Many names come to mind when thinking about some of the most legendary oddballs throughout music history, but perhaps none more so than the late great Don Van Vliet (aka Captain Beefheart). Indeed, the man personified the notion of “weird” in practically all respects, producing some of the most off-kilter and challenging records ever recorded before he somewhat abruptly retired from making music in the 80s to focus on his career as a painter. He was no doubt a man of many talents, truly an avant-garde artist through and through who revolutionized what music could sound like by effectively chopping up blues-based rhythms and surrealist wordplay, flipping them on their head, turning them inside out, throwing them in a blender, and concocting something genuinely bizarre as a result, which this performance from 1971 aptly demonstrates. R.I.P. Don Van Vliet, a one-of-a-kind artist whose eccentricity is truly missed.
