Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band The Red Pepper Arcata, California, USA 22 January 1981 -------------------- Set list: 01 Hair Pie: Bake III (Bass Solo Full Band) [3:42] °°° fades/cuts in, music missing 02 Nowaday's A Woman's Gotta Hit A Man [4:28] 03 I Wanna Find A Woman That'll Hold My Big Toe Till I Have To Go [2:29] 04 Hot Head [4:24] 05 Ashtray Heart [3:48] 06 Dirty Blue Gene [4:24] 07 Best Batch Yet [5:19] 08 Band Introduction [1:47] 09 Safe As Milk [4:12] 10 One Red Rose That I Mean [2:11] 11 Audience [1:22] 12 A Carrot Is As Close As A Rabbit Gets To A Diamond [2:05] 13 Bat Chain Puller [6:57] 14 Sugar 'N Spikes [2:04] °°° tape flip at 00:05, music missing 15 Sheriff Of Hong Kong [7:29] 16 Encore Break [3:10] 17 Suction Prints [5:08] °°° fades out after audience, no music missing Total time: 65.08 min -------------------- Lineup: Don Van Vliet - vocals, tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone, chinese gongs Eric Drew Feldman - bass guitar, synthesizer, mandolin, mellotron, electric piano Robert Williams - drums, percussion Richard Snyder - guitar, slide guitar, bass guitar Jeff Moris Tepper - guitar, slide guitar -------------------- Lineage: Recording (anonymous taper, 1981 01 22): Unknown cassette recorder Transfer (anonymous taper, XXX XX XX): Unknown recording equitpment > WAV > FLAC (via TLH) Editing (Pittylabelle, 2022 11 05, 06, 22, 27): > Technical & recovery corrections: iZotope RX 9 Advanced / Sound Forge Pro 13.0 > Volume adjustment: Sound Forge Pro 13.0: Volume adjustments to match channels > Track editing: Sound Forge Pro 13.0 > Coding: TLH, Align on sector boundaries (Level 8): WAV to FLAC conversion > Tagging: Mp3tag: Tagged to Zappateers standards ----- Technical corrections: - Phase offset fixed - Various volume fluctuations adjusted - Speed corrected Recovery corrections: - Constant ticking completely eliminated - Drop outs fixed - Clicks eliminated ----- Speed correction advice by: flambay -------------------- Extras: Scan of 1 concert poster -------------------- Comments: In general, I found the recording quality so good, despite the shortcomings frogseye mentioned in his original info text of the RAW transfer below, that I couldn't resist optimising the recording. The goal was to restore the recording as it might have been. That is, only noise was eliminated and imperfections were corrected, all other original sounds of the concert were of course preserved. Keywords: "Warts & All However, as in the old Zappateers tradition, I did not use any EQ, sound filter or compressor/maximizer for this version. Only the technically necessary corrections were made by me. For this flambay had specially made a speed correction for me. This turned out to be a bit tricky, as it was not just a simple pitch shift but two pitch bends. I think the second part of the recording, for whatever reason, sounds better overall than the first and also has less noise and volume fluctuations. Except for the tape flip in 'Sugar 'N Spikes', I was able to fix most of the smaller breaks and dropouts. At this stage, I was only interested in optimising the recording as such - this stage is therefore not yet a remastering. Pittylabelle, 28 November 2022 ----- RAW transfer notes: It's great to hear a new live recording of the Captain and this one has never been circulated before. It was sent to me by the taper after he'd found it in a box of old cassette tapes and he asked if I'd pass it on to other Beefheart fans. (He wishes to remain anonymous.) It's taken me a while to get this together but here it is ... Recorded a week after the legendary 40th birthday show in Seattle the band are still on top form at this small club in Arcata. No surprises in the setlist. It's not the best quality recording you'll ever hear - you've been warned so no whinging about it! There are many faults: - cuts into first track - distortion on the edges of the sound - a constant ticking probably from the original tape machine - a short break in 'Sugar 'N Spikes' at about the 48 seconds mark I have not EQ'd it or messed around with the sound. If anyone feels they can improve it please go ahead and try. It is what it is ... and it's not bad if you can listen through the faults ... I know many fans will enjoy it despite the sound issues. Included is a scan of the poster for the gig which Don mentions during one of his between song chats. frogseye, 23 October 2022 -------------------- Seeded by Pittylabelle to Zappateers.com and updated to Zappateers standards = 28 November 2022