Acetate only release limited to 25 copies

Front cover with obi

Front cover without obi

Disc labels

Song list:

Side 1:

Hair Pie Bake 2
Sugar ‘n Spikes
Old Fart At Play
My Human Gets Me Blues
Dali’s Car
Moonlight On Vermont
Ella Guru

Side 2

When Big Joan Sets Up
Hair Pie Bake 2
Steal Softly Thru Snow
Hobo Chang Ba
Veterans Day Poppy

Review by Paul Brown

This DELUXE Bootleg LP limited to 25 Copies Only, features live recordings from various venues. the earliest being the “LA Cave” Club in Cleveland Ohio 1971, up to and including two of the album’s stand-out tracks from New York City’s “Beacon Theatre” in 1980.

The LP’s concept is similar in design to the 2007 “Inter-Zappa Overdrive” LP. Extremely professional. It comes with a high-quality thick generic white card sleeve and two colour inlays on the front and back, each side documented with details of dates and venues. It also has its own highly decorative Japanese style OBI band which come on all new Japanese LPs.

The vinyl acetate itself is housed in a lined plastic, collectors type paper sleeve, housed inside a high quality matt black heavy-weight card inner sleeve with a hole showing the label, of a style favoured by DJs in more recent years.

Despite the choice of live recordings coming from various shows between 1971 to 1980, the mix seems to blend together extremely well. As an avid collector of live recordings over the years, I must admit that this project was put together with a lot of care and attention to detail. It is extremely listenable and highlights how adept as a unit each incarnation of the various Magic Band line-ups were playing the diverse and complex Trout Mask tracks live.

The catch… Well, due to the exclusivity, postage and import duties, copies were costing from $250 to $300 each. Despite this the 25 Copies seem to have sold out extremely quickly. Whether a limited run will follow, on plain or multi-coloured vinyl at a later date using the mother plates (as is seemingly the norm with Zappa Bootlegs..) I’m not so sure. I heard one dealer was stuck with some ’30 odd copies’ of the “Electric Poetry” mcv repressing, offering them as a job lot for $10 or $15 each if bought all together, which is possibly why this route was chosen.

As a guest reviewer, I suppose I should advise all to just say no, but I found myself unable to resist the temptation, as I often do with each NEW Beefheart Release but unlike other acquisitions, weeks later I still find myself ‘still’ playing it … (and well that’s a good sign)

Releases

2011 Japan Acetate LP on Handmade Records HM005

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