"The Mirror Man Sessions" by CAPTAIN BEEFHEART and HIS MAGIC BAND [1967 Recordings Issued 1971] (June 1999 BMG/Buddha 'Expanded Edition' CD Remaster) - A Review by Mark Barry...

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"...Gimme Dat Harp Boy..."

The story behind Beefheart's 1971 "Mirror Man" LP and this 1999 CD reissue runs to a few pages of convoluted shenanigans - but here goes at a potted explanation so that you know what you're dealing with.

First up - when the US vinyl LP Buddah BDS 5077 was released in May 1971 in a die-cut gatefold sleeve with only 4-tracks (Buddah 2365 002 in the UK) - "Tarot Plane" (19:00) and "Kandy Korn" (8:00) on Side 1 and "25th Century Quaker" (8:59) and "Mirror Man" (19:00) on Side 2 - the liner notes erroneously claimed that the album was live material 'recorded one night in Los Angeles in 1965' – perhaps in some club - which just wasn't true.

Beefheart and his gang of four (see band names below) had gone into TTG Studios in LA in October 1967 and recorded three tracks 'live' in the studio with further rough studio sessions taking place in November. Buddah didn't like what they heard and put the whole project on indefinite hold. They then sent the Captain and his boys over to England (where they were more popular) to be championed by a true fan - BBC Radio 1's most famous DJ John Peel. Some of the songs and sessions were added to, remixed and so on and came out on the second official album "Strictly Personal" in October 1968.

Time passed and with the November 1969 double-album "Trout Mask Replica" and a new LP on Reprise Records in "Lick My Decals Off, Baby" from January 1971 all gaining traction - someone went back into the vaults and chose the above four mentioned tracks to clump together as a new album on Buddah Records - "Mirror Man". Apparently Beefheart knew nothing of its release and as the songs were 'unfinished' or 'crude' – he remained somewhat ambivalent towards their merits - decrying it as some critics had initially done - then being ok with it as the LPs heavy-blues-jam rep began to build over the following years – some even saying it was as good as his blistering and accessible "Safe As Milk" debut from November 1967.

Whilst researching a new release in 1991 - England's Sequel Records went into the vaults once again and subsequently found and reissued more of the previously unissued session tracks - calling their 11-track January 1992 CD compilation "I May Be Hungry But I'm Sure Not Weird – The Alternative Captain Beefheart" on Sequel NEX CD 215 (Barcode 5023224121523).

Which brings us via a circuitous route and several mushroom pies to June 1999 and this new BMG 'Buddha Records' CD reissue of nine tracks (note the deliberately inverted spelling on the last two letters of Buddah). Due to time constrictions - you get the original four songs of the "Mirror Man" LP and five additional outtakes - all stripped of unnecessary overdubs and as close as Buddha feel they can get to the Captain's original vision. Here are the 1999 CD reissue details...

UK released September 1999 (June 1999 in the USA) – "The Mirror Man Sessions" by CAPTAIN BEEFHEART and HIS MAGIC BAND on BMG/Buddha Records 74321 69174 2 (Barcode 743216917426) is an 'Expanded Edition' CD Remaster of nine tracks that plays out as follows (76:23 minutes):

1. Tarotplane (19:08 minutes)

2. 25th Century Quaker (9:51 minutes)

3. Mirror Man (15:47 minutes)

4. Kandy Man (8:07 minutes)

5. Trust Us (Take 6) (7:06 minutes)

6. Safe As Milk (Take 12) (5:01 minutes)

7. Beatle Bones N' Smokin' Stones (3:11 minutes)

8. Moody Liz (Take 8) (4:34 minutes)

9. Gimme Dat Harp Boy (3:31 minutes)

Musicians:

CAPTAIN BEEFHEART (Don Van Vliet) - Vocals, Harmonica and Shinei

JEFF COTTON - Guitar

ALEX St. CLAIR SNOUFFER - Guitar

JERRY HANDLEY - Bass

JOHN FRENCH - Drums

In the 12-page liner notes JOHN PLATT (with thanks to Mike Barnes) finally makes available the convoluted history of these amazing recordings - the 'Wrapper' sessions as they're sometimes called (Beefheart wanted the "Strictly Personal" album in a plain brown wrapper envelope sleeve). There are some classy black and white photos of the boys looking suitably Avant Garde and about to upset your Aunty Mavis with some discordant meanderings. You get in-depth reissue credits and the 'One Nest Rolls After Another', and the 'I Like The Way The Doo Dads Fly' poems reproduced. The CD label and inlay beneath the see-through tray mirror that shattered glass effect of the sleeve.

But while all that explanation sorts things out somewhat - what I want to concentrate on is the amazing new Audio brought to us by ELLIOTT FEDERMAN that was done over at New York's SAJE Sound Studios. The LPs were always being accused of being 'muddy' and some excuses were forthcoming because the takes were 'one' and 'live in the studio'. Suddenly even that gruff harmonica warble that opens up the nineteen-minute monster that is "Tarotplane" sounds unbelievably 'right' - like the power has been given back to the gruff. And as Beefheart growls with his 'on your mind' string of consciousness - those vocals are so damn good and those harmonica stretches punchy and mean. This sucker grooves - the band digging into that chug - and even if the recordings are a bit rough around the frothy gills - I'd argue this CD has made the performance feel alive and better for it. Nice work done...

You could argue that the three lengthy grooves here are merely Blues Jams with jerky Avant Garde Jazz rhythms as a side-order that should have stayed in the can or even been refined into something neater and better. Knob I say. When you listen to "25th Century Quaker" and you're grooving to those clear as a bell cymbal and drums crashes, those moaning notes as the Captain mumbles into his Harmonica - I can't imagine any way these could have been 'edited' into something tighter or better. Indulgent I know but it can also be argued that their very expansiveness is their joy. And would we want that mad ending to "Quaker" any other way. And don't get me started on the fantastic groove his ensemble get on "Mirror Man" - the kind of sound no other band could have achieved. I played it to my 22-year guitar-mad son the other day and he was transfixed - and not that just with the 'sound' coming out of my B&Ws - but at the playing and the sheer sonic wallop The Magic Band achieved and seemingly without even trying.

Lean and mean and unbelievably tight – Take 12 of "25th Century Quaker" hits you with a wall of voices and that stabbing guitar beat and it has awesome remastered sound. Don’t really like "Take Us" no matter what Take it is. We go all ‘strawberry mouth and butterfly’ with the Japanese-sounding "Beatle Bones N’ Smokin’ Stones" where the Captain seems to taking a sideways jab at the Liverpudlians and their Forever Fields. The dark – the day – the light – don’t you just love that voice and that sheer bat crazy mentality – and again beautifully remastered. God help us all but "Moody Liz" even sounds vaguely commercial (love those vocal harmonies). And "Gimme Dat Harp Boy" sounds like a piece of harmonica genius that have should been released as a single just to annoy the neighbours...

Hand me down a top hat, a feather boa and a Shriner’s Fez – I can feel a Captain Beefheart moment looming in my sequined ball gown and wraparound underpants. Of course "The Mirror Man Sessions" is not going to be a sonic soundscape everyone wants to go picnicking in. But if you’re down with the mighty hamburger – you’ll be loving it like a guilty pleasure you need to hide from the wife...

"Safe As Milk" by CAPTAIN BEEFHEART and THE MAGIC BAND (1999 BMG/RCA/Buddah Expanded CD Remaster) - A Review by Mark Barry...

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"...Came Upon A Tornado..."

Few artists can genuinely have the mantle of genius festooned around their mad foreheads in a garland of Californian daisies – but Captain Beefheart is one of them. His 1967 debut is still a bit of a beast to digest in 2015 – but my admiration for it and him only grow as the years pass. Nothing about this album is "safe" let alone a comforting and warm glass of milk come those night-time tremors - which is of course what makes it so good and groundbreaking. Here goes with the Abba Zaba and the Dropout Boogie...

US released June 1999 (September 1999 in the UK) – "Safe As Milk" by CAPTAIN BEEFHEART and THE MAGIC BAND on BMG/RCA/Buddha Records 74321 69175 2 (Barcode 743216917525) is an 'Expanded Edition' CD Remaster with Seven Bonus Tracks and breaks down as follows (71:13 minutes):

1. Sho 'Nuff 'N Yes I Do

2. Zig Zag Wanderer

3. Call On Me

4. Dropout Boogie

5. I'm Glad

6. Electricity

7. Yellow Brick Road [Side 2]

8. Abba Zaba

9. Plastic Factory

10. Where There's Woman

11. Grown So Ugly

12. Autumn's Child

Tracks 1 to 12 are his debut album "Safe As Milk" – released September 1967 in the USA on Buddah BDM 1001 (Mono) and Buddah BDS 5001 (Stereo) and February 1968 in the UK on Pye International NPL 28110 (initially in Mono only). A Stereo version finally showed in 1970 in the UK on Buddah 623 171 – this CD Remaster uses the STEREO mix.

BONUS TRACKS:

13. Safe As Milk (Take 5)

14. On Tomorrow

15. Big Black Baby Shoes

16. Flower Pot

17. Dirty Blue Gene

18. Trust Us (Take 9)

19. Korn Ring Finger

Tracks 13 to 19 are all Previously Unreleased, Recorded Oct to Nov 1967 with Alex St. Clair Snouffer and Jeff Cotton on Guitars instead of Ry Cooder. Captain Beefheart, Jeff Handley and John French as per the LP line-up.

The 12-page booklet (in a rather dull black and white) has a history of the album and the genre-bending talents of Don Van Vliet of Glendale, California (alias Captain Beefheart) written by JOHN PLATT with help from Mike Barnes and Gary Marker. There are reissue credits and a repro of the 'Baby Jesus' bumper sticker. On the rear of the booklet there’s a gorgeous colour photo of the band as a four-piece – Alex St. Clair Snouffer (Guitar), John French (Drums), Captain Beefheart (Vocals, Harmonica and Bass Marimba) and Jerry Handley (Bass). There are also long notes on the CD Bonus Tracks ("Mirror Sessions" outtakes etc).

The remasters are by ELLIOTT FEDERMAN and come with a warning that "sonic imperfections exist due to the condition of the master tapes". He’s unfortunately proven right about this. Some tracks are fantastic – others very hissy and even corrupted in the top end. There’s also a very definite audio chasm between the album and the bonus tracks – the LP has its rough moments but the Bonus tracks (later 1967 recordings for the second album done just a month after the release of "Safe As Milk") are fantastic sounding - and in truth would probably have sat better as "Trout Mask Replica" outakes. It’s a case of taking the rough with the smooth – but luckily because there isn't that much rough - I'd say they’ve done a superb job with what they had...

It opens with the Howlin’ Wolf/Johnny Winter guitar blues of "Sure 'Nuff 'N Yes I Do" - a genius hybrid track with ex Rising Sons guitar wizard RY COODER providing lead guitar. We then get into real Beefheart songscapes with the decidedly rough recording of "Zig Zag Wanderer" – a jagged irksome little monster like the "adaptor...adaptor" distorted guitar chug of "Dropout Boogie" (both tracks benefitting from the percussive drums of Milt Holland). Unfortunately there are heavy hiss levels on "I'm Glad" where Don comes on like some Street Corner vocal group pleading "so sad baby". But as always with the Captain - he can blindside you with how pretty a song he can write when he stops pushing the musical boundaries with the rest of the album. The Byrds-ish "Call My Name" could have been a single too with its "free love" coda ideal for the time.

But if one track practically defines the jagged songwriting strangled-vocals genius of Captain Beefheart it would be the stunning "Electricity". Described as a variant of 'Blues' by some more scholarly than I – it comes at you like a sonic beast from another world and could only be a product of the hyper-inventive super-productive and mad-as-a-dingbat-on-acid 60ts counter-culture. Throughout its jerk-rhythms and weird-sounding guitars - Sam Hoffman plays a thing called a 'Theremin' - an early variant of an electronic Moog instrument that had been used to create those scary outer-space noises in films like "The Day The Earth Stood Still". Combined with Beefheart giving it his best strangling-a-cat voice – its astonishing stuff even now. Pye actually reissued "Electricity" in June 1978 as a British 7” single on Buddah BDS 466 - the audio bosom-buddy B-side to "Sho 'Nuff 'N Yes I Do". Not sure if either was entirely Thursday night 'Top Of The Pops' material but I’d pay good money to see Pans People do an interpretive dance routine for either (yum yum). 

Speaking of singles - Pye UK tried the jaunty Side 2 opener "Yellow Brick Road" b/w "Abba Zaba" on Pye International 7N 25443 in January 1968 but not surprisingly it tanked and is now a £50-plus rarity (Taj Mahal plays percussion on "Yellow Brick Road"). His fantastic Bluesy Harmonica gives the brilliant "Plastic Factory" a real Paul Butterfield edge. "Where There's Woman" and "Grown So Ugly" are suitably touching and poisonous at the same time but the album finishes on a total winner. Russ Titelman plays guitar while Sam Hoffman twiddles his Theremin on the brilliant Side 2 finisher "Autumn's Child" – a song where you actually feel like you're listening to a new kind of music being created as you listen.

The BONUS TRACKS are part of the "Mirror Sessions" which were essentially going to be a double-album follow-up for Buddah Records (their 2nd album). Parts of it turned up on the "Mirror Man" LP issued by Buddah in May 1971. "Trout Mask Replica" fans will love the near seven-minute guitar instrumental rampage that is "On Tomorrow". Even better is "Big Black Baby Shoes" – another five-minute sliding guitar instrumental which is discordantly musical in that way only Captain Beefheart can be. "Flower Pot" is brilliant too and my fave bonus amongst the seven – the band boogieing in that jagged "Trout" way through four minutes of Beefheart Funk.

The equally good/strange "Strictly Personal" would follow in 1968 and the epoch-making game-changing double "Trout Mask Replica" in late 1969 – but this is where all that discordant yet melodious jerky-motion started. 

An animal-sculpting child prodigy TV star at the age of 10 – Don Van Vliet was always a bit special and a just bit bonkers in the temporal lobe area. Captain Beefheart famously walked off stage once and collapsed into the grass face first – later claiming he stopped the band mid-song (fixed his tie first before he left stage) because he saw a woman in the audience turn into a 'goldfish'. Now that’s my kind of visionary...