I was sent these mp3s in April 1999 by Greg Gardner who once found
himself in the lucky position of being at a Magic Band soundcheck / rehearsal
with a tape recorder in his hand. He writes:
These unfortunately too few bits and pieces of a Captain Beefheart
soundcheck are from 17th January, 1981 at the Commodore Ballroom in Vancouver,
B.C. Canada.
A friend and I wandered down to the Commodore the afternoon of
the concert, (we had just played there a few nights previous), and when we got
there, we were fortunate enough to have arrived at the soundcheck and no one seemed
to mind our presence. We sat out of the way, and I turned on this old tape deck
(the only one I could muster up in time for the gig in those days), here and there
during the soundcheck. Not wanting to use up all the only tape I had, as I was
intending to tape the actual concert, I only got these few bits. Had I thought
before hand that we would be fortunate enough to witness a soundcheck I would
have brought much more tape!
The real unfortunate thing is that the tape of the entire concert
that I made was, for some unknown reason, plagued with a whining screech that
rendered it unlistenable. I have no idea what caused the
problem, since it never had happened before and it never happened again after
that night.
Sound quality of all the tunes is pretty good, with only a small
amount of background hiss and audience chatter. There is no evidence of the whining
screech that Greg mentioned on the rehearsal tunes, so don't be put off. The performance
itself is excellent. Many thanks to Greg for sending these along.
Don't know what to do with these files? It's all explained
here.