Doc at the Radar Station

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Doc at the Radar Station
CaptBeefheartDocRadar250px.jpg
Studio album by
Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band
ReleasedAugust 1980
RecordedJune 1980
StudioSound Castle Recording Studios, Los Angeles
Length38:52
Label Virgin
Producer Don Van Vliet
Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band chronology
Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller)
(1978)		Doc at the Radar Station
(1980)		 Ice Cream for Crow
(1982)
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar half.svg [1]
Christgau's Record Guide A− [2]
DownBeat Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar half.svg [3]
The Encyclopedia of Popular Music Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svgStar empty.svg [4]
The Great Rock Bible 7.5/10 [5]
Tom Hull B+ [6]
Music Story Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svg[ citation needed ]
MusicHound Rock Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar half.svg [7]
Rolling Stone Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar half.svg [8]
Spin Alternative Record Guide 9/10 [9]

Doc at the Radar Station is the eleventh studio album by American band Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band, released in August 1980 by Virgin Records.

Contents

Packaging

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 14, 1991 issue. [10]

Background

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".

Reissues

In 2011, 4 Men with Beards released a 180-gram version of the album, distributed by City Hall Records.

Track listing

All tracks are written by Don Van Vliet.

Side one
No.TitleLength
1."Hot Head"3:23
2."Ashtray Heart"3:25
3."A Carrot Is as Close as a Rabbit Gets to a Diamond"1:38
4."Run Paint Run Run"3:40
5."Sue Egypt"2:57
6."Brickbats"2:40
Side two
No.TitleLength
1."Dirty Blue Gene"3:51
2."Best Batch Yet"5:02
3."Telephone"1:31
4."Flavor Bud Living"1:00
5."Sheriff of Hong Kong"6:34
6."Making Love to a Vampire with a Monkey on My Knee"3:11

Personnel

Additional personnel

Notes

  1. ↑ Huey, S. "Doc at the Radar Station - Captain Beefheart | AllMusic". allmusic.com. Retrieved July 22, 2011.
  2. ↑ Christgau, Robert (1981). "Consumer Guide '70s: C". Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies . Ticknor & Fields. ISBN   089919026X . Retrieved February 23, 2019– via robertchristgau.com.
  3. ↑ Carman. "The Captain Beefheart Radar Station - Doc At The Radar Station". beefheart.com. Archived from the original on July 9, 2011. Retrieved July 22, 2011.
  4. ↑ Larkin, Colin (2011). "Captain Beefheart". The Encyclopedia of Popular Music (5th ed.). Omnibus Press. ISBN   978-0857125958.
  5. ↑ Martin C. Strong (2024). The Great Rock Bible (1st ed.). Red Planet Books. ISBN   978-1-9127-3328-6.
  6. ↑ Tom Hull. "Grade List: captain beefheart". Tom Hull - on the web. Retrieved September 4, 2020.
  7. ↑ Gary Graff, ed. (1996). MusicHound Rock: The Essential Album Guide (1st ed.). London: Visible Ink Press. ISBN   978-0-7876-1037-1.
  8. ↑ Rolling Stone Album Guide (1992) ISBN   0-679-73729-4
  9. ↑ Weisbard, Eric; Marks, Craig, eds. (1995). "Captain Beefheart". Spin Alternative Record Guide (1st ed.). New York: Vintage Books. ISBN   0-679-75574-8.
  10. ↑ "Rolling Stone's 100 Best Album Covers". rollingstone.com. Retrieved July 16, 2025.
  11. ↑ Barnes, Mike. Captain Beefheart: The Biography. London: Quartet Books, 2000.

Further reading

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