outtakesの2曲目が”HARRY IRENE”。これ、オリジナルより100倍よいかも。
これだけ聴くだけでも買ってよかったーと思った。枯れた味わい。素晴らしいです。
またケース他アートワークも抜群です。
Sun Zoom Spark: 1970 to 1972 [12 inch Analog]
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登録情報
- 製品サイズ : 32.59 x 32.41 x 2.01 cm; 1.43 Kg
- メーカー : Rhino
- EAN : 0081227958626
- 製造元リファレンス : 541728
- レーベル : Rhino
- ASIN : B00N9JCAQQ
- ディスク枚数 : 4
-
Amazon 売れ筋ランキング:
- 388,207位ミュージック (の売れ筋ランキングを見るミュージック)
- - 79,609位ロック (ミュージック)
- - 119,124位輸入盤
- カスタマーレビュー:
カスタマーレビュー
5つ星のうち4.7
星5つ中の4.7
117 件のグローバル評価
評価はどのように計算されますか?
全体的な星の評価と星ごとの割合の内訳を計算するために、単純な平均は使用されません。その代わり、レビューの日時がどれだけ新しいかや、レビューアーがAmazonで商品を購入したかどうかなどが考慮されます。また、レビューを分析して信頼性が検証されます。
トップレビュー
上位レビュー、対象国: 日本
レビューのフィルタリング中に問題が発生しました。後でもう一度試してください。
2015年2月8日に日本でレビュー済み
違反を報告
Amazonで購入
4人のお客様がこれが役に立ったと考えています
役に立った
2014年11月26日に日本でレビュー済み
Amazonで購入
アウトテイクも興味深いですが、紙ジャケ含めたパッケージがとても好い!(クリアスポットは調子乗り過ぎ気味?)「ドンはスイカの骨や魚の種」と始まるトムウェイツの献辞も載ったブックレットも嬉しいオマケ。トラウトマスクと双璧のリックマイデカルズオフのリマスターだけでも価値十分!
2015年1月1日に日本でレビュー済み
CD boxとLP boxがありますが、
以下、LP boxのレビュー。
デザイン、装丁ともさすがRhino。非常に丁寧にできております。
箱の中には4枚のLPとブックレット、LPはシュリンクされているものとそうでないものがあります。
おそらくオリジナルそのままにした、ということでしょう。なにより「Clear Spot」がオリジナルと同様、
厚手のビニール袋に収まっていたことにビックリ。
音もクリアーで分離も良く、アナログで十分すぎるほどのリマスター。
アウトテイク集ですが、演奏のみ、また別テイクなどを全体を通して聞いてみるとエキセントリックな感じは少なく
クリエイティヴでクールなサウンドに聞こえてきます。不思議なもんです。
以下、LP boxのレビュー。
デザイン、装丁ともさすがRhino。非常に丁寧にできております。
箱の中には4枚のLPとブックレット、LPはシュリンクされているものとそうでないものがあります。
おそらくオリジナルそのままにした、ということでしょう。なにより「Clear Spot」がオリジナルと同様、
厚手のビニール袋に収まっていたことにビックリ。
音もクリアーで分離も良く、アナログで十分すぎるほどのリマスター。
アウトテイク集ですが、演奏のみ、また別テイクなどを全体を通して聞いてみるとエキセントリックな感じは少なく
クリエイティヴでクールなサウンドに聞こえてきます。不思議なもんです。
他の国からのトップレビュー

Sebastian Palmer
5つ星のうち4.0
Some essential music in a strange if de-luxe package
2015年12月27日に英国でレビュー済みAmazonで購入
I bought this rather odd boxed set for one reason only: it marked the long overdue arrival on CD (in the UK at any rate) of the masterpiece Lick My Decals Off, Baby. Allegedly remastered - I could only compare it to my vinyl and the MP3s I made from that - it's embedded within a de-luxe 4-disc boxed set of material, much of which was already easily available.
I would really have liked to post a rave review of this release, as some other Beefheart fans have done. But I don't feel I can honestly do so. It's an expensive set, and a lot of the content - two of the four discs: The Spotlight Kid and Clear Spot (i.e. two albums, or 50% of the material) - has long been easily available elsewhere.
The stuff that forms the exclusive 'previously unreleased' material, falls into two categories: Lick My Decals Off, Baby, never previously officially released on CD here in the UK (there was a Jap reissue in the '90s that was selling for silly money 2nd-hand); and the out-takes, the latter also officially unreleased.
As already alluded to, I had an old vinyl copy of Decals, so for me that doesn't constitute the great 'undiscovered gem' type of stuff one might've wished for here. But it might well do just that for fans of Trout Mask era Beef' who haven't heard it before. For those lucky listeners, I'd say this was undoubtedly a five star affair, simply for making Decals available.
As already noted, I bought this lavish and expensive boxed set solely in order to finally own an official CD release of Lick My Decals Off, Baby. This post Trout Mask album really is a work of maverick musical genius, and on its own certainly merits five stars (or ten, frankly). Despite already having these recordings on vinyl, like many a Beefheart fan I longed for the day when Decals would come out as a decently remastered standalone CD.
And that's why this set gets only four stars: frankly, I just wish it had been put out as a standalone entity, something which has now, at long last, finally come to pass (Rhino, who put this box out, have now put Decals out in its own right). Being forced to buy The Spotlight Kid (a 3 or 4 out of 5 stars album) and Clear Spot (5/5) again, when I already had perfectly good CD versions of them, was annoying. And the CD of out-takes has nothing on it that makes me think, 'wow, here's some long lost jewels to admire!'
----------
Here's my personal synopsis of the contents:
Disc 1: The absolutely sublime and totally essential Lick My Decals Off, Baby, featuring the Trout Mask era band, minus guitarist Jeff Cotton but with the addition of percussionist (mainly marimba, hence his nickname) and occasional second drummer, Art 'Ed Marimba' Tripp. If you know Trout Mask Replica, this follows on nicely, being equally intense and crazy, but also more focussed and tightly executed.
All the musicians involved are brilliant - witness such beautiful instrumentals as Peon and One Red Rose That I Mean - but the much put upon and recently (at the time) ignominiously ejected (literally!) John 'Drumbo' French deserves special mention. French had acted as musical director on Trout Mask and, under the brutal dictatorship of the Captain, he helped give birth to a totally unique and new style of music, and also of drumming, both of which have never really been properly understood or absorbed into the mainstream (even the talented Art Tripp, when he took over the drum chair, didn't feel he could replicate Drumbo's unique approach).
Despite having been unceremoniously kicked out - Beefheart also, very meanly, left his name off the Trout Mask credits! - and replaced as musical director (Bill 'Zoot Horn Rollo' Harklerod took on that mantle), French returned to the fold and recorded the brilliant drum parts, sometimes augmented by Art Tripp on a second kit. Some of the twin-kit rhythmic chemistry, on tracks like Bellerin' Plain for example - a wonderful example of this band at the peak of their powers (film footage of the band from this era really is somethin' else) - is, well... I'm listening to it now, and words fail me... genius!
Beefheart's lyrical muse is in full spate as well. This isn't music for all occasions, as it's mostly really quite intense. But it's tremendously wonderful, and there's nothing else on this good earth quite like it. The band practically explode under Beefheart's free jazz style sax solo on Bellerin' Plain: I'm a fan of some intense near free jazz stuff, such as late Coltrane, but most of what is usually referred to under the banner free jazz is, to my ears at any rate, aural torture. Here the squalls of sax over the tempestuous rhythm section are simply sublime.
Just as Alice Coltrane tried some experiments (Infinity is a truly beautiful album) whose ideas were destined not to be fully explored, thanks to adverse critical and popular reaction, Beefheart and co. pointed a way that could have been usefully further explored. Japan In A Dishpan finds the Cap'n and his band doing just that here. But, for my money, it works better when it's a small moment within a much bigger musical conception, as at the end of Bellerin' Plain.
There's plenty of lyrical humour ('I want to find me a woman that'll hold my big toe till I have to go'!), and there are even some tender or relatively mellow moments; the two aforementioned instrumentals are beautiful jewels, and titles such as Woe-Is-uh-Me-Bop and The Buggy Boogie Woogie show that even in his 'weird' period Beehfheart and his band could vary the feel and turn down the weirdness without losing the intensity.
Beefheart's pessimistic eco-philosophy is expounded on the lyrically poignant and musically wild Petrified Forest, and his interest in evolutionary history as it feeds into these ideas is further worked out on The Smithsonian Institute Blues. Although it's not an even or easy listen, Decals is truly, madly, deeply brilliant. Even the cover artwork is great. And they also recorded a weirdly surreal black and white promo video for the album (not, sadly, included in this package).
Disc 2: The Spotlight Kid - This might perhaps, by ordinary standards, be a fine album. But, in my view, within the Beefheart canon it's merely pretty good. Beefheart and the band don't sound like they have the same extraordinary focus and zeal they had during the Trout and Decals sessions. The album is more patchy, confused, and less intense.
Some of the tracks here, like 'Glider' (a personal favourite) even sound like they're returning to the pre-Trout riffing blues of the Safe As Milk and Strictly Guaranteed periods. Essentially the hyper-intense experimentalism of Trout and Decals wasn't landing the band any economically sustainable work, and so they were drifting back towards a more 'normal' sound world. There's plenty of good music here, but it's not Beefheart or the Magic Band at their best.
Disc 3: Clear Spot - Rather interestingly, I think, Beefheart and his musical minions showed incredible flexibility, and could be at their very best at seemingly contradictory musical poles along a widely divergent spectrum - from the Dadaism of Trout and Decals, to the tightly focused and more commercial sounds that can be found on Safe As Milk (I'm Glad), here on Clear Spot (Too Much Time, My Head Is My Only House Unless It Rains, and Her Eyes Are a Blue Million Miles), or even on Bluejeans and Moonbeams (Observatory Crest).
Clear Spot manages to mix some of the most mainstream sounds these guys would make with some of their still quite experimental stuff. So you get the sweetness of the three aforementioned ballads, the ballsy New Orleans bluesiness of Low Yo Yo Stuff, Crazy Little Thing and Long Neck Bottles, through to the weirder numbers like Circumstances, Big Eyed Beans From Venus, Golden Birdies, and the superb title track.
Where The Spotlight Kid was all over the place in a slightly unconvincing way, this is all over the map but still has real focus and conviction. It's also, thanks to Ted Templeman, one of the best produced albums in the entire Beefheart oeuvre.
Disc 4: Out-Takes - Some artists have material lying unused that makes you think, once you hear it, 'why the hell was that kept under wraps?' As a Beefheart nut, I find all this out-take stuff interesting. But, in all honesty, it's not like being a Steely Dan fan and then discovering the sublime 'Canadian Star', a Becker and Fagen track that they never recorded, but which appears on Dr Strut's eponymous 1979 album, or hearing Tom Waits doing his early pre-Foreign Affairs version of Burma Shave, live at Austin City Limits, over a chord cycle borrowed from the standard Summertime.
Instead this is like a glimpse into the Beefheart/Magic Band musical sketchbook, fascinating for diehard fans, but not necessarily throwing up much stuff that stands strongly on its own feet in comparison with the officially released material. One thing thing that might surprise newcomers, but won't surprise dyed in the wool Beef' fans, is to see how much of his latter period stuff (e.g. Harry Irene, Dirty Blue Gene, etc.) had its roots way back, around about a decade before it would see commercial light.
----------
So that's the music. Why else might you fork out for this de-luxe set? The four discs come in nice card facsimiles of the album covers, and there's a pretty little box - well, it's quite chunky actually - with a red ribbon to help pop out the discs, and the booklet. The booklet itself is alright, I guess. Well, frankly speaking I found it disappointing. It's a bit cloyingly reverential or self-consciously hagiographic in places. Having interviewed John French for Drummer magazine (the interview, alas, wasn't used), and read books by him and Bill Harkelrod... Well, as much as I admire Beefheart the artist, I'm not sure I admire the man!
If you're new to Beefheart, I wouldn't suggest starting here, and if you're already a big fan you might feel complicated, as I did, about duplicating stuff you already have. But then again, you might feel, as some of the other reviewers here at Amazon UK clearly do, that Beefheart's genius, and the talents of his musical sidekicks, merit the expense. Ultimately, and despite my misgivings, I did. Certainly I'm glad to have Decals as a remastered CD.
But, despite Decals and Clear Spot both meriting the full five stars (or more!), I don't think this whole package does. So whilst this was at the time an essential release, for me at least, it's far from perfect. And with Rhino now having released Decals on its own, there's even less reason to shell out for it, the out-takes on their own not warranting the expense.
I would really have liked to post a rave review of this release, as some other Beefheart fans have done. But I don't feel I can honestly do so. It's an expensive set, and a lot of the content - two of the four discs: The Spotlight Kid and Clear Spot (i.e. two albums, or 50% of the material) - has long been easily available elsewhere.
The stuff that forms the exclusive 'previously unreleased' material, falls into two categories: Lick My Decals Off, Baby, never previously officially released on CD here in the UK (there was a Jap reissue in the '90s that was selling for silly money 2nd-hand); and the out-takes, the latter also officially unreleased.
As already alluded to, I had an old vinyl copy of Decals, so for me that doesn't constitute the great 'undiscovered gem' type of stuff one might've wished for here. But it might well do just that for fans of Trout Mask era Beef' who haven't heard it before. For those lucky listeners, I'd say this was undoubtedly a five star affair, simply for making Decals available.
As already noted, I bought this lavish and expensive boxed set solely in order to finally own an official CD release of Lick My Decals Off, Baby. This post Trout Mask album really is a work of maverick musical genius, and on its own certainly merits five stars (or ten, frankly). Despite already having these recordings on vinyl, like many a Beefheart fan I longed for the day when Decals would come out as a decently remastered standalone CD.
And that's why this set gets only four stars: frankly, I just wish it had been put out as a standalone entity, something which has now, at long last, finally come to pass (Rhino, who put this box out, have now put Decals out in its own right). Being forced to buy The Spotlight Kid (a 3 or 4 out of 5 stars album) and Clear Spot (5/5) again, when I already had perfectly good CD versions of them, was annoying. And the CD of out-takes has nothing on it that makes me think, 'wow, here's some long lost jewels to admire!'
----------
Here's my personal synopsis of the contents:
Disc 1: The absolutely sublime and totally essential Lick My Decals Off, Baby, featuring the Trout Mask era band, minus guitarist Jeff Cotton but with the addition of percussionist (mainly marimba, hence his nickname) and occasional second drummer, Art 'Ed Marimba' Tripp. If you know Trout Mask Replica, this follows on nicely, being equally intense and crazy, but also more focussed and tightly executed.
All the musicians involved are brilliant - witness such beautiful instrumentals as Peon and One Red Rose That I Mean - but the much put upon and recently (at the time) ignominiously ejected (literally!) John 'Drumbo' French deserves special mention. French had acted as musical director on Trout Mask and, under the brutal dictatorship of the Captain, he helped give birth to a totally unique and new style of music, and also of drumming, both of which have never really been properly understood or absorbed into the mainstream (even the talented Art Tripp, when he took over the drum chair, didn't feel he could replicate Drumbo's unique approach).
Despite having been unceremoniously kicked out - Beefheart also, very meanly, left his name off the Trout Mask credits! - and replaced as musical director (Bill 'Zoot Horn Rollo' Harklerod took on that mantle), French returned to the fold and recorded the brilliant drum parts, sometimes augmented by Art Tripp on a second kit. Some of the twin-kit rhythmic chemistry, on tracks like Bellerin' Plain for example - a wonderful example of this band at the peak of their powers (film footage of the band from this era really is somethin' else) - is, well... I'm listening to it now, and words fail me... genius!
Beefheart's lyrical muse is in full spate as well. This isn't music for all occasions, as it's mostly really quite intense. But it's tremendously wonderful, and there's nothing else on this good earth quite like it. The band practically explode under Beefheart's free jazz style sax solo on Bellerin' Plain: I'm a fan of some intense near free jazz stuff, such as late Coltrane, but most of what is usually referred to under the banner free jazz is, to my ears at any rate, aural torture. Here the squalls of sax over the tempestuous rhythm section are simply sublime.
Just as Alice Coltrane tried some experiments (Infinity is a truly beautiful album) whose ideas were destined not to be fully explored, thanks to adverse critical and popular reaction, Beefheart and co. pointed a way that could have been usefully further explored. Japan In A Dishpan finds the Cap'n and his band doing just that here. But, for my money, it works better when it's a small moment within a much bigger musical conception, as at the end of Bellerin' Plain.
There's plenty of lyrical humour ('I want to find me a woman that'll hold my big toe till I have to go'!), and there are even some tender or relatively mellow moments; the two aforementioned instrumentals are beautiful jewels, and titles such as Woe-Is-uh-Me-Bop and The Buggy Boogie Woogie show that even in his 'weird' period Beehfheart and his band could vary the feel and turn down the weirdness without losing the intensity.
Beefheart's pessimistic eco-philosophy is expounded on the lyrically poignant and musically wild Petrified Forest, and his interest in evolutionary history as it feeds into these ideas is further worked out on The Smithsonian Institute Blues. Although it's not an even or easy listen, Decals is truly, madly, deeply brilliant. Even the cover artwork is great. And they also recorded a weirdly surreal black and white promo video for the album (not, sadly, included in this package).
Disc 2: The Spotlight Kid - This might perhaps, by ordinary standards, be a fine album. But, in my view, within the Beefheart canon it's merely pretty good. Beefheart and the band don't sound like they have the same extraordinary focus and zeal they had during the Trout and Decals sessions. The album is more patchy, confused, and less intense.
Some of the tracks here, like 'Glider' (a personal favourite) even sound like they're returning to the pre-Trout riffing blues of the Safe As Milk and Strictly Guaranteed periods. Essentially the hyper-intense experimentalism of Trout and Decals wasn't landing the band any economically sustainable work, and so they were drifting back towards a more 'normal' sound world. There's plenty of good music here, but it's not Beefheart or the Magic Band at their best.
Disc 3: Clear Spot - Rather interestingly, I think, Beefheart and his musical minions showed incredible flexibility, and could be at their very best at seemingly contradictory musical poles along a widely divergent spectrum - from the Dadaism of Trout and Decals, to the tightly focused and more commercial sounds that can be found on Safe As Milk (I'm Glad), here on Clear Spot (Too Much Time, My Head Is My Only House Unless It Rains, and Her Eyes Are a Blue Million Miles), or even on Bluejeans and Moonbeams (Observatory Crest).
Clear Spot manages to mix some of the most mainstream sounds these guys would make with some of their still quite experimental stuff. So you get the sweetness of the three aforementioned ballads, the ballsy New Orleans bluesiness of Low Yo Yo Stuff, Crazy Little Thing and Long Neck Bottles, through to the weirder numbers like Circumstances, Big Eyed Beans From Venus, Golden Birdies, and the superb title track.
Where The Spotlight Kid was all over the place in a slightly unconvincing way, this is all over the map but still has real focus and conviction. It's also, thanks to Ted Templeman, one of the best produced albums in the entire Beefheart oeuvre.
Disc 4: Out-Takes - Some artists have material lying unused that makes you think, once you hear it, 'why the hell was that kept under wraps?' As a Beefheart nut, I find all this out-take stuff interesting. But, in all honesty, it's not like being a Steely Dan fan and then discovering the sublime 'Canadian Star', a Becker and Fagen track that they never recorded, but which appears on Dr Strut's eponymous 1979 album, or hearing Tom Waits doing his early pre-Foreign Affairs version of Burma Shave, live at Austin City Limits, over a chord cycle borrowed from the standard Summertime.
Instead this is like a glimpse into the Beefheart/Magic Band musical sketchbook, fascinating for diehard fans, but not necessarily throwing up much stuff that stands strongly on its own feet in comparison with the officially released material. One thing thing that might surprise newcomers, but won't surprise dyed in the wool Beef' fans, is to see how much of his latter period stuff (e.g. Harry Irene, Dirty Blue Gene, etc.) had its roots way back, around about a decade before it would see commercial light.
----------
So that's the music. Why else might you fork out for this de-luxe set? The four discs come in nice card facsimiles of the album covers, and there's a pretty little box - well, it's quite chunky actually - with a red ribbon to help pop out the discs, and the booklet. The booklet itself is alright, I guess. Well, frankly speaking I found it disappointing. It's a bit cloyingly reverential or self-consciously hagiographic in places. Having interviewed John French for Drummer magazine (the interview, alas, wasn't used), and read books by him and Bill Harkelrod... Well, as much as I admire Beefheart the artist, I'm not sure I admire the man!
If you're new to Beefheart, I wouldn't suggest starting here, and if you're already a big fan you might feel complicated, as I did, about duplicating stuff you already have. But then again, you might feel, as some of the other reviewers here at Amazon UK clearly do, that Beefheart's genius, and the talents of his musical sidekicks, merit the expense. Ultimately, and despite my misgivings, I did. Certainly I'm glad to have Decals as a remastered CD.
But, despite Decals and Clear Spot both meriting the full five stars (or more!), I don't think this whole package does. So whilst this was at the time an essential release, for me at least, it's far from perfect. And with Rhino now having released Decals on its own, there's even less reason to shell out for it, the out-takes on their own not warranting the expense.

an acquaintance
5つ星のうち5.0
With thanks to Jan Van Vliet, Gail Zappa, Rhino Records...
2015年2月1日に英国でレビュー済みAmazonで購入
...and to my lucky stars that this box set of essential albums by Captain Beefheart and The Magic Band has become available, especially as it contains the long out-of-print landmark underground rock album 'Lick My Decals Off, Baby'.
I must mention Gail Zappa as it is my understanding that the Zappa Estate has rights to 'Decals', if not more of the material on this box set.
I had long hoped for a re-release of this album, but to have it with 'The Spotlight Kid' and 'Clear Spot', and with remastered sound (which is an improvement, to my ears), really was an unexpected and most welcome surprise.
I am also happy to know that with the release of 'Sun Zoom Spark: 1970 to 1972', younger and future generations will be able to hear these iconoclastic masterworks.
I must mention Gail Zappa as it is my understanding that the Zappa Estate has rights to 'Decals', if not more of the material on this box set.
I had long hoped for a re-release of this album, but to have it with 'The Spotlight Kid' and 'Clear Spot', and with remastered sound (which is an improvement, to my ears), really was an unexpected and most welcome surprise.
I am also happy to know that with the release of 'Sun Zoom Spark: 1970 to 1972', younger and future generations will be able to hear these iconoclastic masterworks.

D. A. Simpson
5つ星のうち5.0
Don't listen to the one star moaners!
2015年7月15日に英国でレビュー済みAmazonで購入
I feel compelled to write and put the one star gang in their place. I picked this up brand new for just over £16, which shows if you bide your time you do not have to pay over the odds. Secondly"Clear spot" (LP) originally came in a clear plastic sleeve as it does here - nice touch, so do your research before you mouth off. The sound quality is excellent throughout. The two on one CD of "Spotlight Kid" and "Clear Spot" is the one that has the poor sound and if you load it onto an i-pod it is terrible. Now I can load all three (Decals,Spotlight and Clear Spot) with perfect sound. As for all the moaning about not being able to get the CD's out of their sleeves - nonsense. Well done Rhino another great and essential package.

Dvensi
5つ星のうち5.0
Beefheart Revisited In Style
2014年11月18日に英国でレビュー済みAmazonで購入
Some music is of it's time but these three contrasting albums are completely timeless. To think they are from forty years ago is simply staggering. The vinyl package is very nicely put together with exact replicas of the original covers, an informative booklet and the remasters and pressings sound excellent. I particularly notice a clarity and depth which was missing from the original (very muddy) Spotlight Kid.
The outtakes album is an interesting addition with both ferocious and subtle performances from The Magic Band(s). By no means filler material.
This is Beefheart in full voice backed by truly inspired musicians at the peak of his powers.
The outtakes album is an interesting addition with both ferocious and subtle performances from The Magic Band(s). By no means filler material.
This is Beefheart in full voice backed by truly inspired musicians at the peak of his powers.

KaleHawkwood
5つ星のうち5.0
That long lunar note
2014年11月17日に英国でレビュー済みAmazonで購入
It's about time.
There's a handful of albums that have never had a proper CD release, such as Neil Young's Time Fades Away, Tim Buckley's Star Sailor, and Tom Verlaine's The Wonder, superb records all of them. But the one so conspicuous by its absence all these years has been the fourth release by Captain Beefheart and The Magic Band, and one of his very best: the now legendary Lick My Decals Off, Baby.
Well folks, here it is at last!
Remastered, repackaged - boy, is it repackaged - along with two bona fide Beefheart masterpieces, and a slew of highly desirable extra tracks on the fourth disc of this sumptuous square-book-sized Beefheart bonanza from the good people at Rhino.
Trout Mask Replica is the notorious predecessor of Decals, but the latter is one I play more often, and arguably a more coherent achievement. Don Van Vliet/Beefheart himself was nominal producer, and it always had a good, clear sound, Here, in all its remastered glory, it sounds even more luxurious.
But I'm reining in my excitement too much. These four discs represent the reissue of the year and probably the decade - hell, the century.
And what variety! The compilers of this box, complete with excellent booklet that includes an ode to Don by none other than kindred spirit the great Tom Waits, have chosen the already previously-paired diverse LPs Clear Spot (a career-high for the Captain) and bluesy The Spotlight Kid as the other albums on this release. As if that weren't bounty enough, we get an extra disc of stunningly good songs from the late bawler, some of them bluesier than one would have dared hope. Beefheart was a wonderful blues singer when he chose to be.
Clear Spot is an album you might play to a Beefheart virgin. It's soulful, well produced by Ted Templeman, and boasts two of Don and the band's very best songs in the beautifully titled love ballad Her Eyes Are a Blue Million Miles, and a Holy Grail for Magic Band fans, the overwhelming Big Eyed Beans From Venus. It's a track that's as outrageous as its title. (Heard live, it used to shake my world.) Ed Marimba (aka Artie Tripp) plays some of the most thrilling drum riffs I've ever heard, and guitar wizard Zoot Horn Rollo/Bill Harkleroad produces sounds on his instrument that were surely illegal in some States.
When Beefheart exhorts:
Mister Zoot Horn Rollo
play that long lunar note
and let it float...
...and Mister Zoot Horn Rollo does just that, the world spins on its axis one more time.
This is tremendous music, made by a band in their prime.
The Spotlight Kid has been crying out for a polish and a good dusting since its LP release, and at last it's been sparklingly remastered from its original rather muddy production - though its muddy-swamp-blues feel did in fact suit the swampy sound - and it comes up shining here. Among all Beefheart's albums, it's what I'd call a grower. When it hits you, you'll cherish it forever, from Blabber 'n Smoke to White Jam. It also has one of the best song titles (and the Beefheart oeuvre is full of great titles): When It Blows Its Stacks. Not only a great title, but a great song too: ominous, massive, bestial.
I can't fully express my sheer exultant pleasure at having these unique albums in pristine form at last, particularly the long-neglected Decals, which sounds as fresh and audacious as the day it was first released back in 1970 when I was a mere whippersnapper of nineteen. Loved it then, adore it now, like a prodigal son returned to the fold.
The whole package is a dream come true.
Whatever you've heard about Captain Beefheart may well be true, but he was a real artist of vision and one-off scintillating, startling genius. And he was luck enough to have alongside him the best band in the world.
Reissue of the century? You bet!
O-ohh
Woe-is-a-me-bop
Om-drop-a-rebop-om...
There's a handful of albums that have never had a proper CD release, such as Neil Young's Time Fades Away, Tim Buckley's Star Sailor, and Tom Verlaine's The Wonder, superb records all of them. But the one so conspicuous by its absence all these years has been the fourth release by Captain Beefheart and The Magic Band, and one of his very best: the now legendary Lick My Decals Off, Baby.
Well folks, here it is at last!
Remastered, repackaged - boy, is it repackaged - along with two bona fide Beefheart masterpieces, and a slew of highly desirable extra tracks on the fourth disc of this sumptuous square-book-sized Beefheart bonanza from the good people at Rhino.
Trout Mask Replica is the notorious predecessor of Decals, but the latter is one I play more often, and arguably a more coherent achievement. Don Van Vliet/Beefheart himself was nominal producer, and it always had a good, clear sound, Here, in all its remastered glory, it sounds even more luxurious.
But I'm reining in my excitement too much. These four discs represent the reissue of the year and probably the decade - hell, the century.
And what variety! The compilers of this box, complete with excellent booklet that includes an ode to Don by none other than kindred spirit the great Tom Waits, have chosen the already previously-paired diverse LPs Clear Spot (a career-high for the Captain) and bluesy The Spotlight Kid as the other albums on this release. As if that weren't bounty enough, we get an extra disc of stunningly good songs from the late bawler, some of them bluesier than one would have dared hope. Beefheart was a wonderful blues singer when he chose to be.
Clear Spot is an album you might play to a Beefheart virgin. It's soulful, well produced by Ted Templeman, and boasts two of Don and the band's very best songs in the beautifully titled love ballad Her Eyes Are a Blue Million Miles, and a Holy Grail for Magic Band fans, the overwhelming Big Eyed Beans From Venus. It's a track that's as outrageous as its title. (Heard live, it used to shake my world.) Ed Marimba (aka Artie Tripp) plays some of the most thrilling drum riffs I've ever heard, and guitar wizard Zoot Horn Rollo/Bill Harkleroad produces sounds on his instrument that were surely illegal in some States.
When Beefheart exhorts:
Mister Zoot Horn Rollo
play that long lunar note
and let it float...
...and Mister Zoot Horn Rollo does just that, the world spins on its axis one more time.
This is tremendous music, made by a band in their prime.
The Spotlight Kid has been crying out for a polish and a good dusting since its LP release, and at last it's been sparklingly remastered from its original rather muddy production - though its muddy-swamp-blues feel did in fact suit the swampy sound - and it comes up shining here. Among all Beefheart's albums, it's what I'd call a grower. When it hits you, you'll cherish it forever, from Blabber 'n Smoke to White Jam. It also has one of the best song titles (and the Beefheart oeuvre is full of great titles): When It Blows Its Stacks. Not only a great title, but a great song too: ominous, massive, bestial.
I can't fully express my sheer exultant pleasure at having these unique albums in pristine form at last, particularly the long-neglected Decals, which sounds as fresh and audacious as the day it was first released back in 1970 when I was a mere whippersnapper of nineteen. Loved it then, adore it now, like a prodigal son returned to the fold.
The whole package is a dream come true.
Whatever you've heard about Captain Beefheart may well be true, but he was a real artist of vision and one-off scintillating, startling genius. And he was luck enough to have alongside him the best band in the world.
Reissue of the century? You bet!
O-ohh
Woe-is-a-me-bop
Om-drop-a-rebop-om...