Oh Captain, my Captain

Don Van Vleet (Aka Captian Beefheart) passed away yesterday, eerily the day before Tom sent me an email with the stark greeting:
"Tropical hotdog night!"
and nothing more.

Well met, I responded "Like two flamingo's in a fruit fight."

If you aren't familiar with Beefheart he was like the Dali Lama and Jim Henson all in one, but this wasn't an act. If you could reach inside a person and pull out the thing that makes him him (think Star Trek, not Ron Jeremy) you would realize that Beefheart was actually the essence of Beefheart with no Beefheart by-products (dog's love 'em!)

Aside from a fringe but loyal cult following Beefheart had a huge influence on muppet music. Beefhearts session guitarist was "Zoot Horn" Rollo, the name of the muppet sax player in Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem was named "Zoot" in his honor (Animal is actually Hensons friend Mick Fleetwood). Listen to any muppet song from Electric Mayhem and it could have been an alternate take from "Trout Mask Replica" or "Safe as Milk." True to form Beefheart once tried to play six saxophones all at once with a hose with terrifying results; and if that ain't muppet, I'll kiss your ass.

Beefheart was also a big influence on bands like the B52's and Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention. You could not walk away after listening to something like 1976's "Shiny Beast" without scheduling a psychologists visit immediately after..

Up until now my favorite quote possibly ever came from Beefheart, and it stated this inescapable truism:
"There are forty people in the world and five of them are hamburgers."

then I came across this today, which sums it up:
“Listen to the birds. That’s where all the music comes from. Birds know everything about how it should sound and where that sound should come from. And watch hummingbirds. They fly really fast, but a lot of times they aren’t going anywhere.”