Send your Captain Beefheart top tens to:

http://ubb.mojo4music.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=279586&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=365&fpart=1

Ah, apologies.

Not only are they doing a feature on that OCD blues fraud Beefhart, they're having the internet write the article for them..

OCD? I think you must be confusing Don with Frank.

Bipolar almost certainly; OCD, I rather think not.

from what ive heard, DATRS >= TMR >>>>> SAM. so im no real help.

The Beefheart list as a whole.

I assume the list will include the Ozit/Morpheus and the 'archival' and live stuff, which might help

Mostly rubbish tho?

Obviously, if you want a better guide, you should search the many and varied Beefheart threads here. (Who am I kidding, varied!)

Well at least there's a wide range of people who contribute to them... you, me, Stewart Osborne, Julio... errrrrrrrr... ummmmmmm

I have written your name down very carefully and painstakingly under the appropriately labelled and headed section of my little black book, underlined it twice in red and attributed a score of 87.2357 (out of a potential 100) to indicate the precise extent of how dismayed I am by your comments.

In the fullness of time I shall also be sharing this information with the rest of Don's fans, several of whom may decide to publish this information on their blogs.

Don't say you weren't warned.

"Mostly rubbish tho?"

The Grow Fins boxset is fantastic but really for completists only.

Bat Chain Puller is / was / should have been a great album - but since most of it was re-recorded and included on later albums it has ended up being far less essential than it would / should / could otherwise have been.

Merseytrout is good, but not as good as Rhino Handmade's I'm Going To Do What I Wanna Do - and in any case there are better live recordings about (e.g. Don's Birthday Party).

None of these should apear on any list ahead of any of the 10 key studio albums.

The Dust Blows Forward is the only comp that actually includes tracks from all of Don's oficicial releases and is thus probably the only one that's actually representative / worthwhile - although you'd still be better off buying SAM, TMR, Decals, Spotlight Kid, Clear Spot, Shiny Beast, or Doc instead.

I'd recommend anyone to buy either of the two Magic Band CD's, or the Fast 'N' Bulbous CD or actually pretty much anything else before shelling out for any of those other shoddily produced and cynically exploitive releases by the cowboys at Ozit/Morpheus.

Pwersonally I'd suggest you just get the Buddha reissues of Safe As Milk and The Miror Man Sessions, which between them (iirc) include alternative (and usually superior imo) versions of all the tracks that were included on Strictly Personal, prior to the application of Bob Krasnow's reviled "psychedelic Bromo-Seltzer" effects.

Of course this would result in something of a quandary regarding whether to include Unconditionally Guaranteed or Bluejeans & Moonbeams in place of Strictly Personal in any putative "Top Ten"....