Don Van Vliet

Don Van Vliet

Birth : 1941-01-15, Glendale, California, USA

Death : 2010-12-17

History

Don Van Vliet, born Don Glen Vliet, was an American singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and visual artist best known by the stage name Captain Beefheart. He conducted a rotating ensemble called the Magic Band, with whom he recorded 13 studio albums between 1964 and 1982.

Profile

Don Van Vliet

Movies

Zappa
Self (archive footage) (as Captain Beefheart)
With the help of more than 10,000 dedicated Zappa fans, this is the long-awaited definitive documentary project of Alex Winter documenting the life and career of enigmatic groundbreaking rock star Frank Zappa. Alex also utilizes in this picture thousands of hours of painstakingly digitized videos, photos, audio, writing, and everything in between from Zappa's private archives. These chronicles have never been brought to a public audience before, until now.
Captain Beefheart: Under Review
Captain Beefheart
Captain Beefheart Under Review documents the career of the unique musician. The film combines performance footage by the man and his various back-up players along with interviews by colleagues who illuminate aspects of some of the songs and offer testimonials on the genius of the artist.
Derailroaded
A documentary on the life and music of manic-depressive, paranoid-schizophrenic cult music icon Wild Man Fischer.
The Artist Formerly Known As Captain Beefheart
Himself
Elaine Shepherd’s classic BBC documentary, introduced and narrated by John Peel. Completely wonderful, a 50 minute joy: reviews, articles, blog posts, etc. relating to The Artist Formerly Known As Captain Beefheart.
Don Van Vliet: Some YoYo Stuff
Music
Don van Vliet, alias "Captain Beefheart", is one of the most influential, misunderstood, talked about, admired, copied, treasured, loved and quoted musicians and yet he is still an obscure and mysterious artist. His quite abrupt artistic transformation from working with a microphone to a paintbrush in 1982 and his consequent move from the desert to the ocean meant even less direct contact with the outside world than before. Subsequently there is very little information about Don from this time onwards and this short black-and-white film made in 1993 is an unique opportunity to see and hear this unique man
Don Van Vliet: Some YoYo Stuff
Himself
Don van Vliet, alias "Captain Beefheart", is one of the most influential, misunderstood, talked about, admired, copied, treasured, loved and quoted musicians and yet he is still an obscure and mysterious artist. His quite abrupt artistic transformation from working with a microphone to a paintbrush in 1982 and his consequent move from the desert to the ocean meant even less direct contact with the outside world than before. Subsequently there is very little information about Don from this time onwards and this short black-and-white film made in 1993 is an unique opportunity to see and hear this unique man
Lick My Decals Off, Baby
Captain Beefheart
Experimental commercial made for Captain Beefheart's LP of the same name. Is in MOMA despite a stunted release.
Frank Zappa
Self
The Documentary centers around Zappa at home, and on Tour. The amazing thing is that Zappa allowed a guy with a camera to film the band at the Fillmore West w/ Flo and Eddie. There are times when the camera man seems to be on the stage. The performance is recorded from only one camera angle. There are only 4-5 songs presented here.....and Zappa referring to the Fillmore West as the ‘Psychedelic Dungeon’ is priceless………..It is a great piece of history.