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Captain Beefheart & the Magic Band - Best Batch Yet (1981)

Track listing:
  1. Nowadays A Woman's Gotta Hit A Man 3:36
  2. I Wanna Find A Woman That'll Hold My Big Toe Till I Have To Go 1:53
  3. Hot Head 3:37
  4. Ashtray Heart 3:11
  5. Dirty Blue Gene 3:47
  6. The Smithsonian Institute Blues 2:02
  7. Sue Egypt 1:36
  8. Best Batch Yet 4:48
  9. Safe As Milk 4:14
  10. One Red Rose That I Mean 2:10
  11. China Pig 5:00
  12. Hair Pie 3:17
  13. Doctor Dark 2:35
  14. Bat Chain Puller 5:27
  15. My Human Gets Me Blues 2:38
  16. Sugar N' Spikes 2:22
  17. Sheriff Of Hong Kong 6:28
  18. Kandy Korn 4:28
  19. Veteran's Day Poppy 4:20
  20. Big Eyed Beans From Venus 5:09

Notes

The Country Club
Reseda, CA

A- Mono Soundboard
from LP

DON VAN VLIET: vocals, harmonica, saxophone
JEFF MORIS TEPPER: guitar
RICHARD MIDNIGHT HATSIZE SNYDER: guitar, bass guitar
ERIC DREW FELDMAN: bass guitar, keyboards
ROBERT WILLIAMS: drums, percussion
DENNY WALLEY: guitar on "China Pig"

This is one of Don's last shows and it isn't one of his better performances, but the Magic Band is tight. These versions of "Kandy Korn" and "Veteran's Day Poppy" are top-notch musically. The slide solo at the end of "Bat Chain Puller" is as bad-ass as ever. Denny Walley guests on a rare performance of "China Pig". There are some cuts between tracks but all of the songs are complete. The source here is a mono soundboard mix with very little audience noise. This transfer was done from a mint copy of the LP and you would never know it was taken from vinyl. There is no surface noise, but there is a decent amount of tape hiss on this recording.