Reviews...

Don Van Vliet, the subject of Anton Corbijn's short film profile, is probably better known to pop culture fans as Captain Beefheart, leader of the Magic Band and Frank Zappa cohort. Captain Beefheart listeners will expect musician-turned-artist Van Vliet's voice to be gruff, but they may be suprised at the croaking and grasping heard here as his comments are combined with near-static pictures of him in the corner of the screen to underline the artsy-craftsy aspect of this black-and-white outing. A video art/documentary hybrid, Some YoYo Stuff is stylistically of a piece with the artist's body of work, whether music or paintings (ie considerably off the beaten path). The chapter 'Flying Fish Head' works particularily well as footage shot from a moving car with a fish head held in front of the camera accompanies Van Vliet's various disquisitions relating to the passing desert landscape. Ever the tease, Van Vliet's terse treatment of the chapter titled 'Frank Zappa' is sure to annoy those hoping for some insider insights on the late Zappa (of course, provocation has been a theme in Beefheart's music going back to, well, his time with Frank). A curio that will appeal to an admittedly narrow audience, this is recommended for larger music and popular culture collections. - M Tribby - Video Library

This is Anton Corbijn's short (13 minute) black-and-white film from 1993. It is a personal and revealing look at the former master of Dadaist rock. Through the cryptic answers and strange metaphors, the man sounds so broken and old-beyond-his-years that it can be difficult to take in, as if this were too personal and revealing to be enjoyed from a film. Still, it is one of the few windows (if even only a keyhole) allowed into the life of Don Van Vliet since his 1982 retirement from music. Don's mother introduces the film and filmmaker David Lynch makes a running appearance as the questioner - Tom Schulte

There aren't too many films around that are worth almost a dollar a minute - but if you're a fan of dada-blues icon Captain Beefheart, Some YoYo Stuff will justify that price. Shot in 1993, a decade after the singer born Don Van Vliet gave up music for painting, this 13 minute black-and-white short juxtaposes shots of Van Vliet's art, clips of his mother and director David Lynch, and a few audio remniscences from the Captain himself, speaking in a craggy voice that quivers with age but hasn't lost its magnetism. If you're a Beefheart completist (and is there any other kind of Beefheart fan ?), it's essential at any price - Darryl Sterdan - Winnipeg Sun

This 13-minute short film offers music fans a rare glimpse of the media-shy musician and painter Captain Beefheart a.k.a. Don Van Vliet. Part interview, part artistic statement, the black-and-white footage mixes comments from the Captain with images prominent in his work, along with appearances from the artist's mother and David Lynch. Van Vliet appears on camera partially obscured in shadow and cigar smoke, glasses with white-painted lenses, or his open, raised hand. This seems likely to be the last interview given by one so averse to publicity. Some YoYo Stuff is tastefully done, respectful of its subject and is a fitting public appearance by an enigmatic figure many consider one of the country's greatest living artists. - Will McNaull - Rockpile

Anton Corbijn's luminous tribute to Don Van Vliet aka Captain Beefheart ("an observation of his observations") is a decade old and at 13 minutes running time, still worth a shelf full of subsequent sedulous biographical research. Its opening shot sees the subject's mother plant a little cut-out Don in the desert, as if to suggest that the 'retired', retiring ex-Captain is both a flatly iconic simulacrum of his former self and a very real presence rooted in the Mojave: a desert-visionary painter and (on the svelte evidence here) gnomically hilarious raconteur. Corbijn frames Van Vliet's fragile stillness with ravishing desertscapes and two Captain Beefheart tracks ("What Are We Gonna Do With You ?" and "Evening Bell"), but it's his speaking voice that lingers. Illness may have grounded the flighty Captain's whoops and hollers, but his halting delivery still swerves into gravelled, lucid insistence on a single syllable : "the fish i used on the cover of Trout Mask Replica stank so bad.....Humans are so mean !" He's also a pure joy to watch : puffing on his cigar or suddenly executing one of those splayed, sweeping arm gestures that were the essence of his stage presence. Which is not to say that Some YoYo Stuff is a mere wake for pre-1982 Beefheart, evidence of some spectral half-life lived out after the fact. Here too is Van Vliet the artist and desert prophet, formulating 'naive' aphorisms ("when you sculpt little things, it makes your fingers feel delightful") and obliquely generous tributes to his peers ("he was the only Frank Zappa i knew"). His desert retreat may be legendary, but this is an artist still with an eye and ear outside his own myth "I'd like to tell you people watching and listening.....BOO!" - Brian Dillon - The Wire