Don Van Vliet: Run Paint Run Run

Q. Don Van Vliet

A. Perhaps better known as Captain Beefheart to most, Don Van Vliet is the given name of the man who, at the helm of the Magic Band, created some of the most singular and intelligent music of the 1960s and 70s. It's not the remit of this page to go too far into the music, but, suffice it to say, Beefheart's fusion of country and electric blues, jazz, rock and downright weirdness explored the artistic possibilities of avant-garde popular music in ways never before - and possibly never since - attempted.

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Q. And Run Paint Run Run

A. Track 4 of the CD (or track 4, side 1, for you vinyl vipers out there) Doc at the Radar Station, Captain Beefheart's 1980 return-to-form album, and the penultimate one he made - assuming, of course, that DVV sticks to his resolve never to exhume his musical alter ego. The title, a typical Beefheart pun, was doubtless inspired by his own work as a painter.

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Q. What's he all about then

A. He was always an awkward fish, and according to the testimonies of a number of musicians who did time in the Magic Band, a hard taskmaster. At the height of his early fame - this, remember, was the mid-1960s, a time when to say no to drugs, especially LSD, was deeply uncool - he said: 'When I see people taking acid to get into my music, I don't want to play that kind of music. I don't want to make people think they've got to use some sort of elevation to get into what I do. If I did that, what kind of artist would I be Just another phoney asshole.'

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And that individuality and sense of self pervades all his work, as both a musician and, latterly, as a painter.

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Q. When did he give up music

A. His last album was 1982's Ice Cream for Crow, after which he retired to the Californian desert to devote himself to his painting. He seems to have run out of steam with music at his point, as the last album was weaker than the previous one, and the whole thing seemed a little tired. Also, he is now suffering from an unspecified wasting disease, which may well have set in at about this time and perhaps influenced his decision to move out of the limelight.

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Q. So, why painting rather than music

A. Fine art was, in fact, DVV's first love, and he had been considered something of a prodigy long before his fame as a musician. As a child, he was deemed a major talent by the celebrated Portuguese sculptor Augustinio Rodriguez, who had discovered him sculpting at Griffith Park Zoo in Los Angeles and had then helped to secure him a television spot sculpting 'images of nature'. Throughout his musical career he continued to paint, and his work was used as cover art for a number of his albums.

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At the age of thirteen Van Vliet won a scholarship to study art in Europe, but his parents, believing that art was not a manly enough pursuit, thwarted his efforts. In the hopes of finding non-artistic environs his father moved the family to the desert. This move was to have a profound influence on the aspiring artist. To this date his art contains images of the desert.

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Q. What kind of artist is he

A. His method is basically a kind of Automatism, a method used by the Surrealists in which the artist closes their eyes and allows the hand draw without the aid of conscious direction. This creates a kind of self-hypnosis, inducing almost a stream of consciousness painting technique.

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However, DVV himself doesn't attach himself to any style or movement, saying: 'Talking about different art-forms is like counting raindrops: there are rivers and streams and oceans, but it's all the same substance.' Perhaps, then, its best to let the images speak for themselves. And he is, by all accounts doing quite well at it financially, his work being pretty collectable, so, whatever he is, it obviously does the business.

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Q. Is any of his art on the net

A. There are loads of sites dedicated to Captain Beefheart's music and not a few featuring Don Van Vliet, the artist. Try this for images of his work

http://www.lowegallery.com/donvanvliet/index.html

and this one for books about both CB and DVV

http://www.bomp.com/bomp/BompbooksBeef.html

For links to other related sites go to http://classicrock.about.com/cs/captainbeefheart/index.htm

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See also the answerbank articles on stream of consciousness, Surrealism and Dal�

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For more on Arts & Literature click here

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By Simon Smith