Why does Beefheart's Mirror Man get no love?

everyone loves this album

Maybe because it's only got four songs? Two of which are pretty standard blues, composition-wise, with none of the spiky atonality he was soon to embrace. It's the real anomaly in his catalog, with all that extended (and how!) jamming. Or maybe because two of its tracks had already appeared on Strictly Personal
Or maybe because it was so shoddily packaged, with the wrong recording dates and the wrong musicians pictured on the cover, etc. Choose one of those reasons or think up others...

Me, I like it fine, and "Kandy Korn" improves on the earlier version. But still, it's probably my least favourite Beefheart record that wasn't released in 1974.

A. I will not hear talk of Shiny Beast in such disparaging terms.

B. A friend of mine used to have this theory that "Kandy Korn" was about the Kan-D drug in PK Dick's 3 Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch.

C. "Tarot Plane" is a pretty cool anomaly in the Beefheart catalog, what with the long free form approach and all. It's also transitional, etc... I actually couldn't tell you who played on it and I am pretty familiar with CB and his lineups.

D. This record has been pretty widely available, usually at budget prices, and thus may have confused the public since it is not exactly typical of his output.

E. Stewart Osborne to thread.

A. Agree. It has a good selection of all his styles and is damn good!

I dunno, I like "Mirror Man" less than "Unconditionally", and I haven't heard "Bluejeans" yet. So, yeah.

"E. Stewart Osborne to thread."

Seems like you've got all the main points covered already.

Most people's least favourite Beefheart album after Unconditionally Guaranteed and Blue Jeans & Moonbeams (although personally I reckon Unconditionally Guaranteed is better and Strictly Personal is worse).

The material probably makes more sense in the "Mirror Man Sessions" edition, where it's expanded by adding some of the outtakes / alternative versions of some of the songs that were released on Strictly Personal but which haven't been subjected to those dreadful "psychedelic bromo seltzer" effects, and consequently this ends up being a lot closer to the double album "It Comes To You In A Plain Brown Wrapper" that Don had originally intended.

Line up for all recordings on both albums afaik: Don Van Vliet, Jeff Cotton (guitar), Alex St. Clair Snouffer (guitar), Jerry Handley (bass), John French (drums)

it's basically the same idea as Strictly. I think the version of "Kandy Korn" (interesting Philip K. Dick theory there) is definitive. Pretty advanced for '67; you know, you could teach some kinda rock history and play James Brown's "Cold Sweat" (the long version) followed by "KK" and then ax, tell me about what's going on with those two drum parts and how are these songs similar. Recorded same year. So I love it. The best Beefheart is usually the most concise, cf. Decals, but this is good stuff. Too bad the original LP listed it was '65, though. And as SO says above, the material does benefit from inclusion with the other stuff from that period. I kinda wonder if something like "Suction Prints" dates from this era--and what's interesting about Beefheart is how old-fashioned a lot of the devices really are, as if he's secretly wanting to play with some Kansas City territory band of the '30s or Cannon's Jug Stompers...

I don't care what anyone says: I love Strictly Personal.

"I kinda wonder if something like "Suction Prints" dates from this era"

Earliest version of "Suction Prints" that I'm aware of is around '73

Hmmm...I temporarily can't remember exactly how "Suction Prints" sounds! But how many times did Beefheart re-use full compositions and mix-and-match their titles? Like turning "Big Black Baby Shoes" into "The Witch Doctor Life" and "Dirty Blue Gene" into "Pompadour Swamp" or whatever. (I've probably gotten that completely wrong - which illustrates my point.)

Scaruffi loves it, gives it 8/10, higher than anything except Safe as Milk and Trout Mask. Always fun to read.

Earliest version of "Suction Prints" that I'm aware of is around '73

Isn't there a version on that "I May Be Hungry But I Sure Ain't Weird" CD? In other words, '68 Strictly Personal sessions? I'd have to listen to the album again.

That's one of those "Virgin Records plus that "Liberty" album" best ofs, surely?

"But how many times did Beefheart re-use full compositions and mix-and-match their titles?"

There were a few songs that were performed live / demo-ed as instrumentals with one title, before having vocals & lyrics added to them and being re-titled accordingly.

A lot of the (working) titles of those songs were the titles of poems, and a lot of poems later became lyrics - frequently to completely different songs.

Just to make things more confusing, some of Don's paintings also have names which they share with poems / lyrics / song titles - even musicians (e.g. "China Pig", "The Drazy Hoops", "Ed Marimba", "Evening Bell", "Garland", "Golden Birdies", "Japan In The Dishpan", "Life Walker", "Scratch Of Light", "The Shiny Beast Of Thought", "Two Rips In A Haystack"....)

And to confuse matters even further, several song titles were recycled so that e.g. iirc there were 2 or 3 entirely different (instrumental) compositions that were performed live at different times, all of which were referred to at the relevant time as "Spitball Scalped Uh Baby", at least one of which subsequently later resurfaced as part of another composition with lyrics and a different title.

Despite all of his claims to the contrary (e.g. having written all the songs on TMR in one night!), Don was evidently not a prolific song-writer and often returned to and re-worked ideas both musical and lyrical - particularly during the later incarnations of the band when Drumbo was apparently sent off on more than one occasion to trawl through the archives for outtakes from Clear Spot and The Spotlight Kid, and subsequently several things resurfaced, having been re-worked to varying extents, on the last 3 albums.

One of the most intriguing conundrums relates to the song "Owed T'Alex", which appeared on Shiny Beast; although it had previously been recorded for the unreleased Bat Chain Puller album (where it was titled "Carson City"); for which a co-writing credit was given to one Herb Bermann - which would suggest that the song (or maybe just the lyrics?) had been kicking around since the Safe As Milk era, although the song certainly doesn't sound as if it does....

"Isn't there a version (of "Suction Prints") on that "I May Be Hungry But I Sure Ain't Weird" CD?"

"That's one of those "Virgin Records plus that "Liberty" album" best ofs, surely?"

No, it was a collection of outtakes from the "It Comes To You In A Plain Brown Wrapper" sessions which hadn't been included on either Strictly Personal or Mirror Man, all of which are now available either on the expanded version of Safe As Milk or The Mirror Man Sessions - and no, I'm afraid they don't include "Suction Prints".

Ah I was thinking of "A carrot is a diamond to a rabbit" or thereabouts.

I'm definitely going to have to listen to "I May Be Hungry But I Sure Ain't Weird" because I'm sure "Suction Prints" is on it!

I May Be Hngry But I Sure Ain't Weird tracklist:

Trust Us (Take 6)
Beatle Bones N' Smokin' Stones (Part 1)
Moody Liz (Take 8)
Safe As Milk (Take 12)
Gimme Dat Harp Boy
On Tomorrow (Instrumental)
Trust Us (Take 9)
Safe As Milk (Take 5)
Big Black Baby Shoes (Instrumental)
Flower Pot (Instrumental)
Dirty Blue Gene (Instrumental)

http://www.beefheart.com/datharp/albums/official/hungry.htm

"Big Black Baby Shoes" later became "Ice Rose" and "Dirty Blue Gene" evolved into "Witch Doctor Life", if that's maybe what you're thinking of?

Oh yeah, it might be "Big Black Baby Shoes" I'm thinking of

By the way, have you voted?

It was like asking me to choose my favourite child, but yes.

Hands up who saw Paul Bradley (Eastenders/Holby City actor) doing the life and works of Captain Beefheart on Celebrity Mastermind!

wah! noooh!

Good questions!

"Hands up who saw Paul Bradley (Eastenders/Holby City actor) doing the life and works of Captain Beefheart on Celebrity Mastermind!"

I beat him - and I hadn't been up the night before swotting or anything.

Not sure why Bhudda didn't make "The Mirror Man Sessions" a double CD and include the other outtakes instead of tacking them onto the end of the "Safe As Milk" CD. I did that to my digital copy and it makes so much more sense to have it all together.

Are there further tracks from this session elsewhere, like on the "Grow Fins" box?