O Captain, My Captain: R.I.P Don Van Vliet

'Tis a sad Zappadan. Captain Beefheart died today. I know I'm not the first to post this. I saw the crawl on MSNBC this a.m. before I took my kids to buy Christmas stuff.

In college, whenever I wanted to be alone, I could always clear out my dorm room by putting the Captain on the turntable (the Bad Company, Fleetwood Mac crowd would flee; the progs would listen curiously for awhile and bow out; etc.). And I knew I was heading in the right direction the night I met the woman who became my bride when she told me she'd seen CB & the Magic Band in concert. The opening act, by the way, was a chimp.

The music speaks for itself. You either do or don't.

Son of Zappadan

We present one of the true 'high' priests of Zappadan. This guy never failed to clear the Elton John-, Bad Company-, Grateful Dead-, Kansas-, Peter Frampton-loving types out of my dorm room (that is when "Freak Out" or "We're Only in it for the Money" failed to do the trick), cement my cred, and still leave that sublime last minute just for my ears only.