Captain Beefheart at The Magic Room

A great show last night at The Magic Room in Brighton. Gary Lucas, guitarist extraordinaire, gave a "symposium" on the amazing Captain Beefheart. As guitarist with Beefheart's last--and great--incarnation of the Magic Band, Lucas had his subject down cold. And he brought along an amazing array of rare concert footage, unreleased tracks, unpublished poetry, Beefheart artworks (Beef-Art?) and more. Perhaps best of all, he performed some of the pieces he used to play while in the band. One of the films even featured him doing Flavor Bud Living, which was so often on my turntable during college that I think I wore the grooves off the record completely. Pure genius and, if this were a just world, it would be on every radio in every home at least once a week from now till the end of time. Hell, it should be on alarm clocks around the land, waking us each day to the flavorful living budding on our tasty buds each morning. No, wait, even better, it should be imprinted in our brains like those microchips in Philip K. Dick (not in him, actually, his work. Though I wouldn't be surprised if PKD actually had a chip of his own a bit north of his shoulder. And I doubt he would have been either.) In any case, a great show that proved how great both Lucas and Beefheart were and are. If Lucas ever comes to your town, be sure to go see him. His own career has been an amazing achievement, and I can't recommend his work enough. Ok? Nuff said.

Fug that!

Just in time for Labor Day, I'm posting a link to an interview I did in honor of "ol time Jewish anarchist" and Fug, Tuli Kupferberg. The radio round-table was hosted by Abe Velez of WBAI's "Beyond the Pale" and featured musician/musical-historian Jeffrey Lewis. I join the interview about half-way through, so don't panic if you don't hear me right away.

http://www.beyondthepale.org/episode/2010/08/29

btw, my apologies to everyone in Atlanta who wrote wondering why I wasn't at my reading today at the Decatur Book Festival. Unfortunately, I had to cancel a few days ago due to work-related commitments. But I hope to be there next year, so stay tuned for further updates.