Song List
1. This is Captain Beefheart/Loves Lies
2. Comment/Key To The Highway
3. Neon Meat
4. Instrumental – Sticks And Stones
5. Ella Guru
6. Hot Head
7. Skeleton Key/Coming To A Closet Near You
8. Harmonica Blues Rehearsal
9. Moody Liz
10. Scratch My Back
11. Run Paint Run
12. Camel Stomp (instrumental)
13. Sugar ‘N’ Spikes
14. Blues Jam
15. If You Don’t Mind Stupid People/Little Scratch
16. I Was A Teenage Malt Shop
17. Winnebago Sioux Indian/Pachuco Cadaver
18. Seam Crooked Sam
19. Deputy’s Horse (instrumental)
20. Tupelo Mississippi
21. Frownland
22. Evil
23. Sun Zoom Spark
Tracks 1, & 11: Shiny Beast out-takes 1978
Tracks 2, 4, 7, 8, 10, 12, 15, 19 & 23: Spotlight Kid out-takes 1971/72
Track 3 & 6: sound like poor recordings of the originals!
Tracks 5, 13, 17 & 21: Trout House Rehearsals 1969
Track 9: alternate take from Strictly Personal sessions 1968
Track 14, 20 & 22: Avalon Ballroom 1966
Track 16: Studio Z recording 1963
Track 18: original Bat Chain Puller 1976
Notes
Released on 27th October 2003 by Ozit-Morpheus Records (http://www.tractor-ozit.com).
“… sit back and enjoy a big slice of Magic Pie from the bluesy roots of Slim Harpo, Big Bill and The Wolf thru to the psycho-excesses of Sun Zoom Spark.”
Radar Station overview:
Yes, the OZIT label (who brought you Merseytrout and Dust Sucker) strikes again. This time with a bunch of tracks gleaned from other bootlegs, some legit releases and the the stash of out-takes liberated from the Warner Archives a number of years ago and circulating amongst collectors. As in previous releases the label hasn’t let the facts get in their way and so have made up their own titles for several of the tracks here.
The sound quality is variable, some of it is pretty good. The Avalon ’66 tracks were obviously lifted from The Early Years boot because they suffer from the same poor separation. In fact, at a guess I’d say this boot was also the source for the Trout House rehearsals, the rare acetate phased version of Moody Liz, the ‘alternate’ Neon Meat and the Teenage Maltshop track.
The Spotlight Kid out-takes all suffer from some hiss and most of them have been given made-up titles. For those of you want to know the correct titles, here they are:
Sticks and Stones = You Brought Me To Life
Coming To A Closet Near You = Obenso Cinco
Camel Stomp = Best Batch Yet
Deputy’s Horse = No Flower Shall Grow
The lengthy blues jams between Don and, possibly Bill Harkleroad (or it might be Elliott Ingber) that also circulate with these out-takes have been plundered to produce a few short items, Key To The Highway, Scratch My Back and Sun Zoom Spark.
The other odd items listed – This is Captain Beefheart, Comment, Winnebago Sioux, Skeleton Key – are all short spoken comments by Don taken from various interviews. There are others which are not listed.
There is no information in the CD booklet about the tracks (so OZIT have avoided getting the facts wrong for a change). The 8 eight page colour booklet has an alternate (inner cover) shot from Strictly Personal plus a whole bunch of pictures grabbed from the Cannes Beach 1968 and Detroit Tubeworks 1970 videos.
Excellent front cover idea though!
If you don’t already have these tracks then this CD might be of interest to you although there are better quality versions of much of this stuff circulating amongst collectors. A superior version of the Avalon tracks is available on the Grow Fins boxset (and the missing track from there is on the Railroadism CD).
Overall this is a pretty disgraceful collection.
Pre-release info about this CD called it Dichotomy Vol.1 which intimated that a further similar collection was in the pipeline but there is nothing to indicate that here. However, it does advertise two new Beefheart blues roots collections to come.
Releases:
- 2003 CD on OZIT Morpheus Records OZITCD 8003
Help us
If anyone is able to complete or update any of the information above, then please do get in touch.