The Vliet family lived at this home in Los Angeles when Don was born. He was an artistically-inclined child and began to paint and sculpt at the age of 3.

When Don was 9 years old, he won a children's sculpting competition organized for the Los Angeles Zoo in Griffith Park by sculptor Agostinho Rodrigues.

During the 1950s, Don continued to work with Rodrigues, who considered him a child prodigy. Eventually, Vliet was offered several art scholarships, including one from Knudsen Creamery to travel to Europe and study marble sculpture for 6 years. The Vliet family was hesitant, and Don turned all the scholarships down.

At the age of 13, the Vliet family moved to the Mojave Desert town of Lancaster, CA. Captain Beefheart and Frank Zappa would end up attending the same high school there.

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Don Glen Vliet (later Don van Vliet) was born in the Glendale Research Hospital on Feb. 18, 1941.

Don's father, Glen Alonzo Vliet, was a partner in a gas service station. Don's mother, Willie Sue Warfield, was a housewife.

Don would later transform into the performer that is Captain Beefheart.

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This house (more of a cabin, really) is where Don van Vliet (aka Captain Beefheart) coerced, bullied, and brain-washed the Magic Band into creating content for the 1969 album Trout Mask Replica.

For eight months, the band lived communally in this house and rehearsed endlessly. Only one band member was allowed to leave at a time to get food, which for a month consisted of one small cup of soybeans daily. Visitors to the house recalled the members looking "cadaverous" and that "the environment in that house was positively Manson-esque."

The bizarre rehearals meant that the band was able to record 20 instrumental tracks in a single six-hour recording session. Trout Mask Replica remains an influential album, despite it being unbearable to casual listeners.

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After the plane crash in Iowa, Buddy Holly was buried in the City of Lubbock Cemetery. Born Charles Hardin Holley, Buddy's last name is spelled "Holley" on the marker.

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After the release of Paul's Boutique, Capitol Records dumped their support for the Beasties tour that was supposed to follow the album in favor of "a Donny Osmond project."

With some extra time on their hands, the members of the band picked up the instruments they had shelved in favor of sampling on previous albums. They began by practicing at each other's apartments, then moved to this rehearsal space for several months before they rented and converted the space that became G-Son Studios.

The change from sampling other records to creating their own may have been at least partly financial. As Beasties producer/engineer recalled, "after [Beastie Boys] did Paul's Boutique, we realized we had spent a lot of money in the studio. We had spent about a $250,000 in rights and licensing for samples." Shortly after the Biz Markie vs Gilbert O'Sullivan case, the age of hip-hop sampling had sunsetted.

The subsequent album (3 years later) was the Beastie Boys Check Your Head.

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