"It's very gratifying to say that Captain Beefheart's [Trout Mask Replica] is a total success, a brilliant, stunning enlargement and clarification of his art. Which is not to say that it's in any sense slick, 'artistic' or easy." – Lester Bangs, Rolling Stone
"If one is to enjoy Trout Mask Replica's twenty-eight songs on a desert island or anywhere else, two major obstacles must be overcome: its music and its lyrics." – Langdon Winner, Stranded: Rock & Roll for a Desert Island
"I love those words." – Don Van Vliet
During the Summer of 1993, which fell between my freshman and sophomore years of college and proved to be the final extended stretch of time I referred to my childhood home as "home," some high school friends—Ivan, Oskar, Pierre, others since forgotten—and I piled into someone's mother's backfiring minivan for a trip to Canobie Lake Park. It was the nearest "big" amusement park, certainly larger than Whalom Park, which was soon to be closed and condemned—the decaying clown mural on the back of its potato-sack slide loomed like a horror over Route 12 for years afterward. So it was Canobie. It was always Canobie.
Road trips to New Hampshire were common, whether to Pizza Hut in Nashua or Clark's Trading Post in Lincoln. "They wanna see you, bear, not me bare!" Canobie was somewhere in between and the weekend 495-to-93 traffic demanded a more consistent soundtrack than WFNX, WAAF, WBCN and WGIR could offer in tandem. Enter Oskar, who for years would gift the rest of us with mix tapes sourced from his own and his brother's fantastic collection of Touch and Go, Amphetamine Reptile, Sub Pop and other releases: Tad, Love Battery, Big Black, even big-timers like Nirvana and Ice Cube. It was great stuff—these were formative years and I would not be the know-it-all purveyor of taste I am today without those tapes as a launching pad. I received four of them over the course of eighteen months or so and number three was produced and delivered ahead of the Canobie trip. Somehow I ended up in the seatless back of the van that afternoon, a handsome and serviceable spare tire, and for my inconvenience I insisted we pop that shit right into the deck for its debut. Everyone agreed.
Following an indeterminate and undoubtedly solid indie-rock set, out of nowhere—and I mean nowhere, because to that point Oskar had covered from, say, 1985 on—hits "BUM-BA-DE-BUM, BUM-BA-DE-BUM," the Drumbo (John French) brilliance that opens Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band's "Moonlight on Vermont" from 1969. Then the guitar, that riff, that strangled, detuned riff! And here's the Captain, Thee Don Van Vliet, an impaled Howlin' Wolf on (battery) acid, "Ooonlaht on Ver-maw-uhh… fektid errehbodday, eee-vin…" Even me! Especially me. Passengers were skeptical and a sheepish Oskar apologized for its inclusion. "No," I responded. "I… like it?"
I don't remember much else about the day, if we unloaded next to the Yankee Cannonball, how many times we rode the Turkish Twist… what else was even on the tape ("Looking Down the Barrel of a Gun" might have kicked things off)—sadly it, the other three and my own mixes, Interrupting Cow Blues included, are among the missing. (I do recall a proper seat for the return trip.) But I listened to it a lot sophomore year and beyond, hearing "Moonlight on Vermont" over and over, and sometime later I walked to Newbury Comics (now back to prioritizing comics over music but bobble-heads and other bullshit over all) in search of the Trout Mask Replica source. It was a naive impulse in the "Maybe it all sounds like this" vein, given that most of my sixties exposure was limited to the Doors, Led Zeppelin, the Who, the Animals and Steppenwolf, excellent bands that nonetheless did little to evolve themselves or challenge listeners. (Cream and Hendrix flamed out before growing safe or stale—they and the Stones, whose More Hot Rocks nudged me toward their experimental 1967, are exceptions; early Pink Floyd, represented my freshman year by the roundly ignored discs one and nine from my friend's Shine On box, were a ways away; the post-1963 Beatles were somehow even further.) An oddball artiste like Beefheart stood no chance and my sonic adventure was doomed to fail—I was nineteen or twenty and simply not ready.
The following weekend or thereabouts—likely emerging from a haze of Southern Comfort, mushrooms and Beavis and Butt-Head—buyer's remorse approached the stereo and ejected the error halfway through my rotating-DJ set (I really did try to like it) in favor of something crowd-friendly like Last Splash or A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing. My college friends, unable to rank Teriyaki Asthma and Dope, Guns and Fucking in the Streets releases like the elitist pricks in that van, each fell somewhere along a decidedly more mainstream spectrum of Alice in Chains, Bob Mould, the Grateful Dead and fucking Snow, and so my evolving catalog was often met with the blank stares and/or targeted derision that often accompany "weirdo shit" scorned by MTV and Spin culture. And I fell for it. No one offered "Stick with it!" encouragement or "Who cares what we think?" wisdom and the disc remained in my collection for novelty reasons alone, its overlooked red spine fading to pink in the Boston glare. "No, it's 'Hair Pie!'" Drag.
For years, Trout Mask Replica was reduced from a double album to an unsupported single. The enlightened advice of "It's not too late for you if it's not too late for me" from the opening "Frownland" was aggressively avoided in place of biased muscle memory: Insert disc/Press play/Skip immediately to track six/Listen for four minutes/Stop-fast-stop-now! (The "squid eating dough…" introduction to "Pachuco Cadaver" served a purpose as the outgoing message on our answering machine for a period—I'm sure my roommates and their calling parents loved it—and was only embraced in the first place because, as track seven, my Stop! finger was slow on occasion.) Even the album cover was strange, the good Captain sporting a trout mask, replica or otherwise (and covering only half his face), which served as a minor accessory to a thoroughly batshit ensemble. And the illustrations? The illustrations! Lo, the Mascara Snake, what hath mine debit card wrought?
Time passes and people change. John Elway and the Broncos won two straight Super Bowls after losing three of four—badly—a decade earlier. Ian Svenonius emerged as David Candy after the estimable Make-Up was ruined "due to the large number of counter-gang copy groups which had appropriated their look and sound and applied it to vacuous and counter-revolutionary forms." Kyle Katarn, having forsaken the Force since the events of Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight, regained his powers—and his lightsaber—in order to save the galaxy in Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast. And Jarrod P. Biffington (Jr.), future blog-maker, decided "Sure, 'Marketing Assistant' sounds like it pays OK."
As a late-nineties nine-to-fiver with a thirty-minute reverse commute I was at last open to music beyond my Jesus Lizard/Unwound/Blues Explosion/Six Finger Satellite comfort zone (the latter pair really loosened me up), embracing mid-sixties Coltrane, English freakbeat and American garage and assembling them into a full-body orgasm of psychedelia that is well represented in the playlist blather at right (beginning, largely, with Volume 2). Trout Mask Replica, fortunately, had held fast to its dusty real estate between Cake Like's Delicious (1994) and Cat Power's Moon Pix (1998)—pigeons do enjoy their holes!—and my generous patience with an ugly relic was to be rewarded. The delayed appreciation of a masterpiece had begun.
"It makes me… nervous." – "Mike," 33⅓: Trout Mask Replica
Not so fast, brother. That retcon bullshit might fly as an "excerpt" cliffhanger but not here, where drafts become literature. Early in life I drifted, enjoying Van Halen, ZZ Top and Huey Lewis & the News as did everyone but only so much. The closest I came to real enthusiasm or fandom—heat—prior to 1988 or so was the video for Michael Jackson's "Thriller," projected onto the big screen at Roll-On America in Lancaster (still open—weep again for Whalom Park). "Thriller" interrupted all talk and motion, resetting the roller rink from an orderly flow of counter-clockwise middle-schoolers to an amorphous post-war landscape of frozen, transfixed children who'd anticipated this quarter hour all week. It was an event and we were all of one mind, in love with our shared moment. Then it was over and we went home on the bus. Remember that time Aaron and Rebecca made out in the back row and Aaron kept his eyes wide open? Weird.
There are few musical landmarks over the next several years. Columbia House's shady math delivered cassettes I rarely played—Brothers in Arms and High 'N' Dry are good examples—and I don't know that I could have named a favorite album had anyone asked. Maybe Business As Usual, the Rocky IV soundtrack or Metal Health, if only because my dad bought me an irregular black Quiet Riot shirt—the material had folded over itself during the silkscreen process and so one of the four-up band members had a big crease across his face—at a flea market inside the skate rink at… Whalom Park. Regardless, I was stuck listening to my parents' music in the car, a lot of which I actually liked: dad with WROR and Oldies 103, mom with Kiss 108 and Z-94. Jan & Dean and Roxette (I loved "The Look") never cohered well and I lacked a strong foundation of taste. Everything I heard was just fine, thanks, aside from a handful of individual songs I really did enjoy such as "I Love Rock & Roll" and "Dirty Laundry."
Then my dad got a new car—black Scirocco, stick, sunroof, tape deck. I'd heard a lot of The Doors from our giant living-room console but it wasn't until it became available in the car that I thought "Yeah, the Doors!" (I can already see myself flying G. and her friends to the space-mall in 2029: "You girls like the Doors, dontcha?" [Presses PLAY on future-mechanism-(x) device.] "'Let me sleep all night in your… soul kitchen!'" "Dad!") Others in that glove box were Introducing the Beatles, Out of Our Heads and compilations by Steppenwolf, Queen and the Cars. Right on. During road trips we'd take turns choosing and The Doors (he never sought their five other albums until I eventually introduced them years later—he responded to LA Woman in particular) was always my favorite. I became intimate with the album and can mimic the keyboard/guitar solo from "Light My Fire" right now if you'd like—it gets a little muddy around the four-and-a-half-minute mark but not as bad as that one night in college when I tried to impress a visiting French student—she called me "Zsarrod"—by writing out the lyrics to "The End" from memory. I had to excuse myself halfway through to grab the tape. No action.
So I appreciated classic rock for what it was but felt compelled to "get with the times, man" and pick out stuff I liked hearing with my mom too. Club Nouveau! Gino Vannelli! Steve Winwood! (Little did I know about his history.) This resulted in brief commercial affairs with Bobby Brown and MC Hammer—my dad once walked into my room after my alarm-clock radio went off, set to Z-94, and asked—without judgment or malice but genuine curiosity—"You like this?" I think I literally responded "I guess?" Something needed to be done.
By eighth grade, The Joshua Tree was the It album—I'm immediately transported to science class whenever hearing "In God's Country." That's where another student and I once failed to determine the elements in the "sludge" assigned to us, when almost everyone else got simple solids or liquids. Gimme a break. (The other headline that year was a triple murder in my town of nine thousand. Heady times.) Anyway, U2 was a decent crossover between my mom's top forty and my dad's classic rock and it even (though I had no idea) introduced the concept of a band's underground roots. By the start of high school I'd made my first mix tape, Hendrix's "Purple Haze" and Cream's "I Feel Free" sidling up against INXS's "Never Tear Us Apart" (?) and Genesis's "The Brazilian" (!). I cut a lot of grass to that tape, though Houses of the Holy eventually became the default. It was exactly as long as it took to mow the front and back yards.
Back to the Doors though, the ones who started it all. The Best of the Doors was exciting and I listened to that shit on my beautiful yellow Walkman every day for a good year, mostly walking or biking to and from work at the supermarket. (I bagged groceries and that was and is a worthwhile skill—corralling shopping carts too, except for that one time my friend and I took the automatic door right off its pivot trying to push a super-train of what had to be thirty carriages into the vestibule. We'll revisit the store ahead of the next section.) In high school I finally wondered aloud "Hey, what's this Led Zeppelin thing?" and approached my friend "Malcolm" to compile an hour-long tape for me. "An hour?" He had a point and couldn't go much beyond "Kashmir" and "Stairway to Heaven"—ten years later he could have directed me to cash-grab Early Days and Latter Days. It served the short term and the forthcoming Boxed Set's four cassettes joined Jim & Co. in the regular rotation. I soon bought their proper albums, knowingly leading with side two of the first album ahead of side one because the cassette reversed the order for some reason (foreshadowing, perhaps, the omission of "Good Times Bad Times"—but not "Your Time Is Gonna Come"—from the boxed set).
Fast-forward to a sophomore-year road trip to the Worcester Centrum for my first concert ever: Robert Plant, with opening band the Black Crowes. Earlier that day I discovered I was allergic to apples, having accompanied a neighborhood buddy to a local farm stand where his girlfriend worked and trying not to panic during the drive home as my throat closed up a millimeter at a time after eating the "free" apple—this was a day full of revelation. (I was in biology class with the girlfriend that year and she once vowed to never cross her legs because it was seen as a form of masturbation. Later, the teacher accused a group of us of cheating because we all independently answered "adaption" instead of "adaptation" on a test. I guess the alternative was that she was a bad teacher.) Our seats were far and in the same section from which my dad and I watched Jake "The Snake" Roberts sometime before. Rock and roll! The Black Crowes underwhelmed, their huge burnout banners all but labeling the band as Mick-and-Keith wannabes and their sound offering no hints at the perfect "Remedy" of our future. (My collection of contemporary actual-rock rock, beginning and ending with Living Colour's Vivid, was not expanded in the days to follow.) Plant was fine, I'm sure, since by then he'd gotten over his Bonzo stigma and started performing Zeppelin tunes again, starting with "Immigrant Song" while easing off the high notes. Otherwise I remember nothing—the guys I went with happened to have an extra ticket and were probably baked the whole time (not my scene), acquaintances more than friends, so it's not like we'd get together over the remaining high-school years and talk about that night when Robert Plant kicked our asses. Sophomore year was a weird one, transitional, and as a junior I'd have a new batch of friends.
Browse the pre-1991 entries of my cassette inventory and you'll notice a vague cry for help. Aerosmith? Yeah, they were OK, but it's telling that I never picked up Aerosmith or Get Your Wings. Prince? Apollonia was the best thing he ever did. Many others survived into the CD-upgrade age and beyond but most never made it: the Allmans, Bad Company, solo Eric Clapton (shudder) and even my beloved ZZ Top—thankfully, in that last example, because their remixed seventies albums are unlistenable. Nothing stuck, and certainly nothing contemporary. Enter Ivan.
He and I were aware of each other, as drivers are aware of persistent potholes, but we still joke about my initial impression that he was a jerk. Pierre and Malcolm, both of whom I'd known since fourth and first grades, respectively, were mutual friends and we played a lot of street hockey together, welcoming in Ivan sometime during the Fall of 1990. We must have hit it off pretty quickly—before long we were stopping at White Hen for giant sodas on our way to a game, and since the oversized cup was too big for the cup-holder (not a euphemism) I had to hold it the whole way, which was problematic with a manual transmission (and a tape deck for the win); my solution was to keep one hand on the wheel, hang tight to thirty-something ounces of root beer with the other and depress the clutch while shouting "Shift!" to direct Ivan to shift to third gear or whatever, resulting in zero accidents or stalls. Pierre and I were soon hanging out on the regular with him and his weird friend Oskar, another seen-him-around fellow who dyed his hair and wore Cure shirts, and that settled it. I had three best friends (two of them shiny and new), we were old enough to drive and Nashua was thirty minutes away. In my car it was Zeppelin, the Doors and the Stones but Oskar's soundtrack consisted of some far-out shit, the benefit of his own curiosity and a plugged-in older brother. Like this band Nirvana? I'm sure we all latched onto "Sliver" somewhere in Hollis.
Senior year, now driving back and forth to that supermarket, conveniently across the street from school. Following one bad Friday-evening shift spent collecting carriages in a downpour, the boys picked me up on the way to (probably) Nashua in time for us to hear a new song on FNX. "Have you heard this yet?" "What?" I was still pissed off from work. Someone turned it up and I had to admit that, yeah, "Smells Like Teen Spirt" was pretty great.
"This unclassifiable melding of country, blues, folk and free jazz filtered through Captain Beefheart's feverishly inventive imagination remains without precedent in its striking sonic and lyrical originality. Upon its release, the album [was] by no means universally embraced." – Regarding Trout Mask Replica's addition to the Library of Congress's National Recording Registry in 2010
"Bucking hip-hop's increasing turn toward stark urban naturalism in the late 1980s, De La Soul released this upbeat and often humorous album to widespread acclaim in the US and abroad. The group marshaled an astonishing range of samples that included not only soul and R&B classics by Otis Redding and the Bar-Kays but also Steely Dan, Johnny Cash, Billy Joel, Kraftwerk, Hall & Oates and Liberace." – Regarding 3 Feet High and Rising's addition the same year
"Thanks for the hand. But, uh, don't touch me." – Don Van Vliet
Helmet. Bad Brains. Royal Trux. Ministry. De La Soul. Don Caballero. Basehead. Dwarves. Polvo. Main Source. Cows. Sam Black Church. Unsane. This is what happens when you befriend someone who knows the time. Oskar was never smug or uptight about it—he made tapes for us because we liked the music. In college I felt superior and let everyone know it: Mudhoney and Love Battery were better than Pearl Jam; early B-side "Retard Girl" was Hole's only good song; Spin sucked (just don't tell anyone it's where I first heard about the Jesus Lizard). This attitude got me nowhere except with that girl who liked Bush, and even that only got me to second base. Most people like what they like and appreciate sincere recommendations, but hostility and disdain just make you—me—an asshole.
(I continue to judge your guitar-free bullshit but more with private sneers and eye rolls in the night than outward fury under a hot sun. Soon enough you'll appreciate Neil Young just like everyone else.)
I'd (I've) earned it. I went to the shows, number two being L7 at the Paradise (since replicated twice), much more intimate and… credible?… than golden arena gods. (That bit about "drink Pepsi" to the tune of "Just Like Me" was fiction. I think.) "I did the legwork, spent the money at Newbury Comics." On such a whim I bought a Jon Spencer Blues Explosion CD, having read about them somewhere like Ray Gun, incredibly having to rotate the issue seven hundred twenty degrees before completing a paragraph. Extra Width was their latest at the time—"The Explosion [sic] celebrated life with the rock & roll spirit raging inside their souls"—and the opening seconds of "Afro" left me conflicted. Disco? And then it happened, something I've never admitted: I wondered "Would Oskar like this?" and decided he would. That was enough—a switch had been flipped and doubt was smothered. Disco!
Oskar's direct influence persisted toward an expiration date and signed off before long with the fourth and final tape ("More Noise Please," et al). I was at sea. In 1994 I spent six months as a co-op student at a downtown advertising agency, clipping ads out of local papers and stapling them to receipts. That place was the best and seemed to have a stranglehold on all movie-related promotion throughout the region, which meant a boatload of pre-release screening passes. (Having seen Pulp Fiction before everyone else did little to purge my entitled elitism.) I was given the liberty to listen to music in my little square room and, deciding against being labeled by coworkers as an FNX stereotype—I had a bad chin-only goatee at the time—I stumbled across Boston College station WZBC on the left end of the dial, where indie music goes to die if you're ten miles outside the city. I wanted to be an impressive real deal, stumbling early when my phone-in request to hear the Breeders was met with "That's a little too popular, got anything else?" In a panic I hollered "Blues Explosion!" or "Jesus Lizard!"—I don't remember which but either was a solid recovery. I got over it and, maybe, myself.
The rest of college and beyond was driven by ZBC, picking up what they were putting down, halting only when I moved Out West in 2001 at the age of a doomed twenty-seven. Along the way, and alongside Trout Mask Replica (I haven't forgotten why we're here), I acquired other monumental works of art that remain as important to me today. You can basically skim the highlights: Liar, Orange, Severe Exposure, Endtroducing, I Can Hear the Heart Beating As One, Law of Ruins, Save Yourself, Deltron 3030. (I was also neck-deep in the White Stripes, self-satisfied in having "discovered" them in '98 on ZBC, of course. Buy their first single for several hundred dollars!) New music sometimes managed to find me—the Brian Jonestown Massacre, Le Tigre and Mr. Lif stand out from the era—but mostly I was seeking unheralded contemporaries of my dad's tape collection, spurred along by ZBC's "Psychotic Reactions," Rhino's second Nuggets boxed set and Little Steven's weekly "Underground Garage" program. Kinks, Small Faces, Pretty Things, 13th Floor Elevators, etc. As if my enormous CD collection (and moderate record collection, before I realized that records and turntables are stupid), taking up a whole wall of the bed nook in my Fenway studio apartment, wasn't enough of a since-purged burden. Then Napster came along and spared the furniture and square footage—"the heady days of theft"—and did you leave work early one day to ensure you finished downloading Van Halen's catalog before the RIAA injunction shut everything down?
Around this time in early '01 my new girlfriend/future wife reinforced Led Zeppelin III's value and exposed me to more intimate, personal musicians like Elliott Smith. In late '03, living a hundred miles apart, it was a bad day at a bad Northampton temp job when I called to tell her of his death, somehow not realizing how important he was to her. I'm still sorry for it.
(Back to '01 and weeks before the move, Unwound was to play the Middle East Downstairs on what came to be known as "9/11." I got my money back a few days later. Reflection is an art of highs and lows.)
Bad Northampton temp job, you say? Yeah, I know about those. Textbook sales didn't take and so I called up Suzy Spivey (whose "account has been suspended" because she probably scowled at someone who desperately needed her guidance) from the company minivan, double-parked in front of A's Boston apartment in a rain storm, pretending to call from UMass or Yale or somewhere and tendering my resignation. It was right before a big meeting for which I would have had to take up cocaine to prepare and I didn't have it in me. Fuck that job and fuck her.
There was no backup plan. That bad Northampton temp job followed another in Amherst, low-wage office busy-work at its finest. Let's say I had a lot of free time and a lot of long-distance-relationship drives on the Pike listening to Coltrane—I was really getting into his controversial post-A Love Supreme period and that made it OK to try new things. Like art school! Graphic design had been the goal for years (those bad covers I made for my mix CDs came from somewhere) and the only thing left to do before packing up and moving Back East was to broaden my skills with a basic-drawing class. Enter Holyoke Community College under much different circumstances, for it was one of my ex-schools as an ex-rep.
ART 121(C) – Basic Drawing
Introduction to primary drawing techniques, focusing on black and white and limited monochromatic color media, using a variety of media (pencil, crayon, charcoal, wash, ink, etc.). Emphasis is on sound observation, skillful employment of materials, increased exposure to the fine art of drawing and effective presentation of completed work.
I killed this class. I killed it. Charcoal, pastels, ink, I killed it! That nude model, I killed it! I even got to know a few people, one of whom I'm still friendly with (on Facebook, at least). And remember that girl who wanted everyone to grasp how outrageous she was? Good for her. She's probably married with four kids. One night after class I heard Radiohead's "There There" driving down the hill toward 202 and that's where I go whenever I hear anything from
Hail to the Thief, to that campus in the dark. It's the new "In God's Country." What a strange time.
The instructor was a good guy and not just for giving me an A. One day he walked in with an old, faded T-shirt depicting the
Trout Mask Replica cover subject (see?). "Beefheart!" I shouted. He laughed and explained that his son referred to it as his "fish mask shirt." "It's a great album," I lied.
Months later I was living with A. in Cambridge and enrolled at Mass Art. Eventually I had enough of a portfolio to merit more design-related temp assignments before landing for good where I remain twelve years later. Until then, though, I was mucking around in a relatively lucrative administrative position (sold to me as "marketing" but oh well), lapping up Bill Simmons, fucking around on Blogger and listening non-stop to iTunes's psychedelic "Technicolor Web of Sound" station. The fallout is evident from
Volume 1 (Can, Taj Mahal, "Electric Banana") but takes over in full on
Volume 2 (Ant Trip Ceremony, Russell Morris, Dragonfly). They
didn't play much Beefheart and what they did came mainly from 1967's
Safe As Milk, and those tunes—actual tunes—were pretty good: "Zig Zag Wanderer," "Electricity," "Dropout Boogie." By then, though, I needed no convincing because I was already a believer, already listening to
Trout Mask Replica all the way through multiple times per week. My old mental
Stop! mechanism was busted, out of warranty and misplaced anyway. Something happened soon after the world saw Janet Jackson's nipple and everything crystallized, everything improved (admittedly less so than if it had occurred during the "Love Will Never Do Without You" video). I bought
The Mirror Man Sessions.
"And here it is I'm with you, my daughter." – "Orange Claw Hammer"
Dear G.,
How are you, my love? Wonderful! Am I alive as you read this? I'm confident I'll live to be one hundred years old. Wish me luck!
I am writing from the year 2018. You are six years old unless I don't finish this for another couple of months, when you'll be seven. [Update: You are seven.] Do you remember when you were six and seven? It's a fun age, though they've all been fun, and it's incomprehensible that you are growing up--often in the last few weeks I've remarked how much taller you seem, as did everyone at Mama's family reunion earlier this Summer. "You've gotten so big!" What are you supposed to do with that? Ask for a tape measure? You smile and then get on with things the way kids do, the way adults can't because of the bewildered panic that accompanies Important Responsibilities. I'm just glad that after picking you up from school on the first day of second grade it seemed like you didn't want to grow up either, insisting that I call you "monkey" over and over as I have since you were born. You think that will never get old, that you'll never declare "Dad, STOP!"—even that an objective "Dad" will never replace the affectionate "Daddy." You and it will, though, and that's alright. We'll be friends again in your twenties.
I apologize for any future (past) dismissiveness aimed at your taste in music. Mama and I have done a good job establishing a foundation of Sam Cooke and especially the Beatles (your favorite band but for how long, since your favorite singer is--like everyone else your age--Taylor Swift?) and you'll find your own way as we did, for there is a deeper well than Kidz Bop. Maybe someone will make you the future-mechanism-(x) equivalent of a course-setting mix tape in 2029. Whatever you like, whenever you like it, I hope you'll always share with us what's important to you, be it music, books or CHUD art. We don't have to like it ourselves in order to appreciate that you do.
Don't be afraid to like what you like and dislike what you don't, as when that one girl inevitably gives you shit guff over your favorite or most hated song. You probably won't even be friends with her in five years, to tell you the truth, and you're handing her so much power? It took me years to like Trout Mask Replica because good taste isn't fast or easy. Leave the bad taste for everyone else. Even me!
I asked you to color in the image above, is that weird? It's a portion of Victor Hayden's gatefold sketches. You asked what it was and I said "I don't know, a spaceship?" I'll take credit for the art direction ("Just make sure there's a snake with eyelashes") but the execution is all you, right down to the Earth's inclusion and the "From G./To Daddy" legend I had to crop out due to rigid square-photo aesthetics. Click to enlarge your glorious detail. Anyway, I've been trying to write this post for years, as you know if you've read anything else here. (That poem is pretty great, right? "Put your phone away for your wife!") It's a mess and I want to be done with it, but in a way it's important to me to be proud of it. Blogs are nothing if not self-indulgent and that's what I'm about here, but if I don't finish this fucking cursed thing before a ninth round of beer and football then I will surely crack up. And I still have two sections to go! Goddammit. Rats.
Sorry I went a bit dark there. Mama always said my writing sounds angry, not that she's read any of it for years. Oh well. Be yourself, be an artist or a vet or a teacher. Be a dancer, an astronaut. A plumber (there will always be money in that). Whatever, just be your version of a strong woman. We need all we can get.
I so enjoy(ed) our time together, monkey, and I hope you know that.
Love,
Daddy
PS – Your Father's Day card to me this year, the one with the picture taken at school where you're holding a sign that reads "I love my dad because… he makes me laugh and he is always there for me ♥ ♥ ♥"? That's it right there. You and me. And those Bundys and Terminators can never take it away from us. XO
"You don't like it, but yet, you don't leave." – David Letterman, Late Night
"Oh Christ." – The Mascara Snake
Twenty-five years! (Seventeen, when I first conceived of writing this—a fine wine, it is!) Remarkable. (Frustrating.) How did we get from rolling around in the back of that van to here, Trout Mask Replica the anchor of my music collection? People like Little Steven latch onto the Ramones and how all of his favorite artists either influenced them or was influenced by them. (Others, with beards, pretend to appreciate the Velvet Underground or Neu! in the same way.) Space Ritual is one of two contenders to represent everything I like about my favorite bands, though I'm not now thousands of words into writing about that epic. For now. The other is Trout Mask Replica. Why? Psychedelia. Blues. Jazz. Lo-fi. Improvisation. Folk. Vérité. Humor. Art. How? Well…
First there was The Mirror Man Sessions, a belated expansion of a belated Mirror Man album that demanded my attention (and dollars) upon hearing "Gimme Dat Harp Boy" on "Psychotic Reactions." Four songs and fifty-three minutes were embiggened by twenty-three minutes of alternate (better) versions of songs that ended up on the band's second album, 1968's controversial Strictly Personal. Now we're talking! It's all right there in "Tarotplane," a fairly straightforward blues jam that maintains its Frenchman groove over nineteen—nineteen!—minutes without venturing into a morass of Grateful Dead noodling. "25th Century Quaker" followed, less urgent and half as long, its drum/bass/harp interplay sticking closer to the Stones than the Fugs. This was rock music, not necessarily (traditionally) psychedelic, and it's easy to see how I was drawn in.
"Mirror Man," though, was further out there, a fifteen-minute shuffle built around wordplay, vocal effects ("mirror worm, mirror wurrrm, meer-rrah wurr-erm-erm") and a half-written guitar riff. This is closer to what I remember of the band, the weirdness that sounded both improvised and rehearsed—the band was tight but the singer, shit, he was nuts and in on the joke. Too long? Sure. But I was smitten and likely have Coltrane to thank for it.
The slick, lovely guitar passages of "Kandy Korn" conclude the resequenced Mirror Man portion of this release with what feels most like an unfinished composition. It's good but not great like the other three. The original album opened and closed with "Tarotplane" and "Mirror Man," respectively, which makes sense because they're the two strongest tracks by far, but "Kandy Korn" closed Strictly Personal. It sounds even more demo-y there.
The outtakes kick in with strong non-phased recordings of "Trust Us" and "Safe As Milk." Flip that shit into a single and it's a hit, are you kidding me? Even more so substituting a punchier fifth take of "Safe As Milk" (from, yes, the Safe As Milk reissue) as the A-side. Hot. "Beatle Bones 'n Smokin' Stones" sounds like a goof and therefore loses me a bit, though this raw version blows away the meddled-with schlopp that ended up on Strictly Personal. Bob Krasnow mixes Gary Glitter albums in hell. "Moody Liz" is pleasant filler, previously unreleased in any non-bootleg form so far as I can tell. (I'm sure the pedantic community of virgins that comprise Discogs's "voting board" will let me know.) Reworked, it would have mingled nicely as part of Trout Mask Replica.
By the time "Gimme Dat Harp Boy" closed the set I was intrigued—nay, excited—enough to seek out the companion Safe As Milk reissue (also expanded and excellent) and, yes, give that third album another crack. Here's where I'll finally get to the part I've been using as an excuse to procrastinate all these years—please hold while I read Kevin Courrier's 33⅓: Trout Mask Replica. Granted, for a second time.
[Hold music: "The Blimp (Mousetrapreplica)"]
Master! Master! This is recorded through a fly's ear!
And you hafta have a fly's eye to see it!
It's the thing that's gonna make Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band fat!
Frank! It's a big hit, it's "The Blimp," it's "The Blimp," Frank!
It's "The Blimp"!
When I see you floatin' down the gutter I'll give you a bottle of wine!
Put me on the white hook back in the fat rack, Shadrach, Meshach!
The sumptin' hoop! The sumptin' hoop!
The blimp! The blimp!
The drazy hoops! The drazy hoops!
They're camp! They're camp!
Tits! Tits! The blimp! The blimp!
The mother ship! The mother ship!
The brothers hid under their hoods… from the blimp! The blimp!
Children, stop your nursin', unless you're renderin' fun!
The mother ship, the mother ship's the one!
The blimp! The blimp!
The tape's a trip, it's a trailin' tail!
It's traipsin' along behind the blimp! The blimp!
The nose has a cramp!
The nose is the blimp! The blimp!
It blows the air, the snoot isn't fair!
Look up in the sky! There's a dirigible there!
The drazy hoops whir!
You can see them just as they were!
All the people stir!
And the girls' knees trembles and run and wave their hands!
And run their hands over the blimp! The blimp!
Daughter, don't you dare!
Oh momma, who cares!
It's the blimp!
It's the blimp!
Finished? This isn't one of those book clubs where you can skip out after three chapters, show up with a bottle of chablis and complain about Hank and Mitch and those other no-good husbands disrespecting you at Friendly's. This is the real fucking deal. Now pull out that list of discussion questions you Googled. It's book report time and fair-use provisions are to be stretched to the limit.
1. Who, what, where, when and why?
"According to the principle of the Five Ws, a report can only be considered complete if it answers these questions." Let no one consider this incomplete!
1A. Who?
Author Kevin Courrier is Canadian, spells "color" with a U and grew up listening to the proper With the Beatles instead of some Americanized mish-mash of Meet the Beatles! and The Beatles' Second Album. He also wrote Dangerous Kitchen: The Subversive World of Frank Zappa and apparently cribbed a lot of its material to flesh out this book's early chapters. What, no six degrees of Randy Newman?
1B. What?
33⅓: Trout Mask Replica tells the story of the third album by Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band, released in June 1969. Maybe look into Holyoke Community College's reading-comprehension offerings if you haven't gleaned this by now.
1C. Where?
Mostly on the train. I alternated between reading 33⅓ during my morning commute and Stephen King's The Eyes of the Dragon in the evening. What took so long to get to that one? "Flagg! 'Twas Flagg!"
1D. When?
A couple of years ago, then again last week. Is HCC's line busy?
1E. Why?
I forget.
2. And sometimes how?
"Some authors add a sixth question, 'how,' to the list." I, author. And how!
2A. Acknowledgments
"I've tried to magnify my appraisal of one of America's most original artists by including those (like Blind Willie Johnson) who also occupy a kindred spirit of invention." In other words, Courrier cops to padding what could have been a ninety-page book by talking about not-Trout Mask Replica.
2B. Preface: "The Truth Has No Patterns"
The preface is more autobiography than anything else, casting Courrier as his own unreliable narrator in discussing his appreciation of the Beatles and Bob Dylan before "Mike" (to whom the book is dedicated) is introduced at a rehab center. A potential Zappa pissing contest—shades of "What's wrong with you?"—is averted as Mike literally disowns his copy of Trout Mask Replica to Courrier's benefit. The book's thesis, whether it's meant to be or not, eventually presents itself: "As a listening experience, Trout Mask Replica is the story of an artist who finds himself at his most free." It's a theme Courrier returns to a lot.
2C. Chapter One: "A Desert Island of the Mind"
"Trout Mask Replica is an album so assured in its isolated worldview that no matter how much it might alienate potential listeners, it still demands to be heard—on its own terms." There it is—strike Courrier's references to the album's supposed deliberate weirdness and the book is half as long. Trout Mask Replica is the last of five 33⅓ titles I've read, the others being (in order, I think) Don McLeese's Kick Out the Jams, Dan LeRoy's Paul's Boutique, John Perry's Electric Ladyland and Bill Janovitz's Exile on Main St. The books have their flaws (strengths universally involve a kind of song-by-song examination, as Courrier does later) and often retreat to a lazy refrain, anything from a disjointed effort to Be There Now to a pretentious insistence that You Just Don't Get It. Courrier goes both ways but not as thoroughly as McLeese.
The worst part about 33⅓: Kick Out the Jams is the continual focus on how radical—radical!—the band was, to the point that the music, the recording of the music and the general goings-on (internal politics, hectic touring, rock-god aspirations, etc.) that influenced the recording of the music are overshadowed. Grab a liberated coffee with Abbie Hoffman and rail about John Sinclair on your own time.
Similarly, Courrier spends several pages describing Beefheart as an artist, and artists are outsiders who make art and fuck you if you don't like it! Firmly in his corner, he compares the album to a bunch of deliberate art (or art-as-business) statements like Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music, Andy Warhol's Empire and so on, even though "Beefheart and his group didn't set out to make an Art Statement" (initial-cap emphasis his). Which is it going to be, an artist who happened to create an album or an album created by someone who happened to be an artist? He's wrapped up in this whole "Art!" miasma and losing his own argument in the first goddamn chapter. It's annoying, and not just because I'm likely contradicting myself as well.
Before long he settles on the album being "a bigger artistic challenge than any of those other departures from convention" and this, I think, is closer to the truth—just because an object is challenging doesn't mean it was intended to be. Deft use of a DH Lawrence quotation provides an eloquent conclusion: "Men are freest when they are most unconscious of freedom." Exactly. Can we talk about the music now?
2D. Chapter Two: "A Different Fish"
I suppose history is contextually important in order to understand the production and impact of a controversial album. Accordingly, Courrier takes us back to Beefheart's youth in the mad California of the fifties and sixties, in particular his friendship with and eventual alienation from Frank Zappa. There's a lot of talk of the origins of the name "Captain Beefheart" and early collaboration "Lost in a Whirlpool," which I just listened to on Google Music. "Uncharacteristic high falsetto" in no way prepared me for this humorous one-and-done onslaught. The rest of the chapter amounts to another visit to that Dangerous Kitchen—ticking egg timers up to your eyeballs—before looping in the founding members of the Magic Band.
2E. Chapter Three: "Jumping Out of School"
Why do people make music? "In general, pop music is about the celebration and sharing of good times." Get happy with Elvis, with the Ronettes! Get happy with the Beatles! Get happy with… Nirvana? "Vague cynicism and glib hipness" describes Kurt Cobain, alright, but chapter three is kind of a mess, treating Trout Mask Replica as though it were the first attempt to sidestep romance. "By contrast, the tracks on Trout Mask Replica speak directly to no one and to nowhere." By contrast to what? Everything ever recorded?
Courrier settles down as he moves forward in the timeline: contemporary musicians making the R&B scene; the brief singles-oriented period later collected on The Legendary A&M Sessions; a preview of the jazz talk to come in chapter five; the band's transition to a Beefheart dictatorship; the hiring, firing and ship-jumping that resulted from said power dynamic (with wunderkind Ry Cooder at center stage); an amazing what-if regarding the Monterey Pop Festival; Safe As Milk; the It Comes to You in a Plain Brown Wrapper/Strictly Personal/Mirror Man fiasco; and a more relevant overview of Zappa's achievements as a musician and label-head.
On the subject of Zappa and somewhat related to the overdone art-or-arse stuff earlier is Courrier's analysis of—simplistically—Beefheart's "instinct" versus Zappa's "theatrics." Chapter six gets into it but evidence suggests that Beefheart is coddled talent and Zappa his highbrow director. There is no reason for instances of extraneous banter to be included on the album other than a desire to include them on the album. Whose desire? Stay tuned.
Indeed, this chapter's second half tells an excellent story thanks to insight from people who were there and Courrier's ability to pull it all together. This portion through chapter six is what I came for. (Don't forget to make your girl a punchy playlist from page forty-three: Beefheart's cover of "Diddy Wah Diddy," the Amboy Dukes' cover of "Baby, Please Don't Go," the Count Five's "Psychotic Reaction" and the Haunted's "1-2-5." Heavy petting is guaranteed even without "Dirty Water," excluded for reasons of regional oversaturation.)
2F. Chapter Four: "A Little Paranoia Is a Good Propeller"
It's been awhile since Courrier spoke at length about someone other than Beefheat so let's bring back Blind Willie Johnson for another go. It's a worthwhile oeuvre (!) to explore (as I did after my first time through the book) but this comes off as more paid-by-the-word excess. Get on with it, already.
When we last left our heroes (hero) they (he) were (was) considering a redo of Strictly Personal. Beefheart swapped out half the band and wanted to do it right, do it like it was in his head, but he came to his senses (or was brought to them) and decided to look forward and not backward. First up? "Moonlight on Vermont." How would things differ had another song exposed me to the band? What if Oskar chose "Sweet Sweet Bulbs" or "Hobo Chang Ba"? The earlier "Abba Zaba" or later "I Love You, You Big Dummy"? I promise I would not have responded the same way. In 1993, "Moonlight on Vermont" was conventional enough to be marginally out of place next to what I was already listening to. Maybe that's what drew Oskar to include it at all.
It makes sense that the relatively straightforward "Moonlight on Vermont" and "Veteran's Day Poppy" (as well as another attempt at Strictly Personal's "Kandy Korn," which I guess they also considered unfinished) were recorded seven months before the rest of the album. Some minor adjustments were made to the lineup and group living arrangements (Beefheart in one bedroom, everyone else in the other) allowed for ample writing and rehearsing. Also: "I actually remember one time drinking pancake syrup. I was so hungry I just poured it in a glass and drank it. I had to have something in my stomach." That's John French, corroborating Courrier's stance that Beefheart was attempting to control everyone with caffeine, starvation and sleep deprivation. There is something to everyone's individuality being taken away, whether literally with Beefheart's new nicknames—John French "Drumbo," Jeff Cotton "Antennae Jimmy Semens," Bill Harkleroad "Zoot Horn Rollo," Mark Boston "Rockette Morton," Victor Hayden "The Mascara Snake"—or from a big-picture perspective considering the lack of individual income and the commune's remoteness and locked doors. The environment and work schedule were almost a con and, given Beefheart's portrayal in the book, some level of manipulation and tyranny is plausible. (Plus, you know, the drugs. Always with the drugs.)
Courrier uses, as further evidence of the "loyalty" that resulted from said "brainwashing" (his words), Cotton's feedback upon listening to Beefheart's self-important recitation at the close of "Old Fart at Play." "Oh man, that's so heavy." Is it? To me the response comes off as pure, exhausted sarcasm, "Yup, what a genius, we're awe-struck, can I have a damn cheeseburger?" These guys were on edge and no wonder—one day French is appointed de facto musical director, another day he's canned and erased from the Trout Mask Replica sleeve credits. If Beefheart's most trusted collaborator is expendable—French's job, aside from his own fantastic drumming, was to translate Beefheart's hums and growls into proper musical transcriptions for the group—then who was safe? French, of course, was back a year later for Lick My Decals Off, Baby. Doug Moon's nodding "Yeah, yeah."
This instability was yet to come. First they had an album to make.
2G. Chapter Five: "Music From the Other Side of the Fence"
More art talk! Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, etc. More jazz talk! Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, etc. OK, I'll bite, let's stick with Coltrane for a minute. Live in Seattle is bonkers and more of an acquired taste than probably anything in my music collection other than Coleman's Free Jazz. Whether or not Coltrane was on acid during the performance is irrelevant because (I think) he was experimenting with it around that time anyway—it likely assisted in detaching him from structured form more than, I don't know, turning his saxophone into Carlos Santana's cobra. He's playing how he wants to play on this and elsewhere—not to challenge, threaten or please but to express himself.
Courrier nails the resemblance but from the wrong direction. He continues to champion Trout Mask Replica as a meteor set to crush the world, much like he does Live in Seattle, but I disagree with his conclusion that "during the concert in Seattle, Coltrane decided to take his group through the most atonal abstractions he'd ever played" in order to find "what's missing from [his] playing." My objection is with the term "decided," the suggestion that this was a decision informed by testimony and debate. I don't think Coltrane operated that way. His career is often carved into periods—bebop, modal, spiritual, avant-garde, etc.—but if anyone asked I'm sure he'd have called it a single evolutionary path. Pros and cons, technical challenges, commercial potential? Nah. He was curious, introspective and instinctual, able to lean on an adventurous band (Jimmy Garrison, Elvin Jones, McCoy Tyner, Pharoah Sanders and Donald Garrett) that was up to the task. Sound familiar?
I imagine Beefheart knew how he wanted his music to sound. He knew, it was all right there, right in his head. Convert French and—bam!—the band would be with him, recreating that noise in his head without dissension. Zappa, though, Zappa was a different animal, an accused autocrat full of skill and satire and intellect. He knew what he was doing in that booth or living room or whatever it was and aimed to gently nudge Beefheart to hear it another way, to accept revisions to the plan. I doubt Beefheart recorded conversations with gate-crashing nitwits in order to edit them into between-song transitions—he might not have been recording them at all. No, Zappa was the one "instigating a number of theatrical pieces to include on the record," breaking the audio equivalent of a fourth wall like "The Theme From Gary Shandling's Show." I believe it was Beefheart's intention to include his and Hayden's "fast and bulbous" interchange as part of "Ella Guru." I even believe him when he's heard saying "I love that, I love those words" about the phrase ahead of "Pena." But to feature this run-through and other rough "skits" on the finished product? They may work—Exile on Main St. would similarly benefit from breathing room—but the format is an outlier among Beefheart's ten other albums. Not so across Zappa's discography. Beefheart was a master manipulator but Zappa was no slouch.
Creative clashes aside, Courrier indicates the sessions progressed smoothly and quickly. The band was well rehearsed, tight, so confident in their playing that additional takes would waste time echoing earlier ones. It's nice to read how proud they were and are of the results. Zappa reserved most of his meddling for post-production and, as a result, it's generally understood that engineer Dick Kunc (there's a handle) ran things even when in Zappa's presence. "Frank was just sitting there," according to Harkleroad. "He didn't really produce the album. There was no musical input, nothing." Afterward, removed from Beefheart's paranoia with tapes in hand (later insisting that "there could have been a number of suicides involved" had anyone else been in charge), Zappa finished the album and invited the band over for an Easter Sunday listening party. "Within a few months, when a few brave people put the record on their turntable, they would discover just how defiantly original it really was." Come on, man, "defiantly"? I thought we were past this.
2H. Chapter Six: "Fast 'n Bulbous"
"When Trout Mask Replica was released in the US in the early Summer of 1969, it was a double LP, not a single CD." Thanks for the technological history lesson. Steve Albini is dying to talk to you about planned obsolescence. "With an LP, you always had to approach your turntable with it, take out the record from the jacket and turn it over to play the other side. You had to do this four times with Trout Mask. With the CD, you are left with pretty simple options. For one thing, once you stick the CD in the tray, you never have to touch it until it's over." You didn't read part one above, did you Kevin? "Secondly, with your remote, you can abruptly skip tracks or put it on pause. You can quickly turn it off from a safe distance. It was far more audacious for Trout Mask Replica to come out in the age of the LP. To risk its contents, you constantly had to handle it." I don't include this repetitive passage in order to recognize the challenging nature of the album but to recognize the challenging nature of any album, to emphasize that records are stupid and that turntables, fake glasses, sculpted facial hair and chain wallets are the weapons of the common hipster poseur. Revel in the obscurity of your chosen medium, boast that pops and hisses (née wear and tear) are essential to your listening experience and rue the day when pressing vinyl becomes a faster, cheaper big-industry process. I finally sold my last twelve-inch record (Unwound's Live in London; import/orange vinyl/nerd-bait) and should have thrown a party for no longer having to store the thing. Thanks, San Francisco sucker who has yet to rate our transaction.
Onward. Call me crazy but I'm interested in the 33⅓ series for some mix of insight, access and echo-chamber praise for something I love. I'm certainly not going to read about the mostly repulsive Songs in the Key of Life. The good titles I've read—that is, four out of five—literally go song by song. That is why I'm reading, probably why a lot of people are. (Somebody is. They're up to a hundred thirty-five of the things.) Trout Mask Replica, despite its occasional lost thread, is a good book and I learned a lot about the songs themselves and what went into composing and performing them. Paul's Boutique, Electric Ladyland and Exile on Main St. provide even more information in their respective breakdowns, getting into sampling details, bass drama and French heroin. Yeah! (Information may not be knowledge, Frank, but it sure is fun.) In Kick Out the Jams, though, Don McLeese leans more on the title track's "motherfuckers!" call to action than on the song itself. Richard Daley weeps.
Courrier's song-by-song narrative (excluding "Moonlight on Vermont" and "Veteran's Day Poppy," covered in depth two chapters ago) explores the hostility between the two stubborn mules in the room. Beefheart had progressive songs and wanted people to listen to his album; Zappa had ambient fodder and wanted people to know they were listening to Beefheart's album. In between was this hot-shit band bashing away and craving both kinds of bread. "Look at them, Frank! They're trapped! They can't transcend their environment!" They all show nicely in the end… otherwise, what the hell am I doing?
2I. Epilogue: "Everyone Drinks From the Same Pond"
Courrier's wrap-up is a bit tossed off so I'll fill it out with hard internet facts. He attempts (lazily and kind of late) to describe the popular-music atmosphere into which Trout Mask Replica was thrust (shit, I sound like Courrier myself) and then the aftermath. A handful of glowing contemporary (Lester Bangs's "the most astounding and important work of art ever to appear on a phonograph record" declaration) and revisionist (Rolling Stone calling it "rock's most visionary album" in 1987, which is such a Rolling Stone thing to do) reviews mingle with the revelation that eighty thousand copies had been sold to date in 2007. Is that a lot? It doesn't sound like a lot. ("No one bought it," declared Oskar between songs on that tape, only he was referring to Paul's Boutique.) Overall, Courrier betrays a general "Huh?" kind of public reception—bewilderment, apathy or both. (A recent Sound Opinions episode reveals nothing new except for the fact that Greg Kot rhymes Zoot Horn "Rollo" with "follow" instead of, you know, the man's candy namesake. "Mr. Zoot Horn Roh-loh, hit that looong, lunar note and let it float." It's right there in "Big Eyed Beans From Venus," which you play a few minutes later before mispronouncing the name again, you bootlicking fraud!)
Courrier realizes it's been too long since he wrote about someone else so he rambles about the album inspiring the officially overrated Clash, Tom Waits, Devo and PJ Harvey. So what? And you left out Pere Ubu and Ween. "For an album that few people cared to listen to in 1969, Trout Mask Replica was finding its way, like a termite through wood, into the unconsciousness of the culture at large." So much so that you just spanned the breadth of this influence in like six pages.
A Wikipedia-level synopsis of the band's career finishes things off, repeating much of what was written at the end of chapter one about the subsequent albums: 1970's Lick My Decals Off, Baby, 1972's The Spotlight Kid and Clear Spot, 1974's Unconditionally Guaranteed and Bluejeans and Moonbeams, 1975's Bongo Fury (Beefheart's fence-mending collaboration with Zappa), 1978's Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller) (knocking that fence right back over), 1980's Doc at the Radar Station and 1982's Ice Cream for Crow. Such a long, enviable career! I can't blame him for retiring to the desert. I also can't blame everyone who quit along the way.
Here and elsewhere I could have used more regarding the album's place in 1969. Was it as ignored as it seems? What did unfavorable reviews have to say about it other than Robert Christgau's "great played at high volume when you're feeling shitty, because you'll never feel as shitty as this record" in a… wait, favorable?… B+ review. Toe-Fucker Chronicles will print anything. And jeez, didn't you see that picture with John Lennon lounging in front of a couple of Safe As Milk bumper stickers? What's that story? Instead what lingers is Gertrude Stein's notion that history isn't what we prefer it to be, it simply is. Someone tell Courrier. (Someone tell Trump.)
2J. Bibliography
Material is sourced from books, magazine articles, radio and television features and liner notes. Left out was the random Amazon reviewer quoted in chapter four.
3. "US: $12.95." 12.95??
Right? It's as much as I paid for the CD once upon a time. I appreciate what this series sets out to accomplish but you might say the brand is getting a little watered down when Shangri-La's compilations are considered "significant and worthy of study." Thirteen dollars (since inflated to fifteen) is a lot to ask for what is essentially a small-format zine. I picture the collection of authors to be trapped in a dungeon, shackled by out-of-the-box Indesign templates and visited every few days by a Continuum publisher who flings records in like a they're frisbees, frustrated writers pouncing upon them in a frenzied effort to distill every Mojo article ever written on the subject matter. "Mine! Mine! 'Certainly when put next to the flimsy, uncommitted music of most new British bands, Definitely Maybe spits feathers… spunky, adolescent rock, vivifying and addictive.' Mine!" These text-only animals aspire to "Daisy Meadows's" semi-regular meals, horse blankets and freedom to include illustrations.
4. What's up with HP Lovecraft? All of his stories are the same and people go nuts over him.
I have no goddamn idea. Putting aside the man's recorded racism, which you kind of have to do with everyone nowadays in a series of art-not-artist arguments, his repeated themes of forbidden knowledge, ancient (ugly) alien beings and smothering dread were interesting at first (as in "The Nameless City" and "The Festival," the first of his stories I read) but I was bored by "The Dunwich Horror" and woeful by overlong novella At the Mountains of Madness. "I am constantly tempted to shirk the details, and to let hints stand for actual facts and ineluctable deductions…" "I come now once more to a place where the temptation to hesitate, or to hint rather than state, is very strong…" "I might as well be frank—even if I cannot bear to be quite direct—in stating what we saw…" Then why am I reading? "Ibid" comes next—the irony must be deliberate, right?—but if "Dagon" is more of the same non-Euclidean-geometry nonsense then I'm out.
5. Is it really necessary to have read this book twice in order to gather one's opinions and anecdotes into a measured, cohesive think-piece of reasonably sub-TLDR length?
We're at twelve thousand words so you might rephrase that.
"It's not a proper post if I'm not all 'One day I'll write about Trout Mask Replica!' At this point it has to be the next thing I work on, right?" – Biff! Bang! Pow! (152 posts ago)
"I'm mortified that I have yet to finalize my Trout Mask Replica post, first mentioned in 2010 and drafted in 2012. If not this Summer then 2018, when I'll pretend the plan all along was to commemorate twenty-five years of octafish awareness." – Biff! Bang! Pow! (50 posts ago)
"Curse you, gentlemen! I move tonight!" – Charles Napier (not the actor)
In closing, let's address each of the album's twenty-eight songs because I don't know what "in closing" means. It's good enough for me, it's good enough for you, it's good enough for Bitches Brew.
A1. Frownland
The Coltrane/Coleman influence reveals itself immediately and I understand why this album once scared the hell out of me. "It's not too late for you if it's not too late for me," except when you draw it out for years.
A2. The Dust Blows Forward 'n the Dust Blows Back
Unaccompanied vocal number one. I assume the irregularities in the recording are edits and that hours of tape were massacred with razor blades and reassembled into a… cohesive?… whole? "Me and my girl named Bimbo… Limbo… Spam." Courrier says the noises are from the pause button but I don't buy that the track was recorded straight through with literal pauses.
A3. Dachau Blues
The percussive guitar that kicks this off is almost krautrock—eerie association. Wordplay is not a crutch and "Dachau Blues" is the real heavy shit. "Stop bein' madmen" may be good advice that never expires, though some drifter's rat story (obviously rehearsed) lightens the mood in what I suspect is the first of Zappa's "theatrical pieces" to prioritize the album as an artifact.
A4. Ella Guru
I feel like I can teach myself this one on the guitar if I can only figure out the chords and play it much more slowly. Courrier's "'fast-and-bulbous' motif" (?) makes its first appearance here but Cotton's pervy chuckles steal the show, Pulp Fiction's Gimp pumped full of helium.
A5. Hair Pie: Bake 1
"Whadaya think?" "Sounds sounds good good." "It's a bush recording. We're out recording bush. The name of the composition is 'Me–'… 'Neon Meate Dream of an Octafish.' [Chuckles, strikes match.] No, it's 'Hair Pie!'" "Chirp-chirp." "Bark-bark." Courrier's big theme throughout the book is that Beefheart is an artist and Trout Mask Replica a work of outsider art fully removed from the rest of 1969, an effort to create something fresh and challenging. I disagree and believe it to be genuine, made maybe without consideration of what would be relatable or commercial but not purposely defying those qualities… except for that chuckle. Beefheart let slip that anything called "Neon Meate Dream of an [sic] Octafish" is meant to provoke a reaction or otherwise hint at absurdity. It's only left hanging for long enough to light a cigarette (or something) until an earnest correction sets the audience straight, but that chuckle reveals a bit of palmed coin.
A6. Moonlight on Vermont
I wish I could remember what preceded and followed this on Oskar's mix. They command no blog hype.
B1. Pachuco Cadaver
Pachuco (pəˈtʃu·koʊz): Especially among Mexican-Americans, a teenage youth who belongs to a street gang known for its flamboyant style. "Hello, Matthew? Matthew? It's your mother. Is this you? What is that greeting? 'Squid' something? Should I be worried? Are you on drugs?"
B2. Bills Corpse
Too soon to bury Josh Allen? Never mind that it's probably meant to be "Bill's Corpse." And never mind that, unlike here, my music library substitutes a proper "and" in place of "'n" for "The Dust Blows Forward 'n the Dust Blows Back" and "Sugar 'n Spikes."
B3. Sweet Sweet Bulbs
"Her garden gate swings lightly without weight, open to most anyone that needs a little freedom." Such sweet sentiment, letting all know of a kind woman's safe haven! "For god's sake!" Spiritual refuge, even! She makes us proud. "Oh come, as many as you can." Well, there's only so much room, you know. There are benches and limited space for picnic blankets. Mrs. Wooten next door is quick to complain about noise. "In dark or light…" Whoa! You can't come at night. You know you can't… gather… at night, right? Have you read the zoning ordinance? "You're free to grow as flowers." You are not! I, too, will phone the authorities if you loiter past sunset. "Share her throne…" Our fears are realized, dear neighbors! Tis a sex cult! A gypsy sex cult! "And use her toothbrush." [Faints.]
B4. Neon Meate Dream of a Octafish
No "[sic]" required: verses are recited as "neon meate dream of a octafish" and "neon meate dream of a octafish" a second time. Silent H (hoctafish) and resulting a/an article flexibility implied.
B5. China Pig
Re-enter Doug Moon. "Do one of those 'uh-chunk, ch-chunk." I love the "Why don't you guys play this way?" tale recounted by Courrier, Beefheart admonishing his current band for being too adventurous and sounding nothing like the guitarist he fired for being too conventional. "A lotta people liked that pig," Jack White among them.
B6. My Human Gets Me Blues
"God dug your dance" was a one-time title of this post, as were "Tight also" and "Soft like butter, hard not to pour." But I stuck with a line from "Moonlight on Vermont" that encapsulates this years-long effort. "'Affliction' suggests not only a serious misfortune but the emotional effect of this." You're goddamn right.
B7. Dalí's Car
I probably would have sequenced this song elsewhere and ended the first disc with "China Pig" or "Well." It's a strange one with which to leave people hanging and trust that enthusiasm will get them off their asses and flip the record to dive into another slice of "Hair Pie." Also, didn't the first and fourth sides of double LPs usually get paired on one disc and then the second and third on the other in order to streamline things for automatic changers? Listening to records is stupid.
C1. Hair Pie: Bake 2
In which it takes me twenty-something years—and a book—to realize that the finished recording of "Bake 2" is what bleeds into the second half of "Bake 1."
C2. Pena
"I'm tired of playing baby!" Courrier calls this the harshest song on the album and, for once, I agree with what appears to be an agenda-free assessment. "The stark delirium of Cotton's voice disclosing this surreal event creates an unbearable tension that you can't escape from." Well, "unbearable tension" is a little strong. Everything's fucking black and white with this guy.
C3. Well
"Well" resets with another unaccompanied vocal, now clear of sound effects and (audible) fabrication. "Then I begin to druh-eeem." This comes from deep underground.
C4. When Big Joan Sets Up
Big Joan is left hanging halfway through until the Captain returns to reiterate that he is also too fat to go out in the daytime. The band (and Beefheart's saxophone) are reluctant to put this one away and, as a result, it's the longest song on the album.
C5. Fallin' Ditch
Come for "I run on beans" and stay for "I run on laser beans" but wake up tomorrow morning for the suggestion that "Rockette Morton," somehow pronounced "Rocket" Morton, gets all the action.
C6. Sugar 'n Spikes
Courrier and Wikipedia describe how the bridge here borrows from Miles Davis's arrangement of "Concierto de Aranjuez." As the recipient of several doctorate degrees in music theory, musicianship and sounds-like-ology (from, yes, Holyoke Community College), and having just listened to all sixteen minutes of that performance, I confirm their reporting as fact. You're welcome.
C7. Ant Man Bee
Similarly, Courrier references Coltrane's Africa/Brass (presumably "Africa" in particular) as influencing French's drumming throughout "Ant Man Bee." Again: confirmed.
D1. Orange Claw Hammer
The third and final unaccompanied vocal performance. Next time, choose a tamer song to introduce an open letter to your six seven-year-old daughter, alright? "The feel-good father/daughter/prostitute triptych of the year!" – John Phillips
D2. Wild Life
A tale of wild romance in which a married couple visits hospitable bears atop a mountain forever.
D3. She's Too Much for My Mirror
a.k.a. "She's Too Much for My, or Anybody's, Mirror." I love that Beefheart supposedly had a whole other page of lyrics that ran over, resulting in the realized "Shit, I don't know how I'm gonna get that in there."
D4. Hobo Chang Ba
Lifted wholly from the book because it made me laugh out loud: "[Bizarre/Straight Records owner] Herb Cohen noticed that Beefheart had ordered twenty sets of sleigh bells for the ['Hobo Chang Ba'] recording session. He pointed out to Beefheart that even if Frank Zappa and the engineer were added to the bell-ringers, they would only need fourteen sleigh bells with one in each hand of the performers. 'What are you going to do with the other six?' Cohen asked. 'We'll overdub them,' Beefheart replied calmly."
D5. The Blimp (Mousetrapreplica)
Come on, that hold music? "Tits! Tits! The blimp! The blimp!" Gimme a break. "I think that we have enough on the take and, uh, just use that as is for the album." Good idea, Frank. Be sure to insert yourself in there as well. "Frank!"
D6. Steal Softly Thru Snow
Merry Christmas!
D7. Old Fart at Play
Old fart running out of gas.
D8. Veteran's Day Poppy
Death to Mother Brain! It's funny that the two songs I felt the most compelled to mark—"Moonlight on Vermont," to blame for all this, and "Veteran's Day Poppy," lamentably compiled as part of Beauty and Perfection Are Mine—were the first to be recorded. Har! Har!
Exhale. What burdens the albatross itself? And what relieves the Tums tablet?
Why do you have to do this? You got to let us free.
Why do you have to do this? You got to set us free.
Why do you have to do this? You got to set us free.
Why do you have to do this? You got to set us free.
I'm with you. I've done it. Be free and listen for yourself.
Week one
The beer: Montauk Session India Pale Ale
