Image by Bradly Brown, from the Revenant CD issue of Grow Fins (1998)

Image by Bradly Brown, from the Revenant CD issue of Grow Fins (1998)

Image by Bradly Brown, from the Revenant CD issue of Grow Fins (1998)

Image by Bradly Brown, from the Revenant CD issue of Grow Fins (1998)

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CB poster.jpg
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The Artist Formally Known As Captain Beefheart

Don Van Vliet makes his first of two guest appearances on Late Night.

 
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Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band
Grow Fins Vol. I: Just Got Back from the City/Electricity
1998

Table of the Elements
[Tin] TOE-LP-50
2x phono LPs, gatefold jacket, libretto

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Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band
Grow Fins Vol. II: Trout Mask House Sessions
2000

Table of the Elements
[Antimony] TOE-LP-51
2x phono LPs, gatefold jacket, libretto

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Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band
Grow Fins Vol. III: Grow Fins
2001

Table of the Elements
[Tellurium] TOE-LP-52
2x phono LPs, gatefold jacket, libretto

Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band set rock on its ear from 1965 until 1982, when leader Dan Van Wet retired from music. Engineering a mutant strain of musical DNA (garage, punk, tuff-ass R-n-B, extraterrestrial field hollers, austere "classical" miniatures, loping sea shanties, scorched-earth delta blues, free-blowing skronk, fat-bottom groove and post-everything clangor all found their way into the soup), CB&HMB are now regarded as one of the most original and consistently compelling bands ever waxed. The closest to a Best Of collection as we are likely to see, this career-spanning set corrals rare tracks from a variety of sources (band members' personal archives, live tracks, demos, worktapes, radio spots) along with 112 pages-worth of text and never-before-published photos, the complete Trout Mask Replica house sessions, and John 'Drumbo' French's "colorful" history of the band. Hear a captain and his truly magic band. It you got ears, you gotta listen.

"Captain Beefheart is the most important musician to rise in the Sixties, far more significant and far-reaching than the Beatles; as important for all music as Ornette Coleman was for jazz, as Leadbelly was for the blues."
Lester Bangs, Rolling Stone

"What Beefheart inspired was not a reproduction of his Delta atonality or famous multi-octave range, but a willingness to rethink rock from the bottom up."
Spin

TRACK LISTING

Grow Fins Vol. I: Just Got Back from the City/Electricity

Side A

  1. Obeah Man, (1966 demo)

  2. Just Got Back From the City, (1966 demo)

  3. I’m Glad, (1966 demo)

  4. Triple Combination, (1966 demo)

  5. Here I Am I Always Am, (early 1966 demo)

  6. Here I Am I Always Am, (later 1966 demo)

  7. Somebody In My Home, (1966 live)

Side B

  1. Tupelo, (1966 live)

  2. Evil Is Going On, (1966 live)

  3. Old Folks Boogie, (1967 live)

  4. Call On Me, (1965 demo)

  5. Sure Nuff n Yes I Do, (1967 demo)

  6. Yellow Brick Road, (1967 demo)

  7. Plastic Factory, (1967 demo)

Side C

  1. Electricity, (1968 live) (listen)

  2. Sure Nuff n Yes I Do, (1968 live)

  3. Rollin n Tumblin, (1968 live)

  4. Electricity – ver. 2, (1968 live)

Side D

  1. Yer Gonna Need Somebody On Yer Bond, (1968 live)

  2. Kandy Korn, (1968 live)

  3. Korn Ring Finger, (1967 demo)

Grow Fins Vol. II: Trout Mask House Sessions

Side E

  1. [untitled 1]

  2. [untitled 2]

  3. Hair Pie: Bake 1

  4. Hair Pie: Bake 2

  5. [untitled 5]

Side F

  1. Hobo Chang Ba

  2. [untitled 7]

  3. Hobo Chang Ba, (take 2)

  4. Dachau Blues

  5. Old Fart At Play

  6. [untitled 11]

  7. Pachuco Cadaver

  8. Sugar n Spikes

  9. [untitled 14]

Side G

  1. Sweet Sweet Bulbs

  2. Frownland, (take 1)

  3. Frownland

  4. [untitled 18]

  5. Ella Guru

  6. [untitled 20]

  7. She’s Too Much For My Mirror

  8. [untitled 22]

  9. Steal Softly Through Snow

  10. [untitled 24]

  11. My Human Gets Me Blues

  12. [untitled 26]

Side H

  1. When Big Joan Sets Up

  2. [untitled 28]

  3. [untitled 29]

  4. China Pig

  5. Blimp

  6. Herb

  7. Septic Tank

  8. Overdub

Grow Fins Vol. III: Grow Fins

Side I

  1. My Human Gets Me Blues, (1969 live)

  2. When Big Joan Sets Up, (1971 live)

  3. Woe Is Uh Me Bop, (1971 live)

  4. Bellerin Plain, (1971 live)

  5. Black Snake Moan I, (1972 radio phone-in)

Side J

  1. Grow Fins, (1972 live)

  2. Black Snake Moan II, (1972 radio)

  3. Spitball Scalped Uh Baby, (1972 live)

  4. Harp Boogie I, (1972 radio)

Side K

  1. One Red Rose That I Mean, (1972 live)

  2. Harp Boogie II, (1972 radio)

  3. Natchez Burning, (1972 radio)

  4. Harp Boogie III, (1972 radio phone-in)

  5. Click Clack, (1973 live) (listen)

  6. Orange Claw Hammer, (1975 radio)

  7. Odd Jobs, (1975 piano demo)

Side L

  1. Odd Jobs, (1976 band demo)

  2. Vampire Suite, (1980 worktapes/live)

  3. Mellotron Improv, (1978 live)

  4. Evening Bell, (1981 piano worktape)

  5. Evening Bell, (1982 guitar worktape)

  6. Mellotron Improv, (1980 live)

  7. Flavor Bud Living, (1980 live)

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OWN THE ARCHIVE

(Posted by Within Things, May 18, 2023)

From 1993, US recording label Table of the Elements has staked its claim on a massive enterprise. It intends nothing less than to rewrite the history of American music in the second half of the 20th century. The label’s 150-plus releases are a vital contemporary chronicle, a survey of meaningful eruptions across a broad horizon of improvised, experimental, minimal and outsider sounds.

The label’s carefully cultivated archive now contains over 15,000 CDs and LPs, an impossible quantity to logistically or financially maintain. Rather than “recycle” the majority of these modern sound and design artifacts, Table of the Elements is making them available to the public via Within Things.

From rich bundles of obscure recordings, exclusive printed material, and limited quantity “holy grails,” Within Things is excited to help connect this important archive to the public. We’re very honored to collaborate with a label that helped define a path and inspire what we do, long before our store even existed.

Click the image above to be taken directly to the Table of the Elements section on our site, and stay posted for the announcement of limited offerings via our newsletter.

~~o0o~~

"The supremacy of Table of the Elements as an unwavering outpost of ultra-experimental strains can be attributed to its concomitant adherence to valiance. Most of the Table of the Elements catalog has no broad commercial appeal, and many of its projects are risky ventures, even with respect to the experimental marketplace. Yet, this philosophy of risk works because everybody associated with the label feels like they're doing important work releasing important records, and they're willing to go for broke to make it happen.”

—Pitchfork

"The music made and cultivated by such artists as Tony Conrad, Captain Beefheart, John Fahey, Cecil Taylor, Rhys Chatham, Charlie Feathers, Dock Boggs, Jim O’Rourke, Faust, Derek Bailey, Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth, Keiji Haino, Arnold Dreyblatt, Charley Patton, Harry Smith, and scores more, is at once among the most radical and deeply rooted of the 20th century, transcending time and place through the agency of the vibrating string, the resonance of the drone, the terrifying beauty of electric amplification, the hypnotic power of repetition, and the revelatory genius of cranky individualism. 

"How does someone begin to represent that in a visual manner? The trick involves some old-fashioned alchemy. Everyday commodity has to be constructed as both miniature museum and theater. No longer a mere object, it now becomes a site in which one can endlessly indulge a sense of wonder, love and, yes, obsession. It’s not often that someone can cast an influence on a broader design aesthetic — think Blue Note in the 1960s, with its hip Reid Miles album covers — but as this sizable body of work took shape, that’s exactly what happened.”

—Steve Dollar

“The hallmarks of this New Archivism [are] beautiful and innovative packaging, elaborate and idiosyncratic liner notes, rare and obscure recordings ... Working with graphic designers such as the Grammy-winning Susan Archie, [the label] produced a collection that combines varied textures, lavish finishes, and period details with art from the era of the original source recordings. Their treatment of Robert Longo’s late 1970s photographs for Rhys Chatham’s releases could, for instance, measure up to what’s on view at most contemporary art centers. In addition to its archival endeavor, TotE also releases the new work of its avant-garde heroes and their devotees. TotE’s active support of the work of sonic pioneers ensures that theirs are living traditions – not ossified museum objects.”

—Art Papers

Tony Conrad: Completely In the Present
A Film by Tyler Hubby

"Hubby's film captures Conrad in all his facets ... broadly as a man determined to make 'abstract art funny, happy, energetic, joyful.' Conrad lived long enough to see his early recordings, barely or never released, get the reissue and the attention they deserve. ... [Completely In the Present] is a sharp, sweet, eloquent documentary about the merriest, most artistically expansive minimalist on record. His work and his life asserted the importance of listening for the sounds nobody else has heard."

—Chicago Tribune

“Joyous, exhilarating, and transformative, Tyler Hubby’s documentary is essential viewing for anyone involved in the history of music and visual art.”

—Artforum

"Conrad was 100 percent badass. Without Tyler Hubby’s documentary and Table of the Elements ... one of the great stories of American music and art might have gone underappreciated.”

—Henry Rollins

All contents ©2024 Table of the Elements ®2024 Table of the Elements Archive. All Rights Reserved. Related media from the Table of the Elements Archive published courtesy the estate of Tony Conrad.

Since 1993, Table of the Elements has staked its claim on a massive enterprise. It intends nothing less than to rewrite the history of American music in the second half of the 20th century -- and beyond. The label’s 150-plus releases are a vital contemporary chronicle, a survey of meaningful eruptions across a broad horizon of improvised, experimental, minimal and outsider sounds.

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