Beefheart: Through The Eyes Of Magic

John ‘Drumbo’ French THE LAST MUSIC CO

Lengthy, often harrowing account of life in the Captain’s Magic Band.

Since Captain Beefheart’s death, it has emerged that life working for him lacked any of the zany hilarity that often emanates from his albums. Drummer

John ‘Drumbo’ French’s memoir is the latest testimony to that effect. It begins with an account of a ritual humiliation inflicted on him in front of the band members by the Captain using a broomstick. Later he fears for his life as Beefheart threatens to throw him through a window.

French stresses that musically the Magic Band weren’t mere instruments of Beefheart’s elaborate, ingenious will; that it often fell to the players to fill in the gaps between the Captain’s fragmentary ideas tossed at them, making up for his disinclination for detail or finishing things off. Nonetheless, French complains, he took all the credit. French ascribes Beefheart’s erratic, tyrannical behaviour to possible undiagnosed mental illness or even blood-sugar problems.

The book is probably overlong, and while its excursions into his formative pre-Beefheart years and interviews with fellow Beefheart associates such as

Vic Mortensen, Gary Lucas and Don Aldridge might be too extensive for the general reader, this account will be a trove for Beefheartologists. ■■■■■■■■■■