I never thought Captain Beefheart would outlive John Peel - I don't know why, maybe because the former's voice sounded so old and gnarly, and because the former was always on the radio by my bed. I have dozens of old teenage notebooks that have covers filled with slanted written-in-the-dark handwriting, courtesy of listening to Peel in bed with the lamp off, and then having to note down the title or creator of a particularly startling piece of music. I don't do that anymore -partly because I've got older, and music no longer plays such a central and impulsive part of my life as it did before, and partly because the one true easily accessible conduit for 'my' music (Peel) has gone. However, I've got into more contemporary music (Demdike Stare, Forest Swords, Hardy Tree, Mordant Music, Pye Corner Audio, D D Denham etc etc) in the last year due to the blogs and sites mentioned in my links list. By digging around a bit I feel like I've got a bit of my old enthusiasm back. Thanks everyone.
I miss Peel's Festive Fifty, but don't really miss Captain Beefheart and The Magic Band because they retired years ago and I've got most of their music. The song below is one of my favourites - Don Van Vliet was married for 40 years, which I didn't know.
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