Any TV performance that commences with a three-minute bass solo has to be an artefact. And when it’s Captain Beefheart and the full Magic Band (with guitarist Rockette Morton wielding the bass), anything can happen as the Captain turns a German pop show into chaos.
The performance preserved on this DVD is from a taping for the long-running German TV show, Beat Club, during the 1972 European tour that also included two concerts at the Royal Albert Hall and a set at the waterlogged Bickershaw Festival.
The Beat Club’s goal was to record a broadcast version of I’m Going To Booglarize You Baby, but instead Beefheart played a demented half-hour of strange yet amazing material. Everything that went to tape is on this DVD, including raw, single-camera sequences against a blue screen.
Beat Club didn’t have a clue what to do with Beefheart, but we do, don’t we lads and lasses?
