Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band - Clear Spot (1972) (1 Viewer)

pete

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4.00 star(s) Rating: 4.00/5 3 Votes
Title: Clear Spot
Artist: Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band
Released: 1972

Tracks:
1 - Low Yo Yo Stuff - 3:41
2 - Nowadays a Woman's Gotta Hit a Man - 3:46
3 - Too Much Time - 2:50
4 - Circumstances - 3:14
5 - My Head Is My Only House Unless It Rains - 2:55
6 - Sun Zoom Spark - 2:13
7 - Clear Spot - 3:39
8 - Crazy Little Thing - 2:39
9 - Long Neck Bottles - 3:18
10 - Her Eyes Are a Blue Million Miles - 2:57
11 - Big Eyed Beans From Venus - 4:23
12 - Golden Birdies - 1:37

 
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Wahey, finally one of mine (if I remember that far back). On me holliers so am just going to lay back on me sun lounger and imagine those of you who don't know this firing it up in your cubicles, having your minds blown, going up to your boss and taking a shit on their desk and saying "everything has changed..."
 
Quality. After years of sadistically listening to Trout Mask I discovered this and everything with the Captain was allllright. He could write a damn tune afterall. The intro on Clear Spot is just divine.

Anyone remember Sun Zoom Spark magazine from the mid 90s?

m1994-11SunZoomSpark-1.jpg
 
I'm not an obsessive but I think this is my favourite Beefheart album, or at least the one I reach for most often. Treads that line between all out weirdness (TMR) and more conventional rock/r&b (Safe As Milk) just beautifully. And the vinyl version of it (reissue) is a truly marvellous sounding thing.
 
Yeah me too & that was mainly to do with it's rep and back story. Plus parts of it are very funny & it's great for annoying people.

FAST AND BULBOUS...............
I love it but for some reason I've never delved deeper into his back catalogue despite nearly him/The Magic Band being an influence on nearly every band I'm into. I do have Frank Zappa's Hot Rats which features a fantastic vocal performance by Beefheart on "Willie the Pimp" (though the real star of that album is Sugarcane Harris on fiddle, scorchio!).
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(sorry for the shitty sound quality but you get the impression if you've never heard it before)
 
Listened to the title track on YouTube and thought enough of it to buy the LP on my way past Tower. Was tempted by the box set but was too expensive for me. More on this as it develops.
 
Listened to the title track on YouTube and thought enough of it to buy the LP on my way past Tower. Was tempted by the box set but was too expensive for me. More on this as it develops.

The sun zoom spark box set? It's pretty terrific. I always thought the cd and vinyl of this already sounded phenomenal so had reservations the remastered box set would offer much, but it's superb. The bonus tracks are pretty great too
 
When I was in UCD four or five lifetimes ago, I scratched "Her Eyes Are A Blue Million Miles" onto desks/ writing stands in Lecture Halls right throughout the college. Loved it. Still do.

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This is the week I found out how hard it can be to listen to an album if you don't have it readily available on one of your devices. Listening via youtube didn't really work. It feeds you the songs out of order, and whatever way it calculates what to listen to next, you find the playlist switching between songs on different album. It got a bit trying at times.

I tried again this morning while keeping the tracklisting open beside me, hoping to actually listen to the album in the proper order.

It didn't work.

At this stage I don't even fully know if I've heard every song on the album, but I reckon I've heard most, at least a few times.

So basically, I've heard a bunch of songs from the album, rather than having heard the album itself. Maybe I'll come back to this thread after I get a copy of it, listen to it how it was meant to be listened to, and form a fair and proper opinion.

My thoughts on what I have managed to listen to are this. The wiki page said that this was an attempt by Beefheart to get himself more commercial success (and I presume, money). I can hear that here. The songs are very catchy. There wasn't a single song that I'd have classified as a 'difficult' listen. I'd contrast that with the other 2 albums I've heard, 'Safe as Milk', and 'Trout Mask Replica'.

'Safe as Milk' has one or two songs that are better than anything on here, but overall, as an album, this seems far more accessible.

And I'm surprised I'd never heard any of the songs from it before. 'Long Neck Bottles' and 'Her Eyes are a Blue Million Miles' are amazing. Why these never garnered 'classic rock' status is a mystery. I was curious to read that the album had been out of print for a long time which, I presume, is an indication that it didn't do so well commercially (the wiki page says it didn't chart in the UK, and scraped a 191 in the Billboard 200). Very odd. Maybe I'm being wide of the mark by saying this, but might that because the sound is more typical of mid to late 60s, than of early 70s? Or maybe thats completely wrong, and it just wasn't publicised enough.

And, other than as part of a box-set, it didn't get a reprint until 2015? Thats a bit mad. Probably why its not on spotify either.

Anyway, I'll buy it and give it a proper listen. I'm loathe to give it a mark out of 5 because I don't feel fully informed at this point. But, its album club and I feel the need to grade it based on whatever amount of listens within the week. So, I'll agree with what allmusic say, and give it 4/5. Seems excellent and I look forward to more listens.
 
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