This Beefheart 2 CD set is hand numbered and limited edition in special slipcase with a postcard set. A total of 26 live 'n' rare tracks from the Captain and his Magic Band. Includes previously unreleased live recordings. The tracks are spread across the Captain's career, with recordings from 1972 through 1975 and 1980. Ozit. 2004.
Review by Jo-Ann Greene
A boon for collectors, Live 'n' Rare is a sumptuous two-CD set that is true to its title, rounding up various live performances recorded between 1972 and 1980. All 26 of the tracks are drawn from British gigs, including Captain Beefheart & the Magic Band's headlining appearances at the Bickershaw and Knebworth festivals in 1972 and 1975, respectively. Falling between those two red-letter dates are tracks recorded at shows in Leicester in 1973 and London the following year, with the bulk, however, drawn from a concert in Manchester in 1980. Needless to say, then, this set features various lineups of the Magic Band, although the album gives no information on them, or anything else for that matter. Regardless, the hardcore Heartheads can reel off such details in their sleep, and that's precisely who this set is aimed at. Although the recording quality is patchy and the sound often weedy, it's still mostly adequate enough to keep fans happy, although some may be a bit disgruntled by the hissing issuing throughout the Knebworth recordings. Bouncing back and forth through the years, careening from "Bass Solo," which indeed is exactly that, to the brief but pretty picked guitar solo that is "Flavor Bud Living" and the skittering "My Human Gets Me Blues," there are enough eccentric numbers here to keep fans fascinated. For those just digging into the Beefheart world, however, this is no place to start, nor is it a good investment for the casual fan familiar with little beyond Trout Mask Replica. But for the full-on Beefeater, it's a delectable dish to be much enjoyed
Tracks 1/1, 1/7: Drury Lane, London June 1974
Tracks 1/2, 1/3, 1/5, 1/8, 1/10, 1/12, 2/1 - 2/6, 2/8 - 2/11: Apollo Theatre, Manchester 30th October 1980
Track 1/4: Guildhall, Portsmouth 1st December 1975
Tracks 1/6, 1/13, 2/12, 2/13: Bickershaw Festival 7th May 1972
Track 1/9: Leicester University 1st May 1973
Tracks 1/11, 2/7: Knebworth Festival 5th July 1975
Notes
Ozit Publicity:-
Hand-numbered 2CD box set housed in a special card slipcase with a limited edition set of six previously unpublished photos of the Captain live on stage in London, 1980, with a special Beefheart stamp printed on the back of the cards. Plus an eight-page beautiful colour booklet and double-sided colour inlay, all with great Beefheart images.
Dedicated to the late John Peel who was instrumental in exposing Captain Beefheart to a wider audience.
Radar Station Overview
The pre-release publicity promised 14 previously unreleased tracks from a recently discovered live show. We actually get 16 songs taken from the 1980 Manchester Apollo gig, but this particular show has been circulating amongst collectors for many years, so they're stretching the truth a bit there. They also failed to add that the other 12 tracks on this release have been 'borrowed' from other CDs - namely London 1974 and Magnetic Hands. Do they have no shame!
Why couldn't they have just released the complete Manchester show instead of chopping it about and adding tracks unnecessarily from other shows?
Overall the sound quality is of a better bootleg and is an improvement on some of the other Ozit releases.
Postcard 3 from the set of sixFor some bizarre reason the tracks have been arranged in alphabetical order which has got to be the laziest piece of programming I've ever come across. Although they can't even get that right - 'Old Black Snake' is filed under 'B', and the tracks listed on the cover as 'My Human Gets Me Blues', 'Sheriff Of Hong Kong' and 'Suction Print' [sic] are actually 'Bat Chain Puller' (with the beginning missing!), 'Dropout Boogie' and ' Kandy Korn' respectively. There are also two tracks from Bickershaw stuck on the end for some reason.
As with all the other Beefheart releases from Ozit there has been the usual lack of attention to detail. Apart from the cock-ups noted above, they can't even be bothered to list the venue name or the date of the shows included let alone the members of the different Magic Bands featured - which I suppose does mean they avoid getting even more stuff wrong.
The colourful booklet contains no notes whatsoever; of the eight pages two are adverts for other products.
The six postcards do show photographs of Don on stage in 1980 (but we're not told where) with Jeff Moris Tepper behind him and these, as far as I know, haven't appeared anywhere before.
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