Pitchfork: Velvet Underground, Captain Beefheart DVDs Due

Velvet Underground, Captain Beefheart DVDs Due

Is nothing sacred anymore? With every imaginable wack video, dodgy concert, backstage groupie session, and bowel movement (please, please no!) getting an unofficial DVD release these days, it's tough to separate the rip-offs from the gold. But we think that the video distribution company MVD, which is in charge of the in-depth documentary series "Under Review: An Independent Critical Analysis" (previous subjects have included the Small Faces, Queen, the Who, and Syd Barrett), is legit.

On April 25, the series' next two titles will be available through the Sexy Intellectual label. They focus on two influential heavyweights: the Velvet Underground and Captain Beefheart.

The 85-minute Velvets DVD boasts past footage and interviews with the famous crux of Reed, Cale, Morrison, Tucker, and Andy Warhol, as well as exclusive interviews with Moe Tucker, Doug Yule, and Billy Name. It also features assessment and commentary from Clinton Heylin (author of the book From the Velvets to the Voidoids), Robert Christgau ("the Dean of American Rock Criticism"), Dean Wareham (Galaxie 500, Luna), and Malcolm Dome (rock writer and broadcaster). Also in there is the soft-porn-sounding special feature "Velvet Reflections". Oh! Sweet sumthin'.

And just because Don Van Vliet has shunned his stream-of-consciousness blues-noise music in favor of stream-of-consciousness abstract painting of late doesn't mean the world should do the same. The man known as Captain Beefheart will also be brought under the microscope in a two-hour film mapping the history of his enigmatic music. It includes archival footage, rare performances, contributions from most of the key Magic Band players...and "the hardest Captain Beefheart interactive quiz in the world ever." Finally!

We're dying to confirm some widely held beliefs about the Captain, like the marathon "pep talks", strict vegetarian diets, new identities imposed on Magic Band members, and, most of all, whether he ever actually sold a vacuum cleaner to Aldous Huxley using the pitch "Sir, this sucks."

Future "Under Review" Sexy Intellectual/MVD video subjects include Kate Bush, due out June 6 and the Smiths on June 27. MVD distributes all sorts of DVDs, from the totally unauthorized Bob Dylan documentary Rolling Thunder and the Gospel Years to Jug-cuzzi Pooltang!!.