- Format: MP3
Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band
Free Trade Hall, Manchester
1972-04-01
Lineage: AUD>Tape (unknown gen)>Wav (using Wavelab)>FLAC (level 8, using Trader's Little Helper)
Tracks:
01. Hair Pie: Bake III (1:04)
02. Smoking Rio 6 (1:38)
03. Hair Pie: Bake III (0:52)
04. The Mascara Snake (0:30)
05. The Mascara Fake (0:26)
06. The Mascara for God's Sake (0:43)
07. When It Blows Its Stacks (4:14)
08. Click Clack (5:07)
09. Grow Fins (4:19)
10. Band Intro (0:31)
11. Hobo Chang Ba (2:54) instrumental
12. I'm Gonna Booglarize You Baby (5:12)
13. Old Black Snake (3:05)
14. Peon (3:40)
15. Abba Zaba (3:38)
16. Woe-Is-Uh-Me-Bop (3:17)
17. Alice In Blunderland (4:46)
18. Spitball Scalped A Baby (8:12)
19. More (1:42)
20. My Human Gets Me Blues (3:50)
21. Steal Softly Through Snow (3:06) instrumental
22. Golden Birdies (1:57)
Totla length: 64:43
Quality: 6.5/10. Some hiss, some ringing in the higher frequencies. Still enjoyable.
Line-Up:
Captain Beefheart/Don Van Vliet: vocals, sax, harmonica
Rockette Morton/Mark Boston: bass guitar, guitar
Oréjon/Audi Hon/Roy Estrada: bass guitar
Zoot Horn/Rollo Bill Harkleroad: guitar, slide guitar
Winged Eel Fingerling/Elliot Ingber: guitar, slide guitar
Ed Marimba/Art Tripp: drums, percussion
Comments:
John Wallace: My initiation into the heady world of live music was in about 1971, going to see an artist I actually couldn't stand, but that was scarcely the point; it was the act of going to a cult event, the ability to refer to it airily in conversations thereafter, the Extreme Heaviness of being there to witness - well, The Man Himself, Captain Beefheart.
It was a matter of status to be a Frank Zappa fan, there was, indeed, a cachet about being able to make arcane references to Wild Man Fisher and the GTOs - ah but, the Captain - he was altogether different. He had a voice like a chainsaw, his lyrics were impenetrable - and the music was awful. He must be good. Someone with more money than sense bought Trout Mask Replica and we sat around pondering the wonderful nonsense words, and happily recited them: "A squid eating dough in a polythene bag is fast and bulbous. That's right, the Mascara Snake. Bulbous. Also tapered," we chirupped cheerfully, pondering what it would be like to see the Man - and his Magic Band - live.
The opportunity came one particularly rain-sodden night at the Free Trade Hall, Manchester. The air was mank with the smell of 800 greatcoats and Afghans drying out like some enormous wet labrador in the back seat of a Moris Minor. Like every self-respecting cult figure, the Captain let us wait for ages while we occupied ourselves in slow handclapping, greeting hapless soundcheck roadies, who scuttled on stage in the murky darkness, with abandoned applause and, of course, randomly yelling "WALLAAAAY" which mysterious word, heavy with unknown meaning, but very significant all the same, was taken up by various loonies throughout the concert hall.
Within seconds of Captain Beefheart wandering on stage, all pique at his unforgivable tardiness was forgotten, and he launched into a solo rasping rant about night floatin' down de river like a shiny black bug and his mind cracking like custard. Then the band came on (more entirely disproportionately enthusiastic yelling from the audience) - Rockette Morton, Antennae Jimmy Semens, The Mascara Snake, Winged Eel Fingerling - as charismatic a bunch of fruitcakes as you'd ever wish to see.
As expected, the music was unlistenable, but no matter: the massed corps of headpumpers got their heads down, hands holding on the seat in front, and pumped away throughout the set, despite the fact that most of the music was arhythmical, lurching to a halt and then starting up again, falling to pieces as various members of the band forgot what they were playing or simply walked off the stage, having evidently found a more profitable way to pass the time. We didn't care though: this was a Captain Beefheart concert - it was meant to be shambolic, careless, unmusical, totally unrehearsed. The Captain was far too heavy to do anything predictable. He simply growled a lot, tootled on a minature harmonica and blew a small plastic saxophone. Magic.
He was only on for an hour. The audience, by now quite dry, was rapturous. We yelled for more. After 10 minutes, the Captain wandered on and we dissolved into hysterical cheering. He walked up to the microphone, said the word "More" in reply to our beseeching yells, and then walked off and didn't come back. Was that heavy or was that heavy? We were truly impressed by his daring indifference to the audience, his magisterial ability to treat us with contempt - a true master.
(John Wallace: First Gigs. Captain Beefheart, Manchester Free Trade Hall, 1971. Q, July 1990)
Johnny: I saw the Good Captain that night in Manchester... I was just 15 years old and had travelled some 70 or 80 miles to get there. It was my first 'get to see a legend live' gig, the first time I got to see one of my heroes in the flesh, so to speak. My friends and I had worn out our copies of Trout Mask Replica and Safe As Milk. We just had to see him!
Just two things to add... Firstly, your site doesn't mention the support act - it was Foghat... (Wish it had been Ry Cooder or Little Feat...)
Secondly, I fondly remember Rockette Morton opening the show, as reported in Liverpool. He walked on stage alone, plugged in his bass guitar, played the bass solo whilst racing around the stage like Groucho Marx on acid, before he and the solo came to a sudden halt at the front centre of the stage. He painstakingly produced and lit a thin cigar before repeating the run-about solo, cigar in mouth. Again he came to a sudden silent halt at the front of the stage. He took a prolonged draw on his cigar, blowing the smoke high into the air, head held back. Producing the cigar packet from the pocket of his jacket, he held the packet up into the light of his follow-spot for the audience to see. "Havana Oh-Six" he pronounced, "Havana Oh-Six." He then stood and smoked some more of the cigar to rapturous applause...
And then the Captain appeared...
It was my first big gig. I was mesmerised. When he did Old Black Snake the crowd was completely silent, as though we all held our breath, like the only thing moving in the room the Captain's voice...
It was that night that I saw that the world was indeed inhabited by magic, if only you took the time to look, and also that although where we lived my friends and I seemed a little different, here amongst the crowd we not only seemed to fit in but, compared to others there, we came across as quite restrained...
Let's just say that the Captain Beefheart And His Magic Band gig that night in Manchester was a turning point in my life, and that your site brought it back to me...
Havana Oh-Six'. Quite why that has stuck in my memory I'll never know...
(email)
Possibly one of the best 1972 tour tapes. When you consider that most PAs were destroyed by the sheer sonic onslaught of some 3000 watts of bass solo that thundered out from Rockette Morton's fingers. It's no wonder few audios of reasonable quality exist.
(Blimp Over Europe #1)
audience
Quality: 6.5/10. Some hiss, some ringing in the higher frequencies. Still enjoyable.
Captain Beefheart/Don Van Vliet: vocals, sax, harmonica
Rockette Morton/Mark Boston: bass guitar, guitar
Oréjon/Audi Hon/Roy Estrada: bass guitar
Zoot Horn/Rollo Bill Harkleroad: guitar, slide guitar
Winged Eel Fingerling/Elliot Ingber: guitar, slide guitar
Ed Marimba/Art Tripp: drums, percussion
Comments:
John Wallace: My initiation into the heady world of live music was in about 1971, going to see an artist I actually couldn't stand, but that was scarcely the point; it was the act of going to a cult event, the ability to refer to it airily in conversations thereafter, the Extreme Heaviness of being there to witness - well, The Man Himself, Captain Beefheart.
It was a matter of status to be a Frank Zappa fan, there was, indeed, a cachet about being able to make arcane references to Wild Man Fisher and the GTOs - ah but, the Captain - he was altogether different. He had a voice like a chainsaw, his lyrics were impenetrable - and the music was awful. He must be good. Someone with more money than sense bought Trout Mask Replica and we sat around pondering the wonderful nonsense words, and happily recited them: "A squid eating dough in a polythene bag is fast and bulbous. That's right, the Mascara Snake. Bulbous. Also tapered," we chirupped cheerfully, pondering what it would be like to see the Man - and his Magic Band - live.
The opportunity came one particularly rain-sodden night at the Free Trade Hall, Manchester. The air was mank with the smell of 800 greatcoats and Afghans drying out like some enormous wet labrador in the back seat of a Moris Minor. Like every self-respecting cult figure, the Captain let us wait for ages while we occupied ourselves in slow handclapping, greeting hapless soundcheck roadies, who scuttled on stage in the murky darkness, with abandoned applause and, of course, randomly yelling "WALLAAAAY" which mysterious word, heavy with unknown meaning, but very significant all the same, was taken up by various loonies throughout the concert hall.
Within seconds of Captain Beefheart wandering on stage, all pique at his unforgivable tardiness was forgotten, and he launched into a solo rasping rant about night floatin' down de river like a shiny black bug and his mind cracking like custard. Then the band came on (more entirely disproportionately enthusiastic yelling from the audience) - Rockette Morton, Antennae Jimmy Semens, The Mascara Snake, Winged Eel Fingerling - as charismatic a bunch of fruitcakes as you'd ever wish to see.
As expected, the music was unlistenable, but no matter: the massed corps of headpumpers got their heads down, hands holding on the seat in front, and pumped away throughout the set, despite the fact that most of the music was arhythmical, lurching to a halt and then starting up again, falling to pieces as various members of the band forgot what they were playing or simply walked off the stage, having evidently found a more profitable way to pass the time. We didn't care though: this was a Captain Beefheart concert - it was meant to be shambolic, careless, unmusical, totally unrehearsed. The Captain was far too heavy to do anything predictable. He simply growled a lot, tootled on a minature harmonica and blew a small plastic saxophone. Magic.
He was only on for an hour. The audience, by now quite dry, was rapturous. We yelled for more. After 10 minutes, the Captain wandered on and we dissolved into hysterical cheering. He walked up to the microphone, said the word "More" in reply to our beseeching yells, and then walked off and didn't come back. Was that heavy or was that heavy? We were truly impressed by his daring indifference to the audience, his magisterial ability to treat us with contempt - a true master.
(John Wallace: First Gigs. Captain Beefheart, Manchester Free Trade Hall, 1971. Q, July 1990)
Johnny: I saw the Good Captain that night in Manchester... I was just 15 years old and had travelled some 70 or 80 miles to get there. It was my first 'get to see a legend live' gig, the first time I got to see one of my heroes in the flesh, so to speak. My friends and I had worn out our copies of Trout Mask Replica and Safe As Milk. We just had to see him!
Just two things to add... Firstly, your site doesn't mention the support act - it was Foghat... (Wish it had been Ry Cooder or Little Feat...)
Secondly, I fondly remember Rockette Morton opening the show, as reported in Liverpool. He walked on stage alone, plugged in his bass guitar, played the bass solo whilst racing around the stage like Groucho Marx on acid, before he and the solo came to a sudden halt at the front centre of the stage. He painstakingly produced and lit a thin cigar before repeating the run-about solo, cigar in mouth. Again he came to a sudden silent halt at the front of the stage. He took a prolonged draw on his cigar, blowing the smoke high into the air, head held back. Producing the cigar packet from the pocket of his jacket, he held the packet up into the light of his follow-spot for the audience to see. "Havana Oh-Six" he pronounced, "Havana Oh-Six." He then stood and smoked some more of the cigar to rapturous applause...
And then the Captain appeared...
It was my first big gig. I was mesmerised. When he did Old Black Snake the crowd was completely silent, as though we all held our breath, like the only thing moving in the room the Captain's voice...
It was that night that I saw that the world was indeed inhabited by magic, if only you took the time to look, and also that although where we lived my friends and I seemed a little different, here amongst the crowd we not only seemed to fit in but, compared to others there, we came across as quite restrained...
Let's just say that the Captain Beefheart And His Magic Band gig that night in Manchester was a turning point in my life, and that your site brought it back to me...
Havana Oh-Six'. Quite why that has stuck in my memory I'll never know...
(email)
Possibly one of the best 1972 tour tapes. When you consider that most PAs were destroyed by the sheer sonic onslaught of some 3000 watts of bass solo that thundered out from Rockette Morton's fingers. It's no wonder few audios of reasonable quality exist.
(Blimp Over Europe #1)