Vikings & Beekeepers

It’s a curious case about Captain Beefheart’s (aka Don Van Vliet) Trout Mask Replica. On the one hand, it’s one of those iconic albums with its immediately recognizable album art and its token position as the lone “out” album on any middlebrow magazine’s greatest records of all time list. On the other hand – quick, name me one song off the album! OK, that might not be fair, but I’ve had many first-hand experiences where self-professed Beefheart fans say, “Trout Mask? Ehhhh, it’s overrated.”

On one side of the spectrum, Trout Mask Replica is the “If you only own one Captain Beefheart album…”, while on the other side it’ often considered a mere lesser light in a storied and celebrated career or simply one of those albums that Just. Doesn’t. Hold. Up.

Prior to listening to Trout Mask Replica, I’d only heard snippets of Beefheart’s Unconditionally Guaranteed, possibly his most reviled album due its tendency to stay “normal.” Still, what I’ve heard of that album is really remarkable (especially “Lazy Music,” one of the greatest, most soulful songs I’ve ever heard). I’ve heard that Trout Mask is an abrasive listen, and even people who’ve been known to champion “difficult” sounds tend to shy away from the album’s skronk.

So is Trout Mask Replica one of the great avant albums of all time, or is it a bunch of blustery nonsense? Is there an enjoyable listening experience to be had here or is it more of a less-than-fulfilling time capsule?

Well, on first, second, third and fourth listen…yes.

There’s a lot to enjoy throughout Trout Mask Replica, but the mix of atonal jazz and retarded Delta blues is a lot to take over the course of 28 tracks (not to mention the interstitial skits and poetry jams that, well, aren’t my cup of tea). There’s hardly an accessible moment on this double album (although “Moonlight On Vermont” occasionally comes close). This album is a slog to get through, whether you love each individual track or not. It’s long and the nature of the music doesn’t exactly allow itself to fall into the background. When you’re listening to Trout Mask Replica, there’s no escaping it.

But what a listening experience it is. From where I stand Trout Mask is hardly an album that you get right away. It’s a complex, hilarious, infuriating, stupid, ugly, depraved, hallucinatory, menacing, playful and hypnotic album, one that has, so far,  yielded new rewards with each listen. Part of that may be because you never really retain many specifics about the album after you immediately finish listening to it (some of the Van Vliet’s lyrics perhaps – I keep having the phrase “A squid eating dough in a polyethylene bag is fast n’ bulbous. Got me?” run through my head). You remember the chaotic sound, the confused emotions, the general vibe, but not so much the songs, but I’m guessing that will come with time.

On a song by song basis: you could rate it as “like” or “dislike” (for example: “Pachuco Cadaver” – like; ”The Dust Blows Forward ‘n The Dust Blows Back” – dislike), but I get the feeling that’s not how the album was intended.

There are a lot of sounds and ideas being barfed out on Trout Mask, including blues (complete with Van Vliet’s violent, gutteral growl), free jazz (the musicians are all over the place, but also rigorously rehearsed), field recordings (the traditionally bluesy “China Pig”), poetry (“Orange Claw Hammer”) and even some studio tomfoolery (“Pena”). The first few listens are a cacophonous mess, but the songs and the concrete ideas do peek through eventually. I’m nowhere near totally getting the entire album yet, but each listen brings out a brief moment of tangibility.

Truth be told, Trout Mask is an album that requires some serious elbow grease – which is probably why it simultaneously has both a glowing reputation and a poisonous one. The album has been out for 40 years, more than enough time for people to really soak the album up, understanding its nuances, peccadilloes and twists. Then again, this is also the kind of album that’s easy to disown after first listen (and then go and tell everyone how bad it is). Nothing about Trout Mask, especially initially, is very welcoming. The music is too chaotic, the lyrics too abstract, Frank Zappa’s production too dry and the singing too atonal. However, so far for me anyway, repeated listens show that there is a precision to the skronky musicianship, a surreal humor to the lyrics, the timelessness to the natural production and a certain madcap charm to Van Vliet’s voice.

Predictably, it’s the albums “straightest” moments that connect first. I like the frazzled and manic work of Beefheart’s Magic Band, but the moments of tangible musical structure (“Sweet Sweet Blues,” “My Human Gets Me Blues,” “Steal Softly Thru Snow”) are what hit first and hit best. Ironically, one of the albums standout tracks is rumoured to not even be a Magic Band track, or a Van Vliet vocal performance for that matter. “The Blimp (Mousetrapreplica)” is reportedly a combination of a Mothers of Innovation rehearsal mixed with a phone recording of Magic Band guitarist Antennae Jimmy Semens reading some new Van Vliet lyrics (Zappa’s talking at the end of the song would indicate this). It’s still decidedly “out there,” but the band’s tight and tense performance meshes perfectly with Semens’ hilarious reading. Even better is “Moonlight On Vermont” which a) rocks, and b) rips off “Old Time Religion.” Perhaps the straightest song on the album, but also it’s heaviest, hardest and fiercest. Still, these moments require work on the listener’s part. Even Trout Mask’s so-called “easy” songs are strange and fragmented. Still, if you (or I) can find entry points to certain songs, that there’s a good chance that the rest of the album will reveal itself accordingly, however slowly.

While the album is considered to be an influence on the punk music scene in its anarchic spirit, there isn’t a lot of talk about its sonic legacy. For me, however, one of the more interesting aspects of listening to Trout Mask Replica is hearing it through the filter of later artists that I’m more familiar with. Obviously glorified Beefheart tribute band Man Man (not that that’s a bad thing) are easy to place acolytes, but there are a lot of other notable similarities between what Beefheart does here and what others did later on. The first band that popped into my head was the Minutemen, which makes sense because Double Nickels On The Dime is a bit of an elbow grease album itself. It’s really quite easy to hear the Minutemen in Beefheart’s music (I guess that should be the other way around, but you know what I mean). It was hard for me not to hear the Minutemen in songs like “Sugar ‘n Spikes” and “Pachuco Cadaver” (where the last half closely resembles both the Minutemen’s “My Heart And The Real World” and “The Roar of the Masses Might Be Farts” – a good Beefheartesque title if there ever was one). In fact, if I’m not mistaken, the guitar tones used here and on Double Nickels are almost identical and there’s almost a direct link between the guitar playing in the Magic Band and D. Boon’s jagged, trebly guitar stabs. Truth is, if you can get down with the Minutemen, you can get down with the Captain.

The acolytes don’t end there. While several artists could be traced in the Dirty Projectors’ DNA, the incongruity between Projectors frontman David Longreth’s guitar playing and the song being sung is an idea that is hammered home on Trout Mask Replica. Take a listen to this year’s indie favorite Bitte Orca and notice how Longreth’s guitar navigates its own territory in terms of key and tempo while the song stays the course. Now check out Trout Mask, 40 years Bitte Orca’s senior, and note how that is essentially the m.o. of the album’s key songs. Beefheart’s work may be way, way rougher around the edges, but it’s easy to hear that his influence extends much further than being just spiritual. The music on Trout Mask Replica is still being explored by other beloved artist some 20, 30, 40 years after its release. And still, in all that time, the album feels like something incredible and intimidating.

Listening to Trout Mask Replica for the first time is like biting off way more than you can chew. Luckily, this music never gets rotton. Like a fine wine (or maybe more accurately, a really stinky, pungent cheese), Trout Mask Replica only seems to get more complex and appetizing with age.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 7th, 2009 at 12:53 pm and is filed under Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.