The only hint of reservation in that 1982 five-star review of Beefheart's Ice Cream for Crow that I mentioned before was that that album lacked the mellotron breaks that featured on Doc at the Radar Station. I can't remember exactly what adjective the reviewer used to describe those mellotron breaks, but it was something like "transcendent".
Several years later, after I'd acquired the Beefheart taste, I got Doc at the Radar Station when it became available on 'mid-price' vinyl. Of course, I listened out for those mellotron breaks. And I still do. There aren't that many of them, it has to be said, but there's a good one on Ashtray Heart, and another couple on Making Love to a Vampire….
The new listening room in this house is nearly complete; just the CD shelves to be built, and then the pictures to hang. It's next to the bathroom, so Lucy got to hear this through the wall while having one of her long baths. She asked me who it was: "not David Thomas, was it?" She quite liked it, but then she does own Trout Mask.
In the '80s most 'phones were still located in the hall, because that's where the Post Office had originally installed them, and wireless handsets or extra extensions were prohibitively expensive. Because 'phones did not yet outnumber people in England, I got even fewer calls than I do now, and I used to dread speaking to anyone who wasn't close friend or family. I could barely hold up my end of the conversation. Of course, it was even worse when no one called me. So when I heard the good Captain singing, on Telephone,
It's like a grey adder at the end of the hallI remember thinking, "Yes, yes, that's exactly what it is!" as I remembered the telephone in the hall of 41 Conduit Road, which, during the summer of 1987, didn't ring for weeks on end; and when finally it did, it stopped ringing before I got to it.
It's like a plastic horned devil
 MusicBrainz entry for this album
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