Trout Mask Replica C/D

on the grow fins box set (I think) there's one cd of beefheart and band practicing for tmr, and most of the tracks are instrumentals of tmr tracks. They're all great, but I mean the instrumental of sugar 'n spikes is kind of super revelatory. Kind of a must-hear imo.

I had a similar kind of epiphany when I saw The Magic Band at ATP a few years back because they were just absurdly good, and to hear stuff off TMR and the other albums played live, by gnarly old dudes, was really blissfully entertaining.

xpost

This is seriously one of the worst albums I've ever heard in my life. I cannot listen to it.

TMR is a truly inspired and beautiful piece of classic american art, imo.
The house sessions are revelatory. It just rocks like nothing else.
Not for everyone, I guesss.

Beyond personal definitions of good and bad, it's an important record. It's not a fun record. (Not sure CB ever made one of those.)

cmon Safe as Milk is soo much fun. It can get the right crowds motivated to move.

It's not a fun record.
it totally is! whaa? and capt. beefheart made plenty of fun records. maybe we have a different definition of fun.

one of the records that can make me nostalgic for the pre-internet age because wondering what it was like & hearing people talk about it/reading Langdon Winner about it was such a buildup & the curiosity got really intense over a sustained period of time before I actually found somebody who owned it to loan it to me. I remember getting it home: fuck yes, I'm going to hear it! and realizing I had no idea what I actually expected & being kind of floored by "moonlight on vermont."

OTM. Read about it for years before I heard it, mostly b/c it showed up on every Rolling Stone list. I could hear something in my head but it was very different from how it turned out. Took me many years to grow to love it

maybe we have a different definition of fun.

Could be. I love Beefheart and love TMR, don't get me wrong.

The first weekend I moved into the dorms at college, I got Trout Mask Replica, Rain Dogs and that single CD of about everything Ryko did of Mission of Burma back in the late 80s. That was one ear opening CD haul. Hearing something like Songs About Fxxking or Damaged or Frankenchrist was a WTF is this stuff crazy. I think Trout Mask Replica far out weirded them all. You can get with anger and it is understadible but what kind of emotions was the Captain playing out? Hard to say. Rain Dogs also had plenty of wow that is just different, but then hearing the Dust Blows Forward, the Dust Blows Back or Dachau Blues was like something coming from another dimension.

I dunno, I have to think this kind of experience is very different in an age where so much information is easily aquired. The thing about something like Trout Mask Replica back then was you couldn't jump on a PC and get the back story to try and explain such weirdness. I ended up listening to much music that went further than the Captain, but it was a jumping off point of sorts.

goddamn side 4 stands so well by itself... that side is the side that encapsulates the whole thing for me. at one point it was all I listened to off of this with occasional time outs for "Moonlight On Vermont".

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y161/MarkGrout/elegaroo.jpg

John French has his book out

http://www.propermusic.com/epk/teaser/drumbobookteaser.jpg

http://www.propermusic.com/epk/teaser/vol1.html