Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band played some fast and bulbous (also tapered) avante blues with staggeringly schizophrenic surreal savagery on this messy mutated monsterpiece. After the commercial failure of their debut 'Safe As Milk' the band had been dropped by Buddah Records. Beefheart (Don Van Vliet) was offered a deal by his high school friend Frank Zappa (who had given him his stage name) on his Straight record label. The new lineup moved into in a small rented house in the Woodland Hills suburb of Los Angeles and spent eight weeks rehearsing the songs for the album, living meagerly and playing up to fourteen hours a day as Van Vliet would dominate the members of the band.
Van Vliet would reveal: "I didn't shut them away. There's no leader in the band; everybody's responsible for themselves ... Hank Secola did a beautiful mix on the first album, but they wouldn't let it out because it was too real. Then the tapes for the second album were taken away and really ruined...I really wonder about mixing. I don't like the idea of it. 'Trout Mask Replica' has a natural sound - as natural as you can get from amplifiers ... We play. We don't time ourselves...I suppose someone must have snuck in with a circle that was divided, ticked and wasn't an orange. I don't acknowledge watches because that's too much attention focused on one point. It's like being in a cloud, and when you come out there's too much light...That's what I think of narcotics too ... I don't know about any direction...I don't think there is a route. That would mean there's a delivery, and if there's a delivery, it means too harsh a forethought. Then what would that come in the category of? Not playing!...I had played [sax] only twenty-five times before I did that album, just played. And my cousin, the mascara snake, painted before he started playing, and on 'hair pie' that was the first time he'd ever had a bass clarinet in his mouth...About as amazing as a trout in a stream. if you have to say psychedelic, that's psychedelic to me. that's it, isn't it? Well, not it...but it's playing. Like a flower - how on earth could you expect a flower to be anything but a flower? Who'd want to? It's really difficult to talk...It's work! because of the fact that it's in a form...I don't think there's a way to put feelings into words, but what you're doing is good because at least people get a chance to see that i'm interested. And yours is a good magazine - It's not the 'red book', or 'harpers bazaar', where they advertise whales being mutilated and put on women's faces for men to lick off. 'Bizarre Records' is putting out an album of whales singing. Whew! Wait till you hear it, wait till you feel it. Really. they went down fifteen hundred feet, and these whales are singing, and, oh man, there's no way you can listen to it: just feel it. No special designated area, no point of interest. There is no point - Have you ever seen water run square out of a round tap? I did it without the music. I was playing, just like the whales...I don't think there is such a thing as synchronisation. That's what they do before a commando raid, isn't it? It's planning, isn't it? ... I definitely appreciate Frank allowing me that out [‘Trout Mask Replica’] Nobody else would have... I would have liked to have taken a lot longer to put that album out, I would have liked to, but I would have probably ruined it if I’d had the time! ... I shouldn’t have even worked with him when I did. Because I can’t work. He works, I play. There’s a difference...It’s not that I’m at odds with Frank. It’s just that I don’t wish to be around him. I’m interested in playing, not working ... [‘Trout Mask Replica’] is trying to break up the mind in many different directions, causing them not to be able to fixate, this is what I was trying to do."
Zappa wanted to record the album at the house in Woodland Hills; but after a few sessions, Van Vliet wanted to move to an actual studio, thinking that Zappa was trying to get the album recorded as cheaply as possible. One track was taken from the Woodland recordings, two tracks were recorded at Sunset Sound Recorders, with most of the album being recorded at Whitney Studios in Los Angeles, California. The band banged out twenty instrumental tracks in a single six-hour recording session, with Van Vliet overdubbing vocals later. The sessions featured Captain Beefheart (Don Van Vliet) on lead and backing vocals, spoken word, tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone, bass clarinet, musette, simran horn, hunting horn, jingle bells, production, and engineering; with The Magic Band: Drumbo (John French) on drums, percussion, abd engineering; Antennae Jimmy Semens (Jeff Cotton) on guitar, "steel appendage guitar" (slide guitar using a metal slide), lead vocals on "Pena" and "The Blimp", "flesh horn" (vocal with hand cupped over mouth) on "Ella Guru", and speaking voice on "Old Fart at Play"; Zoot Horn Rollo (Bill Harkleroad) on guitar, "glass finger guitar" (slide guitar using a glass slide), and flute on "Hobo Chang Ba"; Rockette Morton (Mark Boston) on bass guitar and narration on "Dachau Blues" and "Fallin' Ditch"; and The Mascara Snake (Victor Hayden) on bass clarinet, backing vocals on "Ella Guru", and speaking voice on "Pena". The album also included Doug Moon on acoustic guitar on "China Pig"; Gary "Magic" Marker on bass guitar on "Moonlight on Vermont" and "Veteran's Day Poppy"; Roy Estrada on bass guitar on "The Blimp"; Arthur Tripp III on drums and percussion on "The Blimp"; Don Preston on piano on "The Blimp"; Ian Underwood and Bunk Gardner on alto and tenor saxophones on "The Blimp"; Buzz Gardner on trumpet on "The Blimp"; Richard "Dick" Kunc as speaking voice on "She's Too Much for My Mirror" and engineer; and Frank Zappa as speaking voice on "Pena" and "The Blimp", engineer, and producer.
Between the sessions at Sunset Sound and Whitney Studios, 'Strictly Personal' was finally released on producer Bob Krasnow's Blue Thumb label more than a year after it was finished. 'Trout Mask Replica' never charted in the US. In the UK it appeared for one week at number twenty-one before disappearing completely.
http://www.beefheart.com/
"Frownland"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeOiP10zjA0
"Hair Pie: Bake 1" was actually recorded at the house in Woodland Hills.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNStKhavmOs
"Pachuco Cadaver"
"A squid eating dough in a polyethylene bag is fast and bulbous, got me?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYSJ2PYrpzA
"Hair Pie: Bake II"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icBmdtyx2Fc
"When Big Joan Sets Up"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRDRPXX_vXM
"Ant Man Bee"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_nDCG1PchY
"Orange Claw Hammer"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGZXF56B5NI
"She's Too Much for My Mirror / Human Gets Me Blues"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAoPhVn4y1Q
"The Blimp (mousetrapreplica)"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIQdF0HR5ao
"Veteran's Day Poppy"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLd_iNNXqaM
'Trout Mask Replica'
full album:
http://www.last.fm/music/Captain+Beefheart+&+His+Magic+Band/Trout+Mask+Replica
Side one
1. "Frownland" 1:41
2. "The Dust Blows Forward 'n the Dust Blows Back" 1:53
3. "Dachau Blues" 2:21
4. "Ella Guru" 2:26
5. "Hair Pie: Bake 1" 4:58
6. "Moonlight on Vermont" 3:59
Side two
7. "Pachuco Cadaver" 4:40
8. "Bills Corpse" 1:48
9. "Sweet Sweet Bulbs" 2:21
10. "Neon Meate Dream of a Octafish" 2:25
11. "China Pig" 4:02
12. "My Human Gets Me Blues" 2:46
13. "Dali's Car" 1:26
Side three
14. "Hair Pie: Bake 2" 2:23
15. "Pena" 2:33
16. "Well" 2:07
17. "When Big Joan Sets Up" 5:18
18. "Fallin' Ditch" 2:08
19. "Sugar 'n Spikes" 2:30
20. "Ant Man Bee" 3:57
Side four
21. "Orange Claw Hammer" 3:34
22. "Wild Life" 3:09
23. "She's Too Much for My Mirror" 1:40
24. "Hobo Chang Ba" 2:02
25. "The Blimp (mousetrapreplica)" 2:04
26. "Steal Softly thru Snow" 2:18
27. "Old Fart at Play" 1:51
28. "Veteran's Day Poppy" 4:31
Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band (featuring Frank Zappa) play at the Festival Actuel in Amougies, Belgium on October 28th, 1969.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOTbaeO9yIU
00:00 Introduction by Zappa
04:45 She's Too Much For My Mirror
07:04 My Human Gets Me Blues
10:29 The Mascara Snake Blows His Horn
11:18 Wild Life
15:13 Hobo Chang Ba
17:36 When Big Joan Sets Up (FZ on guitar)
27:55 Who Will Be The Next? (FZ on guitar)
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