Interviewly – Cliff Martinez on Reddit AMA – July 2013

REDDIT: Is it true that Beefheart pushed a guy down the stairs after he didn’t understand how to ”play a strawberry” on the drums?

CLIFF: The stairs story appears in Drumbo’s book but I don’t recall the line about “play a strawberry”. That’s very Beefheart though. I was asked to play “giant blue babies levitating over the mountain….you know, like Fred Asparagus dangling through the teacup”. I must have played it correctly because he didn’t throw me down the stairs.

Read the entire interview at Interviewly