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Thread: Trout Mask Replica: Any friends or foes?

  1. #1
    Member StevegSr's Avatar
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    Trout Mask Replica: Any friends or foes?

    Capt. Beefheart: Trout Mask Replica. Get it on.
    To be or not to be? That is the point. - Harry Nilsson.

  2. #2
    Jazzbo manqué Mister Triscuits's Avatar
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    Fast and bulbous!

    A big, long-time favorite of mine.
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  3. #3
    The best description of Trout Mask Replica is that it is the Finnegan's Wake of popular music. And if you've ever attempted to read James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake, you'll know exactly what I mean.

    Give me Safe as Milk (with the great slide of Ry Cooder) over Trout any day.
    "And your little sister's immaculate virginity wings away on the bony shoulders of a young horse named George who stole surreptitiously into her geography revision."

    Occasional musical musings on https://darkelffile.blogspot.com/

  4. #4
    Forgive me but, O that Voice

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  6. #6
    Jazzbo manqué Mister Triscuits's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by The Dark Elf View Post
    The best description of Trout Mask Replica is that it is the Finnegan's Wake of popular music. And if you've ever attempted to read James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake, you'll know exactly what I mean.

    Give me Safe as Milk (with the great slide of Ry Cooder) over Trout any day.
    Well, since I regard Finnegans Wake (no apostrophe, greenhorn) as one of the two greatest novels of all time, I'll happily accept that parallel.

    Safe as Milk, meanwhile, is the Captain's equivalent to From Genesis to Revelation. (Or to continue the Joyce analogy, his Chamber Music.)
    Hurtleturtled Out of Heaven - an electronic music composition, on CD and vinyl
    https://michaelpdawson.bandcamp.com
    http://www.waysidemusic.com/Music-Pr...MCD-spc-7.aspx

  7. #7
    Estimated Prophet notallwhowander's Avatar
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    Has moments, but is hard on these ears. The little interstitial bits are great. I guess I like the idea and mythos of it more than the thing itself.

    I haven't had much mileage out of Safe As Milk either.
    Last edited by notallwhowander; 05-26-2016 at 11:14 PM.
    Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world.

  8. #8
    cunning linguist 3LockBox's Avatar
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    I don't get it and don't believe those who say they do.

  9. #9
    Progga mogrooves's Avatar
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    Long-time friend but somewhat estranged; I tend to hang with Decals.
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  10. #10
    Cant believe he was able to fill 2 discs with that nonsense... I like 1 or 2 tracks off every album he ever made. My favorite is "ice cream for crow". Overall, I'd say I never got the beef. And wont be attempting to get it in this lifetime.
    Still alive and well...

  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by Mister Triscuits View Post
    Well, since I regard Finnegans Wake (no apostrophe, greenhorn) as one of the two greatest novels of all time, I'll happily accept that parallel.

    Safe as Milk, meanwhile, is the Captain's equivalent to From Genesis to Revelation. (Or to continue the Joyce analogy, his Chamber Music.)
    I was once a foe. I overheard Beefheart playing at a friend's house (not sure what album it was) and I remember looking at another friend and saying "what IS this?" Years later I bought Trout based on ravings here on PE and liked it almost instantly. It's wild and weird and fulfills me in a way most of my other music doesn't, although it isn't always what I want to hear either. I'd say the band that tends to scratch the same itch is The Residents, although they are still different in another way.

    I agree with your comparison of "Safe as Milk" as Beefheart's "From Genesis to Revelation". It doesn't yet have the flavor that made the band great.
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  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by 3LockBox View Post
    I don't get it and don't believe those who say they do.
    I sure get a lot of mileage out of my fake appreciation of it.

    "My smile is stuck
    I cannot go back to your Frownland
    My spirit’s made up of the ocean
    And the sky ‘n’ the sun ‘n’ the moon
    ‘n’ all my eyes can see
    I cannot go back to your land of gloom
    Where black jagged shadows
    Remind me of the coming of your doom
    I want my own land
    Take my hand and come with me
    It’s not too late for you
    It’s not too late for me
    To find my homeland
    Where a man can stand by another man
    Without an ego flying
    With no man lying
    ‘n’ no one dying by an earthly hand
    Let the devils burn and the beggar learn
    ‘n’ the little girls that live in those old worlds
    Take my kind hand
    My smile is stuck
    I cannot go back to your Frownland
    I cannot go back to your Frownland"
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  13. #13
    Member rcarlberg's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by 3LockBox View Post
    I don't get it and don't believe those who say they do.
    Think of it as an intelligence test.

    The skeleton key is "Pachuco Cadaver." (Note the Joyce reference...)

  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by 3LockBox View Post
    I don't get it and don't believe those who say they do.
    That's your problem, and especially since you're then consequently part of a complete tendency of mentalities with folks who write off what they themselves don't "get" as being somehow necessarily "ungettable" at large. A classic case of constructing an embryonic conspiracy theory, no matter how unconscious it may be; "I don't 'get it', and I can't see how anyone else could ever possibly 'get it' either, so if they still say that they DO 'get it' then that's because of some hidden motive or agenda directed at us who keep seeing the naked emperor. And abstract painting, expressionist literature, contemporary composition - it's all just a bluff since I myself don't 'get it'. What matters here is I, ME, MINE".

    No it isn't. Art is NOT obligated to speak to you personally. And sometimes you don't even have to 'get it' in order to actually enjoy it. When little kids for whatever reason like Beefheart or Magma, it's not because they 'get it' but due to some instinctive layer of organic cmmunication in the music and the ideas behind it.

    Trout Mask is a milestone record which never fails in its provocative task, and it remains an utter nightmare to sit through in entirety. I think I've successfully done that twice. Then there are all of those occasions where I just gave up. But "Ella Guru", "Moonlight on Vermont", "The Blimp, "Pena", "Frownland", "Dachau Blues", "China Pig", "Dali's Car" and "Veteran's Day Poppy" (With one of the greatest album endings of all time) are profoundly listenable as separate entities. It's equal parts zany, spoofy, spooky, funny, virtuoso or just plain beautiful (as that "Poppy" closing passage).
    "Improvisation is not an excuse for musical laziness" - Fred Frith
    "[...] things that we never dreamed of doing in Crimson or in any band that I've been in," - Tony Levin speaking of SGM

  15. #15
    Member viukkis's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by rcarlberg View Post
    The skeleton key is "Pachuco Cadaver." (Note the Joyce reference...)
    DJ Shuffle Mode put Pachuco Cadaver on when I was commuting home from work yesterday. I couldn't help smiling.

  16. #16
    Boo! walt's Avatar
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    Over the years i found(find) it an exhausting yet exhilarating listen.I dust it off once a year or so and dive in.

    I spin my other Beefheart discs far more often.
    "please do not understand me too quickly"-andre gide

  17. #17
    I legitimately love it and I know I'm not lying to myself or anyone else. Entirely satisfying musically and exhilarating as fuck, with many passages of what Monk wisely termed "ugly beauty." And some of the most entertaining and substantial lyrics ever placed on tape - DVV's way with words was uncannily brilliant IMO.

  18. #18
    Best Friend.

  19. #19
    Member Zeuhlmate's Avatar
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    Fantastic and exhausting ! Masterpiece !



    Beauty in music is too often confused with something that lets the ear lie back in an easy chair.
    Charles Ives

  20. #20
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    I give this a spin every now and then . . . it's one of my early efforts into the "abstract" during my drug-fueled, low maintenance high-school & college years.

    When a party needs to clear out - there's nothing better to play . . . most folks don't get it.

  21. #21
    Member chalkpie's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by 3LockBox View Post
    and don't believe those who say they do.
    What an ignorant thing to say. How the fuck would you know what is in my head and heart? Please tell me that I really don't like Ives or Ligeti either, but I just like saying it to look musically erudite....

  22. #22
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    Quote Originally Posted by The Dark Elf View Post
    The best description of Trout Mask Replica is that it is the Finnegan's Wake of popular music. And if you've ever attempted to read James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake, you'll know exactly what I mean.

    Give me Safe as Milk (with the great slide of Ry Cooder) over Trout any day.
    Yea, good description, I've tried several times to finish Ulysses and failing at that each time, I realise that trying to read FW, would be like trying to learn Hebrew overnight.
    Ulysses which, as you know, has been called the warm up act for FW, was already a nightmare to read. I once read a quote by an Irish literature professor who said, "anyone who claims to have read Ulysses more than once is a liar."

  23. #23
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    Once open minded i.e. when I bought it on CD in the 90s as a result of hearing all the good things said about it. Soon became a foe though, when it became clear to me from the perspective of my ears and my musical tastes that it was a piece of crap.
    I can't stand his "voice" and don't like a single piece of "music" on the album.

    Also, the worst track on Hot Rats is the one with CB singing.

  24. #24
    Member Steve F.'s Avatar
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    For those who don't like Trout Mask and, more importantly to the point I am making, think that The Magic Band can't play, please listen to this instrumental version of Ella Guru from the aborted first attempt at recording Trout Mask Replica.

    My biggest complaint about Trout Mask is that Don is mixed too loud and overpowers his truly 'magic' band.

    You might not like it, it might hurt your ears, but I don't think anyone who knows anything about music and musicianship can honestly say that the band can't play.

    Steve F.

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  25. #25
    Member viukkis's Avatar
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    Trout Mask is hard to approach because it is so damn long and unrelenting. My recommendation to anyone who finds it impenetrable is to take it one album side at a time. Or just listen to Moonlight on Vermont until it no longer sounds like random noise.

    IMO, Drumbo's drum work alone makes it worth the effort. One of my favourite moments on the album is the freak-out around the two-minute mark of Sugar n' Spikes, when Drumbo starts to speed up intentionally while the band doesn't, and just when the whole thing is about to fall apart he switches back to the original tempo with great authority.

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