sign in sign up
<<
Home , Bongo Fury, Captain Beefheart, Clear Spot, Gary Lucas, Jeff Cotton, John French (musician)

Captain Beefheart (1941–2010) and lives on” in the music of artists from to history of pop music, it’s Beefheart’; hearing Wyndham Lewis: A Relationship [the latter are due to re-release and his Magic Band live was David Stoker their 7 of Beefheart covers]’ – ‘He will always an epiphanic moment for him, as it was for be remembered for the visionary, cubistic avant many others – and ‘Everybody’s coloured or else you wouldn’t be able garde rock he made’ – ‘son coeur pur […] son included. Peel, already a big fan, described that to see them.’ heroes. (Don’s advice to his guitarists: ‘Keep a hat oeuvre touffue […] virtuose, rebelle, précurseur, moment in the Whiskey-A-Go-Go in Hollywood on. A hat is a pressure cooker.’) génie’ – ‘Rock’s one true maverick […] one of in 1966, Beefheart singing ‘with the voice of a [music’s] most unique, mischievous and singular desert Howlin’ Wolf, his musicians squalling Don Van Vliet, the poet, painter and composer For Don had been a big Lewis fan for voices’. away behind him, producing a disassembled best known as rock musician Captain Beefheart, more than 30 years. Why and how he was shall version of rhythm and , which although it died on 17 December last in a hospital in his be explained in due course; first it’s necessary to For a ‘cult musician’ (that is, non- owed something to the Rolling Stones and their native from complications arising from give some idea of the scope of the achievement of mainstream and rarely heard on the airwaves), like, conjured up visions which had nothing multiple sclerosis, a month short of his 70th this veritable latter-day Enemy: and if it’s thought Don’s passing released an extraordinary quantity of Chicago’s South Side nor London’s King’s birthday. that that’s a fanciful or un-earnedRadical claim Philosophy for – and quality – of tributes from many quarters, in Road to them.’ Groening described how at the print and on the internet, including not just his A little story to start with. In the late him, support can be drawn from one particular many Beefheart gigs he attended in the hard-core fans, fellow-musicians (who number 1950s, Don was for a time a vacuum-cleaner obituary – Ben Watson’s in he was ‘floored by the intricacies of the songs everyone from Johnny Rotten and Mark E. Smith salesman in California. Doing his rounds near (no. 166, March-April 2011 – David Wragg and the almost hive-mind precision of the band, to Kate Bush, The and The Palmdale, he knocked on the door of a stone broughtLewisletter this to Alan Munton’s attention, who then who nailed the rhythms and changes with ; Tom Waits and and The house and answered. Don forwarded it to me; it is discussed elsewhere in perfection of a classical chamber ensemble and Pixies to The Coral, Franz Ferdinand, recognised him from a photo he’d seen. He takes this ) – that’s actually entitled: ‘Captain yet still rocked out,’ and declared that the first Beefheart, Vorticist artist’. Watson begins his and P.J. Harvey), as well as music journalists and up laughedthe story: ‘I said, “I assure you Sir, this thing time he heard Don and the band live, in 1970, it Againstfilm-makers, "the poets,catatonia" artists and environmentalists. sucks” – I was holding this vacuum cleaner. And Blasttribute by declaring: ‘Beefheart’s art was Vorticist was ‘the greatest concert I’ve ever witnessed […] in the manner demanded by Lewis in the pages of The Observer he . He said “Bring everythingfunny you have Milton and it has ruined most of the rest of rock’n’roll in the car in this house, I’ll buy everything you , developing the passage in William Blake’s for me ever since.’ Tom Waits said that once you’d That weekend and have!” He was funny, was he ! I walked and where he inveighed against the banal heard Beefheart, it was difficult to wash him out P.S. devoted full-page coverage to the news (no-one talked with him many times after that. But that’s sense of time instilled by institutional Christianity of your clothes. ‘He was like the scout on a wagon in Hampstead now had an excuse to say they’d the last vacuum cleaner I ever sold’. ( 7, March– and exploited by the future-dreams of capital train. He was the one who goes ahead and shows never heard of him); nearly all the major rock April 1981) investment and speculation’ – and he develops the way.’ parallels between Lewis and Beefheart on the and avant-garde music magazines had his photo The Though I can’t say I was a close friend, basis of a shared fierce integrity and personal or name emblazoned on the covers of their ListenerBritish avant-garde composer Tim Souster, reviewing one of his in I was fortunate enough to meet and converse "Iconoclasticvision at odds American"with the market-place. next issue. All fulsomely honoured a man who, with Don several times over a period of thirteen whilst marginalised by the music establishment in 1973 – the same year Don wanted years (in addition to seeing him, and filming him, (scandalously, he was never inducted into the to have his medium-length hair cut because many times in concert), and even entered into Extracting some headlines and straplines from Rock and Roll Hall of Fame – though perhaps of the oil paint that was always getting in it; negotiations to mount a UK-touring exhibition the obituaries and tributes to Don gives some idea that’s not a surprise, given his hostility to ‘the big he already had his sights fixed on a London of his paintings – which sadly came to nothing – of the esteem in which he was held: ‘Iconoclastic mama heartbeat’ of rock – ‘I like opaque music exhibition (but had to wait until 1986) – said it whilst working at the Ikon Gallery, Birmingham American musician who enjoyed hero status that would bug most people. Music from the ‘re-inforcesClear my conviction Spot that Beefheart is the in the early 1980s. Because of this amicable among the 1970s avant garde’ – ‘Provocative, other side of the fence’ – and his crusade to create most original creator in today.’ That personal relationship, it feels forced to me to unpredictable - but hugely influential’ – ‘Rock ‘music to dematerialise the catatonia’), and being was – perhaps the best one think or write of him in an impersonal way as musician who was revered by the cognoscenti but too little known to the public (none of his music to recommend to anyone coming to Beefheart Van Vliet, or Captain Beefheart (the origin of failed to find commercial success’ – ‘Obsessive, charted in the USA), Thehad Simpsonsachieved god-like status Thefor the Spotlight first time, Kid and happily combined on the that stage-name is a matter of some controversy; reclusive: he was rock’s father of invention’ – in the eyes of many. No less a trinity than Matt single CD re-release with its 1972 predecessor, suffice it to say that when he abandoned it when ‘Captain Beefheart didn’t fit in anywhere–at Groening, creator of , (theClear album Spot I probably return his touring days ended, he confessed to feeling school, in rock and roll or even, in the final and Tom Waits contributed their eulogies in Los to most often; legendary Roxy Music guitarist fraudulent: he’d never even owned a boat...), but analysis, in the human race’ – ‘Oddball musician Angeles at one of several Beefheart Symposia Phil Manzanera said knocked him the latter soubriquet is appropriate in certain hailed as pop’s only genius’ – ‘It organised by the highly regarded virtuoso sideways: ‘Beefheart’s completely out on his own circumstances – in the context of his musical sounded like clatter. But it’s surrealistic brilliance’ guitarist Gary Lucas, Don’s manager-cum-band in every way. His singing, the chords he uses, the career – and will therefore be used when ‘Don’ – ‘He made some of the most influential music member on the final tours in the early 1980s and musicians in – there’s nothing can’t be: and I’m sure he would be happy to of all time–then became one of rock’s great on the last two Captain Beefheart and The Magic like it anywhere’). But it was four years before think that fellow dedicated Lewisians are the recluses’ – ‘Acclaimed musician and painter who Band albums – and the Lewisian who is the hero this that Beefheart’s by now consummate blend constituency for this tribute, contemplating the pioneered an avant-garde fusion of rock, blues of this piece, as shall be revealed. of rock and roll, Delta and electric blues, free affinities he had (and in few important ways and ’ – ‘Enigmatic blues genius rejected jazz, Stravinsky (who invited him to visit, though didn’t have) – a liking for impressive headgear John Peel famously said that ‘if there he never made it), and other modern classical fame and wealth’ – ‘[He] inspired devotion and has ever been such a thing as a genius in the 6apart • Summer – 2011 with one of his select band of artist- bewilderment in equal measure. But his legacy and non-Western influences, together withSummer part- 2011 • 7 Trout Mask Lick My Decals Off, Baby Replicaimprovised poems and studio banter made it on The successor to was bouts of paranoia. Neither was falsely modest; the sole competition) – an instance of the writer to vinyl in the majestic double-album, (1970), which some see Lewis’s description of his own work as ‘electric for whom significant claims have been made, and (1969). This ‘masterpiece of pure force as an advance even on the earlier masterpiece; with a mastered and vivid vitality’ would serve equally fierce denunciations issued, that few – and confrontational vision’, Langdon Winner it remained Don’s favourite, as it does some as a perfect epitaph for Don, who boasted: ‘I’m making their excuses and beating their retreat Trout Mask Replica of magazine hailed as ‘the most influential others, including Lucas. not even here – I just stick around for my friends’. in a furtive yet civilised manner, unless risking astounding and important work of art ever to was produced by Would this perhaps be as much as one needs to the demolition of their half-formed prejudices – appear on a .’ Groening and his Don’s friend from teenage years, , adduce to link them together – to see Don as the would like to admit not having read (Joyce, Eliot, friends considered it then, ‘and still consider [it] with whom he was initially very close; they fell major candidate for inheriting the mantle of the and to a lesser degree, Pound, are of course a ESPthe greatest avant-garde rock album of all time.’ out spectacularly in mid-career, commercial Enemy? (For so the man he was?) different matter). rivalry – Don being the jealous one – playing its Juxtaposing the one’s first-half-of-the- There are some interesting similarities part. Although Don was vicious in print about twentieth-century achievement with the other’s between the lives and circumstances of the The album was the result of more than eight him, Zappa (who died in 1994) put out his second-half achievement could be enough two men, but too much could be made of this. months’ rigorous, punishing rehearsal in a hand to help him on more than one occasion to show what forceful artistic personalities, Each was an only child; neither had children rented house in the Hollywood Hills, where in afterwards, their joint ‘’ tour in 1975 innovators and kindred spirits they were. People from their long marriages to devoted partners conditions of penury and privation, Don, with being a notable example of this. Now, apart from will make their own judgements; but one sees (Froanna, Jan); neither attended university, and cult leader-like control over his young, highly- Beefheart aficionados, for every eight or nine parallels emerge that it would be hard to draw the alternative training they had in art was of talented and malleable musicians (all re-named people who’ve heard of or are familiar with Frank with any other two painter-writers who led short duration, the prodigious gifts of each being by him: had been Bill Harkleroad; Zappa and , maybe only such opposite lives and worked in such different recognised at an early age (Don was sculpting Mark Boston became Rockette Morton; Antennae one or two have heard of Beefheart (such is my cultures (and in the shared disciplines of animals in a Los Angeles zoo and winning prizes Jimmy Semens, ; Victor Hayden, The Hotexperience) Rats – frequently owing to the latter’s painting and writing, their idioms could hardly before his teens) – they were largely self-taught Mascara Snake; and , Drumbo), tasked vocal on ‘Willie The Pimp’ on the best-selling be more different). These would be: visionary as thinkers, writers and artists. Lewis couldn’t, them with transcribing his often inscrutable album: and not always cottoning on to reach; technical innovation; permanent war on but didn’t need to, read music; for Don, this was ideas into complex and fiendishly difficult-to-play the fact that that’s the Cap’n’s voice. They are stupidity and the nostrums of the day; subversive noAdmirable disadvantage. talkers" compositions. Though awed and cowed by his similarly astonished to learn that was and absurdist humour, satire and verbal/non- ESP-like methods, for the most part they willingly Salierian early to Magic Beefheart’s Band member. Mozart verbal shock-tactics; openness to non-occidental " subjected themselves to the process – and had influences, particularly African and Chinese; They were certainly among the greatest to marvel at the results. (Bitterness at their not the re-invigoration of old or existing forms conversationalists of their respective times. being sufficiently credited eventually led this Zappa deserves to be well-loved and rememberedBongo with elemental force; uncompromising life- Cecil Gray said of Lewis: ‘I have known many incarnation of The Magic Band to abandon him.) Fury(Vaclav Havel is among his biggest fans, and, it’s long experimentation and a stance of constant admirable talkers in my time, but I can say Their boss, though possessed of a formidable gratifying to know, the Zappa/Beefheart challenge; contradictoriness (and augmenting without hesitation that Wyndham Lewis was the four-and-a-half octave range blues voice (he LP is his favouriteTrout rock Mask record) Replica – he thrilled Lewis’s ‘Contradict yourself. In order to live, most brilliant, witty and profound of them all.’ ‘I was a fine player – some would like and delighted me in concert and on vinyl, and the you must remain broken up,’ Whitman’s ‘Do I do not know anyone more profitable to talk to’, to draw a veil over his un-trained, impassioned artistic success of owes more contradict myself ? Very well, then I contradict said Eliot. John Thomas, who played keyboards ‘channelled’ shenai and soprano sax playing, but to him than Don or most commentators allow. myself. I am large, I contain multitudes,’ can be in The Magic Band in the late 1970s, testified as not me), lacked the ability to read music and But I feel his moment has well and truly passed; cited as fitting for Don, the ever-contradictory, many others did to Don’s ‘unstoppable fountain of relied on whistling, humming, dictaphoning and he was politically challenging in the and often gnomic, pun-addicted, verbal prankster); sheer creative energy’, and to his being the most drumming to communicate his intentions; years 1970s, outrageous and funny, mocking American and – each of them often painfully seeing and charismatic conversationalist he’d ever met. ‘He later he had sufficient mastery on the keyboard WASP culture and equally – but it all hearing more than most – the Blakean project to could talk endlessly about nothing and made you to use that to communicate with his musicians. turned a bit repetitive and self-referential and be true to felt life, to keep cleansing the Doors of feel you were conversing with the gods. It was This lack of conventional professional expertise ever more rococo; the weasels of the zeitgeist Perception and restore a sense of strangeness and amazing. He would call my house to talk to me detracted not one iota from his achievement. All have ripped his flesh; ultimately, he is Salieri to wonder to the world. and if I wasn’t at home, he would get my wife on who worked with Don marvelled at the exactitude Beefheart’s Mozart. Each also had the ability to clear a room. the phone and I swear he could keep her engaged and perfection ofTrout every Mask composition. Replica Henry Cow’s for an hour, just in the course of discovering I Not having his genius sufficiently Poet and broadcaster Ian McMillan approvedTrout of guitarist noted how ‘Dalí’s Car’, an wasn’t at home and wasn’t around. I saw him call recognised and struggling financially – whether Maskthis function Replica for the music of Beefheart when he instrumental on , was ‘a brief, operators to make a long-distance call. These through alienating real or potential allies, chose the trackDesert ‘Moonlight Island On Discs Vermont’ off formal, organised piece, completely outside the are people who are trained just to get on with terms of what two in rock usually means. commercial naivety, intransigence, artistic as one of his eight record choices on their work and he could keep Captainthem on Beefheart the phone It’s discordant, angular, weirdly constructed integrity, pride, cocked-up contracts or sheer BBC Radio 4’s last year. (Rarely bad luck – was an affliction for Lewis as well as can Kirsty Lang, or before her, Sue Lawley, have for fifteen minutes before the call was even put and totally wonderful.’ Don’s – as one of his through.’ (From Mike Barnes, guitarists put it – savant-like ability to compose for Don Van Vliet, both of them larger-than-life, submitted their audience to so brief an extract of expansive and generous individuals: but also a guest’s record.) Mention of Lewis’s name most (2000)). Drummer John French remembered had astounding results. Perhaps this was part and seeing him ‘walk someone out to their car at 9 parcel of his extreme hypersensitivity to sound. people you wouldn’t want to get on the wrong likely had, and still has, the same effect in English side of, with reputations for being difficult and departments and common rooms the length and o’clock at night and I’d get up the next day and 8 • Summer 2011 obsessive, unreliable, jealous and subject to breadth of academia (John Cowper Powys being he’d still be standing out there talking’. Summer 2011 • 9 Like Lewis, Don was no great lover of it shows; Stravinsky-inflected work by George I was impressed yet again by his the human race. Both had no illusions about the Antheil impressed Lewis: ‘As I don’t know the first remembering part of a previous conversation violence that lay at the root of human personality. word in musical composition I can say nothing we’d had almost word for word. I wish now that ‘Man’s lived a million years ’n still he kills’ – as a about Antheil’s work, except that what he has instead of turning again to the subject of Lord line from ‘Steal Softly Thru Snow’ has it. When played to me I haveLewisletter got considerable pleasure Buckley, the cabaret artist and proto-hipster, I asked at his home in the Mohave desert in 1982 from.’ (See Alan Munton’s ‘Music Ho! – Lewis and had engaged him in conversation about Lewis. what aspect of the future most frightened him, Music Criticism’, 2, March 1975.) (His old friend had played at he replied: ‘The fact that man seems intent on A collection of Don’s writings is long Buckley’s funeral in 1960.) getting rid of nature. You see pine trees that overdue. Music apart, as lyricist and poet he The critics were mostly impressed by his have been shaved until there’s nothing left but is held in the highest regard by many of his painting. ‘Psychedelic ’ was a term (l to r) Don Van Vliet, Dagmar Krause, Jan Van Vliet and Eric Feldman outside a little poodle tail on top and you just know that the Manchester City Art Gallery: Wyndham Lewis exhibition, October 1980 American peers. Novelist Bradford Morrow,Blast bandied about. There have been sceptics, but in a (Gary Lucas) somebody had an awfully bad Christmas’. Don known to Lewisians as Lewis’s bibliographer useful overview of rock artists who have turned was passionate about the environment and loved and editorConjunctions of the Black Sparrow re-issue of , their hand to oil and canvas, Matthew Collings

animals – which feature in most of his paintings published several of Don’s poems in his influential cast his expert eye on a dozen of them and and friends, taken by his guitarist-manager (but not in a cuddly way) – most especially magazine in the 1980s, as well as pronounced: ‘Don Van Vliet’s in a league of his whales and dolphins. He actively supported Gary Lucas, at the Manchester Lewis exhibition cover artwork. He spoke at the April New York own. HeQ could easily compete with Turner Prize- in 1980! (Lucas’s playing of the intricate environmental causes and donated proceeds from Beefheart symposium organised by Gary Lucas. type art. In fact, he’d easily win because he’s so instrumental ‘Flavor Bud Living’ is spoken of many concerts to organizations such as the World good’ ( , February 2002). Wildlife Fund. ‘A veryTrout sophisticated Mask Replica lyricist’, was Jerzy with awe by musicians; I’d witnessed the miracle Kosinski’s verdict when LucasPoetry showed Review him the There’s no trace of Lewis’s influence in in Birmingham.) The text had been revised and Nor – again like Lewis – was Don a people- lyric sheet to at Yale. In 1973, Don’s art. The drawings have always reminded expanded, and this appeared: ‘On their [1980] UK pleaser. When the audience called for more at the Eric Mottram, then editor of , told me of Kenneth Patchen’s; the paintings clearly tour, The Magic Band drove from show to show in end of his 1972 Albert Hall concert, he responded me of his admiration for Don’s lyrics – and when owe a great deal to , whom he rated a van that Jan nicknamed the Goldfish Bowl. The by whistling the Andy Williams tune of that name. at Kent State University he was a big supporter highly, Motherwell and de Kooning, Bacon and tedium was relieved and the mood of the group – Pleasing the crowd was the last thing on his mind. of the heavily Beefheart-influenced band . sundry German expressionists. Affinities with especially Van Vliet himself – would be elevated After he’d given up touring, he reflected: ‘[I]t was Snooty He had written in 1971 (though this was not Schnabel and his other friend and mentor, A.R. by some story telling. ‘At times he had me reading only a few people I played to anyway. I mean, all Baronet published until 1975): ‘Since Dylan and the West Penck, are evident; and he venerated van Gogh. from this book by Wyndham Lewis called the time that I was playing, there were only a few Coast rock groups of the Sixties, there has been Don had many successful exhibitions in the USA , which he loved,’ Lucas says. ‘It would people – small pockets of people really listening’. little development in this field [‘The Poetry of and Europe with the Michael Werner Gallery, send him into raptures, saying: “Old Snooty. Oh, It may be personal choice rather than the Rock’] apart from the extraordinary lyrics of Lewisgathering and plaudits Beefheart and respectable sales. man that’s so hip!” He’d be quoting from the book inner VorticistTrout savage Mask Replicasurfacing, but nothing acts Captain Beefheart, which make a goodSphere deal of our and chuckling backstage’. as a pick-me-up and antidote to despondency Historypoetry seemof Literature tame and in dull’.the English (‘Sixties Language, American The American text has now been as well as for Iain Sinclair, volumePoetry, Poetics9: American & Poetic Literature Movements’, since 1900 So how did he get to know about Lewis ? incorporated into the new English edition, but the as he confessed on Radio 4 several years ago. This puzzled me for a long time. I was photos have gone.Mojo After Don’s death, Gary Lucas Another novelist well-versed in LewisTimes – Literary spotted , ed. aware of his admiration, indeedNew Musicalalignment, Express with mentioned this episode again in a tribute written atSupplement the Centenary Conference at Tate Britain in BeefheartMarcus Cunliffe, the artist London 1975, p. 301.) Lewis from at least the time of his interview by Barnes for (March 2011). Thinking that 1982 – is Adam Mars-Jones. The with Christine McKenna in Lucas might be the manThe withRevenge the answers,for Love I saw has not only Beefhearthosted his intelligent in 1982 (18 September) when she asked on a Facebook page that one of his half-dozen and sympathetic reviewing of Lewis but also his Don would carry a sketchbook with him him: ‘In past conversations you’ve mentioned favourite books was . There review of Mike Barnes’s biography (24 everywhere. He would draw on tour buses, numerous people you admire: Wyndham was an e-mail address for Gary; that did it. I November, 2000). He demonstrated an intimate restaurants, bars – and paint whenever he could. Lewis, Shakespeare, Lenny Bruce, Franz Kline, carefully phrased a letter and asked as many knowledge of the musician’s oeuvre. It would be He had three one-man exhibitions in the UK: at Stravinsky. Is there a common quality those questions as I felt it polite to. Within twenty-four good to know which other Lewisians or Lewis- the Bluecoat Gallery, Liverpool, 1972 (his first people share?’ To which he replied: ‘Yeah, they’re hours he replied at some length, despite the fact respecters, novelists or otherwise, share this ever); at the Waddington Galleries, Cork Street, London, in 1986; and finally ‘Don Van Vliet – all real sensitive and honest. They have no choice he was working and recording in Havana. All was enthusiasm. Does A.S. Byatt bop to ‘Dropout Stand Up To Be Discontinued’, his biggest, at other than to do what they do and don’t try to fool then revealed: Boogie’? Brighton Museum & Art Gallery in 1994. The around about it. They just do it. And they suffered Captain Don became a fan when I first introduced We can’t know what Lewis would have last time I was to meet him was at the private for it.’ Beefheart him to Lewis’ work late ’78 I believe, so thought of Captain Beefheart; paradoxically, view at Waddington. His mentor In 2000, Mike Barnes’s biography, much so that we made a point to stop he might have had more time for him as a accompanied him. Approaching him with a , appeared. It was no help; there was no with the entire band at the Manchester musician than for Don Van Vliet the poet-lyricist turned-on micro-cassette recorder, I asked if I mention of Lewis in it. Then, four years later, the City Art Gallery to see Lewis’ exhibition and painter whose surrealist-expressionist might recordassumptious our discussion. Fixing me with a American edition was published – I came across when we played Manchester on tour in outpourings are unlikely to have been his cup of stern gaze,OED but with the hint of a twinkle, he said: a remaindered copy by chance in London a year Nov ’80. [If one Googles ‘ Wyndham Lewis tea. Don learned much from early Stravinsky, and ‘That’s very of you!’ Why isn’t that 10 • Summer 2011 word in ? later. And there were the photos of Beefheart and Captain Beefheart’, a touchingSummer and 2011 • 11

revealing account is available of a young Following the publication of , Lewis wrote to musician’s visit to the exhibition and his Lane from 1 rue St Sulpice, : ‘Don’t forget the chance encounter with Don – of whom ng he’d never heard – and his entourage.] I 4 would say he favored the writing over the 0. Dinner 7/6 exclusive of wine.’ art and was overall impressed by Lewis’ in case Lane thought there was such a thing rebellious Enemy persona in opposition ree lunch!)

to the prevailing accepted modern art of Two other photocopied documents shed the time just as Don’s music was always on the genesis of Lewis’s first novel , afforded outsider status (if that) in the giv ’s music canon. ll I became a fanatical fan myself ham around 1975 (he wasn’t even mentioned Don Van Vliet in front of Wyndham Lewis’s Portrait of the Artist as the Painter nd Raphael (1921) in Manchester City Art Gallery: Wyndham Lewis exhibition, at Yale when I was there studying English October 1980 (Gary Lucas) ersity e literature in the early ’70s; a friend turned ohn s me on to him and I found a copy of ‘Soldier of Humor’ anthology in Hong Kong in 1975 916: Gary went on to say that he acquired many first access in the UK to a range of letters, papers and and became hooked) and have amassed documents relating to Lane and the Bodley Head. or a collection of first editions of most of his editions from Bradford Morrow. It wasEnemy he who ffe books and magazines, also his ‘Timon of Newsintroduced Morrow to Don. Knowing that Mark The archive was donated to the university d, Athens’ portfolio [this can be seen on the E. Smith was a big Lewis admirer (see by Michael Rhodes and was created as a result was wall behind Gary in his NYC apartment in 23, Winter 1986) as well as a Beefheart of his r ual a YouTube clip I can forward to anyone fan,Melody I wondered Maker if he’d come to Lewis through e and eness’ in the book. The reviews who’s interested], ‘30 Personalities and a Beefheart. Gary thought this was possible, citing ude suggest that there were also financial issues to be Self-Portrait,’ and two original drawings a article circa 1980; he afterwards considered. of Lewis that appear in Walter Michel’s sent me a copy. He concluded: ‘To the best of my e knowledge, neither Don nor Jan owned any Lewis h The first report is unequivocal: book, one titled ‘ Sentinels ‘ [Michel 667] Record Collector and another whose name I forget at this originals’. I have read this MS very slowly owing to moment which dates from 1937 and is Talking to magazine e, the difficulty of discerning any meaning a beautiful pen and ink and watercolour two years ago, Gary Lucas remembered Don as well composition – I acquired these through the Van Vliet as ‘a sculptor and a scoutmaster, a as a small selection of correspondence from Jacob y Anthony d’Offay gallery in 1985 (although bully, a visionary and an intimidator. He took Epstein, Ezra Pound and Wyndham Lewis. hink I I am hardly a ‘wealthy rock star’! [I had the techniques of the artistic world to create a The Lewis material comprises copies of 16 have read enough of it to write a report on 8it used this phrase to characterise Lewis new way of writing and composing it, without letters and cards that he wrote to Lane between and God forbid that I shall have to finish it. collectors David Bowie and .] notating it down. Who would have thought to do 1914 a the The reader attacks the novel as being pro- I sent Don quite a few Lewis music as sculpture? He really saw a new way of ere German: ‘[T]he author though affecting to books over the years we worked together looking at the world. He’s one of the greats of all e een including the UK Penguin edition of Apes time, an American master, a genius up there with portant of God; not sure if he actually read it , Mark Twain, Walt Whitman or Allen r ch himself though to tell you theMojo truth, he Ginsberg’. unch’. preferred me to read him passages, as Gary has recently re-joined The Wyndham states ater I mentionedSting inLike that a Beearticle [ ; Don Lewis Society. He has solved the mystery of how claimed to have read only one book in Don Van Vliet became enamoured of Lewis, and f his life, by Mohammed deserves all Lewisians’ thanks for communicating e 2 Ali – ‘my favourite percussionist’; wife Jan this and for being the catalyst for Don’s re transparent. This helped sales.’ are among others would regularly read to him engagement with Lewis. How many people (Mark In another from 18 Fitzroy Square, also undated, ch ]. E. Smith included?) have started seriously looking Lewis writes: e at and reading Lewis as a result of his and Don’s I can assure you that there is nothing in n’. Yes, I was reading from a first ent edition of Snooty Baronet, on that tour enthusiasm? the matter of Blast to which you can take It is, (sans book jacket) – Don loved this book in short, an aimless, barbarian production and esp. the character of Humph. e they eople, the above all it is dull and boring in the extreme’. 12 • Summer 2011 Summer 2011 • 13