beefheart.com editor pictured around the time of the release of Clear Spot

The Radar Station is an unofficial, non-profit making fan site dedicated to Captain Beefheart and The Magic Band, and Don Van Vliet the painter. Set up in 1998 to promote Don’s art and music, it is entirely independent of any record or publishing companies.

The primary aim of the Radar Station is to help ensure that Don’s extraordinary contribution to and influence upon 20th and 21st century alternative culture is never forgotten or overlooked.

The Radar Station features a vast online archive of all kinds of items relating to the life, art and music of Don Van Vliet, including exclusive interviews with band members and associates, countless press cuttings, photographs, tributes from admirers, paintings by Don Van Vliet, news, links to rare videos, and so much more. Containing around three thousand items, I suspect it is the biggest collection of publicly accessible Beefheart memorabilia in the world (if you’ve got a bigger collection, let me know and we’ll team up!).

Contributions

The Radar Station welcomes contributions from readers and we are constantly on the look out for new people to join the team. If you would like to write a one-off article, produce something more regular, correct an error or offer assistance in any way at all, please get in touch.

Your writings / thoughts / tributes / stories on any vaguely Beefheart-related subject are very welcome indeed.

Funding

The Radar Station is an independently funded venture, consequently run on half a shoestring. All contributors offer their work voluntarily and the coffers are empty; in fact there are no coffers.

This is not a profit making venture – if it was you’d have to wonder why we chose to focus on Captain Beefheart and vaguely odd-sounding music. Any support – whether financial or otherwise – is always gratefully received. Please see the info on making a donation if you would like to help out.

Linking to beefheart.com

If you have a website and would like to link to the Radar Station, please do so – I’d be very grateful indeed.

Feel free to link to the main Radar Station page at http://www.beefheart.com or to any specific page of your choice.

General information