Trout Mask Replica - Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band

Surely you've all heard it...


Whats your thought and opinions? Favorite songs? Any criticism...

 

Love it. Beefheart is the shit.

 

Thats right The Mascara snake! Fast and Bulbous.


Heres the whole album if anyone hasnt heard it yet...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mi8vz_3tZc"]Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band - Trout Mask Replica (1969) Full Album - YouTube

 

I like it. Hard to believe I thought it was noise the first time, but from what I've read and heard, most people do. I remember being semi pissed about it, too, as a dumb kid thinking that I could do that but they beat me to it with this "gimmick." Obviously, I didn't feel that way for long. Even on the 2nd listen, it began to sound different and I kind of liked it. After 3 or 4 listens, I'm pretty sure I was already convinced it was genius. Now, when I put it on, it just sounds like normal music. Every squiggle is so familiar I hear nothing but interesting rhythmic patterns. I wish there was a 2nd Beefheart album remotely like this one, but there's not. I own them all. I like them all, too, but nothing is really quite like this.

 

I definitly had one of those "What the fuck" moments when I first gave it a listen but for some reason I kept returning to it and listening, and like you mentioned it just started to sound like music the more I listened. It obviously doesnt sound like any other music though, it is definitly unique and a rare album.

 

The whole album is good a diamond in the ruff

 

Highly eclectic album....far too ahead of its time to be fully understood and accepted !!!

 

I heard that the band didn't do any drugs when making this album. Dunno if that's true, it's pretty hard to believe. Nothing this wild could be made without drugs.

 

Disagree.

Someone once asked Salvador Dali, "Mr. Dali, do you take drugs?"

Dali's answer: "I don't take drugs. I am drugs."
* * *
Beefheart's most famous colleague/cohort, Frank Zappa, also famously did not take drugs (besides cigarettes and beer), and his music is just about as crazy as one can imagine music being...

 

Though I would have to agree with Raga Mala, when I look at a picture like this of the band...

... Something tells me they were on drugs. Especially when you have a guitarist named Zoot Horn Rollo.

 

I've been listening to Zappa for years and while he's definitely out there, you can tell the difference between his composition style and the drug-heavy composers. I don't know what it is though.

 

Abut the drugs...
Zappa - no
Beefheart - yes

The story of this album, according to the band, is that the Cap'n had them all in a house in the middle of the woods where they rehearsed this album under extreme conditions akin to brainwashing. They were high on acid constantly, Beefheart actually locked them in there and sent 1 guy out for supplies. They got in crazy fights. It was like a madhouse. I remember a story of how one guy pointed a gun at Beefheart (or a crossbow or something) in front of Ry Cooder (if I recall correctly) and Beefheart just said something like "aw, put that down." Ry Cooder (or whoever) was absolutely freaked by the insanity he was witnessing.

Anyway, so when it came time to record the album, they did it live within a couple hours. Beefheart made them record it with cardboard on the cymbals and stuff like that which Frank Zappa did not like, but gave the Capn' his way. The band had rehearsed so much that they basically ran right through it like psychics or something. THEN, the good Cap'n recorded the vocals WITHOUT headphones on. He had it fairly memorized and just sang to whatever bleed he could hear through the studio window.

When it was over, the Captain told Frank that was it. Frank thought it was the most fucked up way to record he'd ever seen. He mixed it and let them listen to it and said Beefheart was thrilled about how it turned out. Then, after it was released apparently Beefheart told different people it wasn't what he wanted. Beefheart was a crazy mofo who took too much acid is my suspicion. And that is what eventually led to him and Frank not liking each other so much. I've heard interviews with them together and Beefheart just sounds completely out of it. Zappa kind of sounds like he thinks it's funny but maybe a bit sad (since he didn't really like to see acid casualty retards and he'd known the good Cap'n since high school).

Oh... and what sets Zappa music apart from drug music is the focus. I remember when I moved to a new college everyone was talking about how trippy Zappa was and I was like "really? Hmmm, I don't think so." His music never really appealed to me much in 4 years of tripping. When I later found out he was anti-drug, I wasn't really surprised. It sounds pretty good on weed and maybe I would have eventually liked it on acid if I gave it enough chances and listened to the right stuff (Hot Rats, for example), but overall I don't think his music is drug music. Some of the jamming can get into that territory, for sure, but it's kind of a controlled insanity... doesn't sound right when you're on acid.

 

I'm surprised the U.S. didn't use this album as a means of torturing detainees at Guantanamo. I tried listening to this several years before. I listen to a wide variety of music. But this is just painful.

I look for several things in music:
*harmony
*melody
*rhythm

No piece of music has to have all 3 in order to be worthwhile for me, but it has to have at least one of them down and have it down well. This album just sound schizophrenic to me.

 

its awesome
faston bulbous!!

 

I think you need to give it another listen, you cant compare it to other conventional music you listen to. And I must add, there is rhythms, you really just need to listen again.

 

I have tried. I will try in a few years, again, I'm sure, as I come across a thread like this, again.

Just to provide a bit more context, I have listened to some music that is considered hard to appreciate at first. A lot of it is jazz, some of it electronic. For example:

(Jazz)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dc7qiosq4m4"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dc7qiosq4m4

(Electronica)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6J2gv80ttK8"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6J2gv80ttK8

(Psychedelic Rock)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QX9_0NvVmZ8"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QX9_0NvVmZ8

And I could go on and on. But none of these tracks are that hard to appreciate. In fact, I think I know why I can't listen to 'Trout Mask Replica' at all. It's not that it doesn't have rhythm. It does. That's about the only thing it has. But the rhythm is just about made impossible to listen to thanks to the terrible singing (shouting?) and an almost nonexistent melody.

 

When I first listened to Trout Mask Replica, I thought, "So this is where math rock comes from!" There are some pretty cool things happening on this album but I rarely go out of my way to listen to it. And I don't blame white magic. You can't enjoy every artist. For me, I just don't understand The Mars Volta, at all.

 

I think when you listen, you should listen again in a few hours or the next day... twice. You will notice something if you do. If you wait several years, it will probably always be like the very first time. Believe me, I wouldn't suggest it if it wasn't worth it. You may have noticed my earlier post where I said it actually pissed me off on the first listen. I think I only listened to it again and again because I was at a friend's house who had it and I would be there for a day or two, so I kept going back and sneaking a listen, thinking, "GAH! I'm so mad at this thing!" and then, weirdly, I noticed it seemed to be changing right before my very ears. I think I only heard it only 3x that weekend in total, but it made an impression on me enough that I bought it to see what would happen with repeat listens. I didn't buy it because I liked it, I bought it because I was just confused about what I was hearing. However, shortly after I bought it-- probably the 5th listen, I realized I actually liked it, even though I wasn't used to it yet. By 10 times, I was definitely a huge fan. It's weird as hell how it sticks in your skull and changes.

 

Haha, interesting you would say that. I can at least appreciate Mars Volta. As far as understanding it (the meaning behind any of the songs), I wouldn't worry about it. The lead guy of the band is publicly proud of writing lyrics that seem to be indecipherable.

But as far as the music goes, it gets it all down well. Rhythm, melody, harmony? CHECK, CHECK, ANDDDD CHECK :2thumbsup:

That's a good way to put it. This music is offensive to the psyche. At least initially. The only way I could see myself giving it its due attention, over a sufficient period of time is if I was stoned. I need to try that

 

I'm listening to it right now and thrilled, if you can believe that. Haven't heard it in a good 7 years or more and I'm smiling in a room by myself at the sax at the end of Ella Guru (edit: Hair Pie Bake 1)