Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Captain Beefheart
Hot Stamper Pressings of Richard Perry Productions Available Now
This Buddha reissue LP is not an audiophile recording, but of course it was never meant to be one. It reminds me quite a bit of Frank Zappa’s first album ’Freak Out.’ This copy sounds as good as any copy we’ve ever played.
And it was produced by Richard Perry way back in ’67!
“Beefheart’s first proper studio album is a much more accessible, pop-inflected brand of blues-rock than the efforts that followed in the late ’60s — which isn’t to say that it’s exactly normal and straightforward.
“Featuring Ry Cooder on guitar, this is blues-rock gone slightly askew, with jagged, fractured rhythms, soulful, twisting vocals from Van Vliet, and more doo wop, soul, straight blues, and folk-rock influences than he would employ on his more avant-garde outings. “Zig Zag Wanderer,” “Call on Me,” and “Yellow Brick Road” are some of his most enduring and riff-driven songs, although there’s plenty of weirdness on tracks like “Electricity” and “Abba Zaba.””
This is an Older Review.
Most of the older reviews you see are for records that did not go through the shootout process, the revolutionary approach to finding better sounding pressings we developed in the early 2000s and have since turned into a fine art.
We found the records you see in these older listings by cleaning and playing a pressing or two of the album, which we then described and priced based on how good the sound and surfaces were. (For out Hot Stamper listings, the Sonic Grades and Vinyl Playgrades are listed separately.)
We were often wrong back in those days, something we have no reason to hide. Audio equipment and record cleaning technologies have come a long way since those darker days, a subject we discuss here.
Currently, 99% (or more!) of the records we sell are cleaned, then auditioned under rigorously controlled conditions, up against a number of other pressings. We award them sonic grades, and then condition check them for surface noise.
As you may imagine, this approach requires a great deal of time, effort and skill, which is why we currently have a highly trained staff of about ten. No individual or business without the aid of such a committed group could possibly dig as deep into the sound of records as we have, and it is unlikely that anyone besides us could ever come along to do the kind of work we do.
The term “Hot Stampers” gets thrown around a lot these days, but to us it means only one thing: a record that has been through the shootout process and found to be of exceptionally high quality.
The result of our labor is the hundreds of titles seen here, every one of which is unique and guaranteed to be the best sounding copy of the album you have ever heard or you get your money back.
Further Reading
Helpful Advice on Cleaning Your Records