OUR MAN IN NIRVANA

The value of these "Beat The Boots" disks are in the rarity of the contents, and the sound quality. This one gets an average rating on both counts. The sound quality is fair. It sounds like a mono recording with a fairly flat sound. It's not great, but at least you han hear all of the instruments.

As for the rarities, there is a version of Bacon Fat. This would be good, as the version on "Broadway The Hard Way" has the lyrics all changed. But here, Zappa's mic is mixed down so far, you can barely hear him. The other rarity is the inclusion of two songs where Wild Man Fischer joins the band on stage. The value here is that you get to hear just how bad Fischer was, to make you grateful that you never heard his albums (I wasn't so lucky, years ago I had a housemate with his album, "An Evening With Wild man Fischer").

The rest is not bad, but nothing we haven't heard before. There is a decent medley, a jam that starts with A Pound For A Brown On The Bus and segues into Sleeping In A Jar. The tape runs out in the middle of the latter song, but it sounds like the bootlegger was adept at changing it quickly. The same thing happens in the middle of a long jamming King Kong.

The performance, aside from Fischer, is not bad, but this is in no way essential.