Customer Reviews

Doc at the Radar Station

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is the type of work i wish Beefheart would have done more of. This is a very special album for Beefheart because here he (and his band, which includes the great Trombone work of Bruce Fowler) found the perfect balance between rock weirdness and avant garde originality. Nothing elsewhere sounds like this blues guitar drenched gumbo...which is also mellotron spiced, harmonica fueled and poetry stabbed . The captain spewed a master piece for sure in Doc at the Radar Station. I consider this the most daring and 'progressive' work he ever did. Get it!

Don't be put off by the fact that this album was made toward the end of the Captain's career - Doc at the Radar Station is 100% essential, top quality Beefheart. It's harder and more aggressive than it's predecessor, Shiny Beast (an equally outstanding but very different album). It is very much a return to the Trout Mask Replica style of off-kilter poetry set to complex, dissonant music. The best songs on this album represent some of the best stuff he ever did. Hot Head, Sue Egypt, Dirty Blue Gene, and Best Batch Yet are some of my favorites, but there isn't a weak track on the album. Fans of the Captain will inevitably love Doc at the Radar Station

The best of the Captn. A smokin' band, some his best material ever, sort of an American Ziggy Stardust feel, filtered through pure Beefheart. An absolutely essential rock and roll album.

This was Beefheart's penultimate album, and it's one of his best works. I remember seeing him on SNL (during the dismal season when the entire original cast left), and being astounded by this man. He performed two songs from this album, Ashtray Heart and Hot Head, and gave great performances on SNL. An audience member even screamed the "s" word after Ashtray Heart because he was so overwhelmed. Both those songs came from this album, which is loaded with Beefheart classics. Hot Head, Ashtray Heart, Sue Egypt, and the greatly titled Making Love to a Vampire with a Monkey on my Knee. Beefheart only made one more album after this, his magnificent Ice Cream for Crow, but this album (and its predecessor, Shiny Beast Bat Chain Puller) closed out his recording career with aplomb.

Other reviewers here have spoken positively about this recording, and I want to add my voice to the chorus. This is a real masterpiece. It's second (and a close second, at that) only to "Trout Mask Replica." Some of the most brutal, shocking and yet delicately beautiful music Beefheart has produced. Slashing guitars, intricate rhythms and crushing poetry. "Sue Egypt" and "Making Love to a Vampire ..." still give me a rush nearly 30 years after my first hearing. The whole recording bristles with fire and intensity.

If you are considering buying this disc, you probably know something about Beefheart's music--at least, you have some idea of what you might hear. So I make this recommendation without reserve: Consider no longer. Get yourself a copy. You will not be disappointed.

Beefheart's entire music career was preparation for "Doc at the Radar Station", one of his last three brilliant albums. It is the distillation of genius.

This is really high energy blues. Unsurpassed.

Around 1981 Captain Beefheart appeared on Saturday Night Live. As I recall, they played Ashtray Heart off this album. Wow! I just saw it live, by accident at a friend's apartment. Practically 30 years later I still remember that as a musical high point of my life. I hope those tapes are still around!

Let's say you were born an undeniable genius. Let's say that Trout Mask Replica was your cave art. You spend the next nine years a voice crying in the wilderness. Then, a magical time comes when you are at the zenith of both your talent and your vision, and you are blessed to be surrounded by people who can help you fully express them. It's too big for just one record. It takes three albums, and five years to unleash this creative bang. Shiny Beast, Doc At the Radar Station, and Ice Cream for Crow, are the three stars in Orion's belt. Each one is a masterpiece, and together they tower above all else. The workings of a brilliant mind distilled into three small packages. Nothing even comes close! No! I'm sorry, talk to the hand!

The Captain's gone supernova. He's on a different stage now. Da Vinci and Descartes are groovin' in the front row.

CB is a great and best blues white singer man to the era. Please buy it!!!!!!!!

30 years later, and still rocking strong. 30 years later, still not in the hall of fame. 30 years later, he dies, and now you buy his albums. He retired almost 30 years ago because all you stiffs ignored him. Now he's dead, and suddenly he's hip and cool. Don't worry mainstreamers, a true Beefheart appreciator will always know how to spot a phoney, fair weather fan, from those that breathed in his art because it touched them.

you are never going to turn Beefheart into Mona Lisa, where everyone and their mother nods and calls it true art.

A carrot is as close as you will ever get to this diamond :)