I MAY BE HUNGRY BUT I SURE AIN'T WEIRD

I actually got this CD before I was ever able to locate a copy of its official-release counterpart, Strictly Personal. While I do enjoy the heavy handed psychedelic production of that album, the unfettered versions still feel like the definitive versions to me. This particular release has since been made obsolete by the readily available reissues of Safe as Milk and Mirror Man (while Strictly Personal still languishes in relative obscurity), as bonus tracks on those CDs, so don't go out of your way to find this CD unless you're a collector.

The essay inside talks about the whole scandal involving the release of the aforementioned Personal album, how it was released on a small label (Blue Thumb) by producer Bob Krasnow and lots of psychedelic effects were pasted on to the songs after the fact, a move (supposedly, though I have doubts) that was not sanctioned by Beefheart nor the band. This release was the first attempt to set the record straight, even though I doubt Beefheart himself had any involvement in the release of this CD. It presents the majority of the album's tracks in their unfettered form, presenting them as tough blues-based psychedelic rock numbers, with strong hints of the jagged rhythms that would come to full fruition on Trout Mask Replica the following year.

"Trust Us" is my favorite of these, and it's presented here in two versions, though it takes a real close listen to tell them apart. It's probably the tune that comes closest to the Trout Mask sound. My other favorite is a song that never ended up on an official album, the mesmerizing "Moody Liz", a woozy song with brief group vocals at the beginning followed by a long instrumental coda - very similar in approach to the final album's song "Kandy Korn".

What's here is good stuff, certainly very handy for my collection, at least until the reissues came out, which has made this CD somewhat superfluous. Also, several of these tracks are incomplete or otherwise uncompelling ("On Tomorrow" is done as an instrumental, for example, and it doesn't make an especially interesting instrumental). But otherwise it's quite strong.