RUSSELL - BEEFHEART CIRCUS
cosmo donahue - england 12 december 1970 MELODY MAKER

leon russell and captain beefheart appeared last weekend at san francisco's pepperland, a new bay area ballroom in the style of fillmore west. [follows the review on leon russell...]

captain beefheart and his magic band are wild, and inventive. they proved they could make irrelevant noise as loud as anybody. his group features two drummers - one who doubles on organ (ah, that must be art tripp with his marimba - teejo), the other on congas (yeah, john french with his conga-shaped drums) - two lead guitarists (bill harkleroad and elliot ingber), a bassist (mark boston) and the captain, who plays harmonica, flute (really?), and shrilling tenor sax.

they opened their set with 'doctor dark' and did 'when big joan sets up', 'i wanna find a woman that'll hold my big toe till i have to go', 'woe-is-uh-me-bop', 'hair pie', 'hobo chang ba', and other favourites most from his new album 'lick my decals off, baby'.

their music is frantic, at times erratic, and brings back remembrances of early 'mothers of invention' and 'fuggs'. bad mouth music. so real and so true. beefheart walks around the band in circles, eyes wide, the conductor whose band has gotten away from him. they usually end up in traditional honky tonk jazz.

at the end of the set the captain read from a superman comic book, at the end breaking into his own poetry. the crowd loved him and brought him back for an encore.