long ago, when i cybered the first 'complete' overview of captain beefheart's concerts ever, a maniac like me, detlef jürgens, thought those lists were a good guide for a website dealing with that aspect of don van vliet's career. so he let me know about his idea, it was o.k., i gave him some editorial and design tips (and later regularly provided additions, corrections, and good advice), and off he went!

starting from the sources of my 'gigs log' - interviews, stories elsewhere on this site, and this 'old fart at play' chapter - the 'live performances and rehearsals' eventually grew to a gigantic database of facts and nonsense (like 'we went to the concert, but the weather got bad and our car broke down, so we never saw them play' memories). but, detlef's legendary web museum had become more than a detailed report about the live shows. according to the description in my 'links section' just before it vanished, it was

the ultimate beefheart history in the form of a TIMELINE with don vliet's musical activities BEFORE and during his CAPTAIN BEEFHEART and THE MAGIC BAND appearances, with detailed descriptions of the CONCERTS and the official and illegal RECORDINGS illustrated with almost ALL KNOWN PICTURES and VIDEO STILLS to click on, as well as MEMORABILIA like posters and tickets along loads of REVIEWS, and OFF-STAGE STORIES, and MEMORIES by experts (like magic band members) and amateurs alike - of course has BAND LINE-UPS, and neat LINKS to the sources

unfortunately, after many glorious years, detlef was forced to abandon the project commonly called CAPTAIN BEEFHEART TIMELINE because he had no time any more (in 2004). which is a terrible loss to mankind!

i often checked my information with his, and periodically kept mine up-to-date through it. so its disappearance would have been a bit of a disaster, if we hadn't swapped our cyber archives one day. however, going through it and getting enthusiastic about 'recybering' the wonderful research the way it was, it showed that
* most of the basic information comes from pieces of my own site
* practically all images are sonewhere here, too
* i still have loads of material to put up, essential to the timeline
* mainly being to old version of my electricity, the vast majority of links - about ninety percent - is dead
* it doesn't get updated
so i gave up that idea

however
the 'timeline' contained some exclusive stuff worth to be saved for ever.
thus, in future you might come across remarks like 'contributed by detlef jürgens',
awesome 'live performances and rehearsals' or detailed recording histories....

*

VIELMALS DANK, DETLEF ! FABELHAFT ! KLASSE !

art tripp / ed marimba
140472 FRANKFURT germany
exclusive scan provided by detlef jürgens

*