Prime Quality Beef – A Review

Prime Quality Beef

I’ve learned by now not to hold out too much hope when Ozit release another Beefheart CD. But this time they’re taking the piss …

‘Prime Quailty Beef’ … for heaven’s sake, Ozit, get a grip. This is second rate stuff even if it is decent sound quality (although, at least that’s an improvement on your usual shoddy sound). But ‘Sweet Georgia Brown’! … By no stretch of the imagination is that ‘prime quality’ anything let alone quality Beefheart.

So what do we have here?

Well, it’s the Crazy Little Things (semi-legitimate release) CD of the 1974 Cowtown, Kansas show (including the two versions of Peaches) mixed in with some of the unphased Strictly Personal tracks copied, I would guess, from the Mirror Man Sessions remixed CD released by Buddha in 1999. Do they have no shame? There is also a second version of Beatle Bones (which starts part way into the song) that I have to admit I’m not sure where it comes from.

Why include a full live show but completely change the running order and then drop in some unrelated tracks? Ozit’s motives (apart from moneymaking) are beyond me.

The ‘full colour eight page booklet’ contains absolutely no information whatsoever about the tracks on this CD (although this does mean Ozit avoids their usual habit of getting the details wrong). The only text relates to adverts for two books published by Ozit (uncredited reprints of the Lives & Times of Captain Beefheart and Lives & Times of Frank Zappa from the mid 70s).

The back cover lists the track titles but that is all. There is, significantly, no publishing information listed anywhere.

The booklet includes several photographs of Don, most of which have been colourized, interspersed with lots of pictures of cows. Not very helpful and not particularly original. As for the cover illustration …

Perhaps more telling is the illustration of the bovine skeleton … is this Ozit owning up to the fact that they’re picking Don’s bones clean?

An absolute disgrace!

8 Comments

  1. I had an HMV £10 voucher lying around, and I thought, even though it has had weak reviews, I should get it for the collection. Fifteen quid they were charging for it, thats a lot really, especially for an Ozit release! So I just bought a Charlie Mingus album instead, AND had change!

  2. Just in case we haven’t made it clear enough throughout beefheart.com, we’d recommend avoiding the plague like an Ozit release.

    Even if you have every Beefheart album in the world and are still hungry for more, you don’t need to start buying this shoddy rubbish. Really, just follow Jack’s example and get something good instead.

  3. personally i think its about time some one sued these guys on behalf of Don.

  4. Where do Ozit get the idea that they are giving Beefheart fans what they want? To be fair, if they are thinking of issuing a live album, why something heavily featuring pieces from Unconditionally Guarranteed, seen by the majority as the most undesirable period of Don’s music. The chaps at Ozit really just need a kick up the arse to be honest. I would love to know who their resident beefheart expert is, he needs a spankin’

  5. I bought this release as I had loitered in a friends shop too long without finding ANYTHING ELSE worthwhile. I am glad to have it although I agree with most of the sentiments, negative as they are.

  6. Yep, I’ve bought various Ozit Beefheart products, some slightly better than others!
    The peopel who produce those albums really are a questionable bunch.
    Ultimately I can only conclude that they are using Beefheart to make money and that that I like all too many others have filled their coffers.
    If all Beefheart fans stopped buyingtheir products maybe they would quit.

  7. And if your curious enought that you must hear it, im sure theres a blog out there somewhere thast hosting it, I for one would have no qaulms grabbing a release such as this.

    you could do worse than looking here ;)

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