It was an unforgettable night, starting with a Frank Zappa concert at Austin's Armadillo World Headquarters in 1975 that featured none other than Captain Beefheart in the center of it all. He'd played the Armadillo five years earlier, with Ry Cooder opening, but that was an entirely different vibration. Beefheart, born Don Van Vliet, was circling outer space then, putting the microphone into his soprano saxophone and blowing as hard as he could. For those ready for some interstellar travel it was a study in wondrous beauty. For those not quite ready to blast off, maybe not so much. A large portion of the crowd headed for the exits after about an hour. But those that stayed for the full-tilt boogie, real liftoff occured. I told the club owner the next day that if and when he books Captain Beefheart again, maybe he lets everyone in free and then charges them to leave. He did not laugh. But this night in '75 with Frank Zappa at the wheel the audience was well-primed for the unknown. And that's what they heard--loud. After the show I found myself backstage talking to the good Captain and the Armadillo's house artist Jim Franklin. We all agreed to go somewhere for a late dinner and talk. Once we found a Syrian spot open all night we invaded it for the next few hours. I found Captain Beefheart to be a totally original conversationalist, a visionary with a bouncing sense of humor and a fascinating sense of absurd reality. Once daylight came it was time to move on. I pulled out my concert poster and asked Beefheart to draw something to illustrate the story I would write for the Austin Sun. He beamed, took the poster and in a matter of about a minute wrote the poem included at the end of this column, signed it and handed it to me. I started to fold the cardboard poster in two, and he quickly said, "Stop young man!" He took the poster from my hands, rolled it up and handed it back, adding, "You'll thank me someday." The man knew the value of art.

Eleven years later I somehow found myself working at Warner Bros./Reprise Records, and my super cool boss Pete Johnson found out I was a major Captain Beefheart acolyte. In fact, Johnson had co-produced the Beefheart 1978 album titled SHINY BEAST (BAT CHAIN PULLER) so I knew he had the goods. He suggested we call Beefheart on the phone at his home in Trinidad, California and talk. So we did. After a few minutes, Captain Beefheart asked if I had ever heard One String Jones, which I hadn't. Beefheart boomed, "Well you must. Right now!" So he put on an album, located the right phone next to his stereo speaker and let it play. And play. After about 15 minutes he had not come back on the phone, and that's the last time I spoke to the man who really did take rock & roll places it had never been. And hasn't been since. This interview from all those years ago still feels like it happened yesterday. Captain Beefheart is right here, laughing, talking and sharing the absolute joy of life and living. Showing us how to get there by opening our mind and heart and set them free.

By Bill Bentley and Glenn Jones
Austin Sun/May 29, 1975

We went looking for Captain Beefheart and I think we found him, at four on a muggy Austin morning standing out in front in the parking lot of an all-night Syrian diner. The pressurized air system was on the blink and the waitress was hot pink, and after we'd heard all the Jimmy Reed on the jukebox (that the Captain kept playing over and over for hours), we staggered outside and stood around while Beefheart continued--sparkling--four hours of solid surreal/real theatre, a pure waterfall of words. The man is in love with language; he's not spacey, he's just out. The air was full of soggy ions but the trickster musician was in town and although we hardly knew him, he was stinging. Teasing. He's the high flosser champion. Captain Beefheart has no "tinfoil on his feelers." I mean he always takes "the bands off his cigars" and though the tape machine was dragging we had had an early start. But that's just flosser; the Captain is a magician of the first order…different voices…laughter…high eyes…the kind of man you can spend time in a parking lot with, too. There was no big star thing--just intricate patterns out every which ways. Captain Beefheart reminds us of our civilization.

"An artist is one who kids himself the most gracefully," he says. An artist…Syrian parking lot neon dance…the rest is just the Captain verbatim. Beefheart as he said it. Tho' filtered through a fly's ear.

Bill Bentley: The SUN had received a news release that said you had given up music and become a lumberjack.
Captain Beefheart: I put that press release out because I love trees so much. I got eight tree surgeons to save two eucalyptus trees, a male and a female, about 175 feet high. I knew that everyone would know that I was joking about being a lumberjack. I did that because of the record company, Mercury. Oh man, those son of a bitches, just absolutely trite. I was up in the redwoods when they put out MOONBEAM AND BLUEJEANS. They put people on the record after it had already been made. I don't even know who they are. A guy playing harmonica saying, "Captain, Captain." What a joke. Everybody knows that was a rip-off. I mean, they ripped Winged Eel Fingerling and the drummer right off the tape and stuck someone else on. I didn't do that. I wouldn't do that. I wouldn't have gone on that last tour. The Magic Band guys wanted to go commercial. They wanted to do UNCONDITIONALLY GUARANTEED. But I like out stuff. I just, uh, I love blues, the whole place is included.

BB: When are you going to do a Magic Band again?
CB: I'm going to put a group together with Winged Eel Fingerling on guitar, and a fellow from Chicago. He's bad. He knows how to play in sort of a squeegee pattern. You know, all the snaps out of the things on TROUT MASK REPLICA. He's staggering. Wow! He's bad. TROUT MASK is selling for 35 pounds in England right now so Warner Bros. might put it out again. From what I understand Frank (Zappa) is going to mix it again with what he knows now and with the equipment we can get now. Although the government's the one that has the stuff. You know that. If only we could get hold of some of their equipment.

BB: How were you getting those sounds on saxophone at the start of the show tonight?
CB: I learned how to do that from the killer whales. I can play soprano sax like a tenor. I live in northern California up near the Oregon border, near the whales. And they sing, man, changing all the time, so many compositions. Brilliant musicians! If it's really a musician it should be a magician. But there sure are a lotta fakes out there. Train the cabooses is all I have to say.

*BB: What song was that you did tonight about "Give me boss release?" *
CB: Frank wrote "Debra Kadabra" for me. He took it right out of my life. It's about the Witch Goddess of Lankershim Boulevard. And that corny little flosser, you know the flosser, the thing that looks like a cheese cutter. In L.A. it's advertised on TV. Oh man, TV in L.A. is disgusting. The reel flosser.

BB: How did it feel being a Mother onstage? Close to the womb?
CB: It feels like a uterus. It's all right. I've known Frank for about 20 years and I think he does some very interesting things, he's a very good sociologist. I think he's good for the people, really good. Different from what I do, though. I'm kind of like far away singing close up. I mean I was up in the redwoods painting and the next time I came out, boom: Frank Zappa. I've lived there about six years. It's beautiful up there, those big trees. I have the most respect for that place of anywhere I know. It's a rainforest where I live and I love the rain. Chanel No. 5 on the rocks. No, progress is Chanel No. 5 on the rocks. You've heard about that giant bird they found. Isn't that wonderful? At first, I thought it was still alive. What is it, plan-a souris? How do you pronounce that? I thought that was great. Imagine the thing diving off a big hill into the valley out there and devouring a dinosaur carcass. They're like buzzards with a big beak.

BB: Do you follow paleontology?
CB: Oh yeah. "The Petrified Forest," "Bill's Corpse." "Bless the breathing / Pay for those that breathe in / And don't breathe out." Did you hear about that scare of vampires from outer space that are clipping the tongues off the ox? In Kansas. That's scary. Probably the CIA making sandwiches.

BB: what about the bomb scare tonight?
CB: That's terrible. It's frightening. When I was in England there were four. I had to stand up there and clear everyone out. Like the Luddites, not that they were wrong, but it's too late now. We're just going to have to use the structures that have been built up. I don't know why they don't make regressive buildings--underground. Why should they ruin all our vistas?

BB: The bland Magic Band fell apart and…
CB: No, I left them. Of course, I had to leave. I went out on a tour that was booked way in advance and I just left. The first Magic Band, if you can call them magic. They must have been juvenile delinquents because they told me five days before the tour: "Well, we quit." I gave them six years of paint and they gave me five days to put a group together. That is disgusting. That's not music. They weren't musicians. Other than Art Tripp. I taught them so much. Every bit of choreography, every shade, the fall of the weight…

BB: Where are they now?
CB: Very lame. With five days notice, I had to put a band together and tour. I couldn't not do it. I couldn't do that to promoters. Even if I looked really funny, like a wilted flower, I couldn't do that. I mean without stages what are we going to do. Why should promoters suffer because of juvenile delinquency on the part of the musicians. I don't think they should. I had to take into account the fans, too. I put out an album, what the heck. I didn't even like the album. But I put it out. It had been murdered. Sabotaged. By the group and by these two guys, the DiMartino brothers.

BB: And then how did the last tour go?
CB: I should have known: complete success. 35-minute standing ovations in England They saw it as an Art Statement.

BB: What did you do after that?
CB: I vomited. I went back home to paint and write and wrong and do some poetry and put a group together, a really good group. I told Frank I might quit the music business and he said, "Come play." I said, "Great." I really love to play. It's the first time I played with anybody like that in my life and it's a group experience. I see what it's like to be a leader. Although I think that the only leder there is runs down the back of your leg to make your foot work. I've always thought that. I never was a leader in the Magic Band. I was trying to suggest that they do something with me, since I was there. They walked out telling me I could not sing. They walked out telling me I knew nothing about music. I don't know anything about music. Where's middle C? I can't sing, but I like to try something. Those guys just completely turned on me.

BB: Do you think you will ever get back together with the Magic Band?
CB: No. Would you? But I forgave them the minute they walked out, five days before a tour. I said, "Great. Go your own way and I wish you good luck. I wrote: "Friends don't mind / go into bright / find the light and know / that friends don't mind / just how you grow…" That's the way I've always taken it with anybody I was around. I'm going to be a cactus and stick to that. But they have a lot of animosity for me. I guess because I saw them when they did give a lot. They gave a great amount of energy and in this day and age they translated that into wanting money, goals. You can only eat what you can hold in your hand once a day so I don't know what the hell they were talking about. But they had beds and I didn't. My wife and I didn't have beds. We slept in sleeping bags. I saw that they had houses, beds, cars. I even bought Art Tripp a car. I bought him a Kaiser-Frazer. '52 I think it was. Because I thought he'd like that. Now he's an aluminum siding salesman. No, I'm kidding. He's with his father in insurance. I mean insurance, really! The only security is no security. Anybody knows that.

BB: How did you feel onstage with The Mothers tonight?
CB: Zappa is smart, smart as a whip. He's definitely smart. And he's so nice. Wonderful wife, three wonderful children. One kid is named Ahmet. He's like the ocean the way you look in his eyes. Whooooo. All I can say is wizard shit. I don't have any children yet. I feel like a babysitter most of the time, don't you? My baby won't let me have a baby. What we'll do is try to help the animals so the children can see them. You know what the largest living mammal is? The absent mind. And Nixon, oh man. Ooooooo. That's why I did "Dachau Blues:" "Three little children with blood on their shoulders / their eyes rolled back in ecstasy crying please old man / stop this misery before we have to count the burnings / down in World War III…"

BB: Good music you don't have to think about.
CB: It doesn't have to make sense, 'cause if it makes sense it will start the questions again. There's absolutely no reason to think. That's the lowest form of communication. Like the telephone cuts all that telepathy out. Think about how it would be if there weren't any telephones. I think that the soil count would go up to probably three or maybe seven. Don't you hate neon? I mean I love old neon and neon sculptures but I sure do hate bleak neon. It depletes Vitamin B. It's cheap. I worked as a box boy once, I still work as a box boy, and a neon light fell right down in front of me. Pow! I grabbed the old lady's hand who was checking out and ran.

BB: What about Texas?
CB: I love Texas. I think this is the most fun place to play. I would sure like to come back here awhile, my wife and I, and paint. That sunlight, it's so beautiful. What a huge place, so vast, good for your mind. Can't hang up on any corners. That's so silly but my mind's done that before. Has yours ever done that? I mean, it's all right to blow smoke to the four corners like the Apache or something, but not to blow cement. Yeah, they've done some real expubident things. Like DDT. It's immortal. I was right with SAFE AS MILK. They've proven milk is a very bad thing for everybody. I used to sell vacuums. I'd go in with a vacuum cleaner and get the lady of the house and get her to put a glass of milk on the table. I would turn on the vacuum, sweep the rug and then reverse the switch so the vacuum would blow out. I'd spray the milk and I'd say, "All right ma'am, now drink some of this milk." And it'd be black on top with fly specks, toenail clippings, hair balls, and she'd say, "I'll buy one right now." I didn't feel bad about selling those. It's so valid. I sold Aldous Huxley an Electrolux. He was a great guy. I used to walk with him.

BB: Do you write much now?
CB: All the time. I've written about 40 songs since I've been on this tour. I write poetry and I've invented a lot of new words. I write all the time: "One nest rolls after another / Until there are no longer any birds / One tongue lashes another / Until there are no longer any words / Our love fails no birds." And you can fuck gravity. I won't drop out of music. I like to make noises. I don't like to sing.I like to make noises. It's great to stand up there and make noises. It's like bubble-blowing.

BB: And next?
CB: No rest for the wicked. Do you know what I mean?

The Poem

Train the
cabooses,
it's not Zen
it's
Zrite Znow.
When the ocean
is wounded it
takes the whole world to heal.
ah leder is
the thing that
runs down
the back of
your leg
that makes
your foot
cough/work.
It isn't worth
getting into the
bull's shit to find
out what the bull ate.
Ah joint is part of
today's anatomy.
An artist is one
who kids him
self the most
gracefully.
A psychiatrist is
one who wishes to
die in your other
life.
----------Don Van Vliet '75

Foot & Notes:
      Progress is
      Chanel Number 5
      on the rocks.

Bill Bentley

For Mo Ostin (1927-2022)