captain beefheart

don's birthday party

?? 2lp-bootleg ?? db 501/2

from "Glass Finger's Big Bad But Beautiful Book of Beefheart Bootlegs - Volume #1" (Apocalypse) / 1993 :
"198? European double bootleg on DB 501/2. This record, pressed on thick multicoloured vinyl with high rondo-lette fidelity, is a real cracker. The sound, though mono, is just like a live album. The mix is good also andit is a great live show, very relaxed. Somebody should stick it on CD. It is from a concert recorded on Beefheart's 40th birthday at the Showboat Seatlle in Jan '81. It is a series of hightlights with the audience singing Hapy Birthday and Beefheart complaining about the urine coloured lights and the horrible smoke smell. The music is brilliant as well with Hot Head / Ashtray Heart like a giant mechanical snake dancing on the stage and Safe As Milk, taken at top speed, which at one point appears to float in the air on guitar riffs which you feel this final Magic Band could keep playing till they pulled the plug. Just awesome. If you are a Beefheart fan and never heard this you're in for a big treat! There must be two different covers for this, a painting version shown here and a picture version which is shown in the discography of Garantiert Ungewöhnlich published by Sonnentanz-Verlag in 1990. Bill Pircz says there was a 1st issue on brown marble vinyl with a brown and yellow cover and a photo by Anton Corbijn, the photographer of the dramatic Ice Cream For Crow photos taken in the Mojave Desert in California. The second issue, Bill says has a cartoon type drawing of the Corbijn photo in blue, yellow, green, white and red - vinyl is charcoal grey marbled. There must be three versions all together as I've seen copies pressed on black vinyl, with plain black labels with large white senciled 1 2 3 4, cartoon cover as above. I'd say this is my favourite bootleg."

 

1981/01/15 concert 'showbox', seattle, usa

side one

  1. suction prints (intro version)
  2. my human gets me blues
  3. nowadays a woman's gotta hit a man
  4. hot head
  5. ashtray heart
  6. dirty blue gene

side two

  1. best batch yet
  2. safe as milk
  3. a carrot is as close as a rabbit gets to a diamond
  4. one red rose that I mean

side three

  1. doctor dark
  2. bat chain puller
  3. sugar 'n spikes
  4. veteran's day poppy

side four

  1. sheriff of hong kong
  2. suction prints (full band version)
  3. big eyed beans from venus