recorded 1969 at Whitney Studios & the Trout House, Woodland Hills. Trout Mask Replica (TMR) is THE album that defines the archetypal Beefheart sound presenting it for the first time and in its most raw state. The previous albums had been part of the search to find a different musical palette...

It was with great sadness that I heard Alex had died from a massive heart attack. He was 64. One of the original Magic Band guitarists, Alex can justifiably be known as the original 'Captain Beefheart', being the prime mover to get the band together and the musical director and organiser in the...

The search for the mystery co-songwriter from 'Safe As Milk'. Of the 12 songs on the 'Safe As Milk' album 8 are co-credited to someone called Herb Bermann (aka Herb Masters). Who was he? No-one at the time seemed to know, he wasn't a member of the band, he didn't co-write any songs on the...

Having just produced two albums that redefined the parameters of traditional rock music Beefheart's next album The Spotlight Kid was eagerly awaited. Although not as revolutionary as its predecessors it still proved to be a challenging piece of work. Instead of producing some more of the same...

Why do I like Beefheart? Hmmm....... not easy to answer. Maybe I should start with 'how'... I think my story will be echoed by other fans in the UK. In 1966/67 the music scene exploded. Although those years are parodied or ridiculed by many they were critical in the freeing of music and it is...

First, we had to endure the support band 'Secret Oyster' - anyone remember them? I wish I didn't. They were the remnants of a once fairly fine Danish band 'Burnin Red Ivanhoe' but they were now a pompous prog-rock band of the most tedious kind with a keyboard player who'd obviously got some new...

This rundown, no atmosphere, old style ballroom didn't seem to me to be the right venue for a Captain Beefheart gig, but at least it was close to where a bunch of us lived.  We must have turned up quite early because it seemed we spent a long time just sitting on the floor smoking.  At...

recorded 1967 at TTG Studios. Have you listened to "Mirror Man" recently ? If not ........why not !! Mirror Man is a much under rated album. Sure, it is not out on the edge like Trout Mask Replica  but if it had not had a legitimate release these four tracks would be part of a legendary,...