DON VAN VLIET
Captain Beefheart, also known as Don Van Vliet (born Don Glen Vliet; January 15, 1941 – December 17, 2010) was an American singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and visual artist. He conducted a rotating ensemble called the Magic Band, with whom he recorded 13 studio albums between 1964 and 1982. Their 1969 album Trout Mask Replica would later rank 58th in Rolling Stone magazine’s 2003 list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. Although he achieved little commercial or mainstream critical success, he sustained a cult following as a “highly significant” and “incalculable” influence on an array of new wave, punk, and experimental rock artists. After his retirement from music in 1982, he pursued a career in art. His expressionist paintings and drawings command high prices, and have been exhibited in art galleries and museums across the world. (More from Wikipedia)
Of their own origins, the Dickies (Leonard Graves Phillips specifically) talk about that in the liner notes to Dogs from the Hare that Bit Us: “Back in the summer of 1977, Stan Lee took me to see what was then L.A.’s premier punk rock band, the Weirdos. . . . The Weirdos had a wonderfully inane sense of disposable fashion that was undeniably West Coast; on the other hand, their musically minimalistic sense of implied velocity, which was to become the hallmark of late ’70’s – Hey, I’m starting to sound like a freakin’ music critic – suffice it to say, I was impressed; so when doing this record, it was only natural to tip our hats to punk rock, hence the Weirdos, and in particular John Denney, the Don Van Vliet [Captain Beefheart] of Punk.”
(March 2017)
