Captain Beefheart - "Lick My Decals Off, Baby (Outtakes)" (Bootleg) 1970

If you ever wanted a soundtrack for an alternative Karaoki soirée,then this is perfect for you. Nineteen instrumental Beefheart tracks from the 'Lick My Decals Off, Baby' sessions;then beaf(pun intended) it up with the instrumental tracks from the "Trout Mask House Sessions", and you got yerself a swinging avant-blues Karaoki night.......I'm reserving 'Dachau Blues' for my Beefheart Party,hows 'bout yous?

Tracklist:

01-Lick My Decals Off,Baby
02-Doctor Dark
03-I Love You Big Dummy
04-Bellerin' Plain
05-Woe Is Uh Me Bop
06-Japan In A Dishpan
07-Big Toe # 25
08-Petrified Forest
09-The Buggy Boogie-Woogie
10-The Big Dig (The Smithsonian Institute Blues)
11-Space Age Couple
12-Clouds Are Full Of Wine
13-Flash Gordon's Ape
14-Japan In A Dishpan (Take 2)
15-Japan In A Dishpan (Take 4)
16-Japan In A Dishpan (Bass & Drums)
17-Flash Gordon's Ape # 1
18-Flash Gordon's Ape # 2
19-Bellerin' Plain (No Overdub)
20-The Buggy Boogie Woogie (Vocals Only)
21-Well Well Well (Rockette Morton on vocals)

DOWNLOAD your decals off HERE!

Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band ‎– "The Spotlight Kid Outtakes 1971-1972" (Bootleg)

There were two other sessions in 1971 1nd 1972 before "The Brown Star Sessions," and they provide us with a load more unheard or rejected classic period Beefheart tracks consigned to the rubbish heap.
It's all in that slow tempo we all either like or dislike on "The Spotlight Kid" album, slow like a slow pourin' cup of southern molasses direct into yer ear'oles.
Well I like slow Beefheart, it got dat Voodoo.
Zoot Horn Rollo thinks it 'Sucks',but it wasn't about what Zoot wanted was it?
Again, a lot of this resurfaced in later years on the post 'Bat Chain Puller' albums in different forms,before he retired to the desert to do his paintings,and battle with multiple sclerosis.

Tracklist:

1 Drink Paint Run Run 7:28
2 Seam Crooked Sam #2 2:18
3 Dirty Blue Gene #1 2:54
4 Sun Zoom Spark #3 4:12
5 Kiss Me My Love 2:38
6 Funeral Hill #1 6:46
7 Harry Irene 2:51
8 Open Pins 5:41
9 Dual & Abdul 2:44
10 Semi-Multicoloured Caucasian #2 3:05
11 Balladino 2:27
12 Clear Spot (Instrumental) 4:46
13 Circumstances 9:09
14 I'm Gonna Booglarize You, Baby (Instrumental) 5:54
15 Low Yo Yo Stuff (Instrumental) 6:08
16 Semi-Multicoloured Caucasian #1 4:11
17 Little Scratch #2 2:53
18 Pompadour I

19 Pompadour II
20 Suzy Murder Wrist 3:47
21 U Bean So Cinquo 2:51
22 The Witch Doctor Life 3:51
23 Little Scratch #1 4:48
24 Flaming Autograph 4:44
25 Love Grip 4:48
26 No Flower Shall Grow 5:44
27 Best Batch Yet #1 (3 Takes) 3:40
28 Your Love Brought Me To Life (2 Takes) 4:10
29 That Little Girl 5:18
30 Campfires 5:47
31 Well Well Well (Rockette Morton on vox) 1:57
32 Funeral Hill #3 3:55
33 Seam Crooked Sam #1 2:15
34 Alice In Blunderland 3:55
35 Funeral Hill #2 3:17
36 Best Batch Yet #2 2:14
37 Dirty Blue Gene #2 3:14
38 Sun Zoom Spark #1 8:03
39 Scratch My Back 1:51
40 Blues Medley 7:16
   a/Down In The Bottom
   b/Key To The Highway
   c/Grandpa Don't Love Grandma No More
41 Sun Zoom Spark #2 8:28

DOWNLOAD what they didn't want you to hear HERE!

Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band - "The Brown Star Sessions" (Bootleg) 1972

The cult continued,during the 1972 sessions that produced the Spotlight Kid and Clear Spot LPs but ,unlike other 'cult leaders',this marked a new era  with the Captain appearing to have loosened the structural death grip he imposed on his musicians since the Trout Mask Replica LP,allowing them to improvise and express themselves a tad.
These were sessions intended for an album called "Brown Star", but ended up mainly as the style from which 'The Spotlight Kid was culled. A few of the songs were spruced up for "Clear Spot" and even later albums.
There are indeed a few lost classics that should have seen the light of day,but were never revisted, like "Kiss Me My Love"and  "Funeral Hill",which was at least mixed for inclusion on "Spotlight Kid, but never made the cut, as didn't 'Harry Irene'.
There are many versions of songs that hung around for decades before appearing on the later albums, like "Dirty Blue Gene" which was around since near the inception of the group,at least since '67 anyway;then waited 15 years before inclusion on "Doc at the Radar Station".This feels like a lost album,all fleshed out with an obligatory handful of marimba and guitar instrumentals and why not?....I guess the phrase 'Brown Star' is street slang for an asshole is it not? He always had a sense of humour inbetween the pretentiousness and bullying.

Here's Don's painting called,funnily enough, "Brown Star"

I may unleash a tumult of astonishment here, but Don Van Vliet's paintings aren't actually very good are they?
I quite enjoy looking at them, but they're pretty unoriginal,and a tad pointless.I said the same when i saw an exhibition of paintings done by Chimpanzees. They were 'as good', but not, 'better than'.
Donny should have stuck with music;he had potential.
Having said that,as rock star painters go he's far better than Ronnie Wood, whose paintings really are shit.

Tracklist:

1 Boogler Risin'
2 Dirty Blue Gene I
3 Dirty Blue Gene II
4 Clear Spot (instrumental)
5 Harry Irene
6 Happy Blue Pumpkin
7 Kiss me my love
8 Little Scratch
9 Your Love Brought Me To Life
10 Pompadour Swamp
11 Funeral Hill I
12 Frying Pan
13 Dual And Abdul
14 Best Batch Yet (instrumental)
15 Suzy Murder Wrist
16 I Can't Do This Unless I Can Do This
17 Obenso Cinquo
18 Funeral Hill II
19 Flaming Autograph
20 Scratch My Back

DOWNLOAD beamed direct from the brown star HERE!

Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band ‎– "Grow Fins Vol. II: Trout Mask House Sessions" (Table Of The Elements ‎– Sb 51) /1969/1999

Well, we've been through the 'Cults that made Music' section,and its various offshoot,so its logical to have a go with 'Groups who behaved like cults', one of which was probably the greatest abstract blues band that ever existed,although I can't name you another one....Captain Beefheart and his/the Magic Band.
It's also not only the fiftieth anniversary of the Moon landings,Woodstock, and the Manson murders, more importantly its a half a century since the greatest hour and twenty minutes in musical history were captured on tape.The fiftieth annivesary of when the Moon landed on the Earth,and when Beefheart turned down a slot at Woodstock.
One mentions Charles Manson,well Van Vliet had a lot in common with Manson's methods.The cult members were plyed with lashings of LSD,even though Van Vliet insisted that the band were completely drug free, and they had to sit and listen to his poetry read out loud daily by Antennae Jimmy Semens/Jeff Cotton.
In the only existing interview with Antennae Jimmy Semens,he even mentions this(he said he enjoyed it!?) and that the Captain knew Charlie M. Which was obviously possible. Jimmy also reckons that Don was far more powerful than Manson;but thankfully we didn't see the charming Antennae Jimmy,or Zoot Horn,or even The Mascara Snake stabbing any Hollywood starlets.Jimmy's only atrocities, if we could call them that,amazingly they are still people who regard the whole of 'Trout Mask' an atrocity(!?),were the genius guitar work and magnificent vocals on 'Pena' and 'The Blimp'.
An ephiphanal moment for me came as a Punk infected teenager, when I heard the first few notes of "Frownland" for the first time,and knew imeadiately, that the next 79 minutes were going to be special. I instantly 'got it', unlike the many other TMR fans who said it took three or more listens????..Nah!....this was the music I had been waiting for, like hearing the Pistols for the first time,but this was the next step up, like PiL was giant leap from The Pistols.
This album collects the attempted 'Field Recording' versions of the songs that Zappa wanted to capture,as if it was a nature programe capturing an abstract blues concept band in their natural habitat.
So 'Grow Fins' was a special opportunity to hear the songs without the vocals obscuring the shear genius of the massively complex arrangements, and there are none more complex, or as short, as that achieved for "Frownland" (just check out this in depth analysis of Frownland by a very serious composer...click HERE!)It's only one minute forty seconds long, but,it achieves the effect of an hour long symphony,with all the unecessary bits bypassed.Leaving the most perfect contraction of musical innovation that took lesser lights, like Wagner, 6 or 7 hours to achieve, then still fail.
It seems, that to create 'Great Art' you generally need a single vision, which a rock band very rarely has.Normally the Drummer wants to include one of his songs, the Bass player wants his bass louder,and the keyboardist wants to know why the notes are discordant,and why it sounds 'terrible' before handing out a score for the string arrangement he worked out last night.
Baring that in mind, it begins to make sense as to why Beefheart used these brain-washing tactics to get his vision into reality.
Of course most of the band members (Not Jimmy Semens I have to add,even though he frequently got beaten up!?) have spent the ensuing years moaning about not getting the credit they deserved, the bits they wrote,and what a asshole Van Vliet was.
The work stands up for itself in the perfection of its imperfection.

"A Squid eating dough in a polyethylene bag is fast'n'bulbous...got me?"......yup.

Tracklist:

1 Untitled 1 4:59
2 Untitled 2 8:18
3 Hair Pie: Bake 1 5:04
4 Hair Pie: Bake 2 2:44
5 Untitled 5 1:04
6 Hobo Chang Ba 2:02
7 Untitled 7 1:57
8 Hobo Chang Ba (Take 2) 3:08
9 Dachau Blues 2:06
10 Old Fart At Play 1:23
11 Untitled 11 1:01
12 Pachuco Cadaver 4:08
13 Sugar N Spikes 2:40
14 Untitled 14 1:00
15 Sweet Sweet Bulbs 2:30
16 Frownland (Take 1) 2:51
17 Frownland 1:52
18 Untitled 18 1:10
19 Ella Guru 2:33
20 Untitled 20 0:08
21 She’s Too Much For My Mirror 1:30
22 Untitled 22 0:35
23 Steal Softly Through Snow 2:22
24 Untitled 24 1:51
25 My Human Gets Me Blues 2:53
26 Untitled 26 1:05
27 When Big Joan Sets Up 4:32
28 Untitled 28 0:04
29 Untitled 29 0:56
30 China Pig 4:14
31 Blimp (Storytime) 5:09
32 Herb (Storytime) 1:06
33 Septic Tank (Storytime) 0:51
34 Overdub (Storytime) 5:26

DOWNLOAD the trout as captured in the wild HERE!

MU ‎– "MU" (RTV Records ‎– RTV-300) 1971

Yes there were many bands named 'MU', one of which we just discovered in the previous post was a post punk band from Rotterdam, Holland. Another famous musician of Dutch lineage, was none other than Don Van Vliet, aka Captain Beefheart himself....(author falls to knees in worship and most probably tears too!). One of the magic band was the legendary 'Antennae Jimmy Semens', aka Jeff Cotton of MU (the American version thereof).
Having been psychologically broken by Van Vliets experiments with sleep deprivation, food deprivation, and physical violence to create a group that sounded as if they had lived in a locked cupboard for twenty years;he left. The final straw came when Drumbo's replacement drummer beat Jimmy to a pulp, breaking several ribs in the process.
He went on to form MU(usa), and made blues flavoured psych with some old chums from the music industry. The resulting album sounds like a very straight 'Trout Mask Replica' if one removed Beefheart, Zoot Horn Rollo, Rockette Morten,Drumbo snd even the Mascara Snake from the mix;leaving only, guess who, Antennae Jimmy Semens on his highly recognizable slide guitar. Except with three band mates who could not possibly approach the creative space that our Jimmy had been bent into.
The album bombed of course, and Jeff left the music biz to become a...gulp!...Christian!?....He must have been really fucked up by the 'Trout Mask replica' experience? You can see it in his face on the cover...ps. he's the fucked up looking one.

Tracklist:

A1 Ain't No Blues 4:03
A2 Ballad Of Brother Lew 4:30
A3 Blue Form 4:03
A4 Interlude 1:56
A5 Nobody Wants To Shine 4:08
B1 Eternal Thirst 9:34
B2 Too Naked For Demetrius 2:32
B3 Mumbella Baye Tu La 3:19
B4 The Clouds Went That Way 3:16

DOWNLOAD the lost magic band member of mu HERE!

"Tommy Vance Show, Capital Radio July 16th 1977 - "Johnny Rotten, The Punk and His Music"

Ok, here's the infamous Tommy Vance show, when Johnny Rotten exposed himself as a prog/folk/reggae fan. No New York Dolls on this show, and i'm sure Malcolm Maclaren was fuming.Serves him right for breaking the first rule in Pop svengali-ism.....Don't Pick anyone with a brain for your living art project!
It's amusing to listen to Lydon trying not to alienate his street cred whilst at the same time audibly loving Tommy Vance's naked sycophancy. 
"What turned me on to you was that here's someone who reaaallllly knows what he's talking about", said Tommy (from memory so don't pull me up about any errors please!?).
"I phfink I do" says Johnny, who's hideous Ego-trip was just about to go into first gear around this time in 1977.
He always gave me the impression that he didn't know what he was talking about,constantly making contradictory and confused statements, whilst banging on about being " 'Onest.".
But nevertheless, he was in two of the greatest groups of all time, had great stage and media charisma, and wore good clothes. Of course, as it was (almost)written in Neil Youngs tune from "Rust Never Sleeps", he burnt out, but then insisted on fading away into the cuddly TV chat show guest that he's turned into today.
Oh Yeah, he's a fucking Brexiter as well; the final nail in the coffin of my teenage idolatry......but Pil 1.1 and 1.2 are immortal in their shear brilliance,so I forgive him. And he likes Captain Beefheart, Van der Graaf, and Gary Glitter, so he ain't all bad.
To counteract Vance's sickening sycophancy, there's always the vintage radio adverts, which are probably more entertaining than listening to Rotten's 'I'm working claahs' monologues between questions.  

Tracklist:

1.Tim Buckley - Sweet Surrender
2.The Creation - Life Is Just Beginning
3.David Bowie - Rebel Rebel
4. Unknown Artist - Drowsy Maggie
5.Augustus Pablo - King Tubby Meets The Rockers Uptown
6.Gary Glitter - Doing Alright With The Boys
7.Fred Locks - Walls
8.Vivian Jackson and the Prophets - Fire in a Kingston
9.Culture - I'm Not Ashamed
10.Dr Alimantado & The Rebels - Born For A Purpose
11.Bobby Byrd - Back From The Dead
12.Bobby Byrd - Back From The Dead

13.Neil Young - Revolution Blues Neil Young - Revolution Blues
14.Lou Reed - Men Of Good Fortune
15.Kevin Coyne - Eastbourne Ladies
16.Peter Hammill - The Institute Of Mental Health is Burning
17.Peter Hammill - Nobody's Business
18.Makka Bees - Nation Fiddler / Fire!

19.Captain Beefheart - The Blimp
20.Nico - Janitor Of Lunacy
21.Let's Get It On Ken Boothe - Is It Because I'm Black
22.John Cale - Legs Larry At Television Centre
23.Third Ear Band - Fleance
24.Can - Halleluhwah

DOWNLOAD the punk and his muzak HERE!