Captain Beefheart on John Peel 21 January 1968
Yellow Brick Road & Mirror Man acetate
"Well this is incredible - a recording of John Peel's radio show from January 21st 1968 that features a previously unknown version of "Mirror Man" by Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band, one of their greatest early tracks. Peel plays it from an acetate, given to him by Beefheart himself (aka Don Van Vliet) who is in the studio with him - Don's voice can be heard at the start of the tape introducing his song "Yellow Brick Road". Peel mentions after playing 6 mins of "Mirror Man" that it is actually 15 minutes long and won't be released until much later in the year. The version he plays on this show was never released anywhere which is a real shame as it sounds spectacular."
"A previously unheard Captain Beefheart John Peel curio, salvaged from an old reel by Tim from the Peel Group Taken from the show broadcast on January 21st 1968 and notable for two reasons 00:00 Yellow Brick Road 02:19 Mirror Man (Extract) 1) Beefheart appears to be in the studio with Peel and introduces Yellow Brick Road as the new single. The band were in the UK and would record their first Peel Session 3 days later 2) The second track is a 6+ minute extract of Mirror Man, which Peel says is at least 15 minutes long in its entirety, and will not be released for some time. It is however neither the version that appeared on Strictly Personal later in 1968, nor is it an extract from the long version that would eventually appear on the Mirror Man album. The assumption is that this taken from the legendary acetate of new songs that Beefheart gave to John Peel late 1967 and is an otherwise unreleased take. In Ken Garner's book "In Session Tonight" he mentions the acetate but that when asked, neither Peel nor his producer could ever remember playing tracks from it on the show.This tape would suggest otherwise! "
No comments:
Post a Comment