The House where Captain Beefheart lived and rehearsed the legendary album 'Trout Mask Replica' is up for sale! Set in the San Fernando Valley, its owner is asking for $325,000, reduced from $849,900 when it was last sold 4 years ago.
If you are a Beefheart Fan then you have heard numerous tales of the rehearsals for this album about how the band live in isolation eating nothing but beans under the obsessive and sometimes tyrannical gaze of Beefheart. If not here is a snippet of what it was like according to wikipedia;
The group rehearsed Van Vliet's difficult compositions for eight months, living communally in a small rented house in the Woodland Hills suburb of Los Angeles. Van Vliet implemented his vision by asserting complete artistic and emotional domination of his musicians. At various times one or another of the group members was put "in the barrel," with Van Vliet berating him continually, sometimes for days, until the musician collapsed in tears or in total submission to Van Vliet. According to John French and Bill Harkleroad these sessions often included physical violence. French described the situation as "cultlike" and a visiting friend said "the environment in that house was positively Manson-esque."welfare and contributions from relatives, the group survived on a bare subsistence diet. French recounted living on no more than a small cup of soybeans a day for a month and at one point band members were arrested for shoplifting food (with Zappa bailing them out). A visitor described their appearance as "cadaverous" and said that "they all looked in poor health." Band members were restricted from leaving the house and practiced for 14 or more hours a day.
If that has whet your appetite you can take a virtual tour of the place here or you can watch a bit of Anton Corbjin's (yes he who takes photos) film on the Captain.
In the meantime I'm off to check behind the sofa for spare change and then to see what the going price for vital organs are on ebay.
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