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On this day, 25 October 1980, American singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and visual artist Captain Beefheart played Cardiff University. Beefheart had just released his eleventh studio albumDoc at the Radar Station
The album cover was painted by Don Van Vliet. It was placed at number forty-nine on Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Album Covers in November 14th, 1991 issue.
Although about half of the album's songs are based on old musical ideas, Mike Barnes states that "most of the revamping work built on skeletal ideas and fragments ... would have mouldered away in the vaults had they not been exhumed and transformed into full-blown, totally convincing new material".[11] The tracks "A Carrot is as Close as a Rabbit Gets to a Diamond", "Flavor Bud Living" and "Brickbats" were originally intended and recorded for the unreleased album Bat Chain Puller.
John French (the original drummer in the Magic Band) rejoined Beefheart for this album. He played guitar on all songs, plus bass ("Sheriff of Hong Kong"), drums ("Ashtray Heart" and "Sheriff of Hong Kong"), and marimba ("Making Love to a Vampire with a Monkey on My Knee"). He also sings the second vocal on "Dirty Blue Gene".
Setlist
Nowadays a Woman's Gotta Hit a Man
Abba Zaba
Hot Head
Dirty Blue Gene
Safe as Milk
Her Eyes Are a Blue Million Miles
Flavor Bud Living
(with Gary Lucas)
One Red Rose That I Mean
The Dust Blows Forward 'n' the Dust Blows Back
Improvisation
Doctor Dark
My Human Gets Me Blues
Sugar 'n' Spikes
Dropout Boogie
Kandy Korn
Suction Prints
