front cover

back cover

side a

side b

captain beefheart

avalon '66

1987 7"-bootleg ?? blue desert  /  blue vinyl

from "Glass Finger's Big Bad But Beautiful Book of Beefheart Bootlegs - Volume #1" (Apocalypse) / 1993 :
"198? US Avalon '66 EP on Blue Desert Recordings NR 16805 - with PS - says Blue Desert EP 1 on the back but the matrix is NR 16805. Has four tracks from 1966 - Tupelo / Somebody In My Home / Old Folks Boogie / Evil in full radial stereo on blue vinyl with warp round sleeve - the front cover has a Clear Spot period picture of Beefheart lying on a couch in his glitter suit - the back has a paste up of a 1966 newspaper article that appeared in Beat Magazine comparing Beefheart's version of Diddy Wah Diddy to that of The Remains. Recording is pretty good if treetrunk stereo with Beefheart introducing the Evil cut saying "we got a request for a number by the Howlin' Wolf". This performance is supposed to come from a radio broadcast from the Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco - Beefheart performed at the Avalon in May, June an August of 1966 so I guess it is one of those gigs. The tracks include a close clone version of John Lee Hooker's Tupelo with the its chanted / whispered mighty flood... mighty flood, two Howlin' Wolf numbers and the wonderful Old Folks Boogie. Another track, refered to as the fifth Avalon track and as the Blues Jam, has recently surfaced on The Avalon Tapes that circulate among collectors, but this is yet to appear on vinyl. Certainly it would be very interesting to know what other tracks were broadcast - they must have played their local hit Diddy Wah Diddy. Colin Webb informs me that a 1968 article also reckons the played Little Red Rooster at that time. John Peel, the UK DJ, saw them in California in May 1966 and said "when I saw them at... they were just doing you know just doing Howlin' Wolf numbers... really they were just an R&B band... you know... er... if they did... obviously they reconstructed them pretty dramatically... at the same time they did Little Red Rooster... which I'd love to have got a tape of...". "

 

captain beefheart and his magic band

side a

  1. tupelo, mississippi
  2. somebody in my home

side b

  1. old folks boogie
  2. evil