Doc at the Radar Station

Doc at the Radar Station is the eleventh studio album by Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band, released in August 1980 to favorable reviews. The painting on the album cover is by Don Van Vliet himself. It was placed at number forty-nine on Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Album Covers.

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 that would have mouldered away in the vaults had they not been exhumed and transformed into full-blown, totally convincing new material."^[5]

Track listing

All tracks written by Don Van Vliet

Side one

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

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

• Don Van Vliet (Captain Beefheart) - vocals, Chinese gongs, harmonica, soprano saxophone, bass clarinet
• Jeff Moris Tepper - slide guitar, guitar, nerve guitar
• Eric Drew Feldman - synthesizer, bass, mellotron, grand piano, electric piano
• Robert Arthur Williams - drums
• Bruce Lambourne Fowler - trombone
• John French - slide guitar, guitar, marimba, bass, drums
• Gary Lucas - guitar, French horn

Notes

External links

• Lyrics, reviews and details at the Captain Beefheart Radar Station