Trout Mask Replica
Encyclopedia
Trout Mask Replica is the third album by Captain Beefheart
and his Magic Band, released in June 1969. Produced by Beefheart's friend and former schoolmate Frank Zappa
, it was originally released as a double album
on Zappa's Straight Records
label. Combining elements of blues
, avant-garde
, free jazz
and other genres of American music
, the album is regarded as an important work of experimental music
and a major influence on genres such as alternative rock
and post-punk
.
Most of Trout Mask Replica was recorded in March 1969 at Whitney Studios in Los Angeles, California. The lineup of The Magic Band at this time consisted of Bill Harkleroad and Jeff Cotton
on guitar, Mark Boston on bass guitar, Victor Hayden
on bass clarinet
, and John French
on drums and percussion. Beefheart played several brass and woodwind instruments (including saxophone, musette, and hunting horn) and contributed most of the vocal parts, with Zappa and various members of the band providing occasional vocals and narration. The well-rehearsed Magic Band recorded all instrumental tracksExcluding the "home recordings" and "Moonlight on Vermont" and "Veteran's Day Poppy", recorded in 1968 for Trout Mask Replica in a single six-hour recording session; Van Vliet's vocal and horn tracks were laid down over the next few days. Upon release in the US, Trout Mask Replica sold poorly and failed to chart. It was more successful in the UK, where it spent a week on the charts, at #21.
A widely recognized and acclaimed composition, Trout Mask Replica was ranked #58 on Rolling Stone
s 2003 list The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
. Allmusics Steve Huey wrote that "its inspiring reimagining of what was possible in a rock context laid the groundwork for countless future experiments in rock surrealism, especially during the punk/new wave era."
released the group's first single, a cover of Bo Diddley's
"Diddy Wah Diddy
", but dropped the contract after their first two singles failed to produce hits. Then Buddah Records
released the band's (and the label's) first album, 1967's Safe as Milk. Soon afterward Buddah began specializing in "bubblegum pop
," a style in which Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band clearly had no place, and the group again found themselves without a record label. In late 1967 and the spring of 1968 the group had several sets of recording sessions for what eventually became the Strictly Personal
and Mirror Man albums, but due to contractual uncertainties they did not know if the material would ever be released. Around this time Van Vliet's high school friend Frank Zappa started his own pair of record labels, Bizarre
and Straight
, and offered Van Vliet, by then better known as Captain Beefheart, a name Zappa had given him, the opportunity to record an album with complete artistic freedom. The result was Trout Mask Replica.
The group rehearsed Van Vliet's difficult compositions for eight months, living communally
in a small rented house in the Woodland Hills
suburb of Los Angeles. Van Vliet implemented his vision by asserting complete artistic and emotional domination of his musicians. At various times one or another of the group members was put "in the barrel," with Van Vliet berating him continually, sometimes for days, until the musician collapsed in tears or in total submission to Van Vliet. According to John French
and Bill Harkleroad these sessions often included physical violence. French described the situation as "cultlike" and a visiting friend said "the environment in that house was positively Manson
-esque." Their material circumstances also were dire. With no income other than welfare and contributions from relatives, the group survived on a bare subsistence diet. French recounted living on no more than a small cup of soybeans a day for a month and at one point band members were arrested for shoplifting food (with Zappa bailing them out). A visitor described their appearance as "cadaverous" and said that "they all looked in poor health." Band members were restricted from leaving the house and practiced for 14 or more hours a day. Vliet once told drummer John French he had been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic and thus he would see inexistent conspiracies that explained this behaviour.
and free jazz
but also include elements of genres ranging from folk music
to the current avant-garde
of classical music to sea shanties
and beyond. Van Vliet's vocals range from growling blues singing to frenzied falsetto
to laconic, casual ramblings. His lyrics
contained all manner of references: music history
, American and international politics
, the Holocaust, love
and sexuality
, Steve Reich
, gospel music
, conformity
, and man's impact on his surroundings.
According to Van Vliet all of the songs on the album were written in a single eight-hour session. Band members have stated that two of the songs ("Moonlight on Vermont" and "Sugar 'n Spikes") were written around December 1967, while "Veteran's Day Poppy" was written around late May or early June 1968. Most of the rest were composed over a period of several months in the summer and fall of 1968 in an unprecedented process of experimentation. One influence on the compositional process was a tape that Van Vliet's friend Gary Marker had played for him. Marker, an aspiring recording engineer, was learning how to splice audio tape. He practiced by combining sections of various recordings so that they would join smoothly and maintain a consistent beat despite being from different sources. When Van Vliet heard the tape he said excitedly, "That's what I want!"
Van Vliet used a piano—an instrument he had never played before—as his main compositional tool. Since he had no experience with the piano and no conventional musical knowledge at all, he was able to experiment with no preconceived ideas of musical form or structure. Beefheart sat at the piano until he found a rhythmic or melodic pattern that he liked. Mike Barnes compared this approach to John Cage
's "maverick irreverence toward classical tradition." John French then transcribed this pattern, typically only a measure or two long, into musical notation. After Beefheart was finished French would then piece these fragments together into compositions, reminiscent of the splicing together of disparate source material on Marker's tape. French decided which part would be played on which instrument and taught each player their part, although Van Vliet had final say over the ultimate shape of the product. Band member Bill Harkleroad has remarked on "how haphazardly the individual parts were done, worked on very surgically, stuck together, and then sculpted afterwards." Once completed each song was played in exactly the same way every time, eschewing the improvisation
that typifies most popular music in favor of an approach more like a formal, classical
composition. Guitarist Fred Frith
noted that during this process "forces that usually emerge in improvisation are harnessed and made constant, repeatable."
French has stated that about three-quarters of the songs were composed at the piano. The rest mostly consisted of parts that were whistled by Van Vliet. In a few cases part of the song was composed at the piano while others were whistled. Three of the pieces were unaccompanied vocal solos ("Well," "The Dust Blows Forward and the Dust Blows Back," and "Orange Claw Hammer") while one was a spontaneous improvisation ("China Pig").
Several of the compositions include brief passages from other songs. Some were childhood reminiscences, such as Gene Autry
's recording "Rancho Grande" from which one of the guitar lines in "Veteran's Day Poppy" was adapted, or the "Shortnin' Bread
" melody used in "Pachuco Cadaver." Others were more contemporary, such as the quote "come out to show dem (them)" from Steve Reich
's "Come Out
" used in "Moonlight on Vermont", or a melodic fragment from the Miles Davis
recording of Concierto de Aranjuez used as the basis for the bridge of "Sugar 'n Spikes." The ending of "Moonlight on Vermont" also includes the refrain from the spiritual "Old-Time Religion
." A nonmusical influence was the art of Salvador Dalí
; the instrumental "Dali's Car" was inspired by the band's viewing of an installation of Dalí's Rainy Taxi.
in August 1968, about seven months before the rest of the songs. These songs featured a lineup of Van Vliet, Bill Harkleroad and Jeff Cotton
on guitar, John French
on drums, and Van Vliet's friend Gary Marker
serving temporarily on bass as replacement for the recently departed Jerry Handley. About a month later Mark Boston
joined the band as full-time bassist. The lineup of Van Vliet, Harkleroad, Cotton, French and Boston recorded the rest of the tracks, with Van Vliet's cousin Victor Hayden
occasionally guesting on bass clarinet.
Zappa originally proposed to record the album as an "ethnic field recording" in the house where the band lived. Working with Zappa and engineer Dick Kunc the band recorded some provisional backing tracks at the Woodland Hills house with sound separation obtained simply by having different instruments in different rooms. Zappa thought these provisional recordings turned out well, but Van Vliet became suspicious that Zappa was trying to record the album on the cheap and insisted on using a professional studio. Zappa would say of Van Vliet's approach that it was "impossible to tell him why things should be such and such a way. It seemed to me that if he was going to create a unique object, that the best thing for me to do was to keep my mouth shut as much as possible and just let him do whatever he wanted to do whether I thought it was wrong or not." One of the tracks recorded by Zappa and Kunc at the house, "Hair Pie: Bake 1", appeared on the finished album. Three other tracks appearing on the album were recorded on a cassette recorder at the house, the a cappella poems "The Dust Blows Forward 'n The Dust Blows Back" and "Orange Claw Hammer," and the improvised blues "China Pig" with former Magic Band member Doug Moon accompanying Van Vliet on guitar. "The Blimp" was recorded by Zappa in his studio while on the phone with Van Vliet prior to the album's sessions; Jeff Cotton was put on the phone to recite Van Vliet's latest poem, which Zappa recorded and put over a Mothers of Invention backing track (which had been known to the Mothers, unacknowledged on Trout Mask's credits, as "Charles Ives").
When they entered the studio the band knocked out 20 instrumental tracks in a single six-hour recording session. Van Vliet spent the next few days overdubbing the vocals. Instead of singing while monitoring the instrumental tracks over headphones, he heard only the slight sound leakage through the studio window. As a result the vocals are only vaguely in sync with the instrumental backing; when asked later about synchronization he remarked, "That's what they do before a commando raid, isn't it?"
Van Vliet used the ensuing publicity, particularly with a 1970 Rolling Stone interview with Langdon Winner
, to promulgate a number of myths which were subsequently quoted as fact. Winner's article stated, for instance, that neither Van Vliet nor the members of the Magic Band ever took drugs, but Harkleroad and French later discredited this. Van Vliet also claimed to have taught both Harkleroad and Mark Boston from scratch; in fact the pair were already accomplished musicians before joining the band. Van Vliet also took complete credit for composition and arranging, a claim that band members strongly disputed in later years. A subsequent 'overview' of the work, during recording, can be found in the Grow Fins CD box set (CDs 3 & 4) and its vinyl 3-volume alternatives.
disc jockey
John Peel
said of the album: "If there has been anything in the history of popular music which could be described as a work of art in a way that people who are involved in other areas of art would understand, then Trout Mask Replica is probably that work." John Harris of The Guardian
later discussed the idea that the album requires several listens to "get it", concluding that it "still sounded fucking awful" after six listens.
Critic Steve Huey of Allmusic writes that the album's influence "was felt more in spirit than in direct copycatting, as a catalyst rather than a literal musical starting point. However, its inspiring reimagining of what was possible in a rock context laid the groundwork for countless experiments in rock surrealism to follow, especially during the punk/new wave era." Critic Robert Christgau
gave the album a positive rating of B+, saying that Trout Mask Replicas "weirdness" prevented him from granting it a higher grade. He commented that it was "... great played at high volume when you're feeling shitty, because you'll never feel as shitty as this record." Cartoonist and writer Matt Groening
tells of listening to Trout Mask Replica at the age of 15 and thinking "that it was the worst thing I'd ever heard. I said to myself, they're not even trying! It was just a sloppy cacophony. Then I listened to it a couple more times, because I couldn't believe Frank Zappa could do this to me – and because a double album cost a lot of money. About the third time, I realised they were doing it on purpose; they meant it to sound exactly this way. About the sixth or seventh time, it clicked in, and I thought it was the greatest album I'd ever heard".
In 2003, the album was ranked fifty-eighth by Rolling Stone in their list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
: "On first listen, Trout Mask Replica sounds like raw Delta blues
", with Beefheart "singing and ranting and reciting poetry over fractured guitar licks. But the seeming sonic chaos is an illusion ... Tracks such as "Ella Guru" and "My Human Gets Me Blues" are the direct predecessors of modern musical primitives such as Tom Waits
and PJ Harvey
". In his 1995 book The Alternative Music Almanac, Alan Cross
placed the album in the #2 spot on his list of "10 Classic Alternative Albums". In 1995, Mojo
put the album 28th on their "The 100 Greatest Albums Ever Made" list and 51st on their list of "The 100 Records That Changed the World". Filmmaker David Lynch
has called Trout Mask Replica his favorite album of all time. John Lydon
has also listed the album as one of his all-time favourites, also noting that "The first time I played that album, I laughed all the way through". Piero Scaruffi regards Trout Mask Replica as the best rock album of all time.
On April 6, 2011, the album was added to the United States National Recording Registry
for the year 2010 by the Library of Congress
.
Captain Beefheart
Don Van Vliet January 15, 1941 December 17, 2010) was an American musician, singer-songwriter and artist best known by the stage name Captain Beefheart. His musical work was conducted with a rotating ensemble of musicians called The Magic Band, active between 1965 and 1982, with whom he recorded 12...
and his Magic Band, released in June 1969. Produced by Beefheart's friend and former schoolmate Frank Zappa
Frank Zappa
Frank Vincent Zappa was an American composer, singer-songwriter, electric guitarist, record producer and film director. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa wrote rock, jazz, orchestral and musique concrète works. He also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed...
, it was originally released as a double album
Double album
A double album is an audio album which spans two units of the primary medium in which it is sold, typically records and compact discs....
on Zappa's Straight Records
Straight Records
Straight Records was a record label formed in 1969 to distribute productions and discoveries of Frank Zappa and his business partner/manager Herb Cohen. Straight was formed at the same time as a companion label, Bizarre Records. Straight and Bizarre were manufactured and distributed in the U.S. by...
label. Combining elements of blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
, avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
, free jazz
Free jazz
Free jazz is an approach to jazz music that was first developed in the 1950s and 1960s. Though the music produced by free jazz pioneers varied widely, the common feature was a dissatisfaction with the limitations of bebop, hard bop, and modal jazz, which had developed in the 1940s and 1950s...
and other genres of American music
American music
The music of the Americas is very diverse since, in addition to many types of Native American music, the music of Africa and the music of Europe have been found there for some five centuries, creating many hybrid forms that have influenced the popular music of the world.-See also:*Canadian...
, the album is regarded as an important work of experimental music
Experimental music
Experimental music refers, in the English-language literature, to a compositional tradition which arose in the mid-20th century, applied particularly in North America to music composed in such a way that its outcome is unforeseeable. Its most famous and influential exponent was John Cage...
and a major influence on genres such as alternative rock
Alternative rock
Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...
and post-punk
Post-punk
Post-punk is a rock music movement with its roots in the late 1970s, following on the heels of the initial punk rock explosion of the mid-1970s. The genre retains its roots in the punk movement but is more introverted, complex and experimental...
.
Most of Trout Mask Replica was recorded in March 1969 at Whitney Studios in Los Angeles, California. The lineup of The Magic Band at this time consisted of Bill Harkleroad and Jeff Cotton
Jeff Cotton
Jeff Cotton is an American rock guitarist, known for his work as a member of Captain Beefheart's Magic Band. Cotton first came to attention as guitarist with Merrell and the Exiles, who had a few local hits in 1964 in the Los Angeles area...
on guitar, Mark Boston on bass guitar, Victor Hayden
The Mascara Snake
The Mascara Snake, real name Victor Hayden, was a cousin and friend of Captain Beefheart . He joined The Magic Band in 1969, and is credited playing bass clarinet on Trout Mask Replica...
on bass clarinet
Bass clarinet
The bass clarinet is a musical instrument of the clarinet family. Like the more common soprano B clarinet, it is usually pitched in B , but it plays notes an octave below the soprano B clarinet...
, and John French
John French (musician)
John "Drumbo" French is an American drummer and musician. He played on Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica and on various other Beefheart recordings: Beefheart dubbed him "Drumbo"...
on drums and percussion. Beefheart played several brass and woodwind instruments (including saxophone, musette, and hunting horn) and contributed most of the vocal parts, with Zappa and various members of the band providing occasional vocals and narration. The well-rehearsed Magic Band recorded all instrumental tracksExcluding the "home recordings" and "Moonlight on Vermont" and "Veteran's Day Poppy", recorded in 1968 for Trout Mask Replica in a single six-hour recording session; Van Vliet's vocal and horn tracks were laid down over the next few days. Upon release in the US, Trout Mask Replica sold poorly and failed to chart. It was more successful in the UK, where it spent a week on the charts, at #21.
A widely recognized and acclaimed composition, Trout Mask Replica was ranked #58 on Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
s 2003 list The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
"The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time" is the title of a 2003 special issue of American magazine Rolling Stone, and a related book published in 2005.Related news articles:...
. Allmusics Steve Huey wrote that "its inspiring reimagining of what was possible in a rock context laid the groundwork for countless future experiments in rock surrealism, especially during the punk/new wave era."
Background
Beefheart and The Magic Band had a history of difficult relationships with their recording labels. A&MA&M Records
A&M Records is an American record label owned by Universal Music Group that operates under the mantle of its Interscope-Geffen-A&M division.-Beginnings:...
released the group's first single, a cover of Bo Diddley's
Bo Diddley
Ellas Otha Bates , known by his stage name Bo Diddley, was an American rhythm and blues vocalist, guitarist, songwriter , and inventor...
"Diddy Wah Diddy
Diddy Wah Diddy
"Diddy Wah Diddy" is a song written by Willie Dixon and Ellas McDaniel—known as Bo Diddley—and recorded by the latter in 1956. Over the years, the song has been covered by many bands and artists, including The Astronauts, Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band, The Remains, The Twilights, Taj Mahal,...
", but dropped the contract after their first two singles failed to produce hits. Then Buddah Records
Buddah Records
Buddah Records was founded in 1967 in New York City. The label was born out of Kama Sutra Records, an MGM Records-distributed label, which remained a key imprint following Buddah's founding...
released the band's (and the label's) first album, 1967's Safe as Milk. Soon afterward Buddah began specializing in "bubblegum pop
Bubblegum pop
Bubblegum pop is a genre of pop music with an upbeat sound contrived and marketed to appeal to pre-teens and teenagers, produced in an assembly-line process, driven by producers, often using unknown singers.Bubblegum's classic period ran from 1967 to 1972...
," a style in which Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band clearly had no place, and the group again found themselves without a record label. In late 1967 and the spring of 1968 the group had several sets of recording sessions for what eventually became the Strictly Personal
Strictly Personal
-Personnel:*Don Van Vliet - vocals, harmonica*Alex St. Clair - guitar*Jeff Cotton - guitar*Jerry Handley - bass guitar*John French - drums-External links:* at the Captain Beefheart Radar Station....
and Mirror Man albums, but due to contractual uncertainties they did not know if the material would ever be released. Around this time Van Vliet's high school friend Frank Zappa started his own pair of record labels, Bizarre
Bizarre Records
Bizarre Records was a record label formed for artists discovered by rock musician Frank Zappa and his business partner/manager Herb Cohen.Bizarre was originally formed as a production company...
and Straight
Straight Records
Straight Records was a record label formed in 1969 to distribute productions and discoveries of Frank Zappa and his business partner/manager Herb Cohen. Straight was formed at the same time as a companion label, Bizarre Records. Straight and Bizarre were manufactured and distributed in the U.S. by...
, and offered Van Vliet, by then better known as Captain Beefheart, a name Zappa had given him, the opportunity to record an album with complete artistic freedom. The result was Trout Mask Replica.
The group rehearsed Van Vliet's difficult compositions for eight months, living communally
Commune (intentional community)
A commune is an intentional community of people living together, sharing common interests, property, possessions, resources, and, in some communes, work and income. In addition to the communal economy, consensus decision-making, non-hierarchical structures and ecological living have become...
in a small rented house in the Woodland Hills
Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California
Woodland Hills is a district in the city of Los Angeles, California.Woodland Hills is located in the southwestern area of the San Fernando Valley, east of Calabasas and west of Tarzana, with Warner Center in its northern section...
suburb of Los Angeles. Van Vliet implemented his vision by asserting complete artistic and emotional domination of his musicians. At various times one or another of the group members was put "in the barrel," with Van Vliet berating him continually, sometimes for days, until the musician collapsed in tears or in total submission to Van Vliet. According to John French
John French (musician)
John "Drumbo" French is an American drummer and musician. He played on Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica and on various other Beefheart recordings: Beefheart dubbed him "Drumbo"...
and Bill Harkleroad these sessions often included physical violence. French described the situation as "cultlike" and a visiting friend said "the environment in that house was positively Manson
Charles Manson
Charles Milles Manson is an American criminal who led what became known as the Manson Family, a quasi-commune that arose in California in the late 1960s. He was found guilty of conspiracy to commit the Tate/LaBianca murders carried out by members of the group at his instruction...
-esque." Their material circumstances also were dire. With no income other than welfare and contributions from relatives, the group survived on a bare subsistence diet. French recounted living on no more than a small cup of soybeans a day for a month and at one point band members were arrested for shoplifting food (with Zappa bailing them out). A visitor described their appearance as "cadaverous" and said that "they all looked in poor health." Band members were restricted from leaving the house and practiced for 14 or more hours a day. Vliet once told drummer John French he had been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic and thus he would see inexistent conspiracies that explained this behaviour.
Composition
The compositions on Trout Mask Replica draw their inspiration primarily from bluesBlues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
and free jazz
Free jazz
Free jazz is an approach to jazz music that was first developed in the 1950s and 1960s. Though the music produced by free jazz pioneers varied widely, the common feature was a dissatisfaction with the limitations of bebop, hard bop, and modal jazz, which had developed in the 1940s and 1950s...
but also include elements of genres ranging from folk music
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
to the current avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
of classical music to sea shanties
Sea shanty
A shanty is a type of work song that was once commonly sung to accompany labor on board large merchant sailing vessels. Shanties became ubiquitous in the 19th century era of the wind-driven packet and clipper ships...
and beyond. Van Vliet's vocals range from growling blues singing to frenzied falsetto
Falsetto
Falsetto is the vocal register occupying the frequency range just above the modal voice register and overlapping with it by approximately one octave. It is produced by the vibration of the ligamentous edges of the vocal folds, in whole or in part...
to laconic, casual ramblings. His lyrics
Lyrics
Lyrics are a set of words that make up a song. The writer of lyrics is a lyricist or lyrist. The meaning of lyrics can either be explicit or implicit. Some lyrics are abstract, almost unintelligible, and, in such cases, their explication emphasizes form, articulation, meter, and symmetry of...
contained all manner of references: music history
Music history
Music history, sometimes called historical musicology, is the highly diverse subfield of the broader discipline of musicology that studies the composition, performance, reception, and criticism of music over time...
, American and international politics
Politics
Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...
, the Holocaust, love
Love
Love is an emotion of strong affection and personal attachment. In philosophical context, love is a virtue representing all of human kindness, compassion, and affection. Love is central to many religions, as in the Christian phrase, "God is love" or Agape in the Canonical gospels...
and sexuality
Human sexuality
Human sexuality is the awareness of gender differences, and the capacity to have erotic experiences and responses. Human sexuality can also be described as the way someone is sexually attracted to another person whether it is to opposite sexes , to the same sex , to either sexes , or not being...
, Steve Reich
Steve Reich
Stephen Michael "Steve" Reich is an American composer who together with La Monte Young, Terry Riley, and Philip Glass is a pioneering composer of minimal music...
, gospel music
Gospel music
Gospel music is music that is written to express either personal, spiritual or a communal belief regarding Christian life, as well as to give a Christian alternative to mainstream secular music....
, conformity
Conformity
Conformity is the process by which an individual's attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors are influenced by other people.Conformity may also refer to:*Conformity: A Tale, a novel by Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna...
, and man's impact on his surroundings.
According to Van Vliet all of the songs on the album were written in a single eight-hour session. Band members have stated that two of the songs ("Moonlight on Vermont" and "Sugar 'n Spikes") were written around December 1967, while "Veteran's Day Poppy" was written around late May or early June 1968. Most of the rest were composed over a period of several months in the summer and fall of 1968 in an unprecedented process of experimentation. One influence on the compositional process was a tape that Van Vliet's friend Gary Marker had played for him. Marker, an aspiring recording engineer, was learning how to splice audio tape. He practiced by combining sections of various recordings so that they would join smoothly and maintain a consistent beat despite being from different sources. When Van Vliet heard the tape he said excitedly, "That's what I want!"
Van Vliet used a piano—an instrument he had never played before—as his main compositional tool. Since he had no experience with the piano and no conventional musical knowledge at all, he was able to experiment with no preconceived ideas of musical form or structure. Beefheart sat at the piano until he found a rhythmic or melodic pattern that he liked. Mike Barnes compared this approach to John Cage
John Cage
John Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde...
's "maverick irreverence toward classical tradition." John French then transcribed this pattern, typically only a measure or two long, into musical notation. After Beefheart was finished French would then piece these fragments together into compositions, reminiscent of the splicing together of disparate source material on Marker's tape. French decided which part would be played on which instrument and taught each player their part, although Van Vliet had final say over the ultimate shape of the product. Band member Bill Harkleroad has remarked on "how haphazardly the individual parts were done, worked on very surgically, stuck together, and then sculpted afterwards." Once completed each song was played in exactly the same way every time, eschewing the improvisation
Improvisation
Improvisation is the practice of acting, singing, talking and reacting, of making and creating, in the moment and in response to the stimulus of one's immediate environment and inner feelings. This can result in the invention of new thought patterns, new practices, new structures or symbols, and/or...
that typifies most popular music in favor of an approach more like a formal, classical
Classical music
Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...
composition. Guitarist Fred Frith
Fred Frith
Fred Frith is an English multi-instrumentalist, composer and improvisor.Probably best known for his guitar work, Frith first came to attention as one of the founding members of the English avant-rock group Henry Cow. Frith was also a member of Art Bears, Massacre and Skeleton Crew...
noted that during this process "forces that usually emerge in improvisation are harnessed and made constant, repeatable."
French has stated that about three-quarters of the songs were composed at the piano. The rest mostly consisted of parts that were whistled by Van Vliet. In a few cases part of the song was composed at the piano while others were whistled. Three of the pieces were unaccompanied vocal solos ("Well," "The Dust Blows Forward and the Dust Blows Back," and "Orange Claw Hammer") while one was a spontaneous improvisation ("China Pig").
Several of the compositions include brief passages from other songs. Some were childhood reminiscences, such as Gene Autry
Gene Autry
Orvon Grover Autry , better known as Gene Autry, was an American performer who gained fame as The Singing Cowboy on the radio, in movies and on television for more than three decades beginning in the 1930s...
's recording "Rancho Grande" from which one of the guitar lines in "Veteran's Day Poppy" was adapted, or the "Shortnin' Bread
Shortnin' Bread
"Shortnin' Bread" is a song by James Whitcomb Riley.-History:...
" melody used in "Pachuco Cadaver." Others were more contemporary, such as the quote "come out to show dem (them)" from Steve Reich
Steve Reich
Stephen Michael "Steve" Reich is an American composer who together with La Monte Young, Terry Riley, and Philip Glass is a pioneering composer of minimal music...
's "Come Out
Come Out (Reich)
Come Out is a 1966 piece by American composer Steve Reich. He was asked to write this piece to be performed at a benefit for the retrial of the Harlem Six, six black youths arrested for committing a murder during the Harlem Riot of 1964 for which only one of the six was responsible...
" used in "Moonlight on Vermont", or a melodic fragment from the Miles Davis
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...
recording of Concierto de Aranjuez used as the basis for the bridge of "Sugar 'n Spikes." The ending of "Moonlight on Vermont" also includes the refrain from the spiritual "Old-Time Religion
Old-Time Religion
" Old-Time Religion" is a traditional Gospel song dating from 1873, when it was included in a list of Jubilee songs—or earlier. It has become a standard in many Protestant hymnals and covered by many artists...
." A nonmusical influence was the art of Salvador Dalí
Salvador Dalí
Salvador Domènec Felip Jacint Dalí i Domènech, Marquis de Púbol , commonly known as Salvador Dalí , was a prominent Spanish Catalan surrealist painter born in Figueres,Spain....
; the instrumental "Dali's Car" was inspired by the band's viewing of an installation of Dalí's Rainy Taxi.
Recording
"Moonlight on Vermont" and "Veteran's Day Poppy" were recorded at Sunset Sound RecordersSunset Sound Recorders
Sunset Sound Recorders is a recording studio in Hollywood, California, located at 6650 Sunset Boulevard.The Sunset Sound Recorders complex was converted in 1962 by Walt Disney's Director of Recording, Tutti Camarata, from a collection of old commercial and residential buildings - some built more...
in August 1968, about seven months before the rest of the songs. These songs featured a lineup of Van Vliet, Bill Harkleroad and Jeff Cotton
Jeff Cotton
Jeff Cotton is an American rock guitarist, known for his work as a member of Captain Beefheart's Magic Band. Cotton first came to attention as guitarist with Merrell and the Exiles, who had a few local hits in 1964 in the Los Angeles area...
on guitar, John French
John French (musician)
John "Drumbo" French is an American drummer and musician. He played on Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica and on various other Beefheart recordings: Beefheart dubbed him "Drumbo"...
on drums, and Van Vliet's friend Gary Marker
Gary Marker
Gary 'Magic' Marker is a bass guitarist and recording engineer best known for his involvement in various psychedelic rock bands of the 1960s....
serving temporarily on bass as replacement for the recently departed Jerry Handley. About a month later Mark Boston
Rockette Morton
Rockette Morton is an American musician, best known as a bass guitarist and guitarist for Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band in the 1960s and 1970s.-Early years:...
joined the band as full-time bassist. The lineup of Van Vliet, Harkleroad, Cotton, French and Boston recorded the rest of the tracks, with Van Vliet's cousin Victor Hayden
The Mascara Snake
The Mascara Snake, real name Victor Hayden, was a cousin and friend of Captain Beefheart . He joined The Magic Band in 1969, and is credited playing bass clarinet on Trout Mask Replica...
occasionally guesting on bass clarinet.
Zappa originally proposed to record the album as an "ethnic field recording" in the house where the band lived. Working with Zappa and engineer Dick Kunc the band recorded some provisional backing tracks at the Woodland Hills house with sound separation obtained simply by having different instruments in different rooms. Zappa thought these provisional recordings turned out well, but Van Vliet became suspicious that Zappa was trying to record the album on the cheap and insisted on using a professional studio. Zappa would say of Van Vliet's approach that it was "impossible to tell him why things should be such and such a way. It seemed to me that if he was going to create a unique object, that the best thing for me to do was to keep my mouth shut as much as possible and just let him do whatever he wanted to do whether I thought it was wrong or not." One of the tracks recorded by Zappa and Kunc at the house, "Hair Pie: Bake 1", appeared on the finished album. Three other tracks appearing on the album were recorded on a cassette recorder at the house, the a cappella poems "The Dust Blows Forward 'n The Dust Blows Back" and "Orange Claw Hammer," and the improvised blues "China Pig" with former Magic Band member Doug Moon accompanying Van Vliet on guitar. "The Blimp" was recorded by Zappa in his studio while on the phone with Van Vliet prior to the album's sessions; Jeff Cotton was put on the phone to recite Van Vliet's latest poem, which Zappa recorded and put over a Mothers of Invention backing track (which had been known to the Mothers, unacknowledged on Trout Mask's credits, as "Charles Ives").
When they entered the studio the band knocked out 20 instrumental tracks in a single six-hour recording session. Van Vliet spent the next few days overdubbing the vocals. Instead of singing while monitoring the instrumental tracks over headphones, he heard only the slight sound leakage through the studio window. As a result the vocals are only vaguely in sync with the instrumental backing; when asked later about synchronization he remarked, "That's what they do before a commando raid, isn't it?"
Van Vliet used the ensuing publicity, particularly with a 1970 Rolling Stone interview with Langdon Winner
Langdon Winner
Langdon Winner is Professor of Political Science in the Department of Science and Technology Studies atRensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York since 1990....
, to promulgate a number of myths which were subsequently quoted as fact. Winner's article stated, for instance, that neither Van Vliet nor the members of the Magic Band ever took drugs, but Harkleroad and French later discredited this. Van Vliet also claimed to have taught both Harkleroad and Mark Boston from scratch; in fact the pair were already accomplished musicians before joining the band. Van Vliet also took complete credit for composition and arranging, a claim that band members strongly disputed in later years. A subsequent 'overview' of the work, during recording, can be found in the Grow Fins CD box set (CDs 3 & 4) and its vinyl 3-volume alternatives.
Legacy
BBCBBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
disc jockey
Disc jockey
A disc jockey, also known as DJ, is a person who selects and plays recorded music for an audience. Originally, "disc" referred to phonograph records, not the later Compact Discs. Today, the term includes all forms of music playback, no matter the medium.There are several types of disc jockeys...
John Peel
John Peel
John Robert Parker Ravenscroft, OBE , known professionally as John Peel, was an English disc jockey, radio presenter, record producer and journalist. He was the longest-serving of the original BBC Radio 1 DJs, broadcasting regularly from 1967 until his death in 2004...
said of the album: "If there has been anything in the history of popular music which could be described as a work of art in a way that people who are involved in other areas of art would understand, then Trout Mask Replica is probably that work." John Harris of The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
later discussed the idea that the album requires several listens to "get it", concluding that it "still sounded fucking awful" after six listens.
Critic Steve Huey of Allmusic writes that the album's influence "was felt more in spirit than in direct copycatting, as a catalyst rather than a literal musical starting point. However, its inspiring reimagining of what was possible in a rock context laid the groundwork for countless experiments in rock surrealism to follow, especially during the punk/new wave era." Critic Robert Christgau
Robert Christgau
Robert Christgau is an American essayist, music journalist, and self-proclaimed "Dean of American Rock Critics".One of the earliest professional rock critics, Christgau is known for his terse capsule reviews, published since 1969 in his Consumer Guide columns...
gave the album a positive rating of B+, saying that Trout Mask Replicas "weirdness" prevented him from granting it a higher grade. He commented that it was "... great played at high volume when you're feeling shitty, because you'll never feel as shitty as this record." Cartoonist and writer Matt Groening
Matt Groening
Matthew Abram "Matt" Groening is an American cartoonist, screenwriter, and producer. He is the creator of the comic strip Life in Hell as well as two successful television series, The Simpsons and Futurama....
tells of listening to Trout Mask Replica at the age of 15 and thinking "that it was the worst thing I'd ever heard. I said to myself, they're not even trying! It was just a sloppy cacophony. Then I listened to it a couple more times, because I couldn't believe Frank Zappa could do this to me – and because a double album cost a lot of money. About the third time, I realised they were doing it on purpose; they meant it to sound exactly this way. About the sixth or seventh time, it clicked in, and I thought it was the greatest album I'd ever heard".
In 2003, the album was ranked fifty-eighth by Rolling Stone in their list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
"The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time" is the title of a 2003 special issue of American magazine Rolling Stone, and a related book published in 2005.Related news articles:...
: "On first listen, Trout Mask Replica sounds like raw Delta blues
Delta blues
The Delta blues is one of the earliest styles of blues music. It originated in the Mississippi Delta, a region of the United States that stretches from Memphis, Tennessee in the north to Vicksburg, Mississippi in the south, Helena, Arkansas in the west to the Yazoo River on the east. The...
", with Beefheart "singing and ranting and reciting poetry over fractured guitar licks. But the seeming sonic chaos is an illusion ... Tracks such as "Ella Guru" and "My Human Gets Me Blues" are the direct predecessors of modern musical primitives such as Tom Waits
Tom Waits
Thomas Alan "Tom" Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car."...
and PJ Harvey
PJ Harvey
Polly Jean Harvey is an English musician, singer-songwriter, composer and occasional artist. Primarily known as a vocalist and guitarist, she is also proficient with a wide range of instruments including piano, organ, bass, saxophone, and most recently, the autoharp.Harvey began her career in...
". In his 1995 book The Alternative Music Almanac, Alan Cross
Alan Cross
' is a Canadian radio broadcaster and a writer on music. Alan’s obsession with music began at age six when his grandmother gave him a transistor radio—an old Lloyds—which spawned an all-consuming fascination with things that came over airwaves...
placed the album in the #2 spot on his list of "10 Classic Alternative Albums". In 1995, Mojo
Mojo (magazine)
MOJO is a popular music magazine published initially by Emap, and since January 2008 by Bauer, monthly in the United Kingdom. Following the success of the magazine Q, publishers Emap were looking for a title which would cater for the burgeoning interest in classic rock music...
put the album 28th on their "The 100 Greatest Albums Ever Made" list and 51st on their list of "The 100 Records That Changed the World". Filmmaker David Lynch
David Lynch
David Keith Lynch is an American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, musician and occasional actor. Known for his surrealist films, he has developed his own unique cinematic style, which has been dubbed "Lynchian", and which is characterized by its dream imagery and meticulous sound...
has called Trout Mask Replica his favorite album of all time. John Lydon
John Lydon
John Joseph Lydon , also known by the former stage name Johnny Rotten, is a singer-songwriter and television presenter, best known as the lead singer of punk rock band the Sex Pistols from 1975 until 1978, and again for various revivals during the 1990s and 2000s...
has also listed the album as one of his all-time favourites, also noting that "The first time I played that album, I laughed all the way through". Piero Scaruffi regards Trout Mask Replica as the best rock album of all time.
On April 6, 2011, the album was added to the United States National Recording Registry
National Recording Registry
The National Recording Registry is a list of sound recordings that "are culturally, historically, or aesthetically important, and/or inform or reflect life in the United States." The registry was established by the National Recording Preservation Act of 2000, which created the National Recording...
for the year 2010 by the Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
.
Track listing
All tracks written and composed by Don Van Vliet.Personnel
Musicians- Don Van Vliet (Captain Beefheart) – vocals, tenor saxophoneTenor saxophoneThe tenor saxophone is a medium-sized member of the saxophone family, a group of instruments invented by Adolphe Sax in the 1840s. The tenor, with the alto, are the two most common types of saxophones. The tenor is pitched in the key of B, and written as a transposing instrument in the treble...
, soprano saxophoneSoprano saxophoneThe soprano saxophone is a variety of the saxophone, a woodwind instrument, invented in 1840. The soprano is the third smallest member of the saxophone family, which consists of the soprillo, sopranino, soprano, alto, tenor, baritone, bass, contrabass and tubax.A transposing instrument pitched in...
, bass clarinetBass clarinetThe bass clarinet is a musical instrument of the clarinet family. Like the more common soprano B clarinet, it is usually pitched in B , but it plays notes an octave below the soprano B clarinet...
, musette, simran hornShehnaiThe shehnai, shahnai, shenai or mangal vadya, is an aerophonic instrument, a double reed conical oboe, common in North India, West India and Pakistan, made out of wood, with a metal flare bell at the end...
, hunting horn, jingle bellsJingle Bells"Jingle Bells" is one of the best-known and commonly sung winter songs in the world. It was written by James Lord Pierpont and published under the title "One Horse Open Sleigh" in the autumn of 1857...
- The Magic Band
- Bill HarkleroadBill HarkleroadBill Harkleroad, known professionally as Zoot Horn Rollo , is an American guitarist. He is best known for his work with Captain Beefheart and The Magic Band...
(Zoot Horn Rollo) – "Glass Finger Guitar" (slide guitarSlide guitarSlide guitar or bottleneck guitar is a particular method or technique for playing the guitar. The term slide refers to the motion of the slide against the strings, while bottleneck refers to the original material of choice for such slides: the necks of glass bottles...
using a glass slide), fluteFluteThe flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening... - Jeff CottonJeff CottonJeff Cotton is an American rock guitarist, known for his work as a member of Captain Beefheart's Magic Band. Cotton first came to attention as guitarist with Merrell and the Exiles, who had a few local hits in 1964 in the Los Angeles area...
(Antennae Jimmy Semens) – "Steel Appendage Guitar" (slide guitarSlide guitarSlide guitar or bottleneck guitar is a particular method or technique for playing the guitar. The term slide refers to the motion of the slide against the strings, while bottleneck refers to the original material of choice for such slides: the necks of glass bottles...
using a metal slide), vocals on "Pena" and "The Blimp" - Victor HaydenThe Mascara SnakeThe Mascara Snake, real name Victor Hayden, was a cousin and friend of Captain Beefheart . He joined The Magic Band in 1969, and is credited playing bass clarinet on Trout Mask Replica...
(The Mascara Snake) – bass clarinet, additional vocals - Mark Boston (Rockette Morton) – bass guitarBass guitarThe bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
, narration on "Neon Meate Dream Of A Octafish" and "Old Fart At Play" - John FrenchJohn French (musician)John "Drumbo" French is an American drummer and musician. He played on Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica and on various other Beefheart recordings: Beefheart dubbed him "Drumbo"...
(Drumbo) – drums, percussion (uncredited on the original release)
- Bill Harkleroad
- Additional Personnel
- Doug Moon – guitar on "China Pig"
- Dick Kunc - speaking voice on "She's Too Much for My Mirror"(uncredited); engineer
- Gary "Magic" MarkerGary MarkerGary 'Magic' Marker is a bass guitarist and recording engineer best known for his involvement in various psychedelic rock bands of the 1960s....
– bass guitar on "Moonlight on Vermont", "Veteran's Day Poppy" (uncredited) - Frank ZappaFrank ZappaFrank Vincent Zappa was an American composer, singer-songwriter, electric guitarist, record producer and film director. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa wrote rock, jazz, orchestral and musique concrète works. He also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed...
– speaking voice on "Ella Guru", "The Blimp", and "Pena"; credited as album producer - Roy EstradaRoy EstradaRoy Estrada is an American musician and backing vocalist, best known for his bass guitar work with Frank Zappa and for co-founding Little Feat.-Biography:With drummer Jimmy Carl Black and Ray Collins, Estrada was an original member of Frank Zappa's...
– bass guitar on "The Blimp" (uncredited) - Arthur Tripp IIIArt TrippArthur Dyer Tripp III is a chiropractor and former musician best known for his work as a percussionist with Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention and Captain Beefheart and The Magic Band.-Early career:Tripp grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and started playing drums in...
– drums & percussion on "The Blimp" (uncredited) - Don PrestonDon PrestonDonald Ward Preston also known as Dom DeWilde or Biff Debrie born September 21, 1932 in Flint, Michigan. Preston is an American jazz and rock and roll musician.-Biography:Preston was born into a family of musicians and began studying music at an early age...
– pianoPianoThe piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
on "The Blimp" (uncredited) - Ian UnderwoodIan UnderwoodIan Robertson Underwood is a woodwind and keyboards player. He began his career by playing San Francisco Bay Area coffeehouses and bars with his improvisational group the Jazz Mice in the mid 1960s before he became a member of Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention in 1967 for their third studio...
and Bunk Gardner – alto and tenor saxophones on "The Blimp" (uncredited) - Buzz Gardner – trumpetTrumpetThe trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...
on "The Blimp" (uncredited)
External links
- Lyrics, reviews and further details
- An appraisal of the album by Matt GroeningMatt GroeningMatthew Abram "Matt" Groening is an American cartoonist, screenwriter, and producer. He is the creator of the comic strip Life in Hell as well as two successful television series, The Simpsons and Futurama....