The drawings were inspired by the following story...

In 1968 Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band played a low-budget English tour and John Peel drove Van Vliet to gigs in a hired mini. “When we were coming back from Frank Freeman’s [Frank Freeman’s Dancing School was a relatively unknown provincial venue in the Midlands], he [Van Vliet] asked if he could listen to a tree. I’ve always thought that’s a really strange thing to have done, but of course it could have been his way of saying that he wanted a pee – probably was. He might have said ‘listen to a tree’, because it rhymed with ‘having a pee’. His thought processes were not like those of other men – you could well believe that he wanted to listen to a tree. If anybody else had said it, I would have said, ‘stupid bastard’ under my breath. But with Beefheart you thought, well, he knows more than I do and if he wants to listen to a tree, and I’m in a position to enable him to do so, then I’m going to give him a chance to do it, because it would be quite wrong not to. So he got out of the car and disappeared. Beefheart probably just went and has a pee, I don’t know. Or he may have just listened to a tree. I’d like to say that I can see him silhouetted against a gibbous moon with his ear firmly pressed to a fine old elm, but I just don’t know.” recounted Peel.

Prints on photographic paper are available for sale, €45 – €85: go to SHOP to order.