More of the Music of Captain Beefheart
Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Captain Beefheart
We did this shootout many years ago, so many years ago that I cannot find a record of it.
I remember we thought the German pressings were perhaps a bit boosted on both ends and not as natural sounding as the domestic pressings.
After a multitude of improvements in our cleaning and playback, we no think the Germans got this one right when they actually did get this one right. What I mean by that is that some German pressings are not particularly good, another piece of the puzzle that fell into place during this shootout, as painful as that turned out to be considering the money wasted on them.
Did we have the bad German stamper pressings last time around? Who knows?
The producer, Ted Templeman, (Doobie Brothers, James Taylor) brought his mainstream talents to bear on this music, and when the Captain’s free-form tendencies smashed into Templeman’s conservatism, the result was this musical supernova — out there, but not too far out there.
(Play Trout Mask Replica sometime if you miss that feeling from your old hippie days of being on acid. With that music, drugs are entirely superfluous.)
I don’t know how many audiophiles like Captain Beefheart, probably not too many, but if you’re ever going to try one of his albums, this is the place to start: his masterpiece.
I’ve been listening to this album for 30 years, all of my adult life. I still have my original copy in the clear plastic sleeve even. [Not any more, now that I know it doesn’t sound good it’s going to Ebay to find a new home.]
It never grows old and it never grows tired. I have the CD in the car and return to it regularly.
I’ll be disappointed if few of you try this one, but probably not too surprised.
Credit also must go to Donn Landee for the full-bodied, rich, smooth, oh-so-analog sound of the best copies of Clear Spot. He’s recorded or assisted on many of our favorite albums here at Better Records.
Checking the Boxes
Clear Spot is an album we’ve been playing since it came out in the early 70s, and we think we know it well,
It checks off a number of key boxes for us here at Better Records:
Seventies Analog