01	Frownland						01:41
	02	The Dust Blows Forward 'n The Dust Blows Back						01:53
	03	Dachau Blues						02:22
	04	Ella Guru						02:26
	05	Hair Pie: Bake 1						04:58
	06	Moonlight On Vermont						03:59
	07	Pachuco Cadaver						04:40
	08	Bills Corpse						01:49
	09	Sweet Sweet Bulbs						02:21
	10	Neon Meate Dream Of A Octafish						02:26
	11	China Pig						04:02
	12	My Human Gets Me Blues						02:46
	13	Dali's Car						01:26
	14	Hair Pie: Bake 2						02:23
	15	Pena						02:34
	16	Well						02:07
	17	When Big Joan Sets Up						05:18
	18	Fallin' Ditch						02:08
	19	Sugar 'n Spikes						02:30
	20	Ant Man Bee						03:56
	21	Orange Claw Hammer						03:34
	22	Wild Life						03:09
	23	She's Too Much For My Mirror						01:40
	24	Hobo Chang Ba						02:02
	25	The Blimp (Mousetrapreplica)						02:04
	26	Steal Softly Thru Snow						02:18
	27	Old Fart At Play						01:51
	28	Veteran's Day Poppy						04:31

Trout Mask Replica
Date of Release 1969

Trout Mask Replica is Captain Beefheart's masterpiece, a fascinating, stunningly imaginative work that still sounds like little else in the rock & roll canon. Given total creative control by producer and friend Frank Zappa, Beefheart and his Magic Band rehearsed the material for this 28-song double album for over a year, wedding minimalistic R&B, blues, and garage rock to free jazz and avant-garde experimentalism. Atonal, sometimes singsong melodies; jagged, intricately constructed dual-guitar parts; stuttering, complicated rhythmic interaction - all of these elements float out seemingly at random, often without completely interlocking, while Beefheart groans his surrealist poetry in a throaty Howlin' Wolf growl. The disjointedness is perhaps partly unintentional - reportedly, Beefheart's refusal to wear headphones while recording his vocals caused him to sing in time with studio reverberations, not the actual backing tracks - but by all accounts, the music and arrangements were carefully scripted and notated by the Captain, which makes the results even more remarkable. As one might expect from music so complex and, to many ears, inaccessible, the influence of Trout Mask Replica was felt more in spirit than in direct copycatting, as a catalyst rather than a literal musical starting point. However, its inspiring reimagining of what was possible in a rock context laid the groundwork for countless future experiments in rock surrealism, especially during the punk/new wave era. - Steve Huey

1. Frownland (Captain Beefheart) - 1:39
2. The Dust Blows Forward 'N the Dust Blows... (Captain Beefheart) - 1:53
3. Dachau Blues (Captain Beefheart) - 2:21
4. Ella Guru (Captain Beefheart) - 2:23
5. Hair Pie: Bake 1 (Captain Beefheart) - 4:57
6. Moonlight in Vermont (Captain Beefheart) - 3:55
7. Pachuco Cadaver (Captain Beefheart) - 4:37
8. Bills Corpse (Captain Beefheart) - 1:47
9. Sweet Sweet Bulbs (Captain Beefheart) - 1:47
10. Neon Meate Dream of a Octafish (Captain Beefheart) - 2:25
11. China Pig (Captain Beefheart) - 3:56
12. My Human Gets Me Blues (Captain Beefheart) - 2:42
13. Dali's Car (Captain Beefheart) - 1:25
14. Hair Pie: Bake 2 (Captain Beefheart) - 2:23
15. Pena (Captain Beefheart) - 2:31
16. Well (Captain Beefheart) - 2:05
17. When Big Joan Sets Up (Captain Beefheart) - 5:19
18. Fallin' Ditch (Captain Beefheart) - 2:03
19. Sugar 'N' Spikes (Captain Beefheart) - 2:29
20. Ant Man Bee (Captain Beefheart) - 3:55
21. Orange Claw Hammer (Captain Beefheart) - 3:35
22. Wild Life (Captain Beefheart) - 3:07
23. She's Too Much for My Mirror (Captain Beefheart) - 1:42
24. Hobo Chang Ba (Captain Beefheart) - 2:01
25. The Blimp (Mousetrapreplica) (Captain Beefheart) - 2:04
26. Steal Softly Through Snow (Captain Beefheart) - 2:13
27. Old Fart at Play (Captain Beefheart) - 1:54
28. Veteran's Day Poppy (Captain Beefheart) - 4:30

Captain Beefheart - Guitar, Harmonica, Clarinet (Bass), Horn, Sax (Soprano), Sax (Tenor), Vocals, Musette
Mark Boston - Bass, Guitar
Ed Caraeff - Photography
Drumbo - Drums
Frank Zappa - Producer
John French - Drums
Jerry Handley - Bass
Bill Harkleroad - Guitar
Dick Kunc - Engineer
The Mascara Snake - Clarinet, Clarinet (Bass), Vocals, Illustrations
Douglas Moon - Guitar
Rockette Morton - Bass, Vocals, Narrator
Zoot Horn Rollo - Flute, Guitar
Cal Schenkel - Design, Photography
Antennae Jimmy Semens - Guitar
Don Van Vliet - Arranger
Tom Recchion - Design

1989 CD Reprise 2-2027
1969 LP Straight STS-1053
1995 CD Reprise 927 196 2
1989 LP Reprise 2MS-2027
1990 CD Reprise 27196
1989 CS Reprise J5-2027



Trout Mask Replica

Most of this information originally appeared at Justin Sherill's Home Page Replica. Many thanks to Justin for handing it over to the Radar Station.



Song list:

Frownland
The Dust Blows Forward 'N The Dust Blows Back
Dachau Blues
Ella Guru
Hair Pie: Bake 1
Moonlight on Vermont
Pachuco Cadaver
Bills Corpse
Sweet Sweet Bulbs
Neon Meate Dream of a Octafish
China Pig
My Human Gets Me Blues
Dali's Car
Hair Pie: Bake 2
Pena
Well
When Big Joan Sets Up
Fallin' Ditch
Sugar 'N Spikes
Ant Man Bee
Orange Claw Hammer
Wild Life
She's Too Much For My Mirror
Hobo Chang Ba
The Blimp
Steal Softly Thru Snow
Old Fart at Play
Veteran's Day Poppy


Shopping guide from Justin Sherill:

This is perhaps one of the best-known Captain Beefheart albums, and can still be found as a CD. It is everything it is reputed to be: an incredible mix of influences crammed into a double-length album, with a sound that seems to exist outside of most musical styles.

With that in mind, it's hard to listen to. A common response to this album (from what I've been told) is initial hatred. It has a very cacophonous sound, but after listening to it for a while, it sort of creeps up on you, and you find yourself loving it. It does take some determined listening, though.

Regardless, it is a purchase everyone serious about music should make - just be prepared for a shock if you've been listening to more standard-format music.

Radar Station's shopping guide:

Nothing more needed to be said. If you have found your way to this site, then you probably already know it inside out. If you don't own it then buy, borrow or steal it immediately.

Leach's Listings:

A thorough guide to who did what on Trout Mask Replica, compiled by Jasper Leach.

Reviews:

Trout Mask Replica by Lester Bangs, from 26th July, 1969 Rolling Stone.
Trout Mask Replica by Buddy Seigel, from 25th March 1983 Los Angeles Times.
Original liner information:

ZOOT HORN ROLLO: glass finger guitar, flute
ANTENNAE JIMMY SEMENS: steel-appendage guitar
CAPTAIN BEEFHEART: bass clarinet, tenor sax, soprano sax, vocal
THE MASCARA SNAKE: bass clarinet & vocal
ROCKETTE MORTON: bass & narration
DRUMBO: drums [not listed on original liner, only CD reissue]

CAPTAIN BEEFHEART plays tenor & soprano sax simultaneously on Ant Man Bee, simran horn & musette on Neon Meate Dream; ANTENNAE JIMMY SEMENS sing lead vocal on Pena & plays flesh horn on Ella Guru; special guest artist DOUG MOON plays guitar on China Pig;

Produced by FRANK ZAPPA
Arranged by DON VAN VLIET

Engineered by Dick Kunc
Album design: Cal Schenkel
Photography: Ed Caraeff/Cal Schenkel
Special electronic modifications on Captain Beefheart's band equipment by Dick Kunc
Most recent in a long series of contract negotiations leading to an actual signing: Neil C. Reshen

All songs written by Captain Beefheart
c 1969 Words & music copyrighted for the world by Beefheart Music Co. BMI

Added to the CD issue after the words "most recent...":
CD design and restoration: Tom Recchion

A picture of the Mascara Snake and of Zoot Horn Rollo, from the gatefold interior of Trout Mask Replica.


Just for fun, Justin made this picture below on the left from the above picture of Zoot Horn Rollo, in an attempt to return it to the original colors. Next to it is a partial scan of the back of the album.


An amazing Trout band photo, credited to Ed Caraeff, which appeared in Rolling Stone # 507 in 1987. More of these shots can be found with the Grow Fins box-set.




Leach's Listings:

Trout Mask Replica

Compiled by Jasper Leach. If you can help with any further info, please get in touch.

All songs (unless noted differently)

Produced by Frank Zappa
Engineered by Dick Kunc
Recorded at Whitney Studios, Los Angeles, CA; April 1969
1. Frownland

Captain Beefheart: vocal
Zoot Horn Rollo: glass finger guitar & guitar (left channel)
Antennae Jimmy Semens: steel guitar & guitar (right channel)
Rockette Morton: bass
Drumbo: drums
2. The Dust Blows Forward 'n the Dust Blows Back

Captain Beefheart: vocal
Produced by Don Van Vliet
Engineered by John French
Recorded at Beefheart House, Woodland Hills, CA; c. 1969

3. Dachau Blues

Captain Beefheart: vocal, bass clarinet?
Zoot Horn Rollo: guitar
Antennae Jimmy Semens: guitar
Rockette Morton: bass, narration (voice at end)
Drumbo: drums
(The Mascara Snake: bass clarinet?)
4. Ella Guru

Captain Beefheart: lead vocal
Zoot Horn Rollo: guitar
Antennae Jimmy Semens: guitar, flesh horn (vocal w/ hand cupped over mouth)
Rockette Morton: bass
Drumbo: drums
The Mascara Snake: backup vocals
5. Hair Pie Bake 1

Captain Beefheart: vocal, soprano saxophone
Zoot Horn Rollo: guitar
Antennae Jimmy Semens: guitar
Rockette Morton: bass
Drumbo: drums
The Mascara Snake: bass clarinet
Two unidentified neighbours: voices at end
Recorded at Beefheart House, Woodland Hills, CA, c. 1969
6. Moonlight On Vermont

Captain Beefheart: vocal
Zoot Horn Rollo: slide guitar
Antennae Jimmy Semens: guitar
Gary "Magic" Marker: bass
Drumbo: drums
Produced and Engineered by Frank Zappa
Recorded at TTG Recorders, Los Angeles, CA; late 1968

7. Pachuco Cadaver

Captain Beefheart: vocal, tenor saxophone
Zoot Horn Rollo: guitar
Antennae Jimmy Semens: guitar
Rockette Morton: bass
Drumbo: drums
8. Bills Corpse

Captain Beefheart: vocal
Zoot Horn Rollo: guitar
Antennae Jimmy Semens: guitar
Rockette Morton: bass
Drumbo: drums
9. Sweet Sweet Bulbs

Captain Beefheart: vocal
Zoot Horn Rollo: guitar
Antennae Jimmy Semens: guitar
Rockette Morton: bass
Drumbo: drums
10. Neon Meate Dream of an Octafish

Captain Beefheart: vocal, musette, simran horn (siren?)
Zoot Horn Rollo: guitar
Antennae Jimmy Semens: guitar
Rockette Morton: bass
Drumbo: drums
11. China Pig

Captain Beefheart: vocal
Doug Moon: acoustic guitar


Produced & Engineered by Captain Beefheart
Recorded at Beefheart House, Woodland Hills, CA; c. 1969
12. My Human Gets Me Blues

Captain Beefheart: vocal
Zoot Horn Rollo: guitar
Antennae Jimmy Semens: guitar
Rockette Morton: bass
Drumbo: drums
13. Dali's Car

Zoot Horn Rollo: guitar
Antennae Jimmy Semens: guitar
14. Hair Pie Bake 2

Zoot Horn Rollo: guitar
Antennae Jimmy Semens: guitar
Rockette Morton: bass
Drumbo: drums
Unknown: sleigh bells
15. Pena

Captain Beefheart: backup vocals
Antennae Jimmy Semens: guitar, lead vocals
Zoot Horn Rollo: guitar
Rockette Morton: bass
Drumbo: drums
The Mascara Snake: voice
Frank Zappa: voice
16. Well

Captain Beefheart: vocal
Recorded at Beefheart House, Woodland Hills, CA, c. 1969

17. When Big Joan Sets Up

Captain Beefheart: vocal, soprano saxophone
Zoot Horn Rollo: guitar
Antennae Jimmy Semens: guitar
Rockette Morton: bass
Drumbo: drums
18. Fallin' Ditch

Captain Beefheart: vocal
Zoot Horn Rollo: guitar
Antennae Jimmy Semens: guitar
Rockette Morton: bass, "narration"
Drumbo: drums
19. Sugar 'n Spikes

Captain Beefheart: vocal
Zoot Horn Rollo: guitar
Antennae Jimmy Semens: guitar
Rockette Morton: bass
Drumbo: drums
20: Ant Man Bee

Captain Beefheart: vocal, soprano & tenor saxophone
Zoot Horn Rollo: guitar
Antennae Jimmy Semens: guitar
Rockette Morton: bass
Drumbo: drums
21. Orange Claw Hammer

Captain Beefheart: vocal
Produced by Don Van Vliet
Engineered by John French
Recorded at Beefheart House, Woodland Hills, CA; c. 1968

22. Wild Life

Captain Beefheart: vocal, bass clarinet
Antennae Jimmy Semens: guitar
Zoot Horn Rollo: guitar
Rockette Morton: bass
Drumbo: drums
23. She's too Much For my Mirror

Captain Beefheart: vocal
Antennae Jimmy Semens: guitar
Zoot Horn Rollo: guitar
Rockette Morton: bass
Drumbo: drums
Richard Kunc: voice
24. Hobo Chang Ba

Captain Beefheart: vocals, jingle bells
Antennae Jimmy Semens: guitar
Zoot Horn Rollo: guitar, flute
Rockette Morton: bass
Drumbo: drums
25. The Blimp

Antennae Jimmy Semens: lead vocal
Captain Beefheart: hunting horn, voice
Frank Zappa: voice
Roy Estrada: bass (uncredited)
Arthur Tripp III: drums & percussion (uncredited)
Don Preston: piano (uncredited)
Ian Underwood & Bunk Gardner: alto & tenor saxes (uncredited)
Buzz Gardner: trumpet (uncredited)
Recorded over telephone (vocal) and at Columbia University, New York, 1969

26. Steal Softly Thru Snow

Captain Beefheart: vocal
Antennae Jimmy Semens: guitar
Zoot Horn Rollo: guitar
Rockette Morton: bass
Drumbo: drums
27. Old Fart at Play

Captain Beefheart: reading
Antennae Jimmy Semens: guitar, voice
Zoot Horn Rollo: guitar
Rockette Morton: bass
Drumbo: drums
28. Veteran's Day Poppy

Captain Beefheart: vocal
Antennae Jimmy Semens: guitar
Zoot Horn Rollo: guitar
Gary "Magic" Marker: bass
Drumbo: drums
Recorded at TTG Recorders, Hollywood

Nicknames

Captain Beefheart - Don Van Vliet
Antennae Jimmy Semens - Jeff Cotton
Zoot Horn Rollo - Bill Harkleroad
Rockette Morton - Mark Boston
Drumbo - John French
The Mascara Snake - Victor Hayden
If anyone is able to complete or update any of the information above, then please do get in touch.



Trout Mask Replica Review


Written by Buddy Seigal, from 25th March 1993 Los Angeles Times

Don (Captain Beefheart) Van Vliet was among the most challenging and idiosyncratic of artists to come down the pike in the '60s. Drawing his influences from the blues, free jazz and the avant-garde, he made music and poetry that was at once freakish and tradition-bound, nonsensical and intellectual, recalcitrant and disciplined-contradictions that kept his work consistently compelling from his early days right through his still-lamented retirement from recording in the '80s. "Trout Mask Replica," his fourth album, is perhaps his most celebrated. The two-record set was produced by Frank Zappa, his childhood chum and musical benefactor. Often repellent but undeniably evocative song/poems such as "Neon Meate Dream of a Octafish," "Old Fart at Play" and "Orange Claw Hammer" reach out like acid nightmares or scenes from some early unseen John Waters film. The music is dense and frenzied: Van Vliet's saxophone wails, and fractious time signatures and demented compositions reveal debts to Ornette Coleman, John Cage and Zappa without ever losing their original, visionary qualities. Some may find the album so disturbing as to be unlistenable, but it is a manifestation of forethought and precision masquerading as anarchy: Van Vliet and his Magic Band knew exactly what to play, where to play it and why it works.

-Buddy Seigal




Trout Mask Replica Review


This piece, written by Lester Bangs, was taken from the 26th July 1969 edition of Rolling Stone.

Trout Mask Replica, Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band (Straight Sm 1053)

Captain Beefheart, the only true dadaist in rock, has been victimized repeatedly by public incomprehension and critical authoritarianism. The tendency has been to chide C.B. and his Band as a potentially acceptable blues band who were misled onto the paths of greedy trendy commercialism. What the critics failed to see was that this was a band with a vision, that their music, difficult raucous and rough as it is, proceeded from a unique and original consciousness.

This became dramatically apparent with their last album. Since their music derived as much from the new free jazz and African chant rhythms as from Delta blues, the songs tended to he rattly and wayward. clattering along on weirdly jabbering high-pitched guitars and sprung rhythms. But the total conception and its execution was more in the nature of a tribal Pharaoh Sanders Archie Shepp fire-exorcism than the ranting noise of the Blue Cheer strain of groups.

Thus it's very gratifying to say that Captain Beefheart's new album is a total success; a brilliant, stunning enlargeme and clarification of his art. Which is not to say that it's in any sense slick, "artistic" or easy. This is one of the few bands whose sound has actually gotten rawer as they've matured - a brilliant and refreshing strategy. Again the rhythms and melodic textures jump all over the place (in the same way that Cecil Taylor's do). Beefheart singing like a lonesome werewolf screaming and growling in the night. The songs clatter about - given a superficial listening they seem boring and repetitious. It's perhaps the addition of saxophones (all played by the five men in the band) that first suggests what's really happening here and always has been happening in this group's music.

On "Hair Pie Bake One," for instance, the whole group gets into a raucous wrangling horn dialog that reveals a strong Albert Ayler influence. The music truly meshes, flows, and excites in a way that almost none of the self-conscious, carefully crafted jazz-rock bullshit of the past year has done. And the reason for this is that while many other groups have picked up on the trappings of the new jazz, Cap and the Magic Band are into its essence, the white-hot stream of un-"cultured" energy, getting there with a minimum of strain to boot. This is the key to their whole instrumental approach, from the drummer's whirling poly- and even a- rhythmic patterns (compare them to Sonny Murray's on Ayler's Spiritual Unity or Ed Blackwell's on Don Cherry's Symphony For Improvisers), to the explosive, diffuse guitar lines, which (like Lou Reed's for the Velvet Underground or Gary Peacock's bass playing on Spiritual Unity) stretch, tear, and distend the electric guitar's usual vocabulary with the aim of extending that vocabulary past its present strictly patterned limitations - limitations that are as tyrannically stultifying for the rock musician today as Charlie Parker's influence was for the jazzmen of the late Fifties.

l mustn't forget the lyrics. You certainly won't; the album on a purely verbal level is an explosion of maniacal free-association incantations, eschewing (with the authentic taste that assassinates standards of Taste) solemn 'poetic' pretensions and mundane, obvious mono-syllabic mindlessness. Where, for in stance, have you heard lyrics like these; "Tits tits the blimp the blimp / The mother ship the mother ship / The brothers hid under the hood / From the blimp the blimp:. all the people stir / 'n the girls' knees tremble / 'n run 'n wave their hands / 'n run their hands over the blimp the blimp:".

The double record set costs as much as two regular albums, hut unlike most of these superlong superexpensive items it's really sustained, and worth the money, which is perhaps not so much to pay for 27 songs and what may well be the most unusual and challenging musical experience you'll have this year.







Tentative Review #23
Captain Beefheart
Trout Mask Replica
(released 1969)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Track: Rating:
1. Frownland
2. The Dust Blows Forward 'N The Dust Blows Back
3. Dachau Blues
4. Ella Guru
5. Hair Pie: Bake 1
6. Moonlight On Vermont
7. Pachuco Cadaver
8. Bill's Corpse
9. Sweet Sweet Bulbs
10. Neon Meate Dream Of A Octofish
11. China Pig
12. My Human Gets Me Blues
13. Dali's Car
14. Hair Pie: Bake 2
15. Pena
16. Well
17. When Big Joan Sets Up
18. Fallin' Ditch
19. Sugar'N'Spikes
20. Ant Man Bee
21. Orange Claw Hammer
22. Wild Life
23. She's Too Much For My Mirror
24. Hobo Chang Ba
25. The Blimp
26. Steal Softly Through Snow
27. Old F**t At Play
28. Veteran's Day Poppy

Personnel:
Captain Beefheart: guitar, harmonica, bass clarinet, horn,
soprano saxophone, tenor saxophone, vocals, Musette
Mark Boston: bass, guitar
Frank Zappa: production
John French: drums
Jerry Handley: bass
Bill Harkleroad: guitar
Mascara Snake: clarinet, bass clarinet
Douglas Moon: guitar
Rockette Morton: bass, vocals
Zoot Horn Rollo: flute, guitar
Jim Semens: guitar

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Comments:
Trout Mask Replica holds an extremely unusual place in the history of progressive rock, and of rock music in general. Despite being consistently listed as one of the greatest albums of all time by professional American critics, it's nevertheless an album which was heard by few people when it was first released, and not terribly many more since then. Though indisputably a "classic", it seems doomed to being recognized as such only by the "educated elite" of music fandom.

By the standards of progressive rock, moreover, the album doesn't fit into most conventional categories. To begin with, it lacks keyboards. As disorientingly strange as the music on this album is, it has no correlation whatsoever to its contemporary developments in keyboard technology. Being American in nature, moreover, it draws its inspiration almost entirely from jazz and blues, with very little in the way of a "modern classical" approach (with "Dali's Car", "Hair Pie: Bake 2", and "Veteran's Day Poppy" being partial exceptions). It still deserves to be categorized as "progressive rock", but with the caution that many prog fans may find that it falls outside their standard definition of the genre.

If Trout Mask Replica doesn't sound quite as demented thirty years after it's release as it did originally, it stills comes extremely close. Thoroughly detached from the regular musical world at the time of its initial release, it remains so today -- and remains a relevant album for those interested in exploring the limits of (ahem) "popular" art. Besides which, most of the musicians on the albums (especially CB himself) are extremely skilled at their respective arts. In comparison to many others albums released in the same year, Trout Mask Replica has aged remarkably well.

One minor weakness should be noted though. Although most of the songs on TMR are capable of standing on their own as fully developed works, the trademark "Magic Band" sound becomes a bit tedious somewhere in the middle of the second disc. The musical stylings which appear novel at the beginning of the album lose some of their appeal by the time of "Ant Man Bee" and "Wild Life". Perhaps this album simply has to be taken in proper doses. One way or the other, though, the reviewer is eventually left to wonder if the freaked-out style in which the band plays is the only style that they know ...

As regards the songs ...

"Frownland" is an incredible, two-minute opener, a progressive track with blues-styling singing, both "real" and extremely creative. Most "ideal society" songs of the late '60s seem incredibly lame in this present age; the earnestness of this messianic call, however, makes the character seem believable even now.

"The Dust Blows Forward 'n The Dust Blows Back" is an a capella number, mixing clever record pops with late-beat/folkish recitations. It's perhaps a notch or two below the level of genius some have claimed for it, but still quite good (and the "authentic weirdness" of the work is undeniably strong).

In spite of the (in the eyes of some) questionable subject matter, "Dachau Blues" is another excellent track, showing CB's incredible vocal range at its most diverse. This is followed by the twisted novelty-pop song, "Ella Guru", one of the strangest variations on romantic desire to emerge in the time period (and with a positively winsome chorus). The guitar solo is recognizably American, and based in a blues structure ... but it still comes off as innovative. The bizarre "mascara snake" interpolation is also notable.

"Hair Pie: Bake 1" is, if CB is to be believed, a band jam session in a bush area. It begins with a demented brass duets, accompanied by way what seems to be someone shuffling through a pile of leaves (this eventually resolves into some semblance of order). The track has some excellent musical shifts, and some extremely interesting guitar licks. Of particular note is CB's brief conversation with two naive stoner passerbys at the end of the track.

"Moonlight On Vermont" is easily one of the highlights of the album, beginning with a great post-psychedelic guitar line and demented lyrics sung in a way that must have caused some vocal cord damage. The combination of "Old Time Religion" and Steven Reich's "Come Out" is a work of genius, albeit one which may have gone over the head of many listeners (who may have been more interested in the "Last Train To Clarksville"-esque guitar line). The cleverness of this track eventually pushes it over the top.

"Pachuco Cadaver" continues the now-established musical dementia, strangely resolving into a catchy blues/prog-rock riff towards the ends. This is followed by "Bill's Corpse", a tragic lament for a drowned goldfish which sadly over half-fulfills its clever intentions. "Sweet Sweet Bulbs" is something much stranger; beginning as a double-entendre blues-based song, it eventually transforms into a much stranger lyric (a shift doubled by the musical development of the song from one not far removed from an average '60s pop song, to something closer to free-jazz).

"Neon Meate Dream Of A Octofish" is CB's ultimate automatic vocalizing work, a song which almost defies criticism of any sort. The music is fairly interesting, but is not the primary essence of the track (at least, not until the end) -- rather, CB's demented ravings are allowed to reach their logical fulfillment here.

"China Pig" may be a deliberate celebration of amateurishness, but it doesn't quite transcend its limits in the way it obviously intends to. The simple 12-bar blues riff and low-budget recording are obviously intentional novelties, but the joke goes on for a bit too long, and the the "grunting" noises don't really add much to the piece as a whole (though it must be admitted that CB's deadpan claim, "A lotta people like my pig", is worth a chuckle).

"My Human Gets Me Blues" is a tale of the human passion of Christ, sort of. The music wanders down its now-familiar route for the process.

At this juncture, the album seems briefly to shift in the direction of Frank Zappa's "serious" compositional style. "Dali's Car" is a guitar feature, cleverly written as a duet work which could easily have appeared on virtually any Zappa album. This is followed by "Hair Pie: Bake 2", a more tempered version of the earlier piece, making up in substance what it loses in novelty.

The dementia returns full-force with "Pena", perhaps the single most irritating piece of music written in the 1960s (in a good way, of course). The music, while solid, is again not the point as CB's high-pitched ravings careen in various directions.

"Well", another a capella number, features twisted lyrics transposed on a more conventional signing style (somewhere between WW1-era British popular songs and African American spirituals). An interesting change of pace, if nothing else.

"When Big Joan Sets Up" doesn't begin in a terribly interesting manner, but a sudden saxophone interpolation after the first minute changes everything. This is one of CB's weakest lyrics on the album, but the value of the music increases as the song developments (culminating in an extended closing section), and the song earns its high rating as such.

"Fallin' Ditch" (including the notorious "Rockett Morton" opening), is most notable for guitar/bass harmonies in the middle section of the work; otherwise, it's not terribly different from the rest of the material here.

"Sugar'N'Spikes" seems to be a companion piece to "Ella Guru"; aside from a terribly freaky free-jazz section (with a notable guitar melody), this one would seem a bit of a throwaway. "Ant Man Bee", likewise, is not really a distinctive track, despite eventually resolving into an interesting instrumental jam session.

"Orange Claw Hammer" is yet another a capella work, telling the tale of a railway hobo in search of his daughter. Beefheart actually gives a surprisingly realistic portrayal of the lost alcoholic protagonist, giving the song an edge it would have lacked in the hands of another.

"Wild Life" and "She's Too Much For My Mirror" continue the general trend of the album -- excellent musical works on their own, but not overly distinct for the rest of the album. "Hobo Chang Ba", aside from the unbelievably low vocals, essentially falls into the same category.

"The Blimp" is a Zappa-esque joke (aided by the presence of FZ himself, no doubt) with mind-numbingly simple music and an insane vocal development. It's a decent joke, but not much more. "Steal Softly Through Snow", though perhaps an underrated track on the album in general, returns to the general course of the album's musical basis.

"Old F**t At Play", despite its importance as regards the album's cover art, isn't really one of the better tracks here -- the music isn't terribly special, and even CB's twisted story of trout-mask seduction isn't quite a good as it could have been. It's clever, but doesn't have much else going for it.

"Veteran's Day Poppy", however, ends the album on a strong note (similar to "Frownland", in a sense). Good musical shifts dominate the song, and a partial reprise of "Dali's Car" at the end only adds to the value of the work as a whole. An easy highlight of the album.

It may be somewhat difficult to determine whether or not the album could have worked in a reduced form -- as per most double-albums with over 25 songs, there was clearly a bit of padding occurring in some places. They "filler" tracks are excuseable, though, and the work as a whole doesn't suffer from their presence.

An excellent album for those interested in discovering the promising roots of American progressive music (sadly left untapped in later years).

The Christopher Currie
(review originally posted to alt.music.yes on 17 July 1997)







Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band
Trout Mask Replica
Reprise
1969
CD Warehouse, Jacksonville, FL

"Fast and bulbous!" You may find yourself repeating this wonderfully silly exclamation to yourself and your friends for weeks after listening to this album for the first time. Like almost everything on this album, it makes no sense, but it sure is fun anyway.
Captain Beefheart was one of many enigmatic and colorful characters who emerged from the fertile musical landscape of the late sixties and early seventies. Unfortunately he ceased to exist when he quit making music and took up painting, along with his real name, Don Van Vliet, in the mid-eighties. However, this was not before achieving serious cult status and leaving behind several albums, the most famous of which being Trout Mask Replica.
This double length LP (now on one CD) is packed full of some of the weirdest songs and ditties you will ever hear. Beefheart's lyrics (delivered in a false, low, gravelly blues voice) are second to none in plain old silliness, but they always seem to be remarkably poetic. By the same token, the musical passages found on this album are some of the quirkiest and most jagged you'll hear outside of Henry Cow, yet they're substantially more listenable.
This is the most fascinating thing about Trout Mask Replica. It's odd music, but somehow very compelling. These short musical sketches are drawn with strokes of extremely angular and non-melodic guitar (imagine a drunk early Robert Fripp) and some occasional squeaking saxophone (think John Zorn). The band is rounded out with bass guitar and drums which, along with the guitar and horn, start, stop and tumble (though not always at the same time) through a veritable obstacle course of time signatures, keys and rhythms. While at times the band sound as if they have not rehearsed this album more than once or twice, this music is actually the result of the musicians spending months learning the transcribed parts which Captain Beefheart wrote in stream-of-consciousness fashion on piano. This is why prog and adventurous music fans are likely to enjoy this music. This is a truly an avant-garde approach to composing music, though it's all disguised with a thin veneer of supposedly blues-based rock'n'roll. Aside from one or two tracks, the only real evidence of the influence of blues in this music is in the delivery of the vocals and in the lyrics.
Unfortunately, such extreme music has a high rate of listener fatigue. The fact that this album is double length does not help. I have yet to listen to the whole album in one sitting, and I'm not sure I ever will, but I still recommend it highly.





Captain Beefheart - Trout Mask Replica

Member: Prog Owl
Musicians:

Captain Beefheart (Don Van Vliet) - Harmonica, Clarinet Soprano Sax, Tenor Sax, Vocals, Musette
John "Drumbo" French - Drums
The Mascara Snake (Victor Hayden) - Bass Clarinet, Vocals,
Rockette Morton (Mark Boston) - Bass, Vocals, Narrator
Zoot Horn Rollo (Bill Harkleroad) - Guitar
Antennae Jimmy Semens - Guitar
Gary "Magic" Marker - bass on "Moonlight On Vermont" & "Veteran's Day Poppy".


More than 34 years after its release, Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Repilca continues to confound, amaze, amuse, inspire, repel and compel anyone who hears it. The world of Captain Beefheart (aka Don Van Vliet) is one where dissonance collides with whimsy, where the blues dances with imaginary creatures and unpredictability rules the day.

So what does it sound like? How about this for an attempted description, Ornette Coleman, Howlin' Wolf, Stravinsky and Salvador Dali having a free-for-all peppered with alternately hilarious, harrowing, playful and heart wrenching free associational poetry. Sure, this doesn't even get close to adequate, but it's the best this Owl can do. One can hear the strains of jangling, raw, dirty electric blues colliding with free-jazz and Stravinsky-like dissonance, peppered with shards of whimsy and melody. The Magic Band's instrumentation of twin guitars, rumbling bass, frantic octopus-like drumming and in your face woodwinds (mainly bass clarinet and soprano sax) pulls this off with amazing flair.

The scary part is that this was about 99% completely planned out, meticulously arranged under the Captain's fanatical, dictatorial whims. Producer Frank Zappa took on the responsibility of capturing this inspired madness on tape with complete honesty. Among TMR's 28 songs, one finds a dizzying variety of moods from the simultaneously bizarre and hilarious ("Frownland" "Ella Guru" "Sweet Sweet Bulbs", "Pachuco Cadaver", Old Fart At Play", "Wild Life", "Ant Man Bee") to harrowing ("Dachau Blues", "Bill's Corpse") to heartwrenching ("Orange Claw Hammer", the Captain's unique version of a sea shanty, and "Veteran's Day Poppy").

Through it all, there's a raw honesty in this music that transcends it's knotted complexity, screamingly evident on a piece like "The Dust Blows Forward And The Dust Blows Back", a funny spontaneous a cappella piece recorded in the woods on a small tape recorder (pauses and all). Elsewhere, you can hear bizarre and hilarious studio banter and even a couple passersby conversing with the good Captain after a piece concludes.

This is the kind of record that would send record company executives and mainstream radio listeners screaming in terror, but for those with a taste for the rather adventurous, it's a garden of unearthly delights! Or to paraphrase one of the Captain's songs: "He do what he mean and he do what he do, got something' for me, got somethin' for you, and he's surrrrre something!!"