When Captain Beefheart started thinking about his next album in 1971, he took the band into the studio and recorded about thirty-five tracks, of which ten were eventually chosen to become 'The Spotlight Kid' - Beefheart's only album to be released under just his own name. Said Bill Harkleroad "We just went in there in the typical way that we worked. Just take it, keep it, move on. Don was trying to use the studio more. (He thought) here we are, they’re paying for it, let’s get the most out of it and put some things down – unfinished licks and riffs that he thought were songs. It was a very incomplete, uncontrolled situation, like "What the hell’s going on, what are we playing and where does this go?" Even with tunes that were "done", and that people think are great, a lot of them were unfinished ideas with a part missing here and there." There are more out-takes for 'The Spotlight Kid' than any other album, and that might just be a lack of quality control for a brief period in history, but as the band was note perfect on arrival, and rehearsal space is not the big expense, they just played and recorded as soon as they arrived. 'Harry Irene' appears for some reason in a spacious, lilting, delicate version, close to the final take, yet a decade away from release. 'Funeral Hill' is also well represented; if the tapes are anything to go by, they played that more often than anything else. It's just possible to believe that it metamorphosed into 'There Ain’t No Santa Claus On The Evenin’ Stage', but an argument can also be put forward for 'Glider' as well. Beefheart obviously had great faith in both that and 'Little Scratch', although the latter at least changed cosmetically, becoming 'Natural Charm' before it finally achieved release as 'The Past Sure Is Tense', in a much changed format. The harmonica featured on 'Seam Crooked Sam' in a terrific introduction to the track, and the two takes of 'Pompadour' total 25 minutes of the band just enjoying themselves in the studio, and is a mile away from the 'Shiny Beast' version.
During 1971 Beefheart had unprecedented access to studio time, presumably courtesy of Reprise, and so a lot of the rehearsals, jams etc. seem to have been recorded, as preparations for recording 'The Spotlight Kid', 'Brown Star' and 'Clear Spot' albums, and while the first and last of these did make it out of the studio, 'Brown Star' has long remained a legendary unreleased album. Apparently Beeheart realised that 'Brown Star' wasn't happening and aborted it; then had a rest and had another go which Ted Templeman moulded into 'Clear Spot', but there are enough unused tracks left over, even after removing the 'Spotlight Kid' and 'Clear Spot' rehearsals, to piece together an album that could have slotted in between those two in 1972. Of the songs that you might recognise, 'Circumstances' is a completely different take to the 'Clear Spot' version, so I've included that here, alongside that aforementioned jazzy take of 'Harry Irene', as that was originally recorded at these sessions'. 'Pompadour' is edited down from the two 13-minute jams, eventually becoming 'Suction Prints', 'Grow Fins', and 'Flaming Autograph', and 'Well Well Well' was an out-take from 'Lick My Decals Off, Baby', and I'm adding it in here as it is apparently the only thing from that 'Decals' session which was mixed down for inclusion but was then rejected. The rest is a mixture of the best instrumentals and vocal tracks recorded at the 1971 sessions, and while I'll admit that 'Clear Spot' and 'The Spotlight Kid' used the best songs, there is still some stuff on here which is worth hearing.
01 Pompadour
02 Little Scratch
03 Campfires
04 Funeral Hill
05 The Witch Doctor Life
06 Kiss Me My Love
07 Well Well Well
08 Your Love Brought Me To Life
09 Circumstances
10 Seam Crooked Sam
11 Harry Irene
