I really WANT to like Trout Mask Replica...

yeah one guy was dancing and digging the rhythm, so was I, but the version on spotlight kid was just horrible in comparison.

Mind you, apart from Mirror Man, I haven't bought another Beefheart album since. And that was nearly twenty years ago.

There's a stunning version of "I'm Going To Booglarize You Baby" from the same show that you can download here.

I'm afraid actual live boots from the 60's and 70's seem to be few and far between - I suspect because there are so many later recordings with so much better sound quality.

There are plenty of tapes about 'though....

Was there a video of "Diddy wah diddy" set on a beach?

Or am I vibing again?

I think the documententary makers must have got the clip they used from some private source 'though 'cos I'm not aware of the whole thing being in circulation.

Though Zoot Horn Rollo's licks are certainly nothin to sneeze at either.

My story with this album, right there, though I did buy the CD used rather than taping it.

I'll join the line of folks who can't understand 'not connecting' with TMR - it certainly blew my mind when I first heard it. And I still listen to it regularly (that, and The Mirror Man Sessions.

I suspect I'd play more Beefheart if I owned more on CD - vinyl is often such a chore. But yeah, fuck it - classicclassicclassic

Fantastic gtrs, absolutely. It's always slightly annoyed me that I don't know which guitarist plays which part. I know Rollo played a Telecaster; so if I only knew what brand of guitar Jeff Cotton played...I STILL wouldn't be sure! (Can't differentiate between "glass finger" and "steel appendage" guitar...)

Thats a nice story, but I don't find it dated (whatever that means). I guess I loose you when Sonic Youth comes in, while I enjoy them I never understood the idea that they just blew guitar music apart or redefined it or whatever they were supposed to do.

I liked this right away, the only album I've heard from the Cap'n so I have nothing to compare it to. Eventually I'll get the others once I am not poor. The guitars are so scraggily, the spoken word/field recordings so absurd, the imagery is fantastic, TMR is it's own universe, an end to itself, while somehow fitting into the blues-based garage-rock what-ever tradition, albeit as somekind of mutant or abberation. It sounds old-timey and new-futurey at the same time. It doesn't sound dated, still, to me, it sounds other-worldly (or alternate-dimension-ly). So, so classic and I am going to listen to it after Futurama is over. (and if you have any drugs do those before listening to it obv.)

Other methods I've used to try getting into music I find difficult: randomizing the song order, listening to it in a different environment and/or eating delicious beef jerky while listening to the music on headphones.

Has the album yet been recorded that doesn't sound at very least tolerable while drinking a bottle of ice cold vodka on a warm afternoon?

They did? News to me.

If you hear the "outtakes" on the Grow Fins box (actually the fruits of an abortive first attempt at recording the album at the house where they were rehearsing), it's often hard to believe they aren't the recorded versions with the vocal track turned off, the playing is that precise.

The ones that aren't there on Grow Fins, are the ones recorded in Zappa's proper studio.

Plus "The Blimp" (which I always wondered about, as it sounds completely different musically to the rest of the album) was the Mothers not the Magic Band anyhow.

But you knew that...

That's a good point. I guess I'm being unfair to Cotton by assuming that the best licks are Rollo's. If you read his book Lunar Notes, he gives a song-by-song account of the records he played on, which should help in sorting out who played which parts.

Urban myth I'm afraid - they did try to record it in the house but gave up and went into the studio - very few bits of what was recorded in the house (mainly speaking bits etc. and one of the Hair Pie's IIRC) were actually used on the album.

Also 3 tracks that were used on the album (Moonlight On Vermont is definitely one of them, can't remember what the others were) were actually from an earlier demo session before they moved into the house at and have either Jerry Handley or Gary "Magic" Marker on bass rather than Mark Boston!

"Plus "The Blimp" (which I always wondered about, as it sounds completely different musically to the rest of the album) was the Mothers not the Magic Band anyhow."

That's right - although bizarrely it was actually Art Tripp and Roy Estrada who were playing, both of whom subsequently ended up in The Magic Band. I've got a couple of tapes with them playing it live!

Where should I go from here? Decals? (For what it's worth, I'm more of a Tom Waits fan than a Zappa fan [these are the best comaprisons i can think of].) I think I confused Beefheart and King Crimson back when I was in uni and so my abstract catalogue know-how is all mixed up.

Can you think of any meaty posts - or good 500-1000wd reviews - I could read online about this here thing? I'm curious about what's been said on the record, but don't really feel like reading a Beefheart book at this point.

reviews archive. lester bangs etc.

captain beefheart wrote most of the songs on the piano and gave the recordings to zoot horn rollo. beefheart's songs were mostly singing and banging, and rollo had to flesh them out into band arrangements.

this might have been natural for the band, but in the context of pop music up until that point, it's a pretty mind-blowing thing. messaien had been doing the same thing for the last ten years with birds, now rollo was doing it with beefheart himself.

as far as i know, it's the first "pop" record that rigourously exercised a conceptual performance practise during its recording.

anyway, I have been listening to Trout Mask so long, I don't perceive it as all that difficult, or hard to figure out. I mean it's a skein of drumming and there's some stuff hung on it--when I first listened to this record, it sounded dirty to me, not obscene, but vaguely musty, or like something just recently dead. I'm amazed he made as much of it work as it he did--it all works, for me, except some of the comedy shit which is better than Zappa's comedy music. the best is "Pachuco Cadaver" which kinda sums up what's great about this record, nobody has ever done anything that swings quite like that. as I always say, every time I talk about Beefheart, the essence of it is swinging/not-swinging at the same time, with those locked-in sections of...whatever, they're almost not even "riffs"--being the point, and the moss or whatever Beefheartian nacheral-world signifier you want to use, hanging over it. whether this was all DVV, all John French, both, who knows?

so, a record I don't listen to much any more--I still like to hear "Decals," "Clear Spot" and "Doc at the Radar." doesn't beat Howlin' Wolf but he comes close in his way, and of course beats Wolf and everybody, still to this day (TMR is hardly a buncha tired ol' beatnik/hippie shit, altho that's part of it, since that shit was tired in '69), in sheer egocentric bravado--right up there with James Brown or the Meters in my book-o-rhythm...

As far as I'm aware John French has always been pretty clear that "all" that he contributed to the process was basically to recognise the validity and significance of what Don was trying to achieve and to give himself over pretty much entirely to making it happen in whatever way he could. That's not to say that I believe that it would or could have happened without him - and I'm certain that it wouldn't / couldn't have happened in quite the same way without him.

All the guys involved in making that album went through some pretty severe privations during the 8-or-so months that they were basically locked up in that house in Laurel Canyon on starvation rations rehearsing that album over and over and over again and generally having their heads fucked.

Antennae Jimmy Semens actually tried to escape a couple of times and the rest of the band had to go after him and bring him back!

In his autoboiography, Zoot Horn Rollo otoh does seem to want to claim some credit for his part in the creative process - and whilst I wouldn't want to deny him that, it must be said his 2001 solo album doesn't seem to have much in common with The Magic Band.

I really think "TMR" and that music is as much French as anyone--he's what makes it all happen. he saw how stiff Don was, really, and being a good Christian he decided to give him his head...

http://ajournalofmusicalthings.com/captain-beefhearts-trout-mask-replica-album-amazing-hard-listen/

Meh

nobody "really wants to like" metal machine music