Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band - Safe As Milk Original 1967 USA stereo pressing Buddah Records BDS 5001 (Discogs) ~ThePoodleBites rip in 96kHz / 24bit FLAC + full high-res scans~ "MAY THE BABY JESUS SHUT YOUR MOUTH AND OPEN YOUR MIND" ~original inner sleeve It's a subjective statement, but I'll make it anyways: never before or since Safe As Milk has there ever been an experimental-blues-psych-rock LP with so much grit, so much bite, so much hair, that still kicks and grooves so hard. Undoubtedly most followers of this blog will be familiar with this masterpiece, a word I don't toss around so lightly. I was surprised to find, though, after communicating with several fans, that there are guys who have never heard the stereo mix of this album at all. For this record, stereo is the one I grew up on! There are at least two existing rips of this album from the mono pressing, which is often touted as the superior version of this LP; however, after several comparisons between original pressings, I am not so convinced that is the case. The mono version was mixed to sound good on old-school AM radio -- meaning good relative instrument balance, but also meaning added dynamic compression, and loss of definition on an already lo-fi-sounding recording. I will not be surprised if there are sounds that many listeners will be noticing for the first time here; the bongos in "Zig Zag Wanderer," the cowbell in "Call On Me," the vocal tremolo on those first bars in "Electricity," ... For me, this is indeed one of those albums where both mixes are necessary, with the crazy channel effects here being quite playful, and the wide soundstage adding to the peculiarity; in fact, I may even claim that the stereo mix is, for many tracks, more psychedelic than the mono! The original stereo Safe As Milk cover artwork, with fisheye photo of the band inside a wooden chicken coop As a precursor, I'll state that this overview of the events surrounding this album can be read in more detail (and also probably with a higher degree with accuracy) in John French's book, Beefheart: Through the Eyes of Magic. Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band originally signed to A&M Records, where two terrific and unique R&B 45s appeared in 1966 (link). After these releases, though, the canonical story tells that demos of new songs, which would later appear on Safe As Milk, were presented to A&M but deemed too experimental (literally "too negative," according to Beefheart himself), whence the band was dropped. The more likely story is that since the A&M singles failed to chart nationally, though becoming local hits, the band was simply discarded. At any rate, they were subsequently picked up by producer Bob Krasnow of Kama Sutra Records for a debut album on a new subsidiary he called Buddah Records. For '60s heads, Safe As Milk would be the pinnacle of the new label, which came to preoccupy itself with bubblegum pop and, even later, soft-rock/vocal records; a total let-down from the raw avant-blues of early Beef. An early band performance, ca. 1967 L to R: Van Vliet, Cooder & Handley Supposedly the only gig to feature Ry Cooder. Band leader Don Van Vliet (a.k.a. Captain Beefheart, by self-imposition) stole this opportunity to switch some personnel during the label move, with Doug Moon being fired by Bob Krasnow the day of the album photo shoot. It would become a trend for Magic Band members to leave, but usually out of their own discretion, due to the difficulty of working with the leader. In any case, notable is the addition of a bubbling young guitar superstar in Ry Cooder, freshly poached from Taj Mahal's blues band The Rising Sons. Van Vliet, a childhood friend of Frank Zappa, undoubtedly felt some pressure to assemble his version of The Mothers, who had released Freak Out! on Verve the previous summer, with Absolutely Free following that spring: so Van Vliet understandably worked to assemble the best musicians possible for his baby-project. At any rate, this incarnation of the band would be sadly short-lived, with Ry Cooder leaving after only one gig with the group. The picture that Safe As Milk paints of the Summer of Love is quite different than that depicted by the usual L.A. groups. Van Vliet's vocals, with obvious draws from the raw delta wails of Howlin' Wolf, portray surrealistic Daliesque scenes upon a tapestry of stop-and-go drums, staggering dual slide guitars of Ry Cooder and Alex St. Clair, and intricate bass lines, woven together in a dynamic, ever-changing landscape of blues, pop, and heavy fuzzed-out psych. The constantly-changing song structures are smoothly integrated and still give the façade of conventionality while simultaneously drawing upon obscure folk- and African-inspired rhythms, somehow keeping every song interesting from beginning to end. Photography by Guy Webster: (L to R) John French, Jerry Handley, Alex St. Clair, & Don Van Vliet, all cleaned-up with fresh haircuts It is curious to me why Ry Cooder wasn't pictured on the LP cover, but little information seems to exist on the subject; he apparently was never very keen on being in the band, so it probably was by his own discretion. Tom Wilkes' cover design, which encases those photos, clearly portray the influence (worship?) of the Abba-Zaba candy bar, as of course does the track itself, whose title is featured prominently at the top of the rear design. Perhaps Don Van Vliet just liked the sound of the name, or maybe he was actually an avid consumer of the peanut-butter-filled taffy, which can still be found at some old-school candy shops -- but it honestly isn't anything to write home about, in my opinion. Nonetheless, the song would remain a staple of Beefheart's career, making a regular appearance at shows throughout the '70s. An Abba-Zaba candy bar I wonder how this song was chosen to perpetuate, as it's a great tune, but probably not my favorite on the album. It is one of three songs credited solely to Van Vliet, though the cowriter Herb Bermann who appears on the other tracks is so reclusive that in the 1999 CD reissue it is claimed that he may have never existed at all (apparently he has now been found). Anyways, I'd think that the opening blues rocker "Sure 'Nuff 'N Yes I Do" is conventional enough to fit in any classic/blues rock playlist yet also unique enough to catch the ear of a discerning critic. The psychedelic spaces explored in "Zig Zag Wanderer" (a reference of course to the rolling papers) and "Autumn's Child," and the brutal fuzz of "Dropout Boogie," will likely appeal to '60s purists, while "Electricity" adds the tag of mind-boggling experimental-electronic-blues composition which still sounds fresh even today. A theremin appears both in the aforementioned "Electricity" and "Autumn's Child," which close either album side. There aren't that many '60s albums (to my knowledge) that use the wavering electronic tones produced by that oscillator-driven spook machine. Curiously, this one was played by Sam Hoffman, supposedly a friend of the instrument's inventor, Leon Theremin. [To those who don't know, Mr. Theremin (who was ex-KGB) intended it to become a serious orchestral instrument, but it unfortunately seemed to only make the circuit in cheap 1950s monster flicks.] Especially amazing is Van Vliet's performance on "I'm Glad," a ballad which if performed by anyone else would be unironically boring, but with the swooning Beefheart vocals, it's surprisingly entrancing; much like the lifelike street-cut voice of Lou Reed singing "Some Kinda Love" on the third VU record, it's an unexpected respite from the growl and grime which shows off the incredible pipes that the great Captain had. Another favorite here is "Plastic Factory," with one of the absolute best blues guitar riffs I've ever heard. The Captain's blues harp accompaniment with added distortion & tremolo is such a perfect addition to that heavy chart, but what makes that song atypical and aligned in the style of Beefheart is the jump to 6/8 feel part-way through, which is done tactfully and smoothly, giving only a brief glance into the heavily complexified compositions that were yet to come... Rear album cover slick with the yellow-and-black checkerboard pattern The recording of this album has a distressing history, as can be read elsewhere. The tl;dr of it is that the band switched from a state-of-the-art 8-track to a lesser 4-track studio mid-recording, primarily due to the inexperience of producer & engineer Richard Perry. This necessitated track bouncing which resulted in a lower fidelity (generational loss) along with roughly-tuned mixes as typical of late-1960s recordings. Apparently Perry's original mixes were deemed so substandard that Bob Krasnow had to take over and remix the album. Ad for the 1970 reissue in the Buddah Group inner sleeveAfter the original 1967 release, there have been several commercial reappearances of this album, however even the earliest 1970 reissue has audio issues (channel dropouts, weird splices at the beginning/end of tracks, some songs running at a slower speed, ...) that are not present on the original pressings, pointing to probable damage of the original master tapes due to poor storage conditions, even in that short period of time. Several strange restoration attempts exist on CD, the best being from 1999 on Buddah, which also included some cool bonus tracks. In fact this was probably the best reissue ever, fixing many of the major issues noted above, but unfortunately simultaneously adding other problems. The disc appears to be sourced from a safety dub (worse high-end response, extra tape noise) and has been highly limited and compressed with pumped-up bass, which makes it barely comparable to the extremely dynamic sound of the original LP and even the early reissues. The recording also runs about 1.2% slower than the original pressing, which is enough to be annoying but not quite enough to be tonally audible. I don't know firsthand which is correct, but I'll stick to the speed of the originals (plural; the mono is also faster) over whatever was used on the 1999 thing. The audio for this project has been manually restored from an original white-label promotional (stereo) copy of the album in near-perfect condition. It is much more challenging to polish a stereo restoration as compared to a mono one, since low-level vinyl noise cannot simply be ignored and folded away; it needs to be dealt with manually in each channel, piece by piece. I left intact the occasional noise (e.g. potentiometer scratch) which apparently exists on the master tape, and thus every CD and LP. There is also some inner groove distortion from the pressing, but it is not too bad. After lots of invested work and time, I am fairly confident that the final product here is a massive improvement over any reissue or existing transfer of this stereo variant, and you can confidently toss any other digital stereo version directly into the recycle bin. Since the original promo copies apparently did not include the bumper sticker or printed inner sleeve, I will include these scans plus the labels from a regular stereo stock copy as well. An original Safe As Milk bumper sticker, with the creepy doll face image Performers: - Don Van Vliet: lead vocals, harmonica, bass marimba - Alex St. Clair Snouffer: guitar - Jerry Handley: bass guitar - Ry Cooder: guitar; bass on 8 & 11 - John French: drums, percussion July 1967 ad in World Countdown 3.1 featuring lyrics from the LP - Russ Titelman(?): guitar on 10 & 12 - Milt Holland: log drum on 2 & 4; additional percussion on 8 - Taj Mahal: additional percussion on 7 (washboard?) - Sam Hoffman: theremin on 6 & 12 - Richard Perry: "reference tone" on 7 - unknown session musician(s): organ on 11, piano(?) on 12 Join the official John "Drumbo" French fan group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/110161780727 Track listing: 1) "Sure 'Nuff 'N Yes, I Do" (Don Van Vliet & Herb Bermann) -- 2:16 2) "Zig Zag Wanderer" (Van Vliet & Bermann) -- 2:38 3) "Call On Me" (Van Vliet) -- 2:37 4) "Dropout Boogie" (Van Vliet & Bermann) -- 2:31 5) "I'm Glad" (Van Vliet) -- 3:29 6) "Electricity" (Van Vliet & Bermann) -- 3:08 7) "Yellow Brick Road" (Van Vliet & Bermann) -- 2:25 8) "Abba Zaba" (Van Vliet) -- 2:43 9) "Plastic Factory" (Van Vliet, Bermann & Jerry Handley) -- 3:06 10) "Where There's Woman" (Van Vliet & Bermann) -- 2:09 11) "Grown So Ugly" (Robert Pete Williams) -- 2:27 12) "Autumn's Child" (Van Vliet & Bermann) -- 4:02 Vinyl condition: M- Dynamic range: DR12 Equipment Lineage: – Audio-Technica VMN40ML stylus on AT150MLx dual moving-magnet cartridge – Audio-Technica AT-LP1240-USB direct drive professional turntable (internal stock preamp/ADC removed) – Pro-Ject Phono Box S2 Ultra preamp with dedicated Zero Zone linear power supply – Focusrite Scarlett 6i6 MkII (96kHz / 24bit) – Adobe Audition CC 2020 (recording) – iZotope RX 7 audio editor (manual declicking, EQ subtraction, additional adjustments) – Audacity 2.3.3 (fades between tracks, split tracks) – Foobar2000 v1.5.1 (tagging, dynamic range analysis) YouTube playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhEBA51qbhIqX1r5511VbuQNvRpB_XHu8 Thanks for taking the time to read my posts and check out my blog. I'd greatly appreciate it if you leave a small comment below. Notes from my readers are what inspire me to keep going. Thanks! MEGA: https://mega.nz/folder/ykASjRyI#vVpb9zAv4eJpK0q39KptMg Enjoy! :) For a digital version of the mono mix, you may wander thusly...

Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band - Safe As Milk Original 1967 USA stereo pressing Buddah Records BDS 5001 (Discogs) ~ThePoodleBites rip in 96kHz / 24bit FLAC + full high-res scans~ "MAY THE BABY JESUS SHUT YOUR MOUTH AND OPEN YOUR MIND" ~original inner sleeve It's a subjective statement, but I'll make it anyways: never before or since Safe As Milk has there ever been an experimental-blues-psych-rock LP with so much grit, so much bite, so much hair, that still kicks and grooves so hard. Undoubtedly most followers of this blog will be familiar with this masterpiece, a word I don't toss around so lightly. I was surprised to find, though, after communicating with several fans, that there are guys who have never heard the stereo mix of this album at all. For this record, stereo is the one I grew up on! There are at least two existing rips of this album from the mono pressing, which is often touted as the superior version of this LP; however, after several comparisons between original pressings, I am not so convinced that is the case. The mono version was mixed to sound good on old-school AM radio -- meaning good relative instrument balance, but also meaning added dynamic compression, and loss of definition on an already lo-fi-sounding recording. I will not be surprised if there are sounds that many listeners will be noticing for the first time here; the bongos in "Zig Zag Wanderer," the cowbell in "Call On Me," the vocal tremolo on those first bars in "Electricity," ... For me, this is indeed one of those albums where both mixes are necessary, with the crazy channel effects here being quite playful, and the wide soundstage adding to the peculiarity; in fact, I may even claim that the stereo mix is, for many tracks, more psychedelic than the mono! The original stereo Safe As Milk cover artwork, with fisheye photo of the band inside a wooden chicken coop As a precursor, I'll state that this overview of the events surrounding this album can be read in more detail (and also probably with a higher degree with accuracy) in John French's book, Beefheart: Through the Eyes of Magic. Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band originally signed to A&M Records, where two terrific and unique R&B 45s appeared in 1966 (link). After these releases, though, the canonical story tells that demos of new songs, which would later appear on Safe As Milk, were presented to A&M but deemed too experimental (literally "too negative," according to Beefheart himself), whence the band was dropped. The more likely story is that since the A&M singles failed to chart nationally, though becoming local hits, the band was simply discarded. At any rate, they were subsequently picked up by producer Bob Krasnow of Kama Sutra Records for a debut album on a new subsidiary he called Buddah Records. For '60s heads, Safe As Milk would be the pinnacle of the new label, which came to preoccupy itself with bubblegum pop and, even later, soft-rock/vocal records; a total let-down from the raw avant-blues of early Beef. An early band performance, ca. 1967 L to R: Van Vliet, Cooder & Handley Supposedly the only gig to feature Ry Cooder. Band leader Don Van Vliet (a.k.a. Captain Beefheart, by self-imposition) stole this opportunity to switch some personnel during the label move, with Doug Moon being fired by Bob Krasnow the day of the album photo shoot. It would become a trend for Magic Band members to leave, but usually out of their own discretion, due to the difficulty of working with the leader. In any case, notable is the addition of a bubbling young guitar superstar in Ry Cooder, freshly poached from Taj Mahal's blues band The Rising Sons. Van Vliet, a childhood friend of Frank Zappa, undoubtedly felt some pressure to assemble his version of The Mothers, who had released Freak Out! on Verve the previous summer, with Absolutely Free following that spring: so Van Vliet understandably worked to assemble the best musicians possible for his baby-project. At any rate, this incarnation of the band would be sadly short-lived, with Ry Cooder leaving after only one gig with the group. The picture that Safe As Milk paints of the Summer of Love is quite different than that depicted by the usual L.A. groups. Van Vliet's vocals, with obvious draws from the raw delta wails of Howlin' Wolf, portray surrealistic Daliesque scenes upon a tapestry of stop-and-go drums, staggering dual slide guitars of Ry Cooder and Alex St. Clair, and intricate bass lines, woven together in a dynamic, ever-changing landscape of blues, pop, and heavy fuzzed-out psych. The constantly-changing song structures are smoothly integrated and still give the façade of conventionality while simultaneously drawing upon obscure folk- and African-inspired rhythms, somehow keeping every song interesting from beginning to end. Photography by Guy Webster: (L to R) John French, Jerry Handley, Alex St. Clair, & Don Van Vliet, all cleaned-up with fresh haircuts It is curious to me why Ry Cooder wasn't pictured on the LP cover, but little information seems to exist on the subject; he apparently was never very keen on being in the band, so it probably was by his own discretion. Tom Wilkes' cover design, which encases those photos, clearly portray the influence (worship?) of the Abba-Zaba candy bar, as of course does the track itself, whose title is featured prominently at the top of the rear design. Perhaps Don Van Vliet just liked the sound of the name, or maybe he was actually an avid consumer of the peanut-butter-filled taffy, which can still be found at some old-school candy shops -- but it honestly isn't anything to write home about, in my opinion. Nonetheless, the song would remain a staple of Beefheart's career, making a regular appearance at shows throughout the '70s. An Abba-Zaba candy bar I wonder how this song was chosen to perpetuate, as it's a great tune, but probably not my favorite on the album. It is one of three songs credited solely to Van Vliet, though the cowriter Herb Bermann who appears on the other tracks is so reclusive that in the 1999 CD reissue it is claimed that he may have never existed at all (apparently he has now been found). Anyways, I'd think that the opening blues rocker "Sure 'Nuff 'N Yes I Do" is conventional enough to fit in any classic/blues rock playlist yet also unique enough to catch the ear of a discerning critic. The psychedelic spaces explored in "Zig Zag Wanderer" (a reference of course to the rolling papers) and "Autumn's Child," and the brutal fuzz of "Dropout Boogie," will likely appeal to '60s purists, while "Electricity" adds the tag of mind-boggling experimental-electronic-blues composition which still sounds fresh even today. A theremin appears both in the aforementioned "Electricity" and "Autumn's Child," which close either album side. There aren't that many '60s albums (to my knowledge) that use the wavering electronic tones produced by that oscillator-driven spook machine. Curiously, this one was played by Sam Hoffman, supposedly a friend of the instrument's inventor, Leon Theremin. [To those who don't know, Mr. Theremin (who was ex-KGB) intended it to become a serious orchestral instrument, but it unfortunately seemed to only make the circuit in cheap 1950s monster flicks.] Especially amazing is Van Vliet's performance on "I'm Glad," a ballad which if performed by anyone else would be unironically boring, but with the swooning Beefheart vocals, it's surprisingly entrancing; much like the lifelike street-cut voice of Lou Reed singing "Some Kinda Love" on the third VU record, it's an unexpected respite from the growl and grime which shows off the incredible pipes that the great Captain had. Another favorite here is "Plastic Factory," with one of the absolute best blues guitar riffs I've ever heard. The Captain's blues harp accompaniment with added distortion & tremolo is such a perfect addition to that heavy chart, but what makes that song atypical and aligned in the style of Beefheart is the jump to 6/8 feel part-way through, which is done tactfully and smoothly, giving only a brief glance into the heavily complexified compositions that were yet to come... Rear album cover slick with the yellow-and-black checkerboard pattern The recording of this album has a distressing history, as can be read elsewhere. The tl;dr of it is that the band switched from a state-of-the-art 8-track to a lesser 4-track studio mid-recording, primarily due to the inexperience of producer & engineer Richard Perry. This necessitated track bouncing which resulted in a lower fidelity (generational loss) along with roughly-tuned mixes as typical of late-1960s recordings. Apparently Perry's original mixes were deemed so substandard that Bob Krasnow had to take over and remix the album. Ad for the 1970 reissue in the Buddah Group inner sleeveAfter the original 1967 release, there have been several commercial reappearances of this album, however even the earliest 1970 reissue has audio issues (channel dropouts, weird splices at the beginning/end of tracks, some songs running at a slower speed, ...) that are not present on the original pressings, pointing to probable damage of the original master tapes due to poor storage conditions, even in that short period of time. Several strange restoration attempts exist on CD, the best being from 1999 on Buddah, which also included some cool bonus tracks. In fact this was probably the best reissue ever, fixing many of the major issues noted above, but unfortunately simultaneously adding other problems. The disc appears to be sourced from a safety dub (worse high-end response, extra tape noise) and has been highly limited and compressed with pumped-up bass, which makes it barely comparable to the extremely dynamic sound of the original LP and even the early reissues. The recording also runs about 1.2% slower than the original pressing, which is enough to be annoying but not quite enough to be tonally audible. I don't know firsthand which is correct, but I'll stick to the speed of the originals (plural; the mono is also faster) over whatever was used on the 1999 thing. The audio for this project has been manually restored from an original white-label promotional (stereo) copy of the album in near-perfect condition. It is much more challenging to polish a stereo restoration as compared to a mono one, since low-level vinyl noise cannot simply be ignored and folded away; it needs to be dealt with manually in each channel, piece by piece. I left intact the occasional noise (e.g. potentiometer scratch) which apparently exists on the master tape, and thus every CD and LP. There is also some inner groove distortion from the pressing, but it is not too bad. After lots of invested work and time, I am fairly confident that the final product here is a massive improvement over any reissue or existing transfer of this stereo variant, and you can confidently toss any other digital stereo version directly into the recycle bin. Since the original promo copies apparently did not include the bumper sticker or printed inner sleeve, I will include these scans plus the labels from a regular stereo stock copy as well. An original Safe As Milk bumper sticker, with the creepy doll face image Performers: - Don Van Vliet: lead vocals, harmonica, bass marimba - Alex St. Clair Snouffer: guitar - Jerry Handley: bass guitar - Ry Cooder: guitar; bass on 8 & 11 - John French: drums, percussion July 1967 ad in World Countdown 3.1 featuring lyrics from the LP - Russ Titelman(?): guitar on 10 & 12 - Milt Holland: log drum on 2 & 4; additional percussion on 8 - Taj Mahal: additional percussion on 7 (washboard?) - Sam Hoffman: theremin on 6 & 12 - Richard Perry: "reference tone" on 7 - unknown session musician(s): organ on 11, piano(?) on 12 Join the official John "Drumbo" French fan group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/110161780727 Track listing: 1) "Sure 'Nuff 'N Yes, I Do" (Don Van Vliet & Herb Bermann) -- 2:16 2) "Zig Zag Wanderer" (Van Vliet & Bermann) -- 2:38 3) "Call On Me" (Van Vliet) -- 2:37 4) "Dropout Boogie" (Van Vliet & Bermann) -- 2:31 5) "I'm Glad" (Van Vliet) -- 3:29 6) "Electricity" (Van Vliet & Bermann) -- 3:08 7) "Yellow Brick Road" (Van Vliet & Bermann) -- 2:25 8) "Abba Zaba" (Van Vliet) -- 2:43 9) "Plastic Factory" (Van Vliet, Bermann & Jerry Handley) -- 3:06 10) "Where There's Woman" (Van Vliet & Bermann) -- 2:09 11) "Grown So Ugly" (Robert Pete Williams) -- 2:27 12) "Autumn's Child" (Van Vliet & Bermann) -- 4:02 Vinyl condition: M- Dynamic range: DR12 Equipment Lineage: – Audio-Technica VMN40ML stylus on AT150MLx dual moving-magnet cartridge – Audio-Technica AT-LP1240-USB direct drive professional turntable (internal stock preamp/ADC removed) – Pro-Ject Phono Box S2 Ultra preamp with dedicated Zero Zone linear power supply – Focusrite Scarlett 6i6 MkII (96kHz / 24bit) – Adobe Audition CC 2020 (recording) – iZotope RX 7 audio editor (manual declicking, EQ subtraction, additional adjustments) – Audacity 2.3.3 (fades between tracks, split tracks) – Foobar2000 v1.5.1 (tagging, dynamic range analysis) YouTube playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhEBA51qbhIqX1r5511VbuQNvRpB_XHu8 Thanks for taking the time to read my posts and check out my blog. I'd greatly appreciate it if you leave a small comment below. Notes from my readers are what inspire me to keep going. Thanks! MEGA: https://mega.nz/folder/ykASjRyI#vVpb9zAv4eJpK0q39KptMg Enjoy! :) For a digital version of the mono mix, you may wander thusly...

Putting the psychedelic back into this blog. The Fillmore Auditorium & Fillmore West: San Francisco’s Fillmore West had its beginnings in 1912 as the Majestic Hall, an Italianate-style dance hall at the southwest corner of Fillmore and Geary. Wednesday…

Con producción de Frank Zappa, el estreno de Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band resultó un disco mitificado hasta el extremo. Su innovadora portada, no se quedó atrás. Por Xavier Valiño.

This article is an informative photoblog of some fantastic pop art images of vintage concert posters by some of the biggest names in the rock art world.

Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time was originally published in 2003, with a slight update in 2012.

A classic boxing-style concert poster for a 1971 performance by Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band with Ry Cooder at the Comerford Theatre in Wilkes-Barre, PA

Captain Beefheart And His Magic Band – “Trout Mask Replica” (1969) More Masterpieces click>> 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Sometimes you just have to eat shredded wheat. The 1969 double LP,”T…

#29087 Original 1970’s promotional poster for Captain Beefheart & the Magic Band for Unconditionally Guaranteed, featuring his often used salutation: Love Over Gold. Unconditionally Guaranteed is the eighth LP by Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band, originally released in 1974. It was recorded at Hollywood Sound, Los Angeles. Upon release it was criticized for being too commercial; even so, it failed to give Beefheart any real chart success, peaking at 192 on the Billboard Top 200. " CONDITION good overall - pinholes; some fading DIMENSIONS 16.25” x 23” (Width x Height)

High-quality posters to hang in dorms, bedrooms or offices. Multiple sizes are available. Printed on 185gsm semi gloss poster paper. Additional sizes are available. Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band

Label: Liberty – LBS 83172, Liberty – LBS 83172E Format: Vinyl, LP, Album / Country: UK / Released: Dec 1968 Style: Blues Rock, Avantgarde Recorded April 25th - May 2nd, 1968 at Sunset Sound, Hollywood, California. Art Direction – Tom Wilkes Photography By – Guy Webster Arranged By, Written-By – Don Van Vliet Engineer – Bill Lazerus, Gene Shiveley Producer – Bob Krasnow Matrix / Runout (Side A stamped runout): LBS 83172 A//1 420 Matrix / Runout (Side B stamped runout): LBS 83172 B//1 420 LBS 83172 is the catalog number on the spine and labels while LBS 83172E is the catalog number on the back cover. A1 - Ah Feel Like Ahcid ................................................................... 3:05 A2 - Safe As Milk ............................................................................. 5:20 A3 - Trust Us .................................................................................... 8:05 A4 - Son Of Mirror Man - Mere Man ................................................ 5:20 B1 - On Tomorrow ........................................................................... 3:25 B2 - Beatle Bones N' Smokin Stones ............................................... 3:15 B3 - Gimme Dat Harp Boy ............................................................... 5:00 B4 - Kandy Korn ............................................................................... 5:05 Don Van Vliet – lead vocals, blues harp [mouthharp] Alex St. Claire – guitar Jeff Cotton – guitar Jerry Handley – bass John French – drums, percussion "Strictly Personal" is the follow-up to "Safe As Milk" and the band's 2nd official album, recorded at Sunset Sound Recorders between 25th April & 2nd May 1968 and released on the "Blue Thumb" label in October of that year. After the production of "Safe As Milk" Ry Cooder departed, resulting from an incident at a warm-up 'Magic Mountain' gig at Mount Tamalpas prior to their booking at Monterey. The band thus failed to capitalize on airing the tracks at the all-important Monterey Festival in June '67. Problems further plagued Vliet's new-formed line up of Snouffer, Handley, French and Cotton when they began their European gigs in January '68. Their appearances at the UK's "Middle Earth" and "Speakeasy" clubs were jeopardized by problems at Immigration, where they were accompanied by event organizer (and "The Who" manager) Pete Meaden. This 'lack of UK work permit' fiasco soured UK deals between Meaden, Buddah management and Pye - perhaps beginning the rot that would lead Krasnow, and the band, to depart from Buddah. However, the band completed gigs in Hanover on the 16th, London's two club dates on the 20th & 21st, "The John Peel Sessions" on the 24th, the MIDEM performance on the beach at Cannes on the 27th and the Casino le Croisette with "The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown" on the 28th. They then returned to the US in February, appearing at the Whisky-A-Go-Go from the 1st to the 4th. By late April a number of compositions, rehearsals and tapes were begun by the band for a second album on Buddah - broadly conceptualized as a double vinyl entitled "It Comes To You In A Plain Brown Wrapper". The core of this work took on a new shape when Vliet teamed the band up to an agreement with producer Bob Krasnow. Vliet had considered renaming the band "Blue Thumb", but this became the name of the new label which Krasnow formed. The material was pared-down to a single album and, whilst The Magic Band were appearing and performing this material back in the UK in May '68, Krasnow assembled the album under his own initiative. Much of the work had been created under the Buddah aegis, which may have been one of the reasons the work was reduced to a single album. Phasing and effects were added by Krasnow to the mix and the "Strictly Personal" album emerged as the first release on "Blue Thumb" as BTS 1. The album has also been manufactured & distributed by Liberty, United Artists and EMI. The band began and ended their European "Strictly Personal" tour at UK's "Middle Earth" on 3rd & 25th May 1968. In between they appeared in Rome, along with UK bands such as "The Trinity" with Auger & Driscoll, "Ten Years After", "Donovan" and "Fairport Convention", plus another "John Peel Session". Dates also encompassed UK colleges, pubs and clubs, including "Frank Freeman's" in Kidderminster on the 19th - some of which can be found on record. In retrospect, there has been much controversy among Beefheart followers over the merits of Krasnow's additions to the "Strictly Personal" work. 'Un-phazed' material and sessions can be found on such releases as "I May Be Hungry But I Sure Ain't Weird" or "The Mirror Man Sessions", which provide an overview on the birth and existence of "Strictly Personal". The album "It Comes To You In A Plain Brown Wrapper", on the 'Sundazed' label, also plugs gaps in the band's "Strictly Personal" history- onwards to the release of the fifth official album "Mirror Man". Considered by many to be a substandard effort due to the circumstances of its release (producer Bob Krasnow, the owner of Blue Thumb, the label which debuted with this album, remixed the album while Don Van Vliet and crew were off on a European tour, adding extraneous sound effects like heartbeats and excessive use of psychedelic-era clichés like out-of-phase stereo panning and flanging), 1968's Strictly Personal is actually a terrific album, every bit the equal of Safe As Milk and Trout Mask Replica. Opening with "Ah Feel Like Ahcid," an a cappella blues workout with its roots in Son House's "Death Letter," the brief (barely 35 minutes) album is at the same time simpler and weirder than Safe As Milk had been. Working without another songwriter or arranger for the first time, Captain Beefheart strips his idiosyncratic blues down to the bone, with several of the songs (especially "Son of Mirror Man/Mere Man") having little in the way of lyrics or chords beyond the most primeval stomp. Krasnow's unfortunate sound effects and phasing do detract from the album at points, but the strength of the performances, especially those of drummer John French, make his efforts little more than superfluous window dressing. Strictly Personal is a fascinating, underrated release. (Review by Stewart Mason) If you find it, buy this album!

In Mike Barnes’ biography of Don Van Vliet, the man more famously known as Captain Beefheart, he quotes Vliet on his own birth: “I was born with my eyes open—I didn’t WANT to be born—I can remember deep down in my head that I fought against my mother bringing me into the world,” he says about that day in 1941 when…

Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band members names -- Choose from our vast selection of Crewneck and V-Neck T-Shirts to match with your favorite design to make the perfect graphic T-Shirt. Pick your favorite: Classic, Boxy, Tri-Blend, V-Neck, or Premium. Customize your color! For men and women.

Colin B Morton, his number one, fan remembers Don Van Vliet on the anniversary of his death.

Released in 2007, on CD and on label Ozit-Morpheus Records (OzitCD9006). Captain Beefheart And The Magic Band — Live At Bickershaw Festival - North West England 1972. Genre: Rock. Style: Avantgarde, Blues Rock