- published: 25 Jun 2007
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- author: martyjame
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Aki Kaurismäki
Aki Olavi Kaurismäki (Finnish pronunciation: [ˈɑki ˈkɑurismæki] (
listen); born 4 April 1957, Orimattila, Finland) is a Finnish screenwriter and film director.
After studying Media Studies at the University of Tampere, Aki Kaurismäki started his career as a co-director in the films of his elder brother Mika Kaurismäki. His debut as an independent director was Crime and Punishment (1983), Dostoyevsky's famous crime story set in modern-day Helsinki. He gained worldwide notice with his movie Leningrad Cowboys Go America.
His style has been influenced by the French directors Jean-Pierre Melville and Robert Bresson, as he relies on low-key acting and simple cinematic storytelling to get his message(s) across. Critics have also seen an influence from Rainer Werner Fassbinder but Kaurismäki - a keen film buff himself - has said that he somehow never got around to seeing any Fassbinder movies until quite recently. His movies have a unique downplayed humorous side that can also be seen in the films of Jim Jarmusch, who has a cameo in Kaurismäki's film Leningrad Cowboys Go America. Jarmusch also used frequent Kaurismäki actors in his film Night on Earth, a part of which takes place in Helsinki, Finland.
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April Ludgate
April Ludgate-Dwyer (formerly April Roberta Ludgate) is a fictional character in the NBC comedy Parks and Recreation. She is an apathetic college student employed by the Pawnee Department of Parks and Recreation as Ron Swanson's assistant. She is married to Andy Dwyer. She is portrayed by Aubrey Plaza. The character has gained popularity for her deadpan-style comedy and witty one-liners.
April Ludgate is a college student who starts out working as an intern in the Pawnee parks and recreation department. April is extremely uninterested in the job, regularly napping at her desk and texting constantly, and acts very dry and sarcastic around her co-workers. She was assigned the internship because she overslept on intern sign-up date, which she blamed on her sister Natalie for not waking her up. April is of mixed English and Puerto Rican descent, and she speaks and understands Spanish fairly well as a result. April claims of her Puerto Rican heritage, "That's why I'm so lively and colorful."
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Aubrey Plaza
Aubrey Christina Plaza (born June 26, 1984) is an American actress and comedian who has gained popularity through her deadpan-style comedy, and currently co-stars in Parks and Recreation as April Ludgate.
Plaza was born in Wilmington, Delaware, the daughter of Bernadette, an attorney, and David Plaza, a financial advisor. She has two younger sisters, Renee and Natalie, the latter of whom she uses as inspiration for her teenage character April Ludgate on Parks and Recreation.
Plaza was named after the song "Aubrey" by Bread. Her father is Puerto Rican and her mother is of Irish and English descent. Plaza has stated: "I was like the only diverse kid in my high school, and I'm half-Puerto Rican. But yeah, I have a huge family and tons of cousins in Puerto Rico." She participated in productions with the Wilmington Drama League.
Plaza graduated from Ursuline Academy in 2002, and New York University's Tisch School of the Arts in 2006. While at NYU in 2004, Plaza suffered a stroke that caused temporary paralysis and expressive aphasia, but she has fully recovered.
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Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II (
i/bəˈrɑːk huːˈseɪn oʊˈbɑːmə/; born August 4, 1961) is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. In January 2005, Obama was sworn in as a U.S. Senator in the state of Illinois. He would hold this office until November 2008, when he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.
Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, Obama is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where he was the president of the Harvard Law Review. He was a community organizer in Chicago before earning his law degree. He worked as a civil rights attorney in Chicago and taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004. He served three terms representing the 13th District in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004.
Following an unsuccessful bid against the Democratic incumbent for a seat in the United States House of Representatives in 2000, Obama ran for the United States Senate in 2004. Several events brought him to national attention during the campaign, including his victory in the March 2004 Illinois Democratic primary for the Senate election and his keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in July 2004. He won election to the U.S. Senate in Illinois in November 2004. His presidential campaign began in February 2007, and after a close campaign in the 2008 Democratic Party presidential primaries against Hillary Rodham Clinton, he won his party's nomination. In the 2008 presidential election, he defeated Republican nominee John McCain, and was inaugurated as president on January 20, 2009. Nine months later, Obama was named the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate. In April 2011, he announced that he would be running for re-election in 2012.
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Bill Murray
William James "Bill" Murray (born September 21, 1950) is an American actor, comedian and golfer. He first gained national exposure on Saturday Night Live in which he earned an Emmy Award and later went on to star in a number of critically and commercially successful comedic films, including Caddyshack (1980), Ghostbusters (1984), and Groundhog Day (1993). Murray gained additional critical acclaim later in his career, starring in Lost in Translation (2003), that earned him an Academy Award for Best Actor nomination, and a series of films directed by Wes Anderson, including Rushmore (1998), The Royal Tenenbaums (2001), The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004) and Moonrise Kingdom (2012).
Murray was born and raised in Wilmette, Illinois, a northern suburb of Chicago, the son of Lucille (née Collins), a mail room clerk, and Edward Joseph Murray II, a lumber salesman. Murray's father died in 1967 from complications of diabetes when Bill was 17 years old. Murray, along with his eight siblings, was raised in an Irish American family. Three of his siblings are actors: John Murray, Joel Murray and Brian Doyle-Murray. A sister, Nancy, is an Adrian Dominican nun in Michigan, who has traveled the United States in a one-woman programme, portraying St. Catherine of Siena.
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Buster Keaton
Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton (October 4, 1895 – February 1, 1966) was an American comic actor, filmmaker, producer and writer. He was best known for his silent films, in which his trademark was physical comedy with a consistently stoic, deadpan expression, earning him the nickname "The Great Stone Face".
Buster Keaton (his lifelong stage name) was recognized as the seventh-greatest director of all time by Entertainment Weekly. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Keaton the 21st-greatest male star of all time. Critic Roger Ebert wrote of Keaton's "extraordinary period from 1920 to 1929, [when] he worked without interruption on a series of films that make him, arguably, the greatest actor-director in the history of the movies."
Orson Welles stated that Keaton's The General is "the greatest comedy ever made, the greatest Civil War film ever made, and perhaps the greatest film ever made."
A 2002 worldwide poll by Sight & Sound ranked Keaton's The General as the 15th best film of all time. Three other Keaton films received votes in the magazine's survey: Our Hospitality, Sherlock, Jr., and The Navigator.
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Charlie Sheen
Carlos Irwin Estevez (born September 3, 1965), better known by his stage name Charlie Sheen, is an American film and television actor. He is the youngest son of actor Martin Sheen.
His character roles in films have included Chris Taylor in the 1986 Vietnam War drama Platoon, Jake Kesey in the 1986 film The Wraith, and Bud Fox in the 1987 film Wall Street. His career has also included more comedic films such as Major League, the Hot Shots! films, and Scary Movie 3 and Scary Movie 4. On television, Sheen is known for his roles on two sitcoms: as Charlie Crawford on Spin City and as Charlie Harper on Two and a Half Men. In 2010, Sheen was the highest paid actor on television, earning US$1.8 million per episode of Two and a Half Men.
Sheen's personal life has also made headlines, including reports about alcohol and drug abuse and marital problems as well as allegations of domestic violence. He was fired from his role on Two and a Half Men by CBS and Warner Bros. on March 7, 2011. Sheen subsequently announced a nationwide tour.
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David Letterman
David Michael Letterman (born April 12, 1947) is an American television host and comedian. He hosts the late night television talk show, Late Show with David Letterman, broadcast on CBS. Letterman has been a fixture on late night television since the 1982 debut of Late Night with David Letterman on NBC. Letterman recently surpassed friend and mentor Johnny Carson for having the longest late-night hosting career in the United States of America.
Letterman is also a television and film producer. His company Worldwide Pants produces his show as well as its network follow-up The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. Worldwide Pants has also produced several prime-time comedies, the most successful of which was Everybody Loves Raymond, currently in syndication.
In 1996, David Letterman was ranked #45 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time.
Letterman was born in Indianapolis, Indiana. His father, Harry Joseph Letterman (April 1915 – February 1973), was a florist of British descent; his mother Dorothy Letterman (née Hofert, now Dorothy Mengering), a Presbyterian church secretary of German descent, is an occasional figure on the show, usually at holidays and birthdays.
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Egghead
In the slang of the United States, egghead is an anti-intellectual epithet, directed at people considered too out-of-touch with ordinary people and too lacking in realism, common sense, virility, etc. on account of their intellectual interests. A similar, though not necessarily pejorative, British term is boffin. The term egghead reached its peak currency during the 1950s, when vice-presidential candidate Richard Nixon used it against Democratic Presidential nominee Adlai Stevenson. It was used by Clinton advisor Paul Begala in the 2008 presidential campaign to describe Senator Barack Obama's supporters when he said, "Obama can't win with just the eggheads and African-Americans." The term has largely been replaced by other anti-intellectual epithets such as elitist (political), and geek or nerd (social).
In his Pulitzer Prize-winning historical essay on American anti-intellectualism, historian Richard Hofstadter wrote: "During the campaign of 1952, the country seemed to be in need of some term to express that disdain for intellectuals which had by then become a self-conscious motif in American politics. The word egghead was originally used without invidious associations, but quickly assumed them, and acquired a much sharper tone than the traditional highbrow. Shortly after the campaign was over, Louis Bromfield, a popular novelist of right-wing political persuasion, suggested that the word might someday find its way into dictionaries as follows:
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Eric Forman
Eric Forman (born August 30, 1959) is a fictional character and the male lead on the Fox Network's That '70s Show between seasons one through seven. Portrayed by Topher Grace, Eric is based on the adolescence of show creator Mark Brazill. Most of the show takes place at the Formans' home, particularly in the basement, where he and his five friends hang out. He has a doting mother with impending separation anxiety and menopause (Kitty Forman), a crabby, strict, Korean War military veteran father (Red Forman), a promiscuous older sister (Laurie Forman), and his best friend who later becomes his foster brother (Steven Hyde). He was the program's main protagonist until he was written out due to Grace's departure from the series. However, despite Eric's absence, he is mentioned in every episode of Season 8. He makes a brief cameo appearance in the final episode titled "That '70s Finale".
A nice guy at heart, Eric is generally geeky, physically weak, and somewhat clumsy. He is nonathletic and shows little interest in sports. He is a smart-aleck teenager with a lightning-fast wit and a sarcastic and deadpan sense of humor. He also lights "incenses" with his friends in his basement. Eric is also known to "screw" things up a lot, which is parodized throughout the series.
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Graham Chapman
Graham Arthur Chapman (8 January 1941 – 4 October 1989) was an English comedian, physician, writer, actor and one of the six members of the Monty Python comedy troupe.
Chapman was born at the Stoneygate Nursing Home, Stoneygate, Leicester. He was educated at Melton Mowbray Grammar School and studied medicine at St Bartholomew's Medical College [1] and later at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He was also an avid fan of radio comedy from an early age, becoming especially drawn to that of The Goon Show. In the introduction to Chapman's (2005/2006) posthumous anthology, Jim Yoakum notes that "the radio shows didn't necessarily make him laugh. Only a select few got chuckles from young Chapman including Frankie Howerd, the team of Jimmy Jewel and Ben Warriss, It's That Man Again, Educating Archie, Take It From Here and Much-Binding-in-the-Marsh. 'I especially liked Robert Moreton, although no one else seemed to like him very much. He would do things like tell jokes the wrong way around and switch punch lines. He was obviously a very good comedian and was ahead of his time. The appearance of incompetence was wonderful. He was one of my heroes.' But the show that truly astounded Graham, and was a major influence on his comedy was The Goon Show" (p.xvii). Chapman states "from about the age of seven or eight I used to be an avid listener of a radio programme called The Goon Show. In fact, at that stage I wanted to be a Goon" (p. 23).
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Heather Morris
Heather Elizabeth Morris (born February 1, 1987) is an American actress, dancer, and singer, known for her role as the cheerleader Brittany S. Pierce in the musical comedy series Glee.
She began dancing when she was one. Morris competed at a young age in a variety of styles including jazz, tap, and contemporary. Morris's father passed away of cancer when she was 14 years old. "It's something that is hard for me, because I'm sad about it, but I don't dwell on it," she said during an interview workshop with students in December 2009. "I know he's in a better place, instead of suffering." After graduating from Desert Mountain High School, Morris decided to enroll in a local university but realized she was in the wrong place and moved to L.A. instead at age 19.
Morris' first significant appearance was in 2006 on So You Think You Can Dance Season 2 where she made the "green mile" or "Vegas Week" but failed to make the final 20 by a vote of 3-2.
Not discouraged, Morris moved to Los Angeles and actively pursued a career in dancing and was trained in jazz dance. Her big break came in 2007 via Beyoncé. Morris was one of Beyoncé's backup dancers on The Beyoncé Experience world tour and, following that, worked again with Beyoncé on a mini "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" promotional tour that included 2008 performances on the American Music Awards,Saturday Night Live,The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Today, and MTV's Total Request Live Finale. She also danced backup for Beyoncé and Tina Turner at the 50th Grammy Awards in 2008. She later appeared in a small role in the movie Fired Up, where she met choreographer Zach Woodlee. Following that film, Woodlee brought Morris in to dance on other shows he was choreographing, including episodes of Eli Stone and Swingtown, the movie Bedtime Stories, and eventually Glee.
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Jack Benny
Jack Benny (born Benjamin Kubelsky, February 14, 1894 – December 26, 1974) was an American comedian, vaudevillian, radio, television, and film actor, and also a notable violinist. Widely recognized as one of the leading American entertainers of the 20th century, Benny played the role of the comic penny-pinching miser, insisting on remaining 39 years old on stage despite his actual age, and often playing the violin badly.
Benny was known for his comic timing and his ability to get laughs with either a pregnant pause or a single expression, such as his signature exasperated "Well!" His radio and television programs, tremendously popular from the 1930s to the 1960s, were a foundational influence on the situation comedy genre. Dean Martin, on the celebrity roast for Johnny Carson in November 1973, introduced Benny as "the Satchel Paige of the world of comedy".
Benny was born Benjamin Kubelsky on February 14, 1894, in Chicago, Illinois, and grew up in neighboring Waukegan, Illinois. He was the son of Meyer Kubelsky and Emma Sachs Kubelsky. Meyer was a Jewish saloon owner, later to become a haberdasher, who had emigrated to America from Poland. Emma had emigrated from Lithuania. Benny began studying the violin, an instrument that would become his trademark, when he was just six, with his parents' hopes that he would be a great classical violinist. He loved the violin, but hated practice. By age 14, he was playing in local dance bands as well as in his high school orchestra. Benny was a dreamer and a poor student and he was expelled from high school. He did equally badly in business school and at his father's trade. At age 17, he began playing the instrument in local vaudeville theaters for $7.50 a week. He was joined by Ned Miller, a young composer and singer, on the vaudeville circuit. They became life-long friends and Miller eventually joined the cast of The Jack Benny Program in the 1960s.
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Jane Curtin
Jane Therese Curtin (born September 6, 1947) is an American actress and comedienne. She is sometimes referred to as "Queen of the Deadpan".
First coming to prominence as an original cast member on the hit TV comedy series Saturday Night Live in 1975, she went on to win back-to-back Emmy Awards for Best Lead Actress in a Comedy Series on the 1980s sitcom Kate & Allie portraying the role of Allison "Allie" Lowell. Curtin later starred in the hit series 3rd Rock from the Sun (1996–2001), playing the role of Dr. Mary Albright.
Curtin has also appeared in many movie roles, including Charlene in the The Librarian series of movies (2004–2008). She also reprised one of her Saturday Night Live characters, Prymaat (Clorhone) Conehead, in the 1993 film The Coneheads.
Curtin was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the daughter of Mary Constance (née Farrell) and John Joseph Curtin, who owned an insurance agency. She was raised Roman Catholic. Curtin is a cousin of actress and writer Valerie Curtin.
Curtin holds an associate degree from Elizabeth Seton Junior College in New York City. Curtin lives in Connecticut with her husband, Patrick Francis Lynch, the television producer. The couple have one daughter, Tess Curtin Lynch. She has served as a U.S. Committee National Ambassador for UNICEF. In 1968, Curtin decided to pursue comedy as a career and dropped out of college. She joined a comedy group, "The Proposition", and performed with them until 1972. She starred in Pretzels, an off-Broadway play written by Curtin and Fred Grandy, in 1974.
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John Derbyshire
John Derbyshire (born June 3, 1945) is a British-American writer, journalist and commentator. He formerly wrote a column in National Review. He has also written for the New English Review. These columns cover a broad range of political-cultural topics, including immigration, China, history, mathematics, and race. Derbyshire's 1996 novel, Seeing Calvin Coolidge in a Dream, was a New York Times "Notable Book of the Year". His 2004 non-fiction book, Prime Obsession, won the Mathematical Association of America's inaugural Euler Book Prize. A new political book, We Are Doomed: Reclaiming Conservative Pessimism, was released in September 2009.
Derbyshire attended the Northampton School for Boys and graduated from University College London, where he studied mathematics. Before turning to writing full-time, he worked on Wall Street as a computer programmer.
Derbyshire has differed from his fellow writers at National Review on many subjects. For example, Derbyshire supported Michael Schiavo's position in the Terri Schiavo case, ridiculed George W. Bush's "itty-bitty tax cut, paid for by dumping a slew of federal debt on your children and grandchildren", has derided Bush in general for being too sure of his religious convictions and for his "rich-kid-ness", dismisses small-government conservatism as unlikely to ever take hold (although he is not unsympathetic to it), has called for immediate U.S. withdrawal from Iraq (but favored the invasion), opposes market reforms or any other changes in Social Security, is pro-choice on abortion, supports euthanasia in a fairly wide range of circumstances, and has suggested that he might (in a time of international crisis) vote for Hillary Clinton as president.
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Johnny Carson
John William "Johnny" Carson (October 23, 1925 – January 23, 2005) was an American television host and comedian, known for thirty years as host of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1962–1992). Carson received six Emmy Awards, the Governor Award, and a 1985 Peabody Award. He was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame in 1987. Johnny Carson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1992 and received a Kennedy Center Honor in 1993.
Although his show was already successful by the end of the 1960s, during the 1970s Carson became an American icon and remained so until his retirement in 1992. He adopted a casual, conversational approach with extensive interaction with guests, an approach pioneered by Arthur Godfrey and previous Tonight Show hosts Steve Allen and Jack Paar. Late night hosts David Letterman, Jay Leno, Conan O'Brien, Craig Ferguson, and Jimmy Fallon have all cited Carson's influence on their late-night talk shows, which resemble his in format and tone.
Carson was born in Corning, Iowa, in the year 1925, to Homer Lloyd "Kit" Carson, a power company manager, and Ruth Hook Carson, who was of Irish descent. He grew up in the nearby towns of Avoca, Clarinda, and Red Oak in southwest Iowa before moving to Norfolk, Nebraska, at the age of eight. At the age of twelve, Carson found a book on magic at a friend's house and immediately purchased a mail-order magician's kit. He debuted as "The Great Carsoni" at fourteen and was paid $3; many other performances at local picnics and country fairs followed.
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Leslie Nielsen
Leslie William Nielsen, OC (11 February 1926 – 28 November 2010) was a Canadian and naturalized American actor and comedian. Nielsen appeared in more than one hundred films and 1,500 television programs over the span of his career, portraying more than 220 characters. Born in Regina, Saskatchewan, Nielsen enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force and worked as a disc jockey before receiving a scholarship to Neighborhood Playhouse. Making his television debut in 1948, he quickly expanded to over 50 television appearances two years later. Nielsen made his film debut in 1956, and began collecting roles in dramas, westerns, and romance films from the 1950s to the 1970s. Nielsen's performance in the films Forbidden Planet and The Poseidon Adventure received positive reviews as a serious actor, although he is primarily known for his comedic roles.
Although Nielsen's acting career crossed a variety of genres in both television and films, his deadpan delivery in Airplane! marked a turning point in his career, one that would make him, in the words of film critic Roger Ebert, "the Olivier of spoofs." Nielsen enjoyed further success with The Naked Gun film series, based on an earlier short-lived television series Police Squad! in which he starred. His portrayal of serious characters seemingly oblivious to (and complicit in) their absurd surroundings gave him a reputation as a comedian. In the final years of his career, Nielsen appeared in multiple spoof and parody films, many of which were met poorly by critics, but performed well in box office and home media releases. Nielsen married four times and had two daughters from his second marriage. He was recognized with a variety of awards throughout his career, and was inducted into the Canada and Hollywood Walks of Fame.
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Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist. He is most noted for his novels, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), and its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), the latter often called "the Great American Novel."
Twain grew up in Hannibal, Missouri, which would later provide the setting for Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer. He apprenticed with a printer. He also worked as a typesetter and contributed articles to his older brother Orion's newspaper. After toiling as a printer in various cities, he became a master riverboat pilot on the Mississippi River, before heading west to join Orion. He was a failure at gold mining, so he next turned to journalism. While a reporter, he wrote a humorous story, "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County", which became very popular and brought nationwide attention. His travelogues were also well-received. Twain had found his calling.
He achieved great success as a writer and public speaker. His wit and satire earned praise from critics and peers, and he was a friend to presidents, artists, industrialists, and European royalty.
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Michael Douglas
Michael Kirk Douglas (born September 25, 1944) is an American actor and producer, primarily in movies and television. He has won three Golden Globes and two Academy Awards; as producer of 1975's Best Picture, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and as Best Actor in 1987 for his role in Wall Street. Douglas received the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2009. He is the eldest of actor Kirk Douglas's four sons.
Douglas was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey, the first child of actor Kirk Douglas and Bermudian-born actress Diana Dill. His paternal grandparents were Jewish immigrants from Gomel in Belarus (at that time a part of the Russian Empire). His mother was from Devonshire Parish, Bermuda; Douglas's maternal grandfather, Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Melville Dill, served as Attorney General of Bermuda and was commanding officer of the Bermuda Militia Artillery. Douglas has a younger brother, Joel Douglas (born 1947), and two paternal half-brothers, Peter Douglas (born 1955) and Eric Douglas (1958–2004), from stepmother Anne Buydens.
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Monty Python
Monty Python (sometimes known as The Pythons) was a British surreal comedy group who created Monty Python's Flying Circus, a British television comedy sketch show that first aired on the BBC on 5 October 1969. Forty-five episodes were made over four series. The Python phenomenon developed from the television series into something larger in scope and impact, spawning touring stage shows, films, numerous albums, several books and a stage musical as well as launching the members to individual stardom. The group's influence on comedy has been compared to The Beatles' influence on music.
The television series, broadcast by the BBC from 1969 to 1974, was conceived, written and performed by members Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin. Loosely structured as a sketch show, but with an innovative stream-of-consciousness approach (aided by Gilliam's animation), it pushed the boundaries of what was acceptable in style and content. A self-contained comedy team responsible for both writing and performing their work, the Pythons' creative control allowed them to experiment with form and content, discarding rules of television comedy. Their influence on British comedy has been apparent for years, while in North America it has coloured the work of cult performers from the early editions of Saturday Night Live through to more recent absurdist trends in television comedy. "Pythonesque" has entered the English lexicon as a result.
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Nick Offerman
Nick Offerman (born June 26, 1970) is an American actor and writer best known for his breakout role as Ron Swanson in the acclaimed NBC sitcom Parks and Recreation. He is also a woodworker.
Offerman grew up in Minooka, Illinois; his father taught junior high in nearby Channahon. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1993. That year, he and a group of fellow students co-founded the Defiant Theatre, a Chicago-based theatre company. Offerman lived in Chicago throughout the mid-1990s, where he participated with the Steppenwolf, Goodman and Wisdom Bridge theatre companies. During this time, Offerman became acquainted with Amy Poehler, who was heavily involved with the Chicago improv comedy scene.
Offerman has appeared in films such as November (2004), Cursed (2005), Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous (2005), Sin City (2005), and The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009). He has been married since 2003 to Will & Grace actress Megan Mullally. Offerman guest-starred on Will & Grace during its fourth season and on King of Queens, playing a plumber on the Thanksgiving episode in the former show and a hobo in the latter show. He appeared on his wife's talk show, The Megan Mullally Show. In 2003, he appeared in three episodes of 24 and has guest-starred in an episode of The West Wing.
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Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Jerome Tarantino (pronunciation: /ˌtærənˈtiːnoʊ/; born March 27, 1963) is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and actor. He has received many industry awards, including an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a BAFTA and the Palme d'Or and had been nominated for an Emmy and Grammy.
Born in Knoxville, Tennessee, Tarantino was an avid film fan. His career began in the late 1980's, when he wrote and directed My Best Friend's Birthday. Its screenplay would form the basis for True Romance. In the early 1990s, he began his career as an independent filmmaker with films employing nonlinear storylines and the aestheticization of violence. His films include Reservoir Dogs (1992), Pulp Fiction (1994), Jackie Brown (1997), Kill Bill (2003, 2004), Death Proof (2007), and Inglourious Basterds (2009).
His movies are generally characterized by stylistic influences from grindhouse, kung fu, and spaghetti western films. Tarantino also frequently collaborates with his friend and fellow filmmaker Robert Rodriguez.
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Robert Rodriguez
Robert Anthony Rodríguez (born June 20, 1968) is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer, editor and musician. He shoots and produces many of his films in his native Texas and Mexico. He has directed such films as Desperado, From Dusk Till Dawn, The Faculty, Spy Kids, Sin City, Planet Terror, and Machete. He is a friend and frequent collaborator of filmmaker Quentin Tarantino.
Rodríguez was born in San Antonio, Texas, the son of Mexican-American parents Rebecca (née Villegas), a nurse, and Cecilio G. Rodríguez, a salesman. He began his interest in film at age 11 when his father bought one of the first VCRs, which came with a camera.
While attending St. Anthony High School, he was commissioned to videotape the school's football games. According to his sister he was fired soon after for shooting them with a cinematic style, getting shots of parents' reactions and the ball traveling through the air instead of shooting the whole play. There he met Carlos Gallardo; they both shot films on video throughout high school and college. After graduating Rodriguez went to the College of Communication at the University of Texas where he also developed a love of cartooning. His grades were not high enough to get into the school's film program, so he invented a daily comic strip entitled Los Hooligans with many of the characters based on his siblings – in particular, one of his sisters, Maricarmen. The comic proved to be quite successful, running for three years in the student newspaper The Daily Texan while Rodríguez continued to make short films.[citation needed]
wn.com/Robert_Rodriguez -
Seinfeld
Seinfeld is an American television sitcom that originally aired on NBC from July 5, 1989, to May 14, 1998, lasting nine seasons, and is now in syndication. It was created by Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld, the latter starring as a fictionalized version of himself. Set predominantly in an apartment block on Manhattan's Upper West Side (but shot in Los Angeles), the show features a host of Jerry's friends and acquaintances, in particular best friend George Costanza, former girlfriend Elaine Benes, and neighbor across the hall Cosmo Kramer.
Seinfeld was produced by Castle Rock Entertainment in association with Columbia Pictures Television in syndication the series was distributed by Columbia Pictures Television and Columbia TriStar Television; Sony Pictures Television has distributed the series since 2002. It was largely co-written by David and Seinfeld with input from numerous script writers, including Larry Charles, Peter Mehlman, Gregg Kavet, Andy Robin, Carol Leifer, David Mandel, Jeff Schaffer, Steve Koren, Jennifer Crittenden, Tom Gammill, Max Pross, Charlie Rubin, Marjorie Gross, Alec Berg, Elaine Pope, and Spike Feresten.
wn.com/Seinfeld -
Stephen Colbert
Stephen Tyrone Colbert (
/koʊlˈbɛər/ or /ˈkoʊlbərt/; born May 13, 1964) is an American political satirist, writer, comedian, television host, and actor. He is the host of Comedy Central's The Colbert Report, a satirical news show in which Colbert portrays a caricatured version of conservative political pundits.
Colbert originally studied to be an actor, but became interested in improvisational theatre when he met famed Second City director Del Close while attending Northwestern University. He first performed professionally as an understudy for Steve Carell at Second City Chicago; among his troupe mates were comedians Paul Dinello and Amy Sedaris, with whom he developed the critically acclaimed sketch comedy series Exit 57.
Colbert also wrote and performed on the short-lived Dana Carvey Show before collaborating with Sedaris and Dinello again on the cult television series Strangers with Candy. He gained considerable attention for his role on the latter as closeted gay history teacher Chuck Noblet. It was his work as a correspondent on Comedy Central's news-parody series The Daily Show, however, that first introduced him to a wide audience.
wn.com/Stephen_Colbert -
Steve Carell
Steven John "Steve" Carell ( /kəˈrɛl/; born August 16, 1962) is an American comedian, actor, voice artist, producer, writer, and director. Although Carell is notable for his role on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, he found greater fame in the late 2000s for playing Michael Scott on The Office. He has also starred in lead roles in the films The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Little Miss Sunshine, Evan Almighty, Dan in Real Life, Get Smart, Date Night, Dinner for Schmucks, and Crazy, Stupid, Love.; and voiced characters in the animated films Over the Hedge, Horton Hears a Who!, and Despicable Me. Carell was nominated as "America's funniest man" in Life magazine, and received a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Television Comedy Series for playing the lead role of Michael Scott for The Office in 2006.
Carell, the youngest of four brothers, was born at Emerson Hospital in Concord, Massachusetts, and was raised in nearby Acton by his parents, Harriet T. (née Koch), a psychiatric nurse, and Edwin A. Carell, an electrical engineer. His maternal uncle, Stanley Koch, worked with Allen B. DuMont to create cathode ray tubes. Carell's paternal grandfather was Italian; his father was born with the surname "Caroselli", later shortening it to "Carell". Carell was raised Roman Catholic, and was educated at The Fenn School and Middlesex School. Carell also played ice hockey as a teenager for his high school.[citation needed] He played the fife, performing with other members of his family, and later joined a reenacting group portraying the 10th (North Lincoln) Regiment of Foot. Carell attributed his interest in history to this, in which he earned his degree from Denison University in Granville, Ohio in 1984. While at Denison, Carell was a member of Burpee's Seedy Theatrical Company, a student-run improvisational comedy troupe.
wn.com/Steve_Carell -
Steven Wright
Steven Alexander Wright (born December 6, 1955) is an American comedian, actor and writer. He is known for his distinctly lethargic voice and slow, deadpan delivery of ironic, philosophical and sometimes nonsensical jokes, paraprosdokians, and one-liners with contrived situations.
Wright was born in Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and grew up in Burlington, Massachusetts, one of four children of Lucille “Dolly” (née Lomano) and Alexander K. Wright. He was raised Catholic. His mother was Italian American and his father was of Scottish descent. Wright's father, an electronics technician who "tested a lot of stuff for the Apollo space program," became a truck driver after that program ended.
Wright spent two years obtaining an associate's degree from Middlesex Community College in Bedford, Massachusetts, before enrolling at Emerson College. He graduated from the latter in 1978 and began performing stand-up comedy in 1979 at the Boston comedy club the Comedy Connection. He cites George Carlin and Woody Allen among his influences.
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Stewart Francis
Stewart Francis is a Canadian stand-up comedian, actor and writer. In addition to his work in Canada and the USA, he frequently tours in the UK and appears on British television. Both of Francis' parents are British.
Francis delivers a deadpan performance with many one-liners.
Francis has headlined all over North America and the United Kingdom, and performed in numerous venues worldwide, including Hong Kong, South Africa, and throughout Europe.
On 6 June 2009 he performed on the Edinburgh section of Michael McIntyre's Comedy Roadshow.
Francis was the support act for Ricky Gervais on his Science tour, performing in such places as Portsmouth Guildhall, New Theatre, Oxford, Brighton Centre and the O2 Arena in Dublin in late 2009 and early 2010.
He has also made 9 appearances on popular British panel show Mock The Week.
He appeared on Live at the Apollo on 9 December 2010.
Stewart starred as a series regular on An American in Canada and also acted in Kevin Hill. In 2007, he appeared in an episode of the BBC sitcom Not Going Out as Hillary Allison (The producers said in an interview that he had been considered for the part of recurring character Guy, but rejected because he was too young and given this role instead). He also made a brief appearance in The Omid Djalili Show.
wn.com/Stewart_Francis -
Todd Barry
Todd Barry (born March 26, 1964) is an American stand-up comedian, actor and voice actor.
Barry was born in The Bronx, New York, and grew up in Florida. In 1999, his Comedy Central Presents aired. He wrote, directed and starred in the short film Borrowing Saffron (2002), which co-starred H. Jon Benjamin. He has made a variety of guest appearances on shows like Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist, Home Movies, Wonder Showzen, and Aqua Teen Hunger Force. He also voices a recurring character on Squidbillies. In 2004 Todd Barry was featured in an animated series called Shorties Watchin' Shorties.
In 2008, he played Wayne in Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler.
Over the course of six years he made 16 appearances on Dr. Katz, appearing as himself in the first two appearances. He then played the recurring character "Todd the video store clerk" and appeared in most episodes in the show's final year. He also played a character in the television pilot Saddle Rash along with Sarah Silverman, H. Jon Benjamin and Mitch Hedberg. In "The Third Conchord", the twelfth and final episode of the first season of Flight of the Conchords, Barry played Todd, a bongo playing megalomaniac, who tries to introduce the song, "Doggy Bounce," to the Conchords' repertoire, and a new band name: The Crazy Dogggz.
wn.com/Todd_Barry -
Virginia O'Brien
Virginia Lee O'Brien (April 18, 1919 – January 16, 2001) was a popular American actress, singer, and radio personality known for her comedic roles in MGM musicals of the 1940s.
O'Brien primarily performed in comedic roles during the height of her formal film career. This was in part due to her intentionally humorous singing style, which involved her singing in a deadpan manner, with no facial expressions and very little movement– reportedly she stumbled upon this "gimmick" by accident during a stage show when she became virtually paralyzed with stage fright before singing a number in the Los Angeles stage production Meet The People. The audience found the performance to be hilarious and she was soon hired to repeat this performance in a number of movies beginning in 1940 for which she gained the nicknames "Frozen Face" and "Miss Ice Glacier" among others. When she wasn't singing, her acting style was just as emotive as other actresses, and she didn't always employ her gimmick when singing as evidenced by her performance in the excerpt from Show Boat in the 1946 film Till the Clouds Roll By. She made her Broadway debut in the short-lived musical Keep Off The Grass with Jimmy Durante, and recorded four of the songs for Columbia Records. She also recorded several sides for Decca Records, including two of her signature songs The Wild, Wild West and Say We're Sweethearts Again.
wn.com/Virginia_O'Brien -
William Shatner
William Alan Shatner (born March 22, 1931) is a Canadian actor, musician, recording artist, author and film director. He gained worldwide fame and became a cultural icon for his portrayal of James T. Kirk, captain of the USS Enterprise, in the science fiction television series Star Trek from 1966 to 1969, Star Trek: The Animated Series from 1973 to 1974, and in seven of the subsequent Star Trek feature films from 1979 to 1994. He has written a series of books chronicling his experiences playing Captain Kirk and being a part of Star Trek, and has co-written several novels set in the Star Trek universe. He has also authored a series of science fiction novels called TekWar that were adapted for television.
Shatner also played the eponymous veteran police sergeant in T. J. Hooker from 1982 to 1986. Afterwards, he hosted the reality-based television series, Rescue 911 from 1989 to 1996, which won a People's Choice Award for Favorite New TV Dramatic Series. He has since worked as a musician, author, producer, director and celebrity pitchman. From 2004 to 2008 he starred as attorney Denny Crane in the television dramas The Practice and its spin-off Boston Legal for which he won two Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe Award.
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Zooey Deschanel
Zooey Claire Deschanel ( /ˈzoʊ.iː deɪʃəˈnɛl/ ZOH-ee day-shə-NEL; born January 17, 1980) is an American actress, musician and singer-songwriter. In 1999, Deschanel made her film debut in Mumford, followed by her breakout role as young protagonist William Miller's troubled older sister Anita in Cameron Crowe's 2000 semi-autobiographical film Almost Famous. Deschanel soon became known for her deadpan or "Manic Pixie Dream Girl" supporting roles in films such as Elf (2003), The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005), Failure to Launch (2006), Bridge to Terabithia (2007), and Happening, TheThe Happening (2008). She then began playing lead roles in films, including Yes Man (2008) and (500) Days of Summer (2009). She currently stars in the Fox series New Girl. She has been nominated for Golden Globe and Grammy Awards.
For a few years starting in 2001, Deschanel performed in the jazz cabaret act If All the Stars Were Pretty Babies with fellow actress Samantha Shelton. Besides singing, she plays keyboards, percussion, banjo and ukulele. She also often sings in her films. Deschanel teamed up with M. Ward to release their debut album Volume One (recorded with M. Ward under the moniker She & Him) which was released in March 2008. The follow-up album Volume Two was released in the U.S. in March 2010. She married Death Cab for Cutie frontman Ben Gibbard in September 2009, and filed for divorce from him in December 2011.
wn.com/Zooey_Deschanel
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Steve Carell
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 2:44
- Updated: 04 Oct 2012
I don't know if Evan Almighty is any good, but Carell is hilarious in this... Long live The Office!!
http://wn.com/Steve_Carell
Steven Wright on Letterman, 1/8/88
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 6:16
- Updated: 20 Nov 2012
80s comedian Steven Wright.
http://wn.com/Steven_Wright_on_Letterman,_1_8_88
Deadpan Comedy Festival round 1 (Tyler Snodgrass)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 5:30
- Updated: 12 Nov 2012
Me in the first round of Deadpan Festival 2007 hosted by the Kitchen and Skinny Improv.
http://wn.com/Deadpan_Comedy_Festival_round_1_Tyler_Snodgrass
Freakazoid #13.1 - Deadpan Intro
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- Duration: 1:20
- Updated: 16 Nov 2012
[ Season 1 | Episode 13 ] Deadpan plans to cause havoc disguised as Freakazoid!
http://wn.com/Freakazoid_131_Deadpan_Intro
Deadpan Comedy Festival round 2 (Tyler Snodgrass)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 7:12
- Updated: 29 Sep 2012
The finals round, with Jeff Houghton and Sarah Jenkins! I ended up winning the tournament and I got a frying pan as a trophy! It was killer--thanks to everyone who voted for me!
http://wn.com/Deadpan_Comedy_Festival_round_2_Tyler_Snodgrass
This man has no dick...
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 0:04
- Updated: 16 Nov 2012
Ghostbusters Yes its true, this man has no dick.
http://wn.com/This_man_has_no_dick
Eric's deadpan comedy
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 4:40
- Updated: 28 Aug 2012
My comedy routine I did as part of Stu Stuart's "Beginning stand up comedy" class.
http://wn.com/Eric's_deadpan_comedy
What Is Deadpan Comedy? : Comedy Tips
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- Duration: 1:20
- Updated: 17 Nov 2012
Subscribe Now: www.youtube.com Watch More: www.youtube.com Deadpan comedy is a very popular style of comedy in the world today. Find out about deadpan comedy with help from a professional stand up comic in this free video clip. Expert: Lisa Corrao Contact: www.LisaCorrao.com Bio: Lisa Corrao is a professional stand-up comic. Filmmaker: Lisa Corrao Series Description: Comedy requires a lot more than just saying something funny or getting up on a stage. Get a few comedy tips that will help make your dream of becoming a professional come true with help from a professional stand up comic in this free video series.
http://wn.com/What_Is_Deadpan_Comedy?_Comedy_Tips
Virginia O'Brien - Lullaby (Rock-a-bye baby)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:45
- Updated: 19 Nov 2012
From the Marx Brothers movie The Big Store, Virginia O'Brien (Miss Ice Glacier, Frozen Face) sings a rockin' version of Rock-a-bye baby. Avidemux 2.3.0 (it's free software).
http://wn.com/Virginia_O'Brien_Lullaby_Rock-a-bye_baby
Glitter balls
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 2:53
- Updated: 19 Nov 2012
How to make fun and inexpensive Christmas balls for your tree.
http://wn.com/Glitter_balls
Wicked Plants: A Book of Botanical Atrocities
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:35
- Updated: 04 Nov 2012
Join bestselling author Amy Stewart as she takes on Mother Nature's most appalling creations. Her new book, Wicked Plants, is an A to Z of plants that kill, maim, intoxicate, and otherwise offend. Drawing on history, medicine, science, and legend, Stewart presents tales of bloodcurdling botany that will entertain, alarm, and enlighten even the most intrepid gardeners and nature lovers. Wicked Plants will be published in May 2009 from Algonquin Books. But you can watch the video now--if you dare. Find out more at www.wickedplants.com
http://wn.com/Wicked_Plants_A_Book_of_Botanical_Atrocities
Carlisle on Phil Jackson
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:17
- Updated: 04 Oct 2012
Rick's funny comment about Phil's coming retirement.
http://wn.com/Carlisle_on_Phil_Jackson
Deadpan - Revolution (Seb Dhajje Remix)
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- Duration: 9:25
- Updated: 24 Oct 2012
Deadpan - Revolution EP Label: Voco RecordsGenre: Progressive House Release date: 15.08.2011 To buy this song please visit Beatport at: www.beatport.com Disclaimer: I do not own any material in this post. If the owner doesn't wish to have their items on display, please contact me, and I will remove it immediately.
http://wn.com/Deadpan_Revolution_Seb_Dhajje_Remix
Love and Death- Finale
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 5:13
- Updated: 19 Nov 2012
From Woody Allen's Love and Death Wheat.
http://wn.com/Love_and_Death_Finale
Deadpan by The Demonstration - Lyrics
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- Duration: 3:44
- Updated: 03 Nov 2012
Deadpan by The Demonstration Download it here www.mediafire.com Lyrics-Is this the beginning or is it the end? Well I am drinking again just to stay warm. It never keeps me warm, but this is life. This is life in a death trap. Well I need to know that I can still tell myself to stop; enoughs enough. My dad says I drink too much, I My dad says I drink too much, I say I cant get enough. Bartender bring me a drink. Well I need to know that I can still tell myself to stop; there are no victims only survivors. Im a walking wine bottle with my neck pointing down. Nowhere to go, no one to see. Just keep your head above the ground. Walking a straight line takes a lot less time with your head above the ground. Get your head out of the ground. Enoughs enough. Im a walking wine bottle with my neck pointing down. Nowhere to go, no one to see. Just keep your head above the ground. Walking a straight line takes a lot less time with your head above the ground. There are no victims only survivors. Enough is enough.
http://wn.com/Deadpan_by_The_Demonstration_Lyrics
Drunk Guy in Store 'Deadpan' The Demonstration
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:48
- Updated: 24 Aug 2012
I added The Demonstration's "Deadpan" to this video since it fits quite well. Deadpan Lyrics: Is this the beginning or is it the end? Well I am drinking again just to stay warm. It never keeps me warm, but this is life. This is life in a death trap. Well I need to know that I can still tell myself to stop; enoughs enough. My dad says I drink too much, I My dad says I drink too much, I say I cant get enough. Bartender bring me a drink. Well I need to know that I can still tell myself to stop; there are no victims only survivors. Im a walking wine bottle with my neck pointing down. Nowhere to go, no one to see. Just keep your head above the ground. Walking a straight line takes a lot less time with your head above the ground. Get your head out of the ground. Enoughs enough. Im a walking wine bottle with my neck pointing down. Nowhere to go, no one to see. Just keep your head above the ground. Walking a straight line takes a lot less time with your head above the ground. There are no victims only survivors. Enough is enough.
http://wn.com/Drunk_Guy_in_Store_'Deadpan'_The_Demonstration
Aesop Rock - Deadpan
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:24
- Updated: 12 Oct 2012
Aesop Rock - Deadpan from the album B-Sides & Rarities Vol. 2
http://wn.com/Aesop_Rock_Deadpan
Deadpan and review of AVON Personal Match cream-to-powder foundation SPF 10 - Nude
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 9:14
- Updated: 16 Nov 2012
Follow me on Twitter: twitter.com showard.avonrepresentative.com Review of AVON Personal Match cream-to-powder foundation SPF 10 - Nude and product comparison to liquid foundations.
http://wn.com/Deadpan_and_review_of_AVON_Personal_Match_cream-to-powder_foundation_SPF_10_Nude
"Trust" (1990) Trailer
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- Duration: 2:01
- Updated: 10 Nov 2012
Trailer for the Hal Hartley film "Trust" (1990)
http://wn.com/Trust_1990_Trailer
The Deadpan Tractor - Big Eyed Beans From Venus (Captain Beefheart Cover)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 4:37
- Updated: 29 Sep 2012
From '' Grumble '' Label: Black Lagoon Records -- INC 008 Format: Vinyl, 12" Country: UK Released: 1985 Tracklist A1 All Hail A2 Curse The Cursor B1 Big Eyed Beans From Venus (Written By -- Don Van Vliet) B2 Dreams Of Drunkeness Vocals - Michael Cook Guitar - Michael Massey Bass - Chris Ellis Drums - Steven Dutton Engineer - Tony Bonner Producer - The Deadpan Tractor ------------------------ Don Van Vliet, born Don Glen Vliet (January 15, 1941 -- December 17, 2010) was an American musician, singer-songwriter and artist best known by the stage name Captain Beefheart. His musical work was conducted with a rotating ensemble of musicians called The Magic Band, active between 1965 and 1982, with whom he recorded 12 studio albums. Noted for his powerful singing voice with its wide range, Van Vliet also played the harmonica, saxophone and numerous other wind instruments. His music blended rock, blues and psychedelia with free jazz, avant-garde and contemporary experimental composition. Beefheart was also known for exercising an almost dictatorial control over his supporting musicians, and for often constructing myths about his life. The song "Big Eyed Beans from Venus" is noted as "a fantastically strange piece of aggression. It's original release was on 'Clear Spot', the seventh album by Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band, originally released on LP in 1972 in a clear plastic sleeve. Van Vliet's influence on post punk bands was demonstrated by Magazine's recording of "I Love ...
http://wn.com/The_Deadpan_Tractor_Big_Eyed_Beans_From_Venus_Captain_Beefheart_Cover
Blue Jam Monologue - 06 The London Dungeon Job
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 5:51
- Updated: 20 Nov 2012
This collection of monologues, originally conceived and written by Robert Katz, with later collaboration by Chris Morris, are taken from Morris's radio series 'Blue Jam'. Morris and Katz skilfully weave together cleverly groggy first person storytelling with thick ambient soundscapes and loops, creating a disturbing, disgusting, funny, and strangely enthralling world for our nameless sympathetic half-tramp hero to fall victim to. This narrator takes us on a journey through his nightmare world; populated by pretentious art scenesters, cynical media executives, obsequious dinner guests and unfriendly, aggressive passers by. Like all of Morris's work this will not be to everybody's taste, certainly not the faint of heart, squeamish or easily offended. To everyone else be prepared to immerse yourself head first into one mans car crash nightmare of a life.
http://wn.com/Blue_Jam_Monologue_06_The_London_Dungeon_Job
P4: The Animation - Deadpan Narukami
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 0:57
- Updated: 19 Nov 2012
Dat expressionless face. And then Kanji's overly exaggerated expression..priceless. Chie is so cute. All rights belong to their respective owners and whatever, I take no ownership. Clip was taken merely for amusement and no profit whatsoever.
http://wn.com/P4_The_Animation_Deadpan_Narukami
Submission Hold - Last Surviving Crocodile/Deadpan
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 7:54
- Updated: 13 Nov 2012
Submission Hold was an anarchist band from Vancouver, BC, active from 1993-2005. Tracks from their 1998 album 'Waiting For Another Monkey To Throw The First Brick'.
http://wn.com/Submission_Hold_Last_Surviving_Crocodile_Deadpan
photo: AP / Pablo Martinez Monsivais
20 Nov 2012
Article by WN.com Correspondent Dallas Darling President Barack Obama's whirlwind tour of southeast Asia and meetings with dignitaries will have to walk a tightrope between either appearing to endorse military juntas or truly being committed to ongoing pro-democracy movements. Specifically at issue is Burma's Aung San Suu Kyi, a democratic advocate...(size: 5.0Kb)
photo: AP / Sebastian D'souza
21 Nov 2012
MUMBAI, India - India executed the lone surviving gunman from the 2008 terror attack on Mumbai early Wednesday, India's home ministry said. Ajmal Kasab, a Pakistani citizen, was one of 10 gunmen who rampaged through the streets of India's financial capital in November 2008, killing 166 people. Kasab was hung at 7:30 a.m. Wednesday at a jail in...(size: 4.5Kb)
photo: AP / Hatem Moussa
19 Nov 2012
Gaza/Jerusalem - Israel bombed dozens of targets in the Gaza Strip on Monday and said that while it was prepared to step up its offensive by sending in troops, it preferred a diplomatic solution that would end Palestinian rocket fire. Mediator Egypt said a deal for a truce to end the fighting could be close. The leader of Hamas said it was up to...(size: 4.1Kb)
photo: AP / Melanie Gouby
21 Nov 2012
Hundreds of government soldiers and police in the Democratic Republic of Congo have surrendered to rebels at a stadium in Goma, Al Jazeera's Nazanine Moshiri has reported from the scene. The M23 rebel group, believed to be backed by Rwanda seized the strategic, provincial capital of Goma in eastern Congo on Tuesday, home to more than 1 million...(size: 18.7Kb)
photo: UN / Logan Abassi
21 Nov 2012
A report by the UN says global attempts to curb emissions of CO2 are falling well short of what is needed to stem dangerous climate change. The UN's Environment Programme says greenhouse gases are 14% above where they need to be in 2020 for temperature rises this century to remain below 2C. The authors say this target is still technically...(size: 3.5Kb)
The Daily Telegraph Australia
22 Nov 2012
BRADLEY Cooper has joked that he and Ryan Gosling had "Sexiest Man Alive matches" at lunch when they worked together. Cooper received the title from People magazine in 2011, but at the time many people thought it should have gone to Gosling. Women the world over made their feelings known, with the Hangover star in no doubt he was deemed a...(size: 2.6Kb)
photo: Creative Commons / Dha
22 Nov 2012
Pioneers of the big beat genre, British punk rock dance act The Prodigy found mainstream popularity in the Nineties and Noughties, selling more than 25 million albums and growing beyond their rave beginnings. Yet, the first thing fans yell for when dancer and vocalist Keith Flint comes on stage? Firestarter The phone just rings and rings and...(size: 7.0Kb)
Belfast Telegraph
21 Nov 2012
Bradley Cooper has joked that he and Ryan Gosling had "Sexiest Man Alive matches" at lunch when they worked together. Bradley received the title from People magazine in 2011, but at the time many people thought it should...(size: 1.4Kb)
STL Today
21 Nov 2012
Two Oscar-winning method actors undergo startling transformations in new movies. In “Lincoln,” Irishman Daniel Day-Lewis embraces the beard and voice of America’s 16th president. In “This Must Be the Place,” American Sean Penn dons the mussed wig and lipstick of a goth rocker retired in Ireland. Both performances are worth watching, but Penn’s...(size: 2.2Kb)
Sacramento Bee
21 Nov 2012
Guess we'll see if Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is still good at blocking shots. Said the 7-foot-2 Lakers Hall of Famer, at the unveiling of his 16-foot statue outside Staples Center: "I'm glad we got here before the pigeons got to it." Luckily, the bronzed Kareem is depicted wearing goggles. HEADLINES -At SportsPickle.com: "Hungover Jim Delany: 'Please...(size: 2.7Kb)
Sun Sentinel
21 Nov 2012
DAVIE – A three-game losing streak in November is like hearing screeching tires. You’re just waiting for that crash to follow. This brings us to the Miami Dolphins and their happy lockerroom. The Dolphins are riding a three-game losing streak in November. They’ve heard the screeching tires. But they’re not all tensed...(size: 3.6Kb)
NZ Herald
21 Nov 2012
Sir Ian McKellen admits he struggled with the notion of reprising the role of Gandalf for The Hobbit trilogy - especially in light of how long and exhausting filming Lord of the Rings was. His reluctance was partly due to age - "at 73, your passion for life isn't as strong as it was, your energies get a bit low and there isn't a day when you don't...(size: 4.3Kb)
New York Post Online
21 Nov 2012
Paul Schwartz Follow Paul on Twitter Blog: Giants ON THE GIANTS The Giants will not be wearing their diamond-and-sapphire encrusted Super Bowl rings when they take the field Sunday night. The Vince Lombardi Trophy won’t be paraded in and put on display at midfield for the coin toss. No, the only way for the Giants to remind the invading...(size: 3.8Kb)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
21 Nov 2012
| Miami - Dwyane Wade will return to the Miami Heat starting lineup on Wednesday night against the Bucks, after missing the Heat's last two games with a sprained left foot. That wasn't exactly the news Bucks coach Scott Skiles wanted to hear, meaning his team would face both Wade and LeBron James. "I'm really happy Wade is going to play,"...(size: 14.0Kb)
Entertainment Weekly
21 Nov 2012
While I’m not entirely sure anything can top last year’s dryer turkey, the news that Jamie Lee Curtis and Rob Reiner would guest as Jess’s parents on this year’s Very Special Episode of New Girl was certainly enough to pique my interest. Put two of the most influential people in Christopher Guest’s life on a show that...(size: 3.9Kb)
The Hollywood Reporter
21 Nov 2012
share Will Ferrell, Jennifer Aniston, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and others paid tribute to Ben Stiller at the Nov. 15 American Cinematheque Awards -- sometimes with the crudest of humor. Getty Images The tributes were flying when Ben Stiller received the American Cinematheque Award on Nov. 15 at the Beverly Hilton, and so were the jokes. Yes, people...(size: 7.9Kb)
Business Journal
21 Nov 2012
Lauren K. Ohnesorge Staff Writer- Triangle Business Journal Email Chinese computer maker Lenovo will be at the top of the smartphone heap by 2013, research firm Gartner predicts in its latest report. Currently, Gartner pegs Lenovo as the No. 2 smartphone brand in China, ahead of Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) and behind Samsung. Gartner also shows China will...(size: 11.6Kb)
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Deadpan is a form of comic delivery in which humor is presented without a change in emotion or body language, usually speaking in a casual, monotone or cantankerous voice and expressing an unflappably calm, archly insincere or artificially grave demeanor. This delivery is also called dry wit[1] when the intent, but not the presentation, is humorous, blunt, oblique, sarcastic or apparently unintentional.
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Look up deadpan in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. |
Contents |
Etymology[link]
The term "deadpan" first emerged as an adjective or adverb in the 1920s, as a compound word combining "dead" and "pan" (a slang term for the face). The oldest usage recorded by the Oxford English Dictionary comes from the New York Times (1928), which defines the term as "playing a rôle with expressionless face".[2] A good example of this usage is in a scene from the 1934 film "The Gay Bride" in which a gangster tells a man on the other end of a phone conversation to "Give it a dead pan," (with the emphasis on "pan") so that the man doesn't inadvertently alert anyone else in the room as to the importance of what the gangster is about to say. The usage of deadpan as a verb ('to speak, act, or utter in a deadpan manner; to maintain a dead pan') is recorded at least as far back as 1942.[2]
Many popular American sitcoms also use deadpan expressions, most notably Arrested Development, The Office and Seinfeld. Dry humour is often confused with highbrow or egghead humour. Although these forms of humour are often dry, the term dry humour actually only refers to the method of delivery, not necessarily the content.
Deadpan violence[link]
"Deadpan violence" involves someone threatening or reacting to violence in an unemotional, detached way that comes across as jaded and blasé. This may be done to create a comic effect, by being out of place and in an unrealistic context.
One example of deadpan violence as humour occurs in one of the variations on Monty Python's skit "Cheese Shop". After a long and civil discussion on the quantity of cheese available in the cheese shop, Mr. Mousebender tells the cheese merchant "I'm going to ask you that question ['Do you have any cheese?'] once more, and if you say 'no' I'm going to shoot you through the head. Now, do you have any cheese at all?" The merchant responds with a casual "no" and, true to his word, Mousebender shoots him.
Another example is in the 1993 film Falling Down, in which the main character William Foster (played by Michael Douglas) is insulted by a man who has been waiting to use the phone booth previously occupied by Foster. He voices his irritation at Foster's prolonged use of the booth by saying "People have been waiting to use the phone." Foster responds to this by saying, "Well, you know what?", and using a submachine gun to destroy the phone, adds, "I think it's out of order."
Usage examples[link]
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- John Cale's mordant narration of The Velvet Underground short story "The Gift" (1968)
- Johnny Carson known for his low-key monologue with the hard-to-resist deadpan delivery that became an American tradition
- Steve Carell is known for his deadpan humor in movies and in the TV show "The Office".
- Nick Offerman as "Ron Swanson" in the US TV series "Parks and Recreation".
- Aki Kaurismäki is known for his deadpan humor in his movies
- Graham Chapman as "the colonel", and in several other roles as "stiff upper lip" authority figures, on Monty Python's Flying Circus
- Stephen Colbert delivers humorous political commentary in a mock-serious deadpan manner
- Jane Curtin, best known for her work on Saturday Night Live, is commonly referred to as the "Queen of the Deadpan"[citation needed]
- John Derbyshire, former National Review writer, is known for his deadpan delivery when making political points.[3]
- David Duchovny as Hank Moody on the Showtime hit series Californication
- Eugenio, a Spanish comedian who delivered jokes in a such a manner
- Stewart Francis uses a deadpan style in his stand up routine consisting entirely of cleverly worded one-liners.
- Miss Kittin is known for her deadpan lyrics and vocals in songs such as "Frank Sinatra"[3]
- Bill Murray's characters are typically flippant and deadpan in their casual sarcasm, insincerity and devil-may-care attitude
- Leslie Nielsen was widely recognized as a master of deadpan comedy in Airplane! and The Naked Gun series
- Virginia O'Brien referred to as 'The Diva of Deadpan', was noted for her beauty albeit expressionless face and humorous singing style.
- William Shatner is known for his deadpan style while delivering humorously bizarre or disturbing dialogue (see Boston Legal)
- Charlie Sheen affects a laconic, overintense manner when delivering silly dialogue in the Hot Shots! movies, as well as in some other comedic performances
- Quentin Tarantino's makes frequent use of black comedy and deadpan violence in his films;[4] deadpan violence is similarly a staple in many of Robert Rodriguez's films
- Mark Twain was famous for never cracking a smile while making jokes
- Christopher Walken is known for his intense deadpan manner while delivering humorously bizarre or disturbing dialogue
- Steven Wright, stand-up comedian and actor for whom the deadpan joke delivery is a trademark
- Zooey Deschanel, actress known for her deadpan comedic delivery.
- Heather Morris, actress/dancer who portrays a deadpan character in the hit show, Glee.
- Aubrey Plaza, actress/comedienne known for her portrayal of deadpan characters, such as April Ludgate in Parks and Recreation.
- GLaDOS, a character in Portal and Portal 2 often uses deadpan humor.
- Jack Benny was known to rescue failed jokes by simply staring patiently at the audience until they laughed.
- Barack Obama is known for his deadpan humor during political speeches and events
- Daria Morgendorffer was known for her dry wit and sarcastic delivery of social commentary on the MTV show Daria.
- Carter Veldhuizen
- Todd Barry, American comedian, is known for his deadpan style and delivery.
- Eric Forman, a fictional character in the television series That 70's Show, uses deadpan humor.
- Buster Keaton, American silent-film comedian also known as the "great stone face" and the 20th century's first important mass popularizer of the deadpan delivery
- David Letterman on The Late Show With David Letterman
- John Gielgud makes a remarkable performance as a personal valet with a dry wit in Arthur (1981 film)
- Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim in their 11-minute TV show Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job! maintain deadpan expressions throughout their most absurd and ridiculous humor.
See also[link]
References[link]
- ^ Rishel, Mary Ann (2002). Writing humor. Detroit: Wayne State University Press. p. 166. ISBN 0-8143-2959-4. http://books.google.de/books?id=sBsC3ItxoYQC&pg=PA166&dq=%22dry+wit%22&hl=de&sa=X&ei=y2tJT83UMIaAOoiwzewN&ved=0CDQQ6AEwADgK#v=onepage&q=%22dry%20wit%22&f=false.
- ^ a b Oxford English Dictionary. "dead-pan, adj., n., adv., and v." Second edition, 1989; online version December 2011. accessed 17 February 2012. First published in A Supplement to the OED I, 1972
- ^ a b Derbyshire, John (2011-04-17). "John Derbyshire, "Dissidents and Doom"". Youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfmamyL1FU4&feature=related. Retrieved 2012-04-14.
- ^ http://video.barnesandnoble.com/search/product.asp?z=y&EAN=786936161564&pwb=1
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http://fr.wn.com/Pince-sans-rire
http://de.wn.com/Trockener Humor
http://nl.wn.com/Droge humor
http://es.wn.com/Humor seco
This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadpan
This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
| Steve Carell | |
|---|---|
 Carell at the Sydney Crazy, Stupid, Love. premiere in July 2011 |
|
| Born | Steven John Carell (1962-08-16) August 16, 1962 (age 49) Concord, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | Denison University |
| Occupation | Actor, comedian, voice artist, producer, writer, director |
| Years active | 1989–present |
| Notable work(s) | The Daily Show The Office Despicable Me Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy Crazy, Stupid, Love. |
| Spouse | Nancy Carell (m. 1995) |
| Children | Annie Carell (b. 2001) John Carell (b. 2004) |
| Awards | Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Television Comedy Series 2006 The Office |
Steven John "Steve" Carell ( /kəˈrɛl/; born August 16, 1962)[1] is an American comedian, actor, voice artist, producer, writer, and director. Although Carell is notable for his role on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, he found greater fame in the late 2000s for playing Michael Scott on The Office. He has also starred in lead roles in the films The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Little Miss Sunshine, Evan Almighty, Dan in Real Life, Get Smart, Date Night, Dinner for Schmucks, and Crazy, Stupid, Love.; and voiced characters in the animated films Over the Hedge, Horton Hears a Who!, and Despicable Me. Carell was nominated as "America's funniest man" in Life magazine, and received a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Television Comedy Series for playing the lead role of Michael Scott for The Office in 2006.
Contents |
Early life[link]
Carell, the youngest of four brothers, was born at Emerson Hospital in Concord, Massachusetts, and was raised in nearby Acton by his parents, Harriet T. (née Koch), a psychiatric nurse, and Edwin A. Carell, an electrical engineer.[2][3] His maternal uncle, Stanley Koch, worked with Allen B. DuMont to create cathode ray tubes.[4] Carell's paternal grandfather was Italian;[2] his father was born with the surname "Caroselli", later shortening it to "Carell".[3] Carell was raised Roman Catholic,[5] and was educated at The Fenn School and Middlesex School. Carell also played ice hockey as a teenager for his high school.[citation needed] He played the fife, performing with other members of his family, and later joined a reenacting group portraying the 10th (North Lincoln) Regiment of Foot. Carell attributed his interest in history to this,[6] in which he earned his degree from Denison University in Granville, Ohio in 1984.[7][8] While at Denison, Carell was a member of Burpee's Seedy Theatrical Company, a student-run improvisational comedy troupe.[9]
Career[link]
Carell states that he worked as a mail carrier in Littleton, Massachusetts. He later recounted that he quit after a few months because his boss told him he was not very good as a mail carrier; he needed to be more efficient.[10] Early in his performing career, Carell acted on the stage in a touring children's theater company and later in the comedy musical, Knat Scatt Private Eye. He also acted in a television commercial for Brown's Chicken in 1989.[11] After that, Carell performed with Chicago troupe The Second City in 1991, where Stephen Colbert was his understudy for a time. That same year, he obtained his first film work in a minor role as Tesio in Curly Sue.
During the spring of 1996, he was a cast member of The Dana Carvey Show, a primetime sketch comedy program on ABC. Along with fellow cast member Stephen Colbert, Carell provided the voice of Gary, half of The Ambiguously Gay Duo, the Robert Smigel–produced animated short which continued on Saturday Night Live later that year. While the program lasted only seven episodes, The Dana Carvey Show has since been credited with forging Carell's career.[12] During this time, he also played a supporting character for several series including Come to Papa and the short-lived 1997 Tim Curry situation comedy Over the Top. He has made numerous guest appearances, including on an episode of Just Shoot Me! titled "Funny Girl." Carell's other early screen credits includes Julia Louis-Dreyfus's short-lived situation comedy Watching Ellie (2002–2003) and Woody Allen's Melinda and Melinda. He has also made fun of himself for auditioning for Saturday Night Live but losing the job to Will Ferrell. Carell was a correspondent for The Daily Show from 1999 until 2005, with a number of regular segments including "Even Stevphen" with Stephen Colbert and "Produce Pete."
[edit] The Office
Main article: Michael Scott (The Office)
During 2005, Carell signed a deal with NBC to star in The Office, a "mockumentary" about life at a mid-sized paper supply company, which was a remake of a successful British TV series. He plays Michael Scott, the idiosyncratic regional manager of Dunder Mifflin Inc, in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Although the first season of the adaptation suffered mediocre ratings, NBC renewed it for another season due to the anticipated success of Carell's movie The 40-Year-Old Virgin,[13] and the series subsequently became a ratings success. Carell won a Golden Globe and Television Critics Association award during 2006 for his Office role. He has also received five Emmy Award nominations[14] for his work in the series (2006–2010). His last episode for the show, "Goodbye, Michael" aired on April 28, 2011.
Carell earned approximately US$175,000 per episode of the third season of The Office, twice his salary for the previous two seasons. In an Entertainment Weekly interview, he commented on his salary, saying "You don't want people to think you're a pampered jerk. Salaries can be ridiculous. On the other hand, a lot of people are making a lot of money off of these shows."[15] Carell was allowed "flex time" during filming to work on theatrical films. Carell worked on Evan Almighty during a production hiatus during the second season of The Office.[16] Production ended during the middle of the fourth season of The Office because of Carell's and others' refusal to cross the picket line of the 2007 Writers Guild of America strike. Carell, a WGA member,[17] has written two episodes of The Office: "Casino Night" and "Survivor Man". Both episodes were praised, and Carell won a Writers Guild of America Award for "Casino Night".[citation needed]
On April 29, 2010, Carell stated he would be leaving the show when his contract expired at the conclusion of the 2010–2011 season.[18]
His last episode, "Goodbye, Michael", aired April 28, 2011 with his final shot showing Carell walking to a Colorado-bound plane to join his fiancée, Holly Flax.
Film career[link]
Carell's first starring role was in the 2005 film The 40-Year-Old Virgin, which he developed and co-wrote. The film made $109 million in domestic box office[19] and established Carell as a leading man. It also earned Carell an MTV Movie Award for Best Comedic Performance and a WGA Award nomination, along with co-writer Judd Apatow, for Best Original Screenplay.
Carell acted as "Uncle Arthur", imitating the camp mannerisms of Paul Lynde's original character for the 2005 remake of Bewitched with Nicole Kidman and Will Ferrell. He also voiced a starring role for the 2006 computer-animated film Over the Hedge as Hammy the Squirrel. He also voiced for the 2008 animated film Horton Hears a Who! as the mayor of Whoville, Ned McDodd. He starred in Little Miss Sunshine during 2006, as Uncle Frank. His work in the films Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, and Bewitched established Carell as a member of Hollywood's so-called "Frat Pack" group. (This set of actors includes Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, Will Ferrell, Vince Vaughn, and Luke Wilson).
Carell acted as the title character of Evan Almighty, a sequel to Bruce Almighty, reprising his role as Evan Baxter, now a U.S. Congressman. Although, ostensibly, God tasks Baxter with building an ark, Baxter also learns that life can generate positive returns with people offering Acts of Random Kindness. During October 2006, Carell began acting for the film Dan in Real Life, co-starring Dane Cook and Juliette Binoche. Filming ended December 22, 2006, and the film was released on October 26, 2007.
Carell played Maxwell Smart for a movie remake of Get Smart, which began filming February 3, 2007 and was filmed in Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and Moscow, Russia. The movie was successful, grossing over $200 million worldwide.[20] During 2007, Carell was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.[21][22]
Carell filmed a movie during late 2008 opposite Tina Fey, titled Date Night. It was released on April 9, 2010 in the U.S. He voiced Gru who is the main character in the Universal CGI movie Despicable Me along with Jason Segel, Russell Brand, Miranda Cosgrove, and Julie Andrews, which was very successful (he will likely be reprising the role for the upcoming sequel). He has several other projects in the works, including a remake of the 1967 Peter Sellers film The Bobo. He is currently doing voiceover work in commercials for Wrigley's Extra gum.
Carell has launched a television division of his Carousel Prods., which has contracted a three-year overall deal with Universal Media Studios, the studio behind his NBC comedy series. Thom Hinkle and Campbell Smith of North South Prods., former producers on Carell's alma mater, Comedy Central's The Daily Show, have been hired to manage Carousel's TV operations.[23]
Personal life[link]
Carell is married to Saturday Night Live alumna Nancy Carell, whom he met when she was a student in an improvisation class he was teaching at Second City.[24] They have two children, Elisabeth Anne "Annie" (born May 26, 2001) and John "Johnny" (born June 2004). In addition to working with him as a fellow correspondent on The Daily Show, Nancy also acted with him on The Office as his realtor and short-lived girlfriend Carol Stills, and also cameoed as a sex therapist in The 40-Year-Old Virgin.
Filmography[link]
Film[link]
Television[link]
Other awards[link]
Carell won the Spike TV 2008 "Guys Choice", Funniest M.F. Award.[37]
References[link]
- ^ Holloway, Diane (August 16, 2005). "Steve Carell's 42, a 'Virgin' and the worst boss ever". Austin American-Statesman. Archived from the original on August 11, 2007. http://web.archive.org/web/20070811043113/http://www.austin360.com/tv/content/movies/television/2005/08/16tvcolumn.html. Retrieved December 30, 2006.
- ^ a b Ancestry.com profile
- ^ a b Gostin, Nicki (June 22, 2007). "As Nice as He Is mean". Newsweek. http://www.newsweek.com/id/33593/page/2. Retrieved June 30, 2007.
- ^ "Steve Carell Biography". Tiscali.co.uk. http://www.tiscali.co.uk/entertainment/film/biographies/steve_carell_biog.html. Retrieved February 20, 2012.
- ^ Pringle, Gill (July 27, 2007). "Steve Carell: The American Ricky Gervais is now a major movie star". The Independent (London). http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/steve-carell-the-american-ricky-gervais-is-now-a-major-movie-star-458804.html. Retrieved June 26, 2010. "Carell has no witty speech rehearsed when you ask the Catholic comic..."
- ^ "Steve Carell Plays the Fife". [Show with David Letterman]. July 20, 2010. CBS. http://www.cbs.com/e/oJZVSl08cDPeXI9wIfAhgagqtW98RFej/cbs/1/. Retrieved July 21, 2010.
- ^ Some Famous History Majors Website accessed July 21, 2010
- ^ "TheDEN [Denison University]". Denison.edu. http://www.denison.edu/offices/publicaffairs/featuredstories/steve_carell_letterman.html. Retrieved February 20, 2012.
- ^ "The Company - Burpee'S Seedy Theatrical Company". Bstcalumni.webs.com. http://bstcalumni.webs.com/thecompany.htm. Retrieved February 20, 2012.
- ^ Interview: Steve Carell (March 20, 2006). InFANity: The Office, TV Guide Channel.
- ^ Steve Carell in 1989 Brown's Chicken TV commercial
- ^ Dave, Itzkoff Comedy Ahead of Its Time (if That Time Ever Comes) The New York Times (May 7, 2009). Retrieved on 5-09-10.
- ^ "'Office' promotions pay off in a big way." Chicago Tribune. February 23, 2006
- ^ "Steve Carell Emmy Nominated". Emmys.com. http://www.emmys.com/celebrities/steve-carell. Retrieved February 20, 2012.
- ^ Lynette, Rice (March 30, 2007). "Deal or No Deal". Entertainment Weekly: p. 34
- ^ "Carell's 'Office' Work Pays Off", @TV.com, dated June 8, 2006
- ^ "WGA uses YouTube to state case", The Hollywood Reporter
- ^ "CNN.com Video". CNN. http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/showbiz/2010/04/29/anderson.the.buzz.thursday.cnn?hpt=T2.
- ^ Box office/business for The 40-Year-Old Virgin
- ^ GET SMART
- ^ abc7.com: Film Academy Invites 115 New Members June 19, 2007
- ^ Academy Invites 115 to Become Members[dead link]
- ^ The Hollywood Reporter.Com[dead link]
- ^ Interview: Steve Carell (January 11, 2006). The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, NBC.
- ^ http://www.filmofilia.com/charlie-kaufmans-frank-or-francis-adds-elizabeth-banks-and-paul-reubens-88153/
- ^ http://www.chud.com/25546/steve-carell-of-all-the-things/
- ^ "Steve Carell's 'Dogs Of Babel' Gets John Carney To Direct". Huffington Post. 11/03/11. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/03/steve-carells-dogs-of-babel_n_1074517.html.
- ^ http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Steve-Carell-Jake-Johnson-Star-Mob-Comedy-Warner-Bros-30441.html
- ^ http://thefilmstage.com/news/steve-carell-producing-his-first-animated-film-with-warner-bros/
- ^ http://www.movies.com/movie-news/casting-steve-carell39s-horrible-day-jennifer-aniston-as-funny-hooker-woody-harrelson-to-battle-christian-bale/7407?wssac=164&wssaffid=news
- ^ http://www.joblo.com/movie-news/steve-carell-signs-on-to-star-in-magic-kingdom-for-sale---sold
- ^ http://whatculture.com/film/anchorman-2-plot-details-revealed.php?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=anchorman-2-plot-details-revealed
- ^ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/17/mark-ruffalo-foxcatcher-steve-carell_n_1430822.html
- ^ http://collider.com/steve-carell-conviction/123897/
- ^ http://www.firstshowing.net/2010/philip-morris-directors-to-helm-untitled-steve-carell-project//
- ^ Steve Carell on the finale of "Todos Contra Juan 2" (in spanish)
- ^ "2008: Funniest M. F". Spike.com. http://www.spike.com/blog/spike-tv-announces/65294. Retrieved February 20, 2012.
External links[link]
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Steve Carell |
- Steve Carell at the Internet Movie Database
- Steve Carell on Charlie Rose
- Works by or about Steve Carell in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
- Dateline NBC's interview with Carell
- Carell's antique country store in Marshfield, Massachusetts
- USA Today article on real-life CEO lessons
- Steve Carell at Emmys.com
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| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| Name | Carell, Steve |
| Alternative names | Carell, Steven John |
| Short description | American actor |
| Date of birth | August 16, 1962 |
| Place of birth | Concord, Massachusetts |
| Date of death | |
| Place of death | |
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This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Carell
This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
Not to be confused with Stephen Wright.
For other people named Steven Wright, see Steven Wright (disambiguation).
| Steven Wright | |
|---|---|
 Wright at Tufts University, 1994 |
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| Birth name | Steven Alexander Wright |
| Born | (1955-12-06) December 6, 1955 (age 56) Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States |
| Medium | stand-up, film, television |
| Nationality | American |
| Years active | 1979–present |
| Genres | surreal humor, one-liners, deadpan, wit/word play, observational comedy, Musical comedy |
| Influences | Woody Allen, George Carlin,[1] Bob Newhart[2] |
| Influenced | Mitch Hedberg, Demetri Martin, Milton Jones, Jimmy Carr, Anthony Jeselnik, Zach Galifianakis, Matt Kopache, Billy Connolly |
| Notable works and roles | I Have a Pony K-Billy DJ in Reservoir Dogs Speed in The Swan Princess Guy on the Couch in Half Baked I Still Have a Pony |
| Website | StevenWright.com |
| Academy Awards | |
| Best Short Film, Live Action 1988 The Appointments of Dennis Jennings |
|
Steven Alexander Wright (born December 6, 1955) is an American comedian, actor and writer. He is known for his distinctly lethargic voice and slow, deadpan delivery of ironic, philosophical and sometimes nonsensical jokes, paraprosdokians, and one-liners with contrived situations.
Contents |
Early life and career[link]
Wright was born in Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and grew up in Burlington, Massachusetts,[3][4] one of four children of Lucille “Dolly” (née Lomano) and Alexander K. Wright.[3][5][6] He was raised Catholic.[7] His mother was Italian American and his father was of Scottish descent.[8] Wright's father, an electronics technician who "tested a lot of stuff for the Apollo space program," became a truck driver after that program ended.[3]
Wright spent two years obtaining an associate's degree from Middlesex Community College in Bedford, Massachusetts, before enrolling at Emerson College.[9] He graduated from the latter in 1978[9] and began performing stand-up comedy in 1979[3][10] at the Boston comedy club the Comedy Connection.[3][9] He cites George Carlin and Woody Allen among his influences.[11]
In 1982 Peter Lassally, executive producer of The Tonight Show, noticed Wright performing on a bill with other local comics at the comedy club Ding Ho,[12] in Cambridge's Inman Square,[13] a venue Wright described as "half Chinese restaurant and half comedy club. It was a pretty weird place".[3] Lassally booked Wright on The Tonight Show, where the comic so impressed host Johnny Carson and the studio audience that Wright was brought back less than a week later.[11] In May 2000, Wright and other Ding Ho alumni, including Lenny Clarke, Barry Crimmins, Steve Sweeney, Bill Sohonage, and Jimmy Tingle, appeared at a reunion benefit for comic Bob Lazarus, suffering from leukemia.[13]
Stand-up success[link]
Wright's 1985 comedy album was entitled I Have a Pony. It was released on Warner Bros. Records, received critical acclaim and was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album. The success of this album landed him a much coveted HBO special which he recorded as a live college concert performance, A Steven Wright Special. By now Wright had firmly developed a new brand of obscure, laid-back performing and was rapidly building a cult-like mystique and eclectic following of "hip", savvy fans. His opening act for the HBO concert was fellow "Ding Ho" comedy alumni Bill Sohonage who recounts that Steven's ultra-casual, nearly catatonic demeanor was no act. "He walked into my dressing room, minutes before I was to take the stage, and asked if he could borrow a shirt, as his had a giant pizza stain. You would think it might be normal to be a little nervous going on a college stage in front of 23,000, let alone having HBO out there filming but as I passed by his room while walking on-stage I saw him sound asleep and loudly snoring". The performance would become one of HBO's longest running and most requested comedy specials and propel him to huge success on the college arena concert circuits.
In 1989 he and fellow producer Dean Parisot won an Academy Award for their 30-minute short film "The Appointments of Dennis Jennings", directed by Parisot, written by Mike Armstrong and Wright, and starring Wright and Rowan Atkinson. Upon accepting the Oscar, Wright said, "Now I'm sorry I cut out that last hour-and-a-half." In 1992 Wright had a recurring role on the television sitcom Mad About You. He supplied the voice of the radio DJ in writer-director Quentin Tarantino's film Reservoir Dogs that year. "Dean Parisot's wife Sally Menke is Quentin Tarantino's [film] editor, so when she was editing the movie and it was getting down toward the end where they didn't have the radio DJ yet, she thought of me and told Quentin and he liked the idea", Wright explained in 2009.[3]
Numerous lists of jokes attributed to Wright circulate on the Internet, sometimes of dubious origin. Wright has stated, "Someone showed me a site, and half of it that said I wrote it, I didn't write. Recently, I saw one, and I didn't write any of it. What's disturbing is that with a few of these jokes, I wish I had thought of them. A giant amount of them, I'm embarrassed that people think I thought of them, because some are really bad".[14]
After his 1990 comedy special Wicker Chairs and Gravity, Wright continued to do stand-up performances, but he was largely absent from television, only doing occasional guest spots on late-night talk shows. In 1999 he wrote and directed the 30-minute short "One Soldier", "about a soldier who was in the Civil War, right after the war, with all these existentialist thoughts and wondering if there is a God and all that stuff".[3]
In 2006 Wright produced his first stand-up special in 16 years, Steven Wright: When The Leaves Blow Away, originally airing on Comedy Central on October 21, 2006. Its DVD was released April 23, 2007.[citation needed] On September 25, 2007 Wright released his second album, I Still Have a Pony, a CD release of the material from When The Leaves Blow Away. It was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album but it lost to The Distant Future by Flight of the Conchords.
Awards and honors[link]
Steven Wright was awarded an Oscar in 1989 for Best Short Live-Action Film for The Appointments of Dennis Jennings, which he co-wrote (with Michael Armstrong) and starred in.[15]
On December 15, 2008, Wright became the first inductee to the Boston Comedy Hall of Fame.[12][16]
In a 2005 poll to find The Comedian's Comedian, he was voted amongst the top 50 comedy acts by fellow comedians and comedy insiders. He was named #23 on Comedy Central's list of the 100 greatest stand-up comics.[17]
Other interests[link]
While not well known for works outside of the comedy realm, Steven Wright has also recorded several non-comedy songs with his friend and occasional actor Mark Wuethner.[18][19] Wright also has an apparent interest in painting.[20]
Beginning in 2009, Steven Wright sporadically appears as himself on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson as a visiting celebrity, ostensibly dropping by the show to help out with the fan mail segment. He joins a small cadre of Hollywood celebrities who lend their support to the show in this way.[21][22]
Filmography[link]
- Desperately Seeking Susan (1985) as Larry Stillman D.D.S.
- The Appointments of Dennis Jennings (1988) (short film) (Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film)
- Stars and Bars (1988) as Pruitt
- Reservoir Dogs (1992) (voice only) as K-Billy DJ
- So I Married an Axe Murderer (1993) as Pilot
- Speechless (1994) as Eddie
- Mad About You as Paul Buckman's film assistant.
- Natural Born Killers (1994) as Dr. Emil Reingold
- The Swan Princess (1994) as Speed (voice)
- Mixed Nuts (1994) as Suicidal man at pay phone
- The Larry Sanders Show (1994) as himself
- Canadian Bacon (1995) as Royal Canadian Mounted Police Officer
- Half Baked (1998) as The Guy on the Couch (uncredited)
- Babe: Pig in the City (1998) as Bob (voice)
- One Soldier (1999) (short film)
- The Muse (1999)
- Loser (2000) as Sleazy Man in Bar
- Coffee and Cigarettes (2003) as Steven
- The Aristocrats (2005) as himself
- When Stand Up Stood Out (2005) as himself
- Son of the Mask (2005) as The Boss
Discography[link]
- I Have a Pony, Warner Bros. Records CD (1985)
- A Steven Wright Special, HBO DVD (1985)
- The Appointments of Dennis Jennings, DVD (1989)
- One Soldier, DVD (1999)
- When the Leaves Blow Away, DVD (2006)
- I Still Have a Pony, Comedy Central Records CD (2007)
Videography[link]
- Wicker Chairs and Gravity, HBO Stand-up Special (1991)[23]
References[link]
 |
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Steven Wright |
- ^ The Comedy Couch - Steven Wright Interview
- ^ Steven Wright | AllMusic
- ^ a b c d e f g h Frank Lovece (May 28, 2009). "Comedian Steven Wright plays Westbury Sunday". Newsday. Archived from the original on 2009-05-31. http://web.archive.org/web/20090531055218/http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/music/ny-etent2812804889may26,0,6077734.story. Retrieved 2012-03-22.
- ^ Gail Waterhouse (March 3, 2010). "a famous former Burlington resident". The Boston Globe.
- ^ Obituary
- ^ "Cover Story; The (sur)real Steven Wright; He laughs easily, works hard for material". The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. 1987-08-01. http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=AT&p_theme=at&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_topdoc=1&p_text_direct-0=0EB7C2D383BE2F59&p_field_direct-0=document_id&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&s_trackval=GooglePM. Retrieved 2010-02-22.
- ^ Steven Wright - Latest
- ^ Dana, Rebecca (2009-06-05). "Steven Wright on Letterman, Rembrandt and Being Short". Speakeasy. http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2009/06/05/steven-wright-on-letterman-rembrandt-and-being-short/tab/article/. Retrieved 2010-02-22.
- ^ a b c Crane, Joyce Pellino. "Laugh Track: For more than five decades, Emerson College has been putting comics on the road to success", The Boston Globe, October 7, 2007
- ^ Young, Chris. "Behind a new album, comedian Steven Wright plays Pittsburgh for the first time in five years", Pittsburgh City Paper, October 11, 2007
- ^ a b Keepnews, Peter. "A Strange Career Takes an Odd Turn", The New York Times, February 10, 2008, Section AR; Column 0; Arts and Leisure Desk; Television; Pg. 11
- ^ a b Turbovsky, Rob. "Steven Wright inducted into Hall, a city’s comedy history celebrated", Punchline Magazine, December 22, 2008
- ^ a b Baltrusis, Sam. "Steven Wright headlines Ding Ho reunion benefit", LoadedGunBoston.com, April 8, 2008
- ^ "AV Club: Interview with Steven Wright", The Onion, 9 November 2006.
- ^ Steven Wright Main | All About Steven Wright - Moviefone
- ^ Miller, Jay, N. "The Wright stuff; Boston comedian is first inductee into hall of fame", The Patriot Ledger (Quincy, Massachusetts), December 15, 2008, Features; pg. 23
- ^ Comedy Central's 100 Greatest Stand-Ups of all Time, Everything2.com
- ^ Steven Wright - Music
- ^ Mark Wuerthner at the Internet Movie Database
- ^ Steven Wright - Music & Paintings
- ^ STEVEN ON THE LATE LATE SHOW
- ^ The Late Late Show - Steven Wright Drops By
- ^ Steven Wright - The History
External links[link]
- Official website
- Steven Wright at the Internet Movie Database
- Wright-House.com: Jokes attributed to Steven Wright, with actual authors identified
- Dead-Frog.com: Video of Steven Wright from When the Leaves Blow Away
- Interview: Steven Wright Riverfront Times. October 2008.
| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| Name | Wright, Steven |
| Alternative names | |
| Short description | American actor |
| Date of birth | December 6, 1955 |
| Place of birth | Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Date of death | |
| Place of death | |
http://wn.com/Steven_Wright
Related pages:
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This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
| Don Van Vliet | |
|---|---|
 At Convocation Hall, Toronto, in 1974 |
|
| Background information | |
| Birth name | Don Glen Vliet |
| Also known as | Captain Beefheart Bloodshot Rollin' Red |
| Born | (1941-01-15)January 15, 1941 Glendale, California, U.S. |
| Died | December 17, 2010(2010-12-17) (aged 69) Arcata, California, U.S.[1] |
| Genres | Experimental rock, blues rock, psychedelic rock, progressive rock,[2] protopunk, spoken word, free jazz, outsider |
| Occupations | Singer, songwriter, musician, artist, painter, sculptor, poet, lyricist, composer, author, arranger, record producer, film director |
| Instruments | Vocals, harmonica, saxophone, clarinet, oboe, french horn, shehnai, recorder, flute, piccolo, trumpet, percussion, guitar, piano |
| Years active | 1964–1982 |
| Labels | A&M, Buddah, Blue Thumb, ABC, Reprise, Straight, Virgin, Mercury, DiscReet, Warner Bros., Atlantic, Epic |
| Associated acts | The Magic Band, Frank Zappa, The Mothers of Invention, Gary Lucas, The Tubes, Jack Nitzsche, Zoot Horn Rollo, Jeff Cotton, Rockette Morton, Winged Eel Fingerling, The Mascara Snake, John 'Drumbo' French, Ry Cooder |
Don Van Vliet ( /væn ˈvliːt/, born Don Glen Vliet;[3] January 15, 1941 – December 17, 2010) was an American musician, singer-songwriter, artist and poet best known by the stage name Captain Beefheart. His musical work was conducted with a rotating ensemble of musicians called The Magic Band, active between 1965 and 1982, with whom he recorded 13 studio albums. Noted for his powerful singing voice with its wide range,[4] Van Vliet also played the harmonica, saxophone and numerous other wind instruments. His music blended rock, blues and psychedelia with avant-garde and contemporary experimental composition.[5] Beefheart was also known for exercising an almost dictatorial control over his supporting musicians, and for often constructing myths about his life.[6]
During his teen years in Lancaster, California, Van Vliet developed an eclectic musical taste and formed "a mutually useful but volatile" friendship with Frank Zappa, with whom he sporadically competed and collaborated.[7] He began performing with his Captain Beefheart persona in 1964 and joined the original Magic Band line-up, initiated by Alexis Snouffer, in 1965. The group drew attention with their cover of Bo Diddley's "Diddy Wah Diddy", which became a regional hit. It was followed by their acclaimed debut album Safe as Milk, released in 1967 on Buddah Records. After being dropped by two consecutive record labels, they signed to Zappa's Straight Records. As producer, Zappa granted Beefheart unrestrained artistic freedom in making 1969's Trout Mask Replica, which ranked fifty-eighth in Rolling Stone magazine's 2003 list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.[8] In 1974, frustrated by lack of commercial success, he released two albums of more conventional rock music that were critically panned; this move, combined with not having been paid for a European tour, and years of enduring Beefheart's abusive behavior, led the entire band to quit. Beefheart eventually formed a new Magic Band with a group of younger musicians and regained contemporary approval through three final albums: Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller) (1978), Doc at the Radar Station (1980) and Ice Cream for Crow (1982).
Van Vliet has been described as "one of modern music's true innovators" with "a singular body of work virtually unrivalled in its daring and fluid creativity".[5][9] Although he achieved little commercial or mainstream critical success,[10] he sustained a cult following as a "highly significant" and "incalculable" influence on an array of New Wave, punk, post-punk, experimental and alternative rock musicians.[9][11] Known for his enigmatic personality and relationship with the public, Van Vliet made few public appearances after his retirement from music (and from his Beefheart persona) in 1982. He pursued a career in art, an interest that originated in his childhood talent for sculpture, and a venture which proved to be his most financially secure. His expressionist paintings and drawings command high prices, and have been exhibited in art galleries and museums across the world.[5][12][13] Van Vliet died in 2010 after many years of multiple sclerosis.[14]
Contents
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Biography[link]
Early life and musical influences, 1941–1962[link]
Van Vliet was born Don Glen Vliet in Glendale, California, on January 15, 1941, to Glen Alonzo Vliet, a service station owner of Dutch ancestry from Kansas, and Willie Sue Vliet (née Warfield), who was from Arkansas.[3] He claimed to have as an ancestor Peter Van Vliet, a Dutch painter who knew Rembrandt. Van Vliet also claimed that he was related to adventurer and author Richard Halliburton and the cowboy actor Slim Pickens, and said that he remembered being born.[5][15]
Van Vliet began painting and sculpting at age three.[16] His subjects reflected his "obsession" with animals, particularly dinosaurs, fish, African mammals and lemurs.[17] At the age of nine he won a children's sculpting competition organised for the Los Angeles Zoo in Griffith Park by a local tutor, Agostinho Rodrigues.[18] Local newspaper cuttings of his junior sculpting achievements can be found reproduced in the Splinters book, included in the Riding Some Kind Of Unusual Skull Sleigh boxed CD work, released in 2004.[19] The sprawling park, with its zoo and observatory had a strong influence on young Vliet, as it was a short distance from his home on Waverly Drive. The track "Observatory Crest" on Bluejeans & Moonbeams reflects this continued interest. A portrait photo of the school-age Vliet can be seen on the front of the lyric sheet within the first issue of the US release of Trout Mask Replica.
For some time during the 1950s Van Vliet worked as an apprentice with Rodrigues, who considered him a child prodigy. Vliet made claim to have been a lecturer at the Barnsdall Art Institute in Los Angeles at the age of eleven,[17] although it is likely he simply gave a form of artistic dissertation. Accounts of Van Vliet's precocious achievement in art often include his statement that he sculpted on a weekly television show.[20] He claimed that his parents discouraged his interest in sculpture, based upon their perception of artists as 'queer'. They declined several scholarship offers,[9] including one from the local Knudsen Creamery to travel to Europe with six years' paid tuition to study marble sculpture.[21] Van Vliet later admitted personal hesitation to take the scholarship based upon the bitterness of his parents' disencouragement.[22]
Van Vliet's artistic enthusiasm became so fervent, he claimed that his parents were forced to feed him through the door in the room where he sculpted. When he was thirteen the family moved from the Los Angeles area to the more remote farming town of Lancaster, near the Mojave Desert, where there was a growing aerospace industry and testing plant that would become Edwards Airforce Base. It was an environment that would greatly influence him creatively from then on.[20] Van Vliet remained interested in art; his paintings, often reminiscent of Franz Kline's,[23] were later featured on several of his own albums. Meanwhile he developed his taste and interest in music, listening "intensively" to the Delta blues of Son House and Robert Johnson, jazz artists such as Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk and Cecil Taylor, and the Chicago blues of Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters.[5][20][24] During his early teenage years Vliet would sometimes socialize with members of local bands such as The Omens and "The Blackouts, although his interests were still focused upon an art career. The Omens' guitarists Alexis Snouffer and Jerry Handley would later become founders of "The Magic Band" and The Blackouts' drummer, Frank Zappa, would later capture Vliet's vocal capabilities on record for the first time.[25][26] This first known recording, when he was simply 'Don Vliet', is "Lost In A Whirlpool" - one of Zappa's early 'field recordings' made in his college classroom with brother Bobby on guitar. It is featured on Zappa's posthumously released The Lost Episodes (1996).
He had dropped out of school by that time, and spent most of his time staying at home. His girlfriend lived in the house, and his grandmother lived in the house, and his aunt and his uncle lived across the street. And his father had had a heart attack; his father drove a Helms bread truck, part of the time Don was helping out by taking over the bread truck route [and] driving up to Mojave. The rest of the time he would just sit at home and listen to rhythm and blues records, and scream at his mother to get him a Pepsi.
Frank Zappa[27]
Van Vliet claimed that he never attended public school, alleging "half a day of kindergarten" to be the extent of his formal education and saying that "if you want to be a different fish, you've got to jump out of the school." His associates said that he only dropped out during his senior year of high school to help support the family after his father's heart attack. His graduation picture appears in the school's yearbook.[28] While attending Antelope Valley High School in Lancaster, Van Vliet became close friends with fellow teenager Frank Zappa, the pair bonding through their interest in Chicago blues and R&B.[20][29] Van Vliet is portrayed in both The Real Frank Zappa Book and Barry Miles' biography Zappa as fairly spoiled at this stage of his life, the center of attention as an only child. He spent most of his time locked in his room listening to records, often with Zappa, into the early hours in the morning, eating leftover food from his father's Helms bread truck and demanding that his mother bring him a Pepsi.[27] His parents tolerated such behavior under the belief that their child was truly gifted. Vliet's 'Pepsi-moods' were ever a source of amusement to band members, leading Zappa to later write the wry tune "Why Doesn't Someone Give Him A Pepsi?" that featured on the Bongo Fury tour.[30]
After Zappa began regular occupation at Paul Buff's PAL Studio in Cucamonga he and Van Vliet began collaborating, tentatively as "The Soots". By the time Zappa had turned the venue into Studio Z the duo had completed some songs. These were "Cheryl's Canon", "Metal Man Has Won His Wings" and a Howlin' Wolf styled rendition of Little Richard's "Slippin' and Slidin'".[31] Further songs, on Zappa's Mystery Disc (1996), "I Was a Teen-Age Malt Shop" and "The Birth of Captain Beefheart" also provide an insight to Zappa's 'teenage movie' script titled Captain Beefheart vs. the Grunt People,[32] the first appearances of the Beefheart name. It has been suggested this name came from a term used by Vliet's Uncle Alan who had a habit of exposing himself to Don's girlfriend, Laurie Stone. He would urinate with the bathroom door open and, if she was walking by, would mumble about his penis, saying "Ahh, what a beauty! It looks just like a big, fine beef heart."[33] In a 1970 interview with Rolling Stone, Van Vliet requests "don't ask me why or how" he and Zappa came up with the name.[20] He would later claim in an appearance on Late Night with David Letterman that the name referred to "a beef in my heart against this society."[21] In the "Grunt People" draft script Beefheart and his mother play themselves, with his father played by Howlin' Wolf. Grace Slick is penned in as a 'celestial seductress' and there are also roles for future Magic Band members Bill Harkleroad and Mark Boston.[34]
Van Vliet enrolled at Antelope Valley Junior College as an art major, but decided to leave the following year. He once worked as a door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman, during which time he sold a vacuum cleaner to the writer Aldous Huxley at his home in Llano, pointing to it and declaring, "Well I assure you sir, this thing sucks."[35] After managing a Kinney's shoe store, Van Vliet relocated to Rancho Cucamonga, California, to reconnect with Zappa, who inspired his entry into musical performance. Van Vliet was quite shy but was eventually able to imitate the deep voice of Howlin' Wolf with his wide vocal range.[24][36] He eventually grew comfortable with public performance and, after learning to play the harmonica, began playing at dances and small clubs in Southern California.
Initial recordings, 1962–1969[link]
In early 1965 Alex Snouffer, a Lancaster rhythm and blues guitarist, invited Vliet to sing with a group that he was assembling. Vliet joined the first Magic Band and changed his name to Don Van Vliet, while Snouffer became Alex St. Clair (sometimes spelled Claire). Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band signed to A&M and released two singles in 1966. The first was a version of Bo Diddley's "Diddy Wah Diddy" that became a regional hit in Los Angeles. The followup, "Moonchild" (written by David Gates) was less well received. The band played music venues that catered to underground artists, such as the Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco.[37]
[edit] Safe as Milk
After fulfilling their deal for two singles the band presented demos to A&M during 1966 for what would become the Safe as Milk album. A&M's Jerry Moss reportedly described this new direction as "too negative"[9] and dropped the band from the label, although still under contract. Much of the demo recording was accomplished at Art Laboe's Original Sound Studio, then with Gary Marker on the controls at Sunset Sound on 8-track. By the end of 1966 they were signed to Buddah Records and much of the demo work was transferred to 4-track, at the behest of Krasnow and Perry, in the RCA Studio in Hollywood, where the recording was finalized. Tracks that were originally laid down in the demo by Doug Moon are therefore taken up by Cooder's work in the release, as Moon had departed over 'musical differences' at this juncture.
Drummer John French had now joined the group and it would later (notably on Trout Mask Replica) be his patience that was required to transcribe Van Vliet's creative ideas (often expressed by whistling or banging on the piano) into musical form for the other group members. On French's departure this role was taken over by Bill Harkleroad for Lick My Decals Off, Baby.[38]
Many of the lyrics on the Safe as Milk album were written by Van Vliet in collaboration with the writer Herb Bermann, who befriended Van Vliet after seeing him perform at a bar-gig in Lancaster in 1966. The song "Electricity" was a poem written by Bermann, who gave Van Vliet permission to adapt it to music.[39]
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While Safe as Milk mostly conveyed a blues–rock sound, songs such as "Electricity" illustrated the band's unconventional instrumentation and Van Vliet's unusual vocals, that guitarist Doug Moon described as "hinting of things to come".
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Much of the Safe as Milk material was honed and arranged by the arrival of 20-year–old guitar prodigy Ry Cooder, who had been brought into the group after much pressure from Vliet. The band began recording in spring 1967, with Richard Perry cutting his teeth in his first job as producer. The album was released in September 1967. Richie Unterberger of Allmusic called the album "blues–rock gone slightly askew, with jagged, fractured rhythms, soulful, twisting vocals from Van Vliet, and more doo wop, soul, straight blues, and folk–rock influences than he would employ on his more avant garde outings".
Recognition[link]
Among those who took notice were The Beatles. Both John Lennon and Paul McCartney were known as great admirers of Beefheart.[40] Lennon displayed two of the album's promotional 'baby bumper stickers' in the sunroom at his home.[41] Later, the Beatles planned to sign Beefheart to their experimental Zapple label (plans that were scrapped after Allen Klein took over the group's management). Van Vliet was often critical of the Beatles, however. He considered the lyric "I'd love to turn you on", from their song "A Day in the Life", to be ridiculous and conceited. Tiring of their "lullabies",[42] he lampooned them with the Strictly Personal song "Beatle Bones 'n' Smokin' Stones", that featured the sardonic refrain of "strawberry fields, strawberry fields forever". It should also be noted that 'strawberry fields' could also be an oblique reference to a form of LSD circulating at the time. The album's five 'acid stamps' and first track "Ah Feel like Ahcid" may underline this, whilst 'Smokin' Stones' is probably a 'pro comment' on the contrasting rhythm and blues style of the Rolling Stones. Vliet spoke badly of Lennon after getting no response when he sent a telegram of support to him and wife Yoko Ono during their 1969 "Bed–In for peace". Van Vliet did meet McCartney in Cannes during the Magic Band's 1968 tour of Europe, though McCartney later claimed to have no recollection of this meeting.[43]
The flipside of success[link]
Doug Moon left the band because of his dislike of the band's increasing experimentation outside his preferred blues genre. Ry Cooder told of Moon becoming so angered by Van Vliet's unrelenting criticism that he walked into the room pointing a loaded crossbow at him, only to be told "Get that fucking thing out of here, get out of here and get back in your room", which he obeyed.[27] (Other band members have disputed this account, although Moon is likely to have 'passed through' the studio with a weapon.)[44] Moon was present during the early demo sessions at Original Sound studio, above the Kama Sutra/Buddah offices. The works Moon laid down did not see the light of day, as he was replaced by Cooder when they continued on material at Sunset Sound with Marker.[45] Marker then fell by the wayside when recording was moved by Krasnow and Perry to RCA Studio. This would have a profound effect on the quality of the Safe as Milk work, as the former studio was 8-track and the subsequent studio a 4-track.
To support the album's release the group had been scheduled to play at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival. During this period Vliet suffered severe anxiety attacks that made him convinced that he was having a heart attack, probably exacerbated by his heavy LSD use and the fact that his father died of heart failure a few years earlier. At a vital 'warm-up' performance at the Mt. Tamalpais Festival (June 10/11) shortly before the scheduled Monterey Festival (June 16/18), the band began to play "Electricity" and Van Vliet froze, straightened his tie, then walked off the ten–foot stage and landed on manager Bob Krasnow. He later claimed he had seen a girl in the audience turn into a fish, with bubbles coming from her mouth.[46] This aborted any opportunity of breakthrough success at Monterey, as Cooder immediately decided he could no longer work with Van Vliet,[27] effectively quitting both the event and the band on the spot. With such complex guitar parts there was no means for the band to find a competent replacement in time for Monterey. Cooder's spot was eventually filled for a short spell by Gerry McGee, who had played with The Monkees. According to French the band did two gigs with McGee, one of which was at The Peppermint Twist near Long Beach. The other was at Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, 7 August 1967, as opening act to The Yardbirds.[47] McGee was in the group long enough to have an outfit made by a Santa Monica boutique[47] that also created the gear worn by the band on the Strictly Personal cover stamps.
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"Safe as Milk" from Strictly Personal, an album "having little in the way of lyrics or chords beyond the most primeval stomp".
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[edit] Strictly Personal
In August, guitarist Jeff Cotton filled the guitar spot vacated, in turn, by Cooder and McGee. In October and November 1967 the Snouffer/Cotton/Handley/French line–up recorded material for what was planned to be the second album. Originally intended to be a double album called It Comes to You in a Plain Brown Wrapper for the Buddah label, it was released later in pieces in 1971 and 1995. After rejection from Buddah, Bob Krasnow encouraged the band to re–record four of the shorter numbers, to add two more, and make shorter versions of "Mirror Man" and "Kandy Korn". The music was already weakly recorded with a trebly thin sound; Krasnow then implemented a strange mix full of "phasing" that by most accounts (including Beefheart's) diminished the music's strength; this was released in October 1968 as Strictly Personal on Krasnow's Blue Thumb label.[48] Stewart Mason in his Allmusic review of the album described it as a "terrific album" and a "fascinating, underrated release", "every bit the equal of Safe as Milk and Trout Mask Replica".[49] Langdon Winner of Rolling Stone called Strictly Personal "an excellent album. The guitars of the Magic Band mercilessly bend and stretch notes in a way that suggests that the world of music has wobbled clear off its axis," with the lyrics demonstrating "Beefheart's ability to juxtapose delightful humor with frightening insights".[50] Van Vliet furthered his own mythology through interviews.
[edit] Mirror Man
In 1971 some of the recordings done for Buddah were released as Mirror Man, bearing a liner note claiming that the material had been recorded "one night in Los Angeles in 1965". This was a ruse to circumvent possible copyright issues; the material was actually recorded in November and December 1967. Essentially a "jam" album, described as pushing "the boundaries of conventional blues–rock, with a Beefheart vocal tossed in here and there. Some may miss Beefheart's surreal poetry, gruff vocals, and/or free jazz influence, while others may find it fascinating to hear the Magic Band simply letting go and cutting loose".[51] The album's 'miss-credit errors' also state band members as "Alex St. Clare Snouffer" (Alex St. Clare/Alexis Snouffer), "Antennae Jimmy Simmons" (Semens/Jeff Cotton) and "Jerry Handsley" (Handley). First vinyl was issued in both a die-cut gatefold (revealing a 'cracked' mirror) and a single sleeve with same image. The UK Buddah issue was part of the Polydor-manufactured 'Select' series.
During his first trip to England in January 1968, Captain Beefheart was briefly represented in the UK by mod icon Peter Meaden, an early manager of The Who. The Captain and his band members were initially denied entry to the United Kingdom, because Meaden had illegally booked them for gigs without applying for appropriate work permits.[52] After returning to Germany for a few days, the group was permitted to re-enter the UK, when they recorded material for John Peel's radio show and appeared at the Middle Earth venue, introduced by Peel on Saturday 20 January. By this time, they had terminated their association with Meaden. On January 27, 1968, Beefheart achieved one of his most memorable live performances, when the band performed in the MIDEM Music Festival on the beach at Cannes, France.
Alex St. Claire left the band in June 1968 after their return from a second European tour and was replaced by teenager Bill Harkleroad; bassist Jerry Handley left a few weeks later.
[edit] The Mirror Man Sessions and new Buddha
In 1999 the defunct Buddah label emerged with a new look, a correct title spelling and relevant 'deity' image - replacing the silhouetted 'Shiva' image and Buddah name for Beefheart material. The Bertelsmann Music Group (BMG) now had the Buddah catalogue, producing both a remastered CD of Safe as Milk and a CD titled The Mirror Man Sessions, the latter providing an insight to the Mirror Man and Strictly Personal albums, and recordings relating to the 'Brown Wrapper' project. The tracks are presented as "Original Masters" and provides further insight to the interpolating material that also appears on It Comes To You In A Plain Brown Wrapper. The insert also shows the entire band in Quaker hats and outfits.
[edit] The 'Brown Wrapper' Sessions
After their Euro tour and the Cannes beach performance the band returned to the USA. Moves were already in the air for them to leave Buddah and sign to MGM and, prior to their May tour - mainly in the UK - they re-recorded some Buddah material of the partial Mirror Man sessions at Sunset Sound with Bruce Botnick. Beefheart had also been conceptualizing new band names, including "25th Century Quaker" and "Blue Thumb",[53] whilst making suggestions to other musicians that they might get involved. The thought-process of "25th Century Quaker" was that it would be a 'blues band' alias for the more avant-garde work of the Magic Band. Photographer Guy Webster actually photographed the band in Quaker-style outfits, and the picture appears in The Mirror Man Sessions CD insert. It would later transpire that much of this situation was transient and that Buddah's Bob Krasnow was to set up his own label. The label that was unsurprisingly named Blue Thumb launched with its first release Strictly Personal, a truncated version of the original Beefheart vision of a double album. Thus "25th Century Quaker" became a track and a potential band-name became a label.
In overview, the works for the double album in this period were intended to be packaged in a plain brown wrapper, with a 'strictly personal' over-stamp and addressed in a manner that could have connotations of drug content, pornographic or illicit material; As per the small ads of the time; "It comes to you in a plain brown wrapper". Given that Krasnow had effectively poached the band from Buddah there were limitations on what material could be released. Strictly Personal was the result, contained in its enigmatically-addressed parcel sleeve. The raft of material left behind eventually emerged, firstly on CD as I May Be Hungry, But I Sure Ain't Weird and later on vinyl, implemented by John French, as It Comes To You In A Plain Brown Wrapper (which has two tracks that are missing from the former release). Both Blue Thumb and the stamps on the cover of Strictly Personal have LSD connotations, as does the track "Ah Feel Like Ahcid".
[edit] Trout Mask Replica, 1969
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Critically acclaimed as Van Vliet's magnum opus,[54] Trout Mask Replica was released as a 28 track double album in June 1969 on Frank Zappa's newly formed Straight Records label. First issues, in the USA, were auto-coupled and housed in the black 'Straight' liners along with a 6-page lyric sheet illustrated by The Mascara Snake. A school-age portrait of Van Vliet appears on the front of this sheet, whilst the cover of the gatefold enigmatically shows Beefheart in a 'Quaker' hat, obscuring his face with the head of a fish. The fish is a carp - arguably a 'replica' for a trout, photographed by Cal Schenkel. The inner spread 'infra-red' photography is by Ed Caraeff, whose Beefheart vacuum cleaner images from this session also appear on Zappa's Hot Rats release (a month earlier) to accompany "Willie The Pimp" lyrics sung by Vliet. Alex St. Clair had now left the band and, after Junior Madeo from The Blackouts was considered,[55] the role was filled by Bill Harkleroad. Bassist Jerry Handley had also departed, with Gary Marker stepping in. Thus the long rehearsals for the album began in the house on Ensenada Drive in Woodland Hills, L.A.,[56][57] that would become the infamous 'Magic Band House'.
The Magic Band began recordings for Trout Mask Replica with bassist Gary 'Magic' Marker at T.T.G. (on "Moonlight On Vermont" and "Veteran's Day Poppy"),[58] but later enlisted bassist Mark Boston after his departure. The remainder of the album was recorded at Whitney Studios, with some field recordings made at the house.[56] Boston was acquainted with French and Harkleroad via past bands. Van Vliet had also begun assigning nicknames to his band members, so Harkleroad became "Zoot Horn Rollo", and Boston became "Rockette Morton", while John French assumed the name "Drumbo", and Jeff Cotton became "Antennae Jimmy Semens". Van Vliet's cousin Victor Hayden, "The Mascara Snake", performed as a bass clarinetist later in the proceedings.[59] Vliet's girlfriend Laurie Stone, who can be heard laughing at the beginning of "Fallin' Ditch", would also became an audio typist[60] at the Magic Band house.
Van Vliet wanted the whole band to "live" the Trout Mask Replica album. The group rehearsed Van Vliet's difficult compositions for eight months, living communally in their small rented house in the Woodland Hills suburb of Los Angeles. With only two bedrooms the band members would find sleep in various corners of one, whilst Vliet occupied the other and rehearsals were accomplished in the main living area. Van Vliet implemented his vision by completely dominating his musicians, artistically and emotionally. At various times one or another of the group members was "put in the barrel," with Van Vliet berating him continually, sometimes for days, until the musician collapsed in tears or in total submission.[61] Drummer John French described the situation as "cultlike"[62] and a visiting friend said "the environment in that house was positively Mansonesque."[5] Their material circumstances were dire. With no income other than welfare and contributions from relatives, the group barely survived and were even arrested for shoplifting food (Zappa bailed them out). French has recalled living on no more than a small cup of beans a day for a month.[27] A visitor described their appearance as "cadaverous" and said that "they all looked in poor health." Band members were restricted from leaving the house and practiced for 14 or more hours a day.
Physical assaults were encouraged at times, along with verbal degradation. Beefheart spoke of studying texts on brainwashing at a public library at about this time, and appeared to be applying brainwashing techniques to his bandmembers: sleep deprivation, food deprivation, constant negative reinforcement, and rewarding bandmembers when they attacked each other or competed with each other. At one point Cotton ran from the house and escaped for a few weeks, during which time Alex Snouffer filled in for him and helped to work up "Ant Man Bee". French, who had thrown a metal cymbal at Cotton, ran after him yelling that he too wanted to come. Cotton later returned to the house with French's mother, who took him away for a few weeks, but he later felt compelled to return, as did Cotton. Mark Boston at one point hid clothes in a field across the street, planning his own getaway.[citation needed]
John French's 2010 book Through the Eyes of Magic describes some of the "talks" which were initiated by his actions such as being heard playing a Frank Zappa drum part ("The Blimp (mousetrapreplica)") in his drumming shed, and not having finished drum parts as quickly as Beefheart wanted. French writes of being punched by band members, thrown into walls, kicked, punched in the face by Beefheart hard enough to draw blood, being attacked with a sharp broomstick,[63] and eventually of Beefheart threatening to throw him out of an upper floor window. He admits complicity in similarly attacking his bandmates during "talks" aimed at them. In the end, after the album's recording, French was ejected from the band by Beefheart throwing him down a set of stairs with violence, telling him to "Take a walk, man" after not responding in a desired manner to a request to "play a strawberry" on the drums. Beefheart replaced French with drummer Jeff Bruschel, an acquaintance of Hayden. Referred to as 'Fake Drumbo' (playing on French's drumset) this final act resulted in French's name not appearing on the album credits, either as a player or arranger. Bruschel toured with the band to Europe but was replaced by the next recording.
According to Van Vliet, the 28 songs on the album were written in a single 8½ hour session at the piano, an instrument which he had no skill in playing, an approach Mike Barnes compared to John Cage's "maverick irreverence toward classical tradition",[64] though band members have stated that the songs were written over the course of about a year, beginning around December 1967. (The band did watch Federico Fellini's 1963 film 8½ during the creation of the album). It took the band about eight months to mold the songs into shape, with French bearing primary responsibility for transposing and shaping Vliet's piano fragments into guitar and bass lines, which were mostly notated on paper.[65] Harkleroad in 1998 said in retrospect: "We're dealing with a strange person, coming from a place of being a sculptor/painter, using music as his idiom. He was getting more into that part of who he was instead of this blues singer."[64] The band had rehearsed the songs so thoroughly that the instrumental tracks for 21 of the songs were recorded in a single four and a half hour recording session.[65] Van Vliet spent the next few days overdubbing the vocals. The album's title came from its cover artwork, which was photographed and designed by Cal Schenkel; Van Vliet wearing the raw head of a carp, bought from a local fish market and fashioned into a mask by Schenkel.[66]
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"Moonlight on Vermont" from Trout Mask Replica, that well illustrates the album's sound and composition.
"Pena"; An example of the album's avant garde instrumentation and bizarre lyrical content.
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Trout Mask Replica incorporated a wide variety of musical styles, including blues, avant garde/experimental, and rock. The relentless practice prior to recording blended the music into an iconoclastic whole of contrapuntal tempos, featuring slide guitar, polyrhythmic drumming (with French's drums and cymbals covered in cardboard), honking saxophone and bass clarinet. Van Vliet's vocals range from his signature Howlin' Wolf inspired growl to frenzied falsetto to laconic, casual ramblings.
The instrumental backing was effectively recorded live in the studio, while Van Vliet overdubbed most of the vocals in only partial synch with the music by hearing the slight sound leakage through the studio window.[67] Zappa said of Van Vliet's approach, "[it was] impossible to tell him why things should be such and such a way. It seemed to me that if he was going to create a unique object, that the best thing for me to do was to keep my mouth shut as much as possible and just let him do whatever he wanted to do whether I thought it was wrong or not."[27]
Van Vliet used the ensuing publicity, particularly with a 1970 Rolling Stone interview with Langdon Winner, to promulgate a number of myths which were subsequently quoted as fact. Winner's article stated, for instance, that neither Van Vliet nor the members of the Magic Band ever took drugs, but Harkleroad later contradicted this. Van Vliet claimed to have taught both Harkleroad and Boston to play their instruments from scratch; in fact the pair were already accomplished young musicians before joining the band.[67] Last, Van Vliet claimed to have gone a year and half without sleeping. When asked how this was possible, he claimed to have only eaten fruit.[15]
Critic Steve Huey of Allmusic writes that the album's influence "was felt more in spirit than in direct copycatting, as a catalyst rather than a literal musical starting point. However, its inspiring reimagining of what was possible in a rock context laid the groundwork for countless experiments in rock surrealism to follow, especially during the punk and New Wave era."[68] In 2003, the album was ranked fifty-eighth by Rolling Stone in their list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time: "On first listen, Trout Mask Replica sounds like raw Delta blues", with Beefheart "singing and ranting and reciting poetry over fractured guitar licks. But the seeming sonic chaos is an illusion—to construct the songs, the Magic Band rehearsed twelve hours a day for months on end in a house with the windows blacked out. (Producer Frank Zappa was then able to record most of the album in less than five hours.) Tracks such as "Ella Guru" and "My Human Gets Me Blues" are the direct predecessors of modern musical primitives such as Tom Waits and PJ Harvey".[8] Guitarist Fred Frith noted that during this process "forces that usually emerge in improvisation are harnessed and made constant, repeatable."[69]
Critic Robert Christgau gave the album a B+, saying that "I find it impossible to give this record an A because it is just too weird. But I'd like to. Very great played at high volume when you're feeling shitty, because you'll never feel as shitty as this record".[70] BBC disc jockey John Peel said of the album: "If there has been anything in the history of popular music which could be described as a work of art in a way that people who are involved in other areas of art would understand, then Trout Mask Replica is probably that work."[71] It was inducted into the United States National Recording Registry in 2011.
Later recordings, 1970–1982[link]
[edit] Lick My Decals Off, Baby
Lick My Decals Off, Baby (1970) continued in a similarly experimental vein. An album with "a very coherent structure" in the Magic Band's "most experimental and visionary stage",[72] it was Van Vliet's most commercially successful in the United Kingdom, spending twenty weeks on the UK Albums Chart and peaking at number 20. An early promotional music video was made of its title song, and a bizarre television commercial was also filmed that included excerpts from "Woe-Is-uh-Me-Bop", silent footage of masked Magic Band members using kitchen utensils as musical instruments, and Beefheart kicking over a bowl of what appears to be porridge onto a dividing stripe in the middle of a road. The video was rarely played but was accepted into the Museum of Modern Art, where it has been used in several programs related to music.[73][74]
On this LP Art Tripp III, formerly of the Mothers of Invention, played drums and marimba. Lick My Decals Off, Baby was the first record on which the band was credited as "The Magic Band", rather than "His Magic Band"; journalist Irwin Chusid interprets this change as "a grudging concession of its members' at least semiautonomous humanity."[67] Robert Christgau gave the album an A-, commenting that "Beefheart's famous five-octave range and covert totalitarian structures have taken on a playful undertone, repulsive and engrossing and slapstick funny".[70] Due to licensing disputes, Lick My Decals Off, Baby was unavailable on CD for many years, though it remained in print on vinyl. It was ranked second in Uncut magazine's May 2010 list of "The 50 Greatest Lost Albums".[75] In 2011, the album became available for download on the iTunes Store.[76]
[edit] The Spotlight Kid and Clear Spot
The next two records, The Spotlight Kid (simply credited to "Captain Beefheart") and Clear Spot (credited to "Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band"), were both released in 1972. The atmosphere of The Spotlight Kid is "definitely relaxed and fun, maybe one step up from a jam." And though "things do sound maybe just a little too blasé," "Beefheart at his worst still has something more than most groups at their best."[77] The music is simpler and slower than on the group's two previous releases, the uncompromisingly original Trout Mask Replica and the frenetic Lick My Decals Off, Baby. This was in part an attempt by Van Vliet to become a more appealing commercial proposition as the band had made virtually no money during the previous two years—at the time of recording, the band members were subsisting on welfare food handouts and remittances from their parents.[78] Van Vliet offered that he "got tired of scaring people with what I was doing... I realized that I had to give them something to hang their hat on, so I started working more of a beat into the music."[79] Magic Band members have also said that the slower performances were due in part to Van Vliet's inability to fit his lyrics with the instrumental backing of the faster material on the earlier albums, a problem that was exacerbated in that he almost never rehearsed with the group.[79] In the period leading up to the recording the band lived communally, first at a compound near Ben Lomond, California and then in northern California near Trinidad.[80] The situation saw a return to the physical violence and psychological manipulation that had taken place during the band's previous communal residence while composing and rehearsing Trout Mask Replica. According to John French, the worst of this was directed toward Harkleroad.[81] In his autobiography Harkleroad recalls being thrown into a dumpster, an act he interpreted as having metaphorical intent.[82]
Clear Spot's production credit of Ted Templeman made Allmusic consider "why in the world [it] wasn't more of a commercial success than it was," and that while fans "of the fully all-out side of Beefheart might find the end result not fully up to snuff as a result, but those less concerned with pushing back all borders all the time will enjoy his unexpected blend of everything tempered with a new accessibility." The song "Big Eyed Beans from Venus" is noted as "a fantastically strange piece of aggression."[83] A Clear Spot song, "Her Eyes Are A Blue Million Miles", appeared on the soundtrack of the Coen brothers' cult comedy film The Big Lebowski (1998).
[edit] Unconditionally Guaranteed and Bluejeans & Moonbeams
In 1974, immediately after the recording of Unconditionally Guaranteed, which markedly continued the trend towards a more commercial sound heard on some of the Clear Spot tracks, the Magic Band's original members departed. Disgruntled and past members worked together for a period, gigging at Blue Lake and putting together their own ideas and demos, with John French earmarked as the vocalist. These concepts eventually coalesced around the core of Art Tripp III, Harkleroad and Boston, with the formation of Mallard, helped by finance and UK recording facilities from Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson.[84] Some of French's compositions were used in the band's work, but the group's singer was Sam Galpin and the role of keyboardist was eventually taken by John Thomas, who had shared a house with French in Eureka at the time. At this time Vliet attempted to recruit both French and Harkleroad as producers for his next album, but his pleas fell on deaf ears. Andy Di Martino produced both of these Virgin label albums.
Vliet was forced to quickly form a new Magic Band to complete support-tour dates, with musicians who had no experience with his music and in fact had never heard it. Having no knowledge of the previous Magic Band style, they simply improvised what they thought would go with each song, playing much slicker versions that have been described as "bar band" versions of Beefheart songs. A review described this incarnation of the Magic Band as the "Tragic Band", a term that has stuck over the years.[85] Mike Barnes said that the description of the new band "grooving along pleasantly", was "an appropriately banal description of the music of a man who only a few years ago composed with the expressed intent of shaking listeners out of their torpor".[86] The one album they recorded, Bluejeans & Moonbeams (1974) has, like its predecessor, a completely different, almost soft rock sound from any other Beefheart record. Neither was well received; drummer Art Tripp recalled that when he and the original Magic Band listened to Unconditionally Guaranteed, they "were horrified. As we listened, it was as though each song was worse than the one which preceded it."[87] Beefheart later disowned both albums, calling them "horrible and vulgar", asking that they not be considered part of his musical output and urging fans who bought them to "take copies back for a refund".[88]
[edit] Bongo Fury to Bat Chain Puller
By the fall of 1975 the band completed their European tour, with further U.S. dates completed into the New Year of 1976, supporting Zappa along with Dr. John. Van Vliet now found himself stuck in a web of contractual hang-ups. At this point Zappa had begun to extend a helping hand, with Vliet already having performed incognito as Rollin' Red on Zappa's One Size Fits All (1975) and then joining with him on the Bongo Fury album and its later support tour. Two Vliet-penned numbers on the Bongo Fury album are Sam With The Showing Scalp Flat Top and Man With The Woman Head. The form, texture and imagery of this album's first track Debra Kadabra, sung by Vliet, has 'angular similarities' to the work he would later produce in his next three albums. On the Bongo Fury album Vliet also sings "Poofter's Froth, Wyoming Plans Ahead", harmonizes on "200 Years Old" and "Muffin Man" and plays harmonica and soprano saxophone.
In early 1976 Zappa put on his producer hat and, once again, opened up his studio facilities and finance to Vliet. This was for the production of an album provisionally titled Bat Chain Puller. The band were John French (drums), John Thomas (keyboards) and Jeff Moris Tepper and Denny Walley (guitars). Much of the work on this album had been finalized and some demos had been circulated when fate once again struck the Beefheart camp. In May 1976 the long association between Zappa and his manager/business partner Herb Cohen ceased. This resulted in Zappa's finances and ongoing works becoming part of protracted legal negotiations. The Bat Chain Puller project went 'on ice' and did not see an official release until 2011, when it was announced that the Zappa Family Trust would release the album.[89][90] After this recording John Thomas joined ex-Magic Band members in Mallard.
Prior to his next album Beefheart appeared in 1977 on the Tubes' album Now, playing saxophone on the song "Cathy's Clone",[91] and the album also featured a cover of the Clear Spot song "My Head Is My Only House Unless It Rains". In 1978 he appeared on Jack Nitzsche's soundtrack to the film Blue Collar.[35]
[edit] Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller)
Having extricated himself from a mire of contractual difficulties Beefheart emerged with this new album, in 1978, on the Warner Bros label. Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller) contained re-workings of the shelved Bat Chain Puller album and still retained this works' original guitarist, Jeff Moris Tepper. However, he and Vliet were now joined by a whole new line-up of Richard Redus (guitar, bass and accordion), Eric Drew Feldman (bass, piano and synthesizer), Bruce Lambourne Fowler (trombone and air bass), Art Tripp (percussion and marimba) and Robert Arthur Williams (drums). Thus, the album was suffixed Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller) and took on new musical directions. It was co-produced by Vliet with Pete Johnson. Members of this Magic Band and the 'Bat Chain' elements would later feature on Beefheart's last two albums. Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller) was described by Ned Raggett of Allmusic to be "...manna from heaven for those feeling Beefheart had lost his way on his two Mercury albums".[92] Following Vliet's death, John French claimed the 40-second spoken word track "Apes-Ma" to be an analogy of Van Vliet's deteriorating physical condition.[93] The album's sleeve features the Don Van Vliet painting Green Tom, made in 1976. One of the many works that would mark out his longed-for career as a painter of note in later years.
[edit] Doc At The Radar Station
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"Bat Chain Puller" from (Shiny Beast) Bat Chain Puller, the album that marked Van Vliet's return to prominence and form.
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Doc at the Radar Station (1980) helped establish Beefheart's late resurgence. Released by Virgin Records during the post-punk scene, the music was now accessible to a younger, more receptive audience. He was interviewed in a feature report on KABC-TV's Channel 7 Eyewitness News in which he was hailed as "the father of the New Wave. One of the most important American composers of the last fifty years, [and] a primitive genius"; Van Vliet said at this period, "I'm doing a non-hypnotic music to break up the catatonic state... and I think there is one right now."[94] Huey of Allmusic cited the Doc at the Radar Station as being "generally acclaimed as the strongest album of his comeback, and by some as his best since Trout Mask Replica", "even if the Captain's voice isn't quite what it once was, Doc at the Radar Station is an excellent, focused consolidation of Beefheart's past and then-present".[95] Van Vliet's biographer Mike Barnes speaks of "revamping work built on skeletal ideas and fragments that would have mouldered away in the vaults had they not been exhumed and transformed into full-blown, totally convincing new material."[5] During this period, Van Vliet made two appearances on David Letterman's late night television program on NBC, and also performed on Saturday Night Live.
Richard Redus and Art Tripp departed on this album, with slide guitar and marimba duties taken up by the reappearance of John French. The guitar skills of Gary Lucas also feature on the track "Flavor Bud Living".
[edit] Ice Cream for Crow
File:NewMagicBandPromo.jpg
Van Vliet and the new Magic Band.
The final Beefheart record, Ice Cream for Crow (1982), was recorded with Gary Lucas (who was also Van Vliet's manager), Jeff Moris Tepper, Richard Snyder and Cliff Martinez. This line-up made a video to promote the title track, directed by Van Vliet and Ken Schreiber, with cinematography by Daniel Pearl, which was rejected by MTV for being "too weird." However, the video was included in the Letterman broadcast on NBC-TV, and was also accepted into the Museum of Modern Art.[73][74] Van Vliet announced "I don't want MTV!" during his interview with Letterman, in reference to MTV's "I want my MTV" marketing campaign of the time.[96] Ice Cream for Crow, along with songs such as its title track, features instrumental performances by the Magic Band with performance poetry readings by Van Vliet. Raggett of Allmusic called the album a "last entertaining blast of wigginess from one of the few truly independent artists in late 20th century pop music, with humor, skill, and style all still intact"; with the Magic Band "turning out more choppy rhythms, unexpected guitar lines, and outré arrangements, Captain Beefheart lets everything run wild as always, with successful results".[97] Barnes writes that "the most original and vital tracks (on the album) are the newer ones", saying that it "feels like an hors-d'oeuvre for a main course that never came".[5] Promotional work proposed to Beefheart by Virgin Records was as unorthodox as him making an appearance in the 1987 film Grizzly II: The Predator.[98] Soon after, Van Vliet retired from music and began a new career as a painter. Gary Lucas tried to convince him to record one more album, but to no avail.
[edit] Riding Some Kind Of Unusual Skull Sleigh
Released in 2004 by Rhino Handmade in a limited edition of 1,500 copies,[19] this prestigious signed and numbered box set contains a "Riding Some Kind of Unusual Skull Sleigh" CD of Vliet-recited poetry, the Anton Corbijn film of Vliet Some YoYo Stuff on DVD and two art books. One book, entitled Splinters, gives a visual 'scrapbook' insight into Vliet's life, from an early age to his painting in retirement. The second, eponymously titled, book is packed with art pages of Vliet's work. The first is bound in green linen, the second in yellow. These colors are counterpointed throughout the package, which comes in a green slipcase measuring 235 x 325 x 70 mm. An onion-skin wallet, nestling at the package's inner sanctum, contains a matching-numbered Vliet lithograph on hand-rolled paper, signed by the artist. The two books are by publishers "Artist Ink Editions".
Paintings[link]
Throughout his musical career, Van Vliet remained interested in visual art. He placed his paintings, often reminiscent of Franz Kline's, on several of his albums.[23] In 1987, Van Vliet published Skeleton Breath, Scorpion Blush, a collection of his poetry, paintings and drawings.[99]
In the mid 1980s, Van Vliet became reclusive and abandoned music, stating he had gotten "too good at the horn"[100] and could make far more money painting.[101] Beefheart's first exhibition had been at Liverpool's Bluecoat Gallery during the Magic Band's 1972 tour of the UK. He was interviewed on Granada regional television standing in front of his bold black and white canvases.[27] He was inspired to begin an art career when a fan, Julian Schnabel, who admired the artwork seen on his album covers, asked to buy a drawing from him.[13] His debut exhibition as a serious painter was at the Mary Boone Gallery in New York in 1985 and was initially regarded as that of "another rock musician dabbling in art for ego's sake",[16] though his primitive, non-conformist work has received more sympathetic and serious attention since then, with some sales approaching $25,000.[13] Two books have been published specifically devoted to critique and analysis of his artwork: Riding Some Kind of Unusual Skull Sleigh: On The Arts Of Don Van Vliet (1999) by W.C. Bamberger[102] and Stand Up To Be Discontinued,[103] first published in 1993, a now rare collection of essays on Van Vliet's work. The limited edition version of the book contains a CD of Van Vliet reading six of his poems: "Fallin' Ditch", "The Tired Plain", "Skeleton Makes Good", "Safe Sex Drill", "Tulip" and "Gill". A deluxe edition was published in 1994; only 60 were printed, with etchings of Van Vliet's signature, costing £180.[104]
File:CrossPokedShadowofaCrowNo1.jpg
Cross Poked Shadow of a Crow No. 1 (1990)
In the early 1980s Van Vliet established an association with the Michael Werner Gallery.[105] Eric Feldman stated later in an interview that at that time Michael Werner told Van Vliet he needed to stop playing music if he wanted to be respected as a painter, warning him that otherwise he would only be considered a "musician who paints".[27] In doing so, it was said that he had effectively "succeeded in leaving his past behind."[13] Gordon Veneklasen, one of the gallery's directors in 1995 described Van Vliet as an "incredible painter" whose work "doesn't really look like anybody else's work but his own."[16] Van Vliet has been described as a modernist, a primitivist, an abstract expressionist, and an outsider artist.[13] Morgan Falconer of Artforum concurs, mentioning both a "neo-primitivist aesthetic" and further stating that his work is influenced by the CoBrA painters.[106] The resemblance to the CoBrA painters is also recognized by art critic Roberto Ohrt,[23] while others have compared his paintings to the work of Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline, Antonin Artaud,[13] Francis Bacon,[9][23] Vincent van Gogh and Mark Rothko.[107]
According to Dr. John Lane, director of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, in 1997, although Van Vliet's work has associations with mainstream abstract expressionist painting, more importantly he was a self-taught artist and his painting "has that same kind of edge the music has." Lane explained that in contrast to the busied, bohemian urban lives of the New York abstract expressionists, the rural desert environment Van Vliet was influenced by is a distinctly naturalistic one, making him a distinguished figure in contemporary art, whose work will survive in canon.[27] Van Vliet stated of his own work, "I'm trying to turn myself inside out on the canvas. I'm trying to completely bare what I think at that moment"[108] and that "I paint for the simple reason that I have to. I feel a sense of relief after I do".[107] When asked about his artistic influences he stated that there were none. "I just paint like I paint and that's enough influence."[16] He did however state his admiration of Georg Baselitz,[13] the De Stijl artist Piet Mondrian, and Vincent van Gogh; after seeing van Gogh's paintings in person, Van Vliet quoted himself as saying that "the sun disappoints me so".[109]
Exhibits of his paintings from the late 1990s at both the Anton Kern and Michael Werner Galleries of New York City received favorable reviews, the most recent of which were held between 2009 and 2010.[110] Falconer stated that the most recent exhibitions showed "evidence of a serious, committed artist." It was claimed that he stopped painting in the late 1990s.[106] A 2007 interview with Van Vliet through email by Anthony Haden-Guest, however, showed him to still be active artistically. He exhibited only few of his paintings because he immediately destroyed any that did not satisfy him.[100]
Life in retirement[link]
File:SomeYoYoStuff.jpg
Van Vliet in Anton Corbijn's 1993 Some Yo Yo Stuff.
After his retirement from music, Van Vliet rarely appeared in public. He resided near Trinidad, California, with his wife Janet "Jan" Van Vliet.[100] By the early 1990s he was using a wheelchair as a result of multiple sclerosis.[111][112][113][5] The severity of his illness was sometimes disputed. Many of his art contractors and friends considered him to be in good health.[112] Other associates such as his longtime drummer and musical director John French and bassist Richard Snyder have stated that they had noticed symptoms consistent with the onset of multiple sclerosis, such as sensitivity to heat, loss of balance, and stiffness of gait, by the late 1970s.
One of Van Vliet's last public appearances was in the 1993 short documentary Some Yo Yo Stuff by filmmaker Anton Corbijn, described as an "observation of his observations". Around 13 minutes long and shot entirely in black and white, with appearances by his mother and David Lynch, the film showed a noticeably weakened and dysarthric Van Vliet at his residence in California, reading poetry, and philosophically discussing his life, environment, music and art.[109] In 2000, he appeared on Gary Lucas' album Improve the Shining Hour and Moris Tepper's Moth to Mouth, and spoke on Tepper's 2004 song "Ricochet Man" from the album Head Off. He is credited for naming Tepper's 2010 album A Singer Named Shotgun Throat.[114]
Van Vliet often voiced concern over and support for environmentalist issues and causes, particularly the welfare of animals. He often referred to Earth as "God's Golfball" and this expression can be found on a number of his later albums. In 2003 he was heard on the compilation album Where We Live: Stand for What You Stand On: A Benefit CD for EarthJustice singing a version of "Happy Birthday to You" retitled "Happy Earthday". The track is 34 seconds long and was recorded over the telephone.[115]
Death[link]
The Michael Werner Gallery announced on Friday, December 17, 2010, that Van Vliet had died at a hospital in Arcata, California,[1] weeks short of his 70th birthday. The gallery stated him to be "a complex and influential figure in the visual and performing arts," and "one of the most original recording artists of his time". The cause was named as complications from multiple sclerosis.[116] Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan commented on his death, praising him: "Wondrous, secret... and profound, he was a diviner of the highest order."[117]
Dweezil Zappa dedicated the song "Willie the Pimp" to Beefheart at the "Zappa Plays Zappa" show at the Beacon Theater in New York City on the day of his death, while Jeff Bridges exclaimed "Rest in peace, Captain Beefheart!" at the conclusion of the December 18 episode of NBC's Saturday Night Live.[118]
Relationship with Frank Zappa[link]
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Van Vliet's idiosyncratic vocal on Zappa's "Willie the Pimp" was among their collaborations.
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Van Vliet met Frank Zappa when they were both teenagers and shared an interest in rhythm and blues and Chicago blues.[29] They collaborated from this early stage, with Zappa's scripts for 'teenage operettas' such as "Captain Beefheart & The Grunt People" helping to elevate the Van Vliet persona of Captain Beefheart.[119] In 1963, the pair recorded a demo at the Pal Recording Studio in Cucamonga as the Soots, seeking support from a major label. Their efforts were unsuccessful, as "Beefheart's Howlin' Wolf vocal style and Zappa's distorted guitar" were "not on the agenda" at the time.[29]
The friendship between Zappa and Van Vliet over the years was sometimes expressed in the form of rivalry as musicians drifted back and forth between their groups.[120] Van Vliet embarked on the 1975 Bongo Fury tour with Zappa and The Mothers,[121] mainly because conflicting contractual obligations made him unable to tour or record independently. Their relationship grew acrimonious on the tour to the point that they refused to talk to one another. Zappa became irritated by Van Vliet, who drew constantly, including while on stage, filling one of his large sketch books with rapidly executed portraits and warped caricatures of Zappa. Musically, Van Vliet's primitive style contrasted sharply with Zappa's compositional discipline and abundant technique. Mothers of Invention drummer Jimmy Carl Black described the situation as "two geniuses" on "ego trips".[27] Estranged for years afterwards, they reconnected at the end of Zappa's life, after his diagnosis with terminal prostate cancer.[122] Their collaborative work appears on the Zappa rarity collections The Lost Episodes (1996) and Mystery Disc (1996). Particularly notable is their song "Muffin Man", included on the Zappa/Beefheart Bongo Fury album, as well as Zappa's compilation album Strictly Commercial (1995). Zappa finished concerts with the song for many years afterwards. Beefheart also provided vocals for "Willie the Pimp" on Zappa's otherwise instrumental album Hot Rats (1969). One track on Trout Mask Replica, "The Blimp (mousetrapreplica)", features Magic Band guitarist Jeff Cotton talking on the telephone to Zappa superimposed onto an unrelated live recording of the Mothers of Invention (the backing track was later released in 1992 as "Charles Ives" on You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore, Vol. 5 ).[123] Van Vliet also played the harmonica on two songs on Zappa albums: "San Ber'dino" (credited as "Bloodshot Rollin' Red") on One Size Fits All (1975) and "Find Her Finer" on Zoot Allures (1976).[124] He is also the vocalist on "The Torture Never Stops (Original Version)" on Zappa's You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore, Vol. 4.
The Magic Band[link]
The members of the original Magic Band had come together in 1965. At this time Van Vliet was simply the lead singer of the group, which had been brought together by guitarist Alex St. Clair. As in many emerging groups in California at the time, there were elements of psychedelia and the foundations of contemporary hippie counterculture.
Thus, it seemed quite logical to promote the group as "Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band", around the concept that Captain Beefheart had 'magic powers' and, upon drinking a 'Pepsi', could summon up "His Magic Band" to appear and perform behind him.[125] The strands of this logic emanating from Vliet's Beefheart persona having been 'written in' as a character in a 'teenage operetta' that Zappa had formulated,[32] along with Van Vliet's renowned 'Pepsi-moods' with his mother Willie Sue and his generally spoilt teenage demeanor.
Beginning[link]
In late 1965, after numerous car-club dances, juke joint gigs, appearances at the Avalon Ballroom and winning the Teenage Fair 'Battle of the Bands', the group finally bagged a contract for recording two singles with the newly-created A&M Records label with Leonard Grant as their manager. It was at this time that musical relationships had also been struck with members of Rising Sons who would later feature in the band's recordings. The A&M deal also brought some contention between members of the band, torn between a career as an experimental 'pop' group and that of a purist blues band. Working with young producer David Gates also opened up horizons for Vliet's skills as a poet-cum-lyricist, with his "Who Do You Think You're Fooling" on the flipside of the band's first single, a cover of the Ellas McDaniel/Willie Dixon-penned hit, "Diddy Wah Diddy". Fate and circumstance, not for the first time, would befall the band's success upon its release - which coincided with a singles cover of the same song by The Remains.[126] The initial line-up of the Magic Band that entered the studio for the A&M recordings was not that which emerged by the second release, "Moonchild", also backed by a Vliet-penned number, "Frying Pan". A 12" vinyl 45rpm mono EP was later released in 1987, with the four tracks of the two singles, plus "Here I Am, I Always Am" as a fifth previously unreleased song. This release was titled The Legendary A&M Sessions, with a red-marbled cover and (later) members Moon, Blakely, Vliet, Snouffer and Handley seated in a 'temperance dance band' photo-pose.
The original Magic Band was primarily a rhythm and blues band, led by local Lancaster guitarist Alexis Snouffer, along with Doug Moon (guitar), Jerry Handley (bass), and Vic Mortenson (drums), the last being rotated with and finally replaced by Paul Blakely, known as 'P.G. Blakely'. For the first A&M recording Mortenson had been called up for active service and Snouffer stood in on drums, with a recently recruited Richard Hepner taking up the guitar role. By the time the single was aired on a pop television show P.G. Blakely was back in the drum seat. He then left for a career in television and was replaced by John French by the time the band cut their first album, as the first release on the new Buddah Records label.
Personnel in the Magic Band for Beefheart's first album, Safe as Milk, were Alex St. Clair, Jerry Handley and John French. Earlier meetings with the Rising Sons had also secured them the guitar and arranging skills of Ry Cooder, which also brought about input from Taj Mahal on percussion and guitar work from Cooder's brother-in-law Russ Titelman. Further guests to this line-up included Milt Holland on percussion and the all-important and controversial theremin work on Electricity by Dr Samuel Hoffman. It was perhaps this track, above the others, which caused A&M to view the band as 'unsuitable' for their label with what was seen as weird and too psychedelic for popular consumption. Thus, this album was recorded for Buddah, with the band signed to Kama Sutra, which left them close to penniless after extricating themselves from A&M. A large proportion of the tracks on this album were co-written with Van Vliet by Herb Bermann, whom Vliet initially met up with at a bar gig near Lancaster. Part-time Hollywood television actor and budding scriptwriter Bermann and his then wife Cathleen spent some time in Vliet's company prior to this release.[39] Bermann would later write for Neil Young and script an early Spielberg-directed television medical drama. Gary 'Magic' Marker (the "Magic" added by Beefheart) was involved in early session work for this release, and his involvement with Rising Sons was also instrumental in acquiring the skills of Cooder, upon an unfulfilled suggestion that Marker might produce the album.[127] Marker would later lay down two uncredited bass tracks for Trout Mask Replica before being replaced by Mark Boston.
French worked on five more Beefheart albums, while Snouffer worked with Beefheart on and off on three more albums. Bill Harkleroad joined the Magic Band as guitarist for Trout Mask Replica and stayed with Beefheart through May 1974.
Beefheart takes the lead[link]
While appearing humorous and kind-hearted in public, by all accounts Van Vliet was a severe taskmaster who abused his musicians verbally and sometimes physically. Vliet once told drummer John French he had been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic and thus he would see inexistent conspiracies that explained this behaviour.[128] The band were reportedly paid little or nothing. French recalled that the musicians' contract with Van Vliet's company stipulated that Van Vliet and the managers were paid from gross proceeds before expenses, then expenses were paid, then the band members evenly split any remaining funds—in effect making band members liable for all expenses. As a result French was paid nothing at all for a 33-city U.S. tour in 1971 and a total of $78 for a tour of Europe and the U.S. in late 1975. In his 2010 memoir Beefheart: Through The Eyes of Magic French recounted being "screamed at, beaten up, drugged, ridiculed, humiliated, arrested, starved, stolen from, and thrown down a half-flight of stairs by his employer".[129]
The musicians also resented Van Vliet for taking complete credit for composition and arranging when the musicians themselves pieced together most of the songs from taped fragments or impressionistic directions such as "Play it like a bat being dragged out of oil and it's trying to survive, but it's dying from asphyxiation."[130] John French summarized the disagreement over composing and arranging credits metaphorically:[131]
If Van Vliet built a house like he wrote music, the methodology would go something like this... The house is sketched on the back of a Denny's placemat in such an odd fashion that when he presents it to the contractor without plans or research, the contractor says "This structure is going to be hard to build, it's going to be tough to make it safe and stable because it is so unique in design." Van Vliet then yells at the contractor and intimidates him into doing the job anyway. The contractor builds the home, figuring out all the intricacies involved in structural integrity himself because whenever he approaches Van Vliet, he finds that he seems completely unable to comprehend technical problems and just yells, "Quit asking me about this stuff and build the damned house."... When the house is finished no one gets paid, and Van Vliet has a housewarming party, invites none of the builders and tells the guests he built the whole thing himself.
Post-Beefheart, receiving only a "grumpy" reception from him,[129] the band reformed in 2003 with John French on lead vocals, Gary Lucas and Denny Walley on guitars, Rockette Morton on bass, and Robert Williams on drums. At the start of their only European tour, Williams left and was replaced by Michael Traylor. The band released two albums and toured before disbanding in 2006.
They toured the UK in 2005, playing a selection of small venues. John Peel was initially skeptical about the re-formed Magic Band. He played a live recording of the band recorded at the 2003 All Tomorrows Parties festival on his radio show; afterwards he couldn't speak and had to put on another record to regain his composure. Later the band did a live session for him.[132] The band's albums are Back to the Front (on the London-based ATP Recordings, 2003) and 21st Century Mirror Men (2005). They played over 30 shows throughout the United Kingdom and Europe, and one in the United States.[133] They have been chosen by Jeff Mangum of Neutral Milk Hotel to perform at the All Tomorrow's Parties festival that he will curate in March 2012 in Minehead, England.[134]
Influence[link]
Van Vliet has been the subject of at least two documentaries, the BBC's 1997 The Artist Formerly Known As Captain Beefheart narrated by John Peel, and the 2006 independent production Captain Beefheart: Under Review.[135]
According to Peel, "If there has ever been such a thing as a genius in the history of popular music, it's Beefheart... I heard echoes of his music in some of the records I listened to last week and I'll hear more echoes in records that I listen to this week."[98] His narration added: "A psychedelic shaman who frequently bullied his musicians and sometimes alarmed his fans, Don somehow remained one of rock's great innocents".[27] Mike Barnes referred to him as an "iconic counterculture hero", who with the Magic Band "went on to stake out startling new possibilities for rock music".[5] Lester Bangs cited Beefheart as "one of the four or five unqualified geniuses to rise from the hothouses of American music in the Sixties",[136] while John Harris of The Guardian praised the music's "pulses with energy and ideas, the strange way the spluttering instruments meld together".[10] A Rolling Stone biography described his work as "a sort of modern chamber music for [a] rock band, since he plans every note and teaches the band their parts by ear. Because it breaks so many of rock's conventions at once, Beefheart's music has always been more influential than popular."[54] In this context, it is performed by the classical group, the Meridian Arts Ensemble.[137] Piero Scaruffi characterized "three basic elements": "the ballad out of tune, with guitar interlaced with jolting rhythm, vocal miasma and a rogue harmonica".[138] Scaruffi ranked Trout Mask Replica number one on his list of the greatest rock albums of all time.[138] He says that "the distance between Captain Beefheart and the rest of rock music is the same distance that there was between Beethoven and the symphonists of his time". Nicholas E. Tawa, in his 2005 book Supremely American: Popular Song in the 20th Century: Styles and Singers and What They Said About America, included Beefheart among the prominent progressive rock musicians of the 1960s and 70s,[2] while the Encyclopædia Britannica describes Beefheart's songs as conveying "deep distrust of modern civilization, a yearning for ecological balance, and that belief that all animals in the wild are far superior to human beings."[11]
Many artists have cited Van Vliet as an influence, beginning with the Edgar Broughton Band, who covered Dropout Boogie as Apache Drop Out (mixed with The Shadows' "Apache")[139] as early as 1970 and The Kills coverage of it 32 years later. The Minutemen were fans of Beefheart, and were arguably among the few to effectively synthesize his music with their own, especially in their early output, which featured disjointed guitar and irregular, galloping rhythms. Michael Azerrad describes the Minutemen's early output as "highly caffeinated Captain Beefheart running down James Brown tunes",[140] and notes that Beefheart was the group's "idol".[141] Others who arguably conveyed the same influence around the same time or before include John Cale of The Velvet Underground,[142] Laurie Anderson,[143] The Residents and Henry Cow.[69] Genesis P-Orridge of Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV,[144] and poet mystic Z'EV,[145] both pioneers of industrial music, cited Van Vliet along with Zappa among their influences. More notable were those emerging during the early days of punk rock, such as The Clash[101] and John Lydon of the Sex Pistols (reportedly to manager Malcolm McLaren's disapproval), later of the post-punk band Public Image Ltd.[146]
Cartoonist and writer Matt Groening tells of listening to Trout Mask Replica at the age of 15 and thinking "that it was the worst thing I'd ever heard. I said to myself, they're not even trying! It was just a sloppy cacophony. Then I listened to it a couple more times, because I couldn't believe Frank Zappa could do this to me—and because a double album cost a lot of money. About the third time, I realised they were doing it on purpose; they meant it to sound exactly this way. About the sixth or seventh time, it clicked in, and I thought it was the greatest album I'd ever heard."[147] Groening first saw Beefheart and the Magic Band perform in the front row at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall in the early 1970s.[148] He later declared Trout Mask Replica to be the greatest album ever made. He considered the appeal of the Magic Band as outcasts who were even "too weird for the hippies".[27] Groening served as the curator of the All Tomorrow's Parties festival that reunited the post–Beefheart Magic Band.[148]
Another devotee from the film industry is Woody Allen, who was found singing along to Beefheart's music in the audience in New York.[149][150]
Van Vliet's influence on post–punk bands was demonstrated by Magazine's recording of "I Love You You Big Dummy" in 1978 and the tribute album Fast 'n' Bulbous - A Tribute to Captain Beefheart in 1988, featuring the likes of artists such as the Dog Faced Hermans, The Scientists, The Membranes, Simon Fisher Turner, That Petrol Emotion, the Primevals, The Mock Turtles, XTC, and Sonic Youth, who included a cover of Beefheart's "Electricity" as a bonus track on the deluxe edition of their 1988 album Daydream Nation. Other post-punk bands influenced by Beefheart include Gang of Four,[10] Siouxsie and the Banshees,[151] Pere Ubu, Babe the Blue Ox and Mark E. Smith of The Fall.[152] The Fall covered "Beatle Bones 'N' Smokin' Stones" in their 1993 session for John Peel. Beefheart is considered to have "greatly influenced" New Wave artists,[11] such as David Byrne of Talking Heads, Blondie, Devo, The Bongos, and The B-52s.[143]
Tom Waits' shift in artistic direction, starting with 1983's Swordfishtrombones, was, Waits claims, a result of his wife Kathleen Brennan introducing him to Van Vliet's music.[153] "Once you've heard Beefheart," said Waits, "it's hard to wash him out of your clothes. It stains, like coffee or blood."[154] Guitarist John Frusciante of the Red Hot Chili Peppers cited Van Vliet as a prominent influence on the band's 1991 album Blood Sugar Sex Magik as well as his debut solo album Niandra Lades and Usually Just a T-Shirt (1994) and stated that during his drug-induced absence, after leaving the Red Hot Chili Peppers, he "would paint and listen to Trout Mask Replica."[155] Black Francis of the Pixies cited Beefheart's The Spotlight Kid as one of the albums he listened to regularly when first writing songs for the band,[156] and Kurt Cobain of Nirvana acknowledged Van Vliet's influence, mentioning him among his notoriously eclectic range.[40]
The White Stripes in 2000 released a 7" tribute single, Party of Special Things to Do, containing covers of that Beefheart song plus "China Pig" and "Ashtray Heart". The Kills included a cover of "Dropout Boogie" on their debut Black Rooster EP (2002). The Black Keys in 2008 released a free cover of Beefheart's "I'm Glad" from Safe as Milk.[157] In 2005 Genus Records produced a 20-track tribute to Captain Beefheart titled Mama Kangaroos - Philly Women Sing Captain Beefheart.[158] Beck included "Safe as Milk" and "Ella Guru" in a playlist of songs as part of his website's Planned Obsolescence series of mashups of songs by the musicians that influenced him.[159] Franz Ferdinand cited Beefheart's Doc At The Radar Station as a strong influence on their second LP, You Could Have It So Much Better.[10] Placebo briefly named themselves Ashtray Heart, after the track on Doc at the Radar Station; the band's album Battle for the Sun contains a track called "Ashtray Heart". Joan Osborne covered Beefheart's "(His) Eyes are a Blue Million Miles", which appears on Early Recordings. She cited Van Vliet as one of her influences.[160] PJ Harvey and John Parish discussed Beefheart's influence in an interview together. Harvey's first experience of Beefheart's music was as a child. Her parents had all of his albums; listening to them made her "feel ill". Harvey was reintroduced to Beefheart's music by Parish, who lent her a cassette copy of Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller) at the age of 16. She cited him as one of her greatest influences since. Parish described Beefheart's music as a "combination of raw blues and abstract jazz. There was humour in there, but you could tell that it wasn't [intended as] a joke. I felt that there was a depth to what he did that very few other rock artists have managed [to achieve]."[161] Ty Segall covered "Drop Out Boogie" on his 2009 album, Lemons.
Discography[link]
Main article: Captain Beefheart discography
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References[link]
- ^ a b "Captain Beefheart". Encyclopædia Britannica. 2010. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/94323/Captain-Beefheart. Retrieved 18 December 2010.
- ^ a b N. E. Tawa, Supremely American: Popular Song in the 20th Century: Styles and Singers and What They Said About America (Lanham, MA: Scarecrow Press, 2005), ISBN 0-8108-5295-0, pp. 249–50.
- ^ a b "Don Glen Vliet's birth certificate at Beefheart.com". http://www.beefheart.com/zigzag/pictures/pics/birthbeef.gif. Retrieved 2011-07-18.
- ^ Commonly reported as five octave (Captain Beefheart. (2010). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved January 28, 2010, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online Library Edition), though reports have varied from three octaves to seven and a half: "Captain Beefheart: Biography : Rolling Stone". www.rollingstone.com. http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/captainbeefheart/biography. Retrieved 2010-01-28.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Barnes 2000
- ^ Barnes, Mike; Paytress, Mark; White III, Jack (March 2011), "The Black Rider", Mojo (London: Bauermedia) 208: 65–73, http://www.mojo4music.com
- ^ Loder, Kurt. June 24, 1999. Captain Beefheart: The Man Who Reconstructed Rock & Roll. www.mtv.com.
- ^ a b Posted Nov 01, 0003 12:00 AM. "58 Trout Mask Replica". Rolling Stone. http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/6597898/58_trout_mask_replica. Retrieved 2010-02-11.
- ^ a b c d e Ankeny, Jason. "Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band". Allmusic. http://www.allmusic.com/artist/p55418. Retrieved 2007-03-17.
- ^ a b c d Harris, John (2006-08-04). "Mission: unlistenable". The Guardian (London). http://arts.guardian.co.uk/filmandmusic/story/0,,1836207,00.html. Retrieved 2010-04-28.
- ^ a b c United States. "Captain Beefheart at the Encyclopædia Britannica". http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/94323/Captain-Beefheart. Retrieved 2010-02-16.
- ^ "FT.com / UK – Boom times, bad times". www.ft.com. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/44a456bc-3ca8-11dc-b067-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1. Retrieved 2010-01-27.
- ^ a b c d e f g McKenna, Kristina (July 29, 1990). "A Crossover of a Different Color". Los Angeles Times.
- ^ www.rollingstone.com. "Captain Beefheart Dead At Age 69". http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/captain-beefheart-dead-at-age-69-20101217. Retrieved 2010-12-17.
- ^ a b Graham Johnston (1980-05-01). "The Captain Beefheart Radar Station – Captain Beefheart". Beefheart.com. http://beefheart.com/zigzag/articles/mcint.htm. Retrieved 2010-02-11.
- ^ a b c d Rogers, John (June 22, 1995). "Captain Beefheart Gaining International Acclaim—for Painting". AP.
- ^ a b Barnes 2000, p. 2
- ^ Barnes 2000, p. 4
- ^ a b Riding Some Kind Of Unusual Skull Sleigh Ltd. Ed. boxed work. Artist Ink Editions (2003), ISBN 0-7379-0284-1
- ^ a b c d e Winner, Langdon (May 14, 1970). "The Odyssey of Captain Beefheart". Rolling Stone.
- ^ a b Don Van Vliet , IMDB – David Letterman "Episode dated 11 November 1982 (1982) TV episode (as Captain Beefheart) .... Himself"
- ^ Barnes 2000, p. 6
- ^ a b c d Ohrt, Roberto (1993). "The Painting of Don Van Vliet". In Stand Up to Be Discontinued, Cantz, ISBN 3-89322-595-1.
- ^ a b Graham Johnston (1972-03-19). "The Captain Beefheart Radar Station – A Study of Captain Beefheart". Beefheart.com. http://beefheart.com/zigzag/articles/study.htm. Retrieved 2010-02-11.
- ^ Frank Zappa / Peter Occhiogrosso, The Real Frank Zappa Book, Poseidon Press 1989, ISBN 0-671-63870-X
- ^ Watson, 1996, Frank Zappa: The Negative Dialectics of Poodle Play, p. 13.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Elaine Shepard (Producer), Declan Smith (Film research) (1997). The Artist Formerly Known as Captain Beefheart (Documentary). BBC.
- ^ Graham Johnston. "Don Vliet's Graduation Photograph". Beefheart.com. http://www.beefheart.com/zigzag/pictures/graduation.htm. Retrieved 2011-07-18.
- ^ a b c Steve Taylor A to X of Alternative Music , page 53. Continuum International Publishing Group, 2006, ISBN0826482171. http://books.google.com/books?id=KPOsu8JOHO8C&pg=PA53&dq=Captain+Beefheart&cd=3#v=onepage&q=Captain%20Beefheart&f=false. Retrieved 2010-01-26.
- ^ "Album track: "Why Doesn't Someone Give Him A Pepsi?"". Discogs.com. http://www.discogs.com/Frank-Zappa-Mothers-Muffin-Man-Goes-To-College/release/2552656. Retrieved 2011-07-18.
- ^ Frank Zappa / Peter Occhiogrosso, The Real Frank Zappa Book, Poseidon Press 1989, ISBN 0-671-63870-X
- ^ a b "Captain Beefheart vs. the Grunt People". The Captain Beefheart Radar Station. http://www.beefheart.com/zigzag/gruntpeople/index.html. Retrieved 2007-03-17.
- ^ Zappa, Frank & Occhiogrosso, Peter (1990). The Real Frank Zappa Book. Fireside. ISBN 0-671-70572-5.
- ^ Graham Johnston. "''Grunt People'' draft script". Beefheart.com. http://www.beefheart.com/zigzag/gruntpeople/01.htm. Retrieved 2011-07-18.
- ^ a b Graham Johnston. "The Captain Beefheart Radar Station – Captain Beefheart Pulls A Hat Out Of His Rabbit". Beefheart.com. http://www.beefheart.com/zigzag/articles/rabbit.htm. Retrieved 2010-02-11.
- ^ Zappa, Frank (March 1977). International Times.
- ^ Barnes 2000, p. 27
- ^ Harkleroad, Bill (1998). Lunar Notes: Zoot Horn Rollo's Captain Beefheart Experience. Interlink Publishing. ISBN 0-946719-21-7. p67
- ^ a b Graham Johnston. "The Captain Beefheart Radar Station – Herb Bermann interview pt 1". Beefheart.com. http://www.beefheart.com/datharp/herb1.htm. Retrieved 2010–02–11.
- ^ a b "Book Review: Zoot Horn Rollo's Captain Beefheart Experience". Ru.org. http://www.ru.org/92bookrev2.html. Retrieved 2010–02–11.
- ^ "Photo of John Lennon lounging at his Surrey home, with "Safe as Milk" bumper stickers visible". http://www.beefheart.com/datharp/albums/official/pics/lennonsam.jpg. Retrieved 2010–02–11.
- ^ Barnes 2000, p. 142
- ^ Barnes 2000, p. 144
- ^ French, Beefheart: Through The Eyes Of Magic, p206 - 207. ISBN 978-0-9561212-1-9
- ^ Grow Fins CD box set booklet p39 (Also in vinyl set booklet).
- ^ John French, Beefheart: Through The Eyes Of Magic, p253. ISBN 978-0-9561212-1-9
- ^ a b John French, Beefheart: Through The Eyes Of Magic p264. ISBN 978-0-9561212-1-9
- ^ Captain Beefheart – Google Books. http://books.google.com/books?id=axuUrjcnX5sC&pg=PA46&dq=It+Comes+to+You+in+a+Plain+Brown+Wrapper&cd=1#v=onepage&q=It%20Comes%20to%20You%20in%20a%20Plain%20Brown%20Wrapper&f=false. Retrieved 2010–01–25.
- ^ Mason, Stewart (1968–04–25). "((( Strictly Personal > Overview )))". allmusic. http://www.allmusic.com/album/r32274. Retrieved 2010–02–11.
- ^ Winner, Langdon (May 14, 1970). "The Odyssey of Captain Beefheart"
- ^ Huey, Steve (1999–06–01). "((( The Mirror Man Sessions > Overview )))". allmusic. http://www.allmusic.com/album/r416897. Retrieved 2010–02–11.
- ^ Graham Johnston. "Refusal of Leave to Land Report, dated 24 January 1968". Beefheart.com. http://www.beefheart.com/zigzag/articles/refuse.htm. Retrieved 2011-07-18.
- ^ John French, Beefheart: Through The Eyes Of Magic, p327 - 329. ISBN 978-0-9561212-1-9
- ^ a b "Captain Beefheart: Biography". Rolling Stone. http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/captainbeefheart/biography. Retrieved 2010 02 11.
- ^ John French, Beefheart: Through The Eyes Of Magic, p359. ISBN 978-0-9561212-1-9
- ^ a b Grow Fins CD box set booklet, p107
- ^ Bill Harkelroad, Lunar Notes p22-23. ISBN 0-946719-21-7
- ^ Booklet p51, "Grow Fins" CD box set 1999 [Also in vinyl set booklet]
- ^ Barnes 2000, p. 70 71
- ^ Grow Fins CD box set booklet, p99
- ^ vanity project interviews: The Magic Band<! Bot generated title >[dead link]
- ^ "Burundo Drumbi! John French's Series of Q&As, 2000/1". The Captain Beefheart Radar Station. http://www.beefheart.com/datharp/drumbo/paullewis.htm. Retrieved 2007 12 09.
- ^ French, p. 7
- ^ a b Barnes 2000, p. 71
- ^ a b Miles, Barry (2005). Zappa: A Biography. pp. 182–183. Grove Press
- ^ "United Mutations interview with Schenkel". United mutations.com. http://www.unitedmutations.com/s/cal_schenkel.htm. Retrieved 2010 02 11.
- ^ a b c Chusid, Irwin (2000). Songs in the Key of Z: The Curious Universe of Outsider Music, pp. 129–140. London: Cherry Red Books. ISBN 1 901447 11 1
- ^ Huey, Steve. "Trout Mask Replica". Allmusic. http://www.allmusic.com/album/r3289. Retrieved 2007 03 17.
- ^ a b Fred Frith, 1974, New Musical Express (exact date unknown), as quoted in Barnes.
- ^ a b "CG: Artist 222". Robert Christgau. 2006 12 01. http://www.robertchristgau.com/get_artist2.php?id=222. Retrieved 2010 02 11.
- ^ Barnes, Mike (February 1999). "Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band: Trout Mask Replica". Perfect Sound Forever. http://www.furious.com/Perfect/beefheart/troutmaskreplica3.html. Retrieved 2007 12 09.
- ^ Graham Johnston. "The Captain Beefheart Radar Station – Lick My Decals Off Baby". Beefheart.com. http://www.beefheart.com/datharp/albums/official/decals.htm. Retrieved 2010-02-11.
- ^ a b Music Video: The Industry and Its Fringes, Museum of Modern Art, September 6–30, 1985
- ^ a b Looking at Music,, Museum of Modern Art, August 13, 2008 – January 5, 2009
- ^ Uncut magazine, May 2010. "The 50 Greatest Lost Albums" www.rocklistmusic.co.uk Retrieved 2010-02-09.
- ^ itunes.apple.com Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band - Lick My Decals Off, Baby Retrieved 2011-01-28.
- ^ Raggett, Ned."The Spotlight Kid" allmusic. Retrieved 2010-12-19.
- ^ French, pp. 563–564
- ^ a b Barnes 2000, p. 155
- ^ French pp. 558–565
- ^ French, p. 563.
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- ^ a b Barnes, Mike (August 17, 1997). "Genius or madman—the jury is still out on Captain Beefheart". Daily Telegraph.
- ^ Van Vliet, Don (Captain Beefheart), 'Skeleton Breath, Scorpion Blush' (all poems in English, preface in German and English). Bern-Berlin: Gachnang & Springer, 1987. ISBN 978-3-906127-15-6
- ^ a b c "Michael Werner Gallery – Artists". Michaelwerner.com. 2007-07-28. http://www.michaelwerner.com/artist_1_news_22.htm. Retrieved 2010-02-11.
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- ^ a b "U B U W E B – Film & Video: Anton Corbijn". Ubu.clc.wvu.edu. http://ubu.clc.wvu.edu/film/corbijn.html. Retrieved 2010-02-11.
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Further reading[link]
- Barnes, Mike (2000). Captain Beefheart. London: Quartet Books. ISBN 1-84449-412-8. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=axuUrjcnX5sC&pg=PA4&dq=Agostinho+Rodrigues+captain+beefheart&cd=1#v=onepage&q=Agostinho%20Rodrigues%20captain%20beefheart&f=false. Retrieved 2010-01-27.
- Courtier, Kevin (2007). Trout Mask Replica. New York: Continuum. ISBN 0-8264-2781-2
- Delville, Michel & Norris, Andrew (2005). Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart, and the Secret History of Maximalism. Cambridge: Salt Publishing. ISBN 1-84471-059-9.
- French, John (2010). Beefheart: Through the Eyes of Magic. ISBN 0-9561212-1-7.
- Harkleroad, Bill (1998). Lunar Notes: Zoot Horn Rollo's Captain Beefheart Experience. Interlink Publishing. ISBN 0-946719-21-7.
- Miles, Barry (2004). Frank Zappa. Atlantic Books. ISBN 1-84354-091-6.
- Bamberger, W.C. (1999). Riding Some Kind Of Unusual Skull Sleigh: On The Arts Of Don Van Vliet. ISBN 978-0-917453-35-9
- Beaugrand, Andreas and various (1994). Stand Up to Be Discontinued. (Paperback) ISBN 3-9801320-2-1.
- Van Vliet, Don (Captain Beefheart) (1987). Skeleton Breath, Scorpion Blush. (All poems in English, preface in German and English). Bern-Berlin: Gachnang & Springer. ISBN 978-3-906127-15-6
- Azerrad, Michael (2001). Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground, 1981–1991. Little Brown. ISBN 0-316-78753-1.
- Zappa, Frank & Occhiogrosso, Peter; The Real Frank Zappa Book, Poseidon Press (1989), ISBN 0-671-63870-X
External links[link]
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Wikinews has related news: Don Van Vliet, best known as 'Captain Beefheart', dies aged 69 |
- Beefheart.com – The Captain Beefheart Radar Station
- Captain Beefheart at Rolling Stone
- Captain Beefheart at Allmusic
- Captain Beefheart collected news and commentary at The Guardian
- Some Yo Yo Stuff by Anton Corbijn
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| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| Name | Van Vliet, Don |
| Alternative names | Captain Beefheart |
| Short description | American musician |
| Date of birth | January 15, 1941 |
| Place of birth | Glendale, California, U.S. |
| Date of death | December 17, 2010 |
| Place of death | Arcata, California |
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