.
THIS MAN COULD SING THE PHONE BOOK AND OFTEN DOES.
My second cousin on Mother's side. My aunts and uncles were all in town when this aired and we were mortified.
Mortified? Why would you be mortified? This was fantastic! Your second cousin was a legend that continues to inspire other artists.
Cause he appeared so drunk and wasted and washed up?
Dude, I was trying to understand how his family might have felt from watching this on TV; not judging him. Get it now?
@@alias4607 Any idiot can see he's not drunk at all, got it?
I'm not an idiot, so I can see he's wasted.
I think his biggest influence was Howlin Wolf, in terms of the instrumentation and the singing, though he gives everything his own crazy twist.
Bryan Cranston could nail a Captain Beefheart role. Would be great to see.
I was thinking Daniel Day Lewis would be a shoe - in.
Actually... yeah, Cranston would look great in the role. He can do the mumble too
I guess it'd be an odd choice considering Vliet wasn't latino, though I always imagine Benicio Del Toro.
Why in the fuck would anyone fund that bullshit
Degenerate Music What is going on with you? What are you talking about? You sound insane
Trout Mask Replica was the most daring jazz album ever. It broke ground in very direction.
That's one way to put it.
Idk man there was some pretty wild avant garde jazz in the 60s.
Jazz? Do you know what Jazz is?
One of the greatest rock interviews. RIP Don. RIP Tony H Wilson and Mark E Smith. Nappy Poo Smear. Have a great 2025!
I hope Letterman writes a book one day describing what he thought of all these eccentric great talents he had on his show.
I wouldn’t count on it.
He’s a yuppie
Don ain't no freak... that dude was an artiste...able to mix Howlin Wolf with Dali or something like that...I go back to this clip every year. I feel alive when I see this clip
I'm back 3/16/24😊
Pretty funny when he puts the Perrier bottle on the chair next to him him and says "no other guests"?
"It is showbusiness, or as close as we can get"
Ohhhhhh Dave, all these years on, who would have known just how damn prophetic those words would become.
One of my favorite artists of all time. Perennially interesting
Could you imagine if they had performed Ice Cream for Crow on Letterman that night? What an opportunity squandered.
The drummer Cliff Martinez, on this record, played later for the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Incredible stuff man!
And he is also the composer of the film Drive!
Scott Davis weird in that hearing ice cream for crow I had a flash of the Chile peppers...but it was the guitar drum combo. Thanks for pointing that out!!!
This was diagnosis of M.S. which Don had been given few years earlier & resulted in his death. Don was not drinking alcohol at this juncture.
He also did the score for the video game Far Cry 4. Truly a diverse musician/composer
Played with the Dickies and Weirdos too...might've played on a George Clinton album too...can't recall which one...the one Jack Sherman played on around 1986
Captain had an artistic mentally that few people were capable of understanding in depth. Most thinking on a different level just thought what the hell...
FZ understood him
That's true. I never understood him in depth.
Mark E Smith was inspired by him🎶😏💚
You hipster
At last! "It's Beefheart because I have a beef in my heart against this civilization"----which elsewhere he called "catatonic." It's a lot worse now, Don!
Zappa came up with the name though...
Something to do with Don's perverted uncle talking about his schlong in the bathroom
I remember it was his uncle whipping it out when Don had friends over. Zappa described it as looking like a beef heart.
@@superfuzzymomma . good grief , but that somehow rings true !
I always assumed it was Zappa being sly and it was really Bee Fart.
10:13 Trout Mask Replica album cover right-hand wave hadn't changed since 1969
Captain Beefheart died in 2010 aged 69; I think 'Big eyed beans from Venus' was his finest recording folled by Kandy Korn from the Strictly Personal' LP. And 'Gimme that harp boy' to make it 3.
@@peterryder7941 A lot of Captain Beef Heart's music was too inaccessible to me but when The Magic Band were good they were really good; and even to this day the studio version of Sister Ray is colossal.
My favorite CB quote:
Everyone is colored or you wouldn't be able to see them.
An American Genius.
beefheart was awesome....and dave gave him respect which is rare.....but beefheart deserves it!!
Just so unfettered! The Captain rocks. My girl. from Diddy Wha Diddy.
One of my all-time favorites!
I saw this BACK THEN! Kinda weird for my 14 year old ass to comprehend lol
John:
Yeah, this whole show was too weird to comprehend when I stared watching it at age 14 myself, but it was fun, regardless
John Erkman Mine, too. At that time, I was of course watching this going WTF. Now, 36 years later, I've just gotten done listening to his debut Trout Mask Replica here on this thing called RUclips, and now "Ice Cream For Crow" doesn't sound all that weird to me anymore. It's funny how life works sometimes.
Meanwhile I would not be born for another 2 decades...
so eccentric and so cool
For real--first time I've seen an interview with him. His music was weird as hell---it was like his own deranged,truly whacked-out version of the blues, lol. But,yeah, this reminds me of the time I used to watch the Letterman back around '84, when I first saw it. I loved the weird-ass, genuinely eccentric as hell guests he usually always had on the show. I watched that for years. BTW, Letterman just came out of retirement and just started doing a brand new talk show for Netflix. Guess he got tired of sitting around the house,lol.
Kirk Wood Like a being from another planet who came here and got hooked on Howlin Wolf records. In a good way
That video was great. Killer track 100%
Mel Blanc, Bill Murray and Hunter S. Thompson. AWESOME!
a absolute forerunner for Mark e Smith interviews , same genius same pains , peace .
'Ice Cream for Crow' sure got my toes a tappin many years later.
"the sun's so hot, looks like you have three beaks, crow..."
Off the scale amazing!
If I was in a deserted island I would take the complete works of J.S.Bach, A.Webern and Trout Mask Replica by Captain Beefheart. I need nothing else than the divine music of bach, the minimalism of webern and the craziness of captain beefheart. You?
love this
actually a very,very talented painter........
adanacman666 very gifted generally.
dude his paintings are so rad
Honestly, as much as I love Captain Beefheart, I think his paintings are crap.
@@tasseltoes becaus you dont know how to look,,
He is a force of nature, a truly unique artist. I'm guessing you are more visual and less musical than me. I've been into music obsessively since I was a teen (particularly blues, rock and folk) and I guarantee you he is one of the best of all time. You can tell by who he's influenced. Most musicians worth their salt (Beatles, Stones, Pixies, Black Keys to name a few) have nothing but high praise for the Captain. He is to fearless creativity what Muddy Waters is to the blues and Bob Dylan to songwriting.
I was roady for Don. Never been the same since.
What's your craziest story?
you have more to tell us !! - i remember buying "ice cream" when i came out - i'd say it changed music for me forever.
Hi, do you have stories?
For the love of God a story please!
Always pays to be roady.
Why can't TV shows be like this now? This is literally better than anything on 150 channels of cable TV tonight.
Because I doubt they're making any money. Therefore they wouldn't care about putting on an entertaining show for the audience as much as they did back then
I knew Don and saw him many times in NYC and also knew FZ. RIP
When that guy came out with sandwich I thought he was Bill Murray and I laughed my ass off.
Did Beefheart retire from music and then make an undercover comeback as the Scatman?
HAHAHA... both of them are low budget Mercurys though
Hahahahahahaja😂
I remember the day he died. I drove home from somewhere after hearing the news like allllllll broken up. A bit down, the world, dark, the world slower and more physical as it was late and cold, a lonely drive, no music sounded correct for the journey. His would have been fitting.
My god, he's only a couple months away from turning 42 here. How is that possible?
Wow - a Rick Snyder reference on national TV!!! Why did I not know this? [He used to work at the old Poo Bah Records in Pasadena CA, back when Jay Green owned the store & it was located in an old house on the corner of Walnut & Wilson. I used to buy all my 80s indie pop & rock imports there. By the time Green sold Poo Bah's and it moved to its current location, I believe Rick eventually went into nursing.]
Fantastic man and artist. Zappa.. Beefheart, what else does one need.
I remember the beak cutting in San Diego too. I think it was around that same time. Maybe late 80's though.
So funny: Do you like living in the desert? No.
There are things in his head that most of us haven't had to deal with. Just the same, he seems to have fun in there.
He said he was riding in some kind of unusual skull sleigh
Great interview.
Genius right there in front of us.
cool doods ! in the early days of RUclips I came upon the ICRE CREAM FOR CROW video in 2007 someone had uploaded it and it was like finding a treasure or something ..before then I had never heard of captain beef heart in my life!
Then band started to play Honky Tonk Women which was written around a guitar riff by Don's friend Ry Cooder.
The greatest artists live it
MTV would have been so much cooler if they'd have shown this back then.
Greatest musical genius. Period
Damn that sandwich looked good