83 Facts About Gary Lucas

Gary Lucas was born on June 20,1952 and is an American guitarist, songwriter, and composer who was a member of Captain Beefheart's band.

Gary Lucas formed the band Gods and Monsters in 1989.

Gary Lucas has collaborated with Leonard Bernstein, Jeff Buckley, John Cale, Nick Cave, David Johansen, and Lou Reed.

In 2020, instead of doing live performances, which was not possible due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, Gary Lucas started a Pandemic Live Streaming every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday at 3pm EST on his Facebook page, which has gathered fans from all over the world.

Gary Lucas obtained a degree in English from Yale University, before establishing his career in music first as a college DJ and then as music director at the college radio station, WYBC FM.

Gary Lucas successfully overrode the travel ban on Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic to journey to the Netherlands, the first country in Europe to get behind his music in a big way, and his shows were live-streamed on social media from the Eindhoven Muziekgebouw.

On September 11,2021, Gary Lucas celebrated his 40th anniversary in music at Le Poisson Rouge in NYC with a 2 hour show featuring Ernie Brooks, Jerry Harrison, Thurston Moore and other special guests.

Gary Lucas performed over a period of five years with the last incarnation of Beefheart's Magic Band.

Gary Lucas read one of Van Vliet's poems, and joined the Magic band on guitar and bass.

In 2006 Gary Lucas co-led with saxophonist Philip Johnston an all-instrumental Beefheart tribute band, Fast 'n' Bulbous: the Captain Beefheart Project etc.

On February 17,2013, Gary Lucas led the 65-piece Metropole Orchestra in a symphonic tribute to Captain Beefheart at the Paradiso Amsterdam, produced by Co De Kloet.

Gary Lucas first met Jeff Buckley in New York at the 1991 Tim Buckley tribute concert, mounted by producer Hal Willner at St Anne's Church in Brooklyn.

In May 2011, Gary Lucas released a new studio album with Gods and Monsters, titled The Ordeal of Civility.

Early in 2018, Gary Lucas performed a special concert of the dozen songs he co-wrote with Jeff Buckley.

Gary Lucas performed with Jolene Grunberg and other singers, was accompanied by the 65-piece Metropole Orchestra at the Paradiso Amsterdam, and the show was produced by Co de Kloet.

The album was recorded in Rome at the end of 2018 and featured new studio versions of all 12 songs co-written by Jeff Buckley and Gary Lucas including five never before officially released.

Gary Lucas has continued to operate Gods and Monsters on and off since 1989.

Gary Lucas has a long history working with Chinese music, stemming back to two years working for the family business in Taipei Taiwan from 1975 to 1977.

In 2001, an album titled The Edge of Heaven: Gary Lucas Plays Mid-Century Chinese Pop, was released on the French government sponsored Label Bleu to wide acclaim and received rave reviews in Rolling Stone, WSJ, Chinese newspapers, and on NPR, and reached number one on the World Chart.

Gary Lucas has performed live versions of this material all over the world, including well received concerts in Shanghai during the 2010 Expo Shanghai and at the Holland Festival in Amsterdam.

In 2013, Gary Lucas performed with his 1930s Chinese pop project, The Edge of Heaven, in a sold-out show at the Fishman Space at BAM with vocalists Sally Kwok and Mo Hai Jing and his group Gods and Monsters.

Yang and Gary Lucas served as judges on CCTV's Super Baby talent competition and a documentary about their collaborations is forthcoming on SinoVision.

In 2007, Gary Lucas collaborated on an album with electronic producer James R Hunter's project The Dark Poets, produced by British label manager Stevo Pearce of Some Bizzare Records.

In 2009, Gary Lucas collaborated on a world music collaboration with Indian vocalist Najma Akhtar.

In 2010, Gary Lucas collaborated with vocalist Dean Bowman on their "spiritual roots project" and gospel album, "Chase The Devil".

In 2013 Gary Lucas performed in several special collaborations in late 2013, including with Mother Falcon and Amanda Palmer, with Richard Mader and Pat Fulgoni as the Ghosts of Prague at Jazz Dock, and with Toni Deszo, deBORT's lead saxophonist, at the Budapest Jazz Club.

In 2014, Gary Lucas released an album called Otherworld on Esoteric Antenna.

In 2014 Fleischerei: Music From Max Fleischer Cartoons, a collaboration between Gary Lucas, Sarah Stiles, and Joe Fiedler, is a musical tribute to Max Fleischer and the jazz and swing scores that accompanied his animated work.

Gary Lucas has collaborated intermittently with DJ Cosmo as Wild Rumpus.

Gary Lucas traveled to England in February 2017 to produce a new album from Ed Laurie.

On November 7,2021, Gary Lucas released an acoustic duo project on the ZenneZ label featuring bassist and vocalist Peter Willems titled Double Dare Vol.

In 2022, Gary Lucas mounted a special Chinese New Year edition of The Edge of Heaven with Feifei Yang at Joe's Pub on February 1.

In England, Gary Lucas conducted his Captain Beefheart Symposium two nights in a row at Liverpool's Philharmonic and record 8 tracks in a collaboration with Bryan Ferry at Olympia Studios.

Gary Lucas then performed a week of shows in the Czech Republic, headlining Prague's Alternativa Festival solo, appearing live for three hours of interviews and performance on national Beat Radio, performing in Jablonec, Bohemia, with his "Monsters from the Id" music and film project.

Gary Lucas performed at Shakespeare and Company, the Paris bookstore.

Gary Lucas headlined the Pisa Internet Festival with a solo acoustic concert at Teatro Lumiere.

Gary Lucas performed with guest vocalist Danae Villanueva Blanco at the Gaia Arts Center Havana Cuba in May 2016.

In December 2016, Gary Lucas reunited with members of Plastic People of the Universe, DG 307, and Urfaust at the Blues Bahnof Prague.

For Holocaust Remembrance Day 2017, Gary Lucas performed solo before the General Assembly of the United Nations.

Gary Lucas was honored to celebrate the 200th show at Pori, Finland's underground club Validi Karkia.

In May 2018, Lucas was featured in a two-part special on Co de Kloet's "Co Live" program on Dutch radio NPO, looking back over Gary's career.

In lieu of all of his live shows being postponed both domestically and internationally, Gary Lucas began doing thrice weekly solo concerts live streaming from his apartment on Facebook, which attracted a worldwide audience.

In 2013, Gary Lucas returned to New York City to play with the Les Paul Trio and singer Jann Klose in NYC's Iridium Jazz Club, with high-profile solo appearances at Poisson Rouge and Joe's Pub with M'Lumbo as well as on their new release Popular Science, and headlining a tribute to avant-garde band The Shaggs at The Bell House in Brooklyn, where he performed with Gods and Monsters.

Gary Lucas performed a tribute concert to Buckley at the Barezzi Festival in Parma, Italy, with Vinicio Caposella and Alessio Franchini, where he was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award.

Gary Lucas performed with the Metropole Orkest at the Paradiso in Amsterdam as part of "The World of Captain Beefheart", a tribute to Captain Beefheart, that featured Nona Hendryx, Jolene Grunberg, and Tom Trapp.

In 2015 Gary Lucas led Gods and Monsters as Music Director of A State of Grace, a multi-artist tribute to both Tim and Jeff Buckley.

In July 2012, Gary Lucas performed live before an estimated viewing audience of 70 million on CNBC in a segment devoted to Gibson Guitars; later that summer the national French ARTE Channel interviewed him for the documentary Rock Attitude.

Gary Lucas was interviewed and filmed performing live by National Austrian Television ORF for a program which aired in 2013.

Later that month, Gary Lucas performed as part of the "Hendrix in Harlem" Tribute at the Apollo Theater, alongside Fishbone, Nona Hendryx, and Ernie Isley.

In 2020, Gary Lucas appeared at the Anthology Film Archives in New York City, performing a live solo score at a tribute to the recently departed founder and avatar of the experimental film Jonas Mekas, on a bill with special guests Jim Jarmusch, Ed Sanders, and Richard Barone.

On Sept 11th, Gary Lucas mounted a 40th-anniversary show dating from his first-ever appearances onstage with Captain Beefheart in the fall of 1980 at Le Poisson Rouge in NYC.

Gary Lucas reassembled his longtime psychedelic band with Ernie Brooks bass, Jerry Harrison keyboards, Jason Candler keyboards, and Richard Dworkin drums.

Gary Lucas followed up with a Gods and Monsters 30th-anniversary show at Elsewhere in Brooklyn which featured special guest vocalists Feifei Yang and Angelica Zollo, and original Gods and Monsters members Richard Barone vocals and Jared Nickerson bass.

Gary Lucas has given lectures widely on the mechanics of songwriting, extensive collaborations, composing for film, and the music business at the Amsterdam Music Conservatorum, Yale University, the University of Hawaii, New York University, and Columbia University.

Gary Lucas has given guitar master classes since the late 1990s at such institutions as the Amsterdam Music Conservatory and in Honolulu at the University of Hawaii.

Gary Lucas has lectured at Rogers State University in Oklahoma, and McGill University in Montreal, Canada.

In Fall 2012, Gary Lucas gave a masterclass and a concert in Paris with French guitarist David Konopnicki and his band at the Henri Dutilleux Music Conservatoire.

Gary Lucas has given masterclasses at the School of Jazz at the New School.

Gary Lucas returned to perform again in December 2015 and November 2016, both at the invitation of the US ambassador.

Gary Lucas has continually conducted a popular symposium on his former mentor and collaborator, Captain Beefheart, both in the US and in Europe.

Gary Lucas discusses the history of Vliet's band, collaborations, personality, and techniques in addition to sharing archival footage and unreleased music.

Gary Lucas presented at the Zappanale in Bad Doberan, Germany in August 2012, followed by a reunion of jazz-rock Beefheart tribute ensemble Fast 'N' Bulbous co-led by Phillip Johnston.

Gary Lucas was named Artist in Residence at Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Hall in Liverpool England in December, 2015.

Gary Lucas was a consultant for Greetings from Tim Buckley about Jeff Buckley's early days working in New York Cityu, directed by Dan Algrant and starring Penn Badgley as Jeff.

Character of Gary Lucas played by Tony Award-winning actor Frank Wood.

In support of this, Gary Lucas performed a string of shows in the United Kingdom, as well as two performances and signings at Shakespeare and Company in Paris.

Publication was supported with several Italian in store appearances and concerts by Gary Lucas, including Feltrinelli in Trieste, the Fnac Megastore in Milan, and the Madame Guitar Festival in Tricesimo.

Gary Lucas published several more pieces at Please Kill Me over the ensuing months, including a memory of working on a rap record with Vin Diesel and Arthur Russell and an appreciation of the Bonzo Dog Band's Vivian Stanshall, the original Fleetwood Mac's leader Peter Green, and the Rolling Stone's Brian Jones.

Gary Lucas has written extensively, working in poetry and fiction, as well as reflections on music and his own experiences.

The New York Times described his guitar playing: "Gary Lucas plays guitar the way Salvador Dali painted, with dazzling displays of technique, wicked humor, and a thirst to completely refashion his art from its basic elements".

Gary Lucas' style melds easily into rock and blues, has "avant-garde affinities", but is "not easily typecast" according to the Wall Street Journal.

Gary Lucas released an expanded concert version of The Edge of Heaven with his band, Gods and Monsters, and vocalists Sally Kwok and Mo Hai Jin, both from Shanghai.

In October 2013, Gary Lucas received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Barezzi Festival in Parma, Italy.

Gary Lucas was given an Acker Award for Achievement in Avant Garde Music in June 2014.

Gary Lucas received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Premio Ciampi Festival in Tuscany, named for the Italian songwriter Piero Ciampi, in December 2015.

Gary Lucas has composed and performed live accompaniment for several films throughout his career, the first having been a score to the 1920 silent film The Golem: How He Came into the World, composed with Walter Horn and debuted in 1989 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music Next Wave Festival.

Gary Lucas was invited by the Festival Internacional del Nuevo Cine Latinoamerica to preview his score for the Spanish version of Dracula at the 31st Havana Film Festival in Havana, Cuba.

Gary Lucas performed the European premiere of his Spanish "Dracula" project at the 9th Transylvania International Film Festival in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, on May 30,2010, in the open-air outside the Banfi Botzida Castle.

Gary Lucas returned to Cuba in December 2010 for the 32nd Havana Film Festival, and debuted a new live score accompanying a Brazilian horror classic, Esta Noite Encarnerei no teu Cadaver.

Gary Lucas has continued to perform his live film accompaniments, including Monsters of the Id at Monsterpalooza in Burbank, and This Night I will Possess Your Corpse at the Wexner Center for the Arts.

Gary Lucas premiered live accompaniment to the 1934 silent, Chinese film The Goddess in early 2014.

In 2016, Gary Lucas performed his live solo score to The Goddess, originally premiered at Foundation Botin in Santander, Spain, at Pioneer Works in Red Hook Brooklyn.

In February 2018, Gary Lucas returned to Roulette to premiere a new live film score to a collection of short films by visionary film director Curtis Harrington.