CAPTAIN BEEFHEART & HIS MAGIC BAND: Lick My eclectic" —has so far done awonderful job. Decals Off, Baby Everything has been digitally remastered, each Straight/Enigma Retro 773394-2 (CD only). Capt. Beef- CD is apicture disc, and not only are all photos, heart, prod. AAD. TT: 38:51 credits, and lyrics from the original LP sleeves THE GTO's: Permanent Damage reproduced in full, but, in the case of the Tim Bizarre/Enigma Retro 773397-2 (CD only). Dick Kunc, eng.; Frank Zappa, prod. AAD. TT: 31:37 Buckley releases, which originally had no LORD BUCKLEY: a most immaculately btp aris- printed lyrics, Enigma has gone to the trouble tocrat of digging up Buckley's original lead sheets and Straight/Enigma Retro 773398-2 (CD only). Lyle Griffin, reprinting the lyrics as found there (which prod. & eng. Frank Zappa, editor. AAD. TT: 38:51 often differ considerably from their recorded THE PERSUASIONS: Acappella Straight/Enigma Retro 773396-2 (CD only). Herb Cohen, versions). These are archive-quality re-releases, Stan R. Krause, David Dashev. prods. AA». TT: 38:18 and I, for one, am very appreciative. TIM BUCKLEY: Hello Goodbye But get 'em now, chilluns, 'cause this is the Elektra 74028-2 (CD only). Jerry Yester, recording din; Golden Age of the CD. Right now. Today. These Jac Holzman, prod. sup. AAD. TT 42:53 albums were all out of print long before CD TIM BUCKLEY: Happy Sad Elektra 74045-2 (CD only). Bruce Botnick, eng.; Jerry was asilver gleam in its daddy's multinational Yester, Zal Yanovsky, prods. AAD. TT: 44:45 eye, so don't you blame those cute li'l silver TIM BUCKLEY: Blue Afternoon saucers. These audio incarnations of Buckley, Straight/Enigma Retro 773504-2 (CD only). Dick Kunc, Buckley, Beefheart, et al probably won't be eng.; Tim Buckley, prod. AA». TM 39:56 around for long once the heady rush of '60s TIM BUCKLEY: Starsailor Straight /Enignu Retro 773505-2 (CD only). Stan Ago!, consumer nostalgists and fanatic collectors is eng.; Tim Buckley, prod. AA». rr: 36:04 over, even with the media cachet of New For- TIM BUCKLEY: Greetings from LA. mat! New Format! New Format! These records Straight/Enigma Retro 773506-2 (CD only). Stan Agol, represent strictly minority tastes, tastes which Chris Huston, cogs.; Jerry Goldstein, prod. AA». TT challenged conventions in an age far less con- 39:43 TIM BUCKLEY: Sefronia servative than our own. Enigma is half-owned DiscReet /Enigma Retro 7 73508-2 (CD only). Kerry by amajor label. Draw your own conclusions. McNabb, Larry Hirsch, Roy Cicalo, Greg Venabk, Roger Sermon aside, and beginning with Captain Dollarhide, cogs.; Denny Randell, prod. AAD. TE 38:26 Beelheart and the Magic Band, believe it or TIM BUCKLEY: Look at tbe Fool not the best -known name here: Lick My Decals DiscReet/Enigma Retro 773509-2 (CD only). Stan Agol, eng.; Joe Falsia, prod. AAD. TT: 34:22 Off, Baby, from 1970, is an aural, cubist por- trait of aknockdown drag-out brawl stylisti- one silvery morn, and the LP, after one look at cally pitting Omette Coleman vs Howlin' Wolf, the babe's rainbow face, began to wither away. with William S. Burroughs refereeing. Ithink The Who gave its next farewell tour. And as the Wolfman wins. This nightmare bastard son aluminized youth and vinyled age battled, the of the Delta blues follows up the punch that cassette quietly cornered the market. Some landed on an unsuspecting world the previous said that the Madonna herself had returned. year in the guise of Pout Mask Replica, but it's And from time to time, DiscReet rumors would amore confident, if less terrifying piece of surface, only to be plunged into the nether work. You should know that Capt. Beefheart darknesses of corporate bowels. is not big on melodies. Rhythm, rhythm, rhythm, A sad tale, but it is now ended. cross-purpose rhythms sticking out of the per- EMI International owns Capitol Records, cussive tornado like cars, cows, and barns. Yes, which owns 50% of nearly adozen different this man does know what "Diddy Wah Diddy" divisions called Enigma. One of these Enigma means (check out his A&M single of same from variations is called Retro; Retro is intent on the mid '60s—heavy metal before it had a proving that you can go home again, and has name). This is raw, difficult, nasty music, me- resurrected an astonishing amount of high- ticulously rehearsed and played, no rough quality late-'60s geek music that those of us edges filed off. (The good Capt. said that he who called ourselves "freaks" at the time lis- wrote all of Replica's 25 songs in one day, then tened to more than most of us would now care spent the next year teaching his band how to to admit. You see, we all believed that, in the play them.) In fact, the only similar rhythmic words of the great cartoonist R. Crumb, "minds patterns I've ever heard happened one day were made to be blown." Most of this weird, when Iwas working out in the gym: the cas- warped universe revolved around Frank Zappa. sette deck started playing both sets of stereo More than half of the releases Idiscuss here tracks of Sly & the Family Stone's Greatest Hits didn't. simultaneously, two forward and two back- Enigma Retro, which seems to have strictly ward. Crazy. restricted itself to reissues of Herb Cohen Well, Beefheart's back out in the Mojave acts—what was once "motley" is now these days, talking to bugs, painting in his

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