Trout Mask Replica
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Trout Mask Replica is a 1969 double album by Captain Beefheart (real name: Don van Vliet) and His Magic Band. Combining elements of blues, free jazz, and other apparently disparate bits of American music, it is regarded as an important work of experimental music and appears at number 58 on the List of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. Critic Piero Scaruffi defined it "the only record of rock music worth listening to" [link].
BBC DJ John Peel said of it: "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." [link] Peel's airplay of the record on late-night radio in Britain was largely responsible for its peak at number 21 on the UK charts. Artist Cal Schenkel designed the album artwork.
Track listing
It should be noted that, in its double LP issue, one record contains sides 1 & 4, while the other record contains 2 & 3. This was a standard practice from when hi-fi sets had spindles capable of holding stacked records, which would release the next lowest record in the stack once the stylus tone-arm had finished with the current record side and had moved back to its rest position. Thus, if you placed the record with side one under the record with side two, when both sides had automatically played in succession, you could simply remove the two albums as a stack, flip them over, and replace them on the spindle to play sides three and four in succession.All songs written by Van Vliet.
Side one
- "Frownland" – 1:41
- "The Dust Blows Forward 'n the Dust Blows Back" – 1:53
- "Dachau Blues" – 2:21
- "Ella Guru" – 2:26
- "Hair Pie: Bake 1" – 4:58
- "Moonlight on Vermont" – 3:59
Side two
- "Pachuco Cadaver" – 4:40
- "Bills Corpse" – 1:48
- "Sweet Sweet Bulbs" – 2:21
- "Neon Meate Dream of a Octafish" – 2:25
- "China Pig" – 4:02
- "My Human Gets Me Blues" – 2:46
- "Dali's Car" – 1:26
Side three
- "Hair Pie: Bake 2" – 2:23
- "Pena" – 2:33
- "Well" – 2:07
- "When Big Joan Sets Up" – 5:18
- "Fallin' Ditch" – 2:08
- "Sugar 'n Spikes" – 2:30
- "Ant Man Bee" – 3:57
Side four
- "Orange Claw Hammer" – 3:34
- "Wild Life" – 3:09
- "She's Too Much for My Mirror" – 1:40
- "Hobo Chang Ba" – 2:02
- "The Blimp (mousetrapreplica)" – 2:04
- "Steal Softly thru Snow" – 2:18
- "Old Fart at Play" – 1:51
- "Veteran's Day Poppy" – 4:31
Personnel
- Captain Beefheart – vocals, harmonica, tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone, bass clarinet, musette
- Bill Harkleroad (credited as Zoot Horn Rollo) – guitar, flute
- Jeff Cotton (Antennae Jimmy Semens) – guitar, vocals on "Pena" and "The Blimp"
- Victor Hayden (The Mascara Snake) – bass clarinet, additional vocals
- Mark Boston (Rockette Morton) – bass guitar
- John French (Drumbo) – drums, percussion
- Doug Moon - guitar on "China Pig".
Trivia
- Robert Rankin paid homage to this album by naming a novel he wrote in 1997, Sprout Mask Replica.
- The vocals for "The Blimp (mousetrapreplica)" were recorded over the phone, whilst Frank Zappa was in the studio rehearsing "Charles Ives" with the Mothers of Invention.
- This is Matt Groening's favorite album.
- The sax and bass clarinet parts on the intro to Hair Pie (Bake 1) began as a jam in the garden outside the house where the band rehearsed, and were recorded through the open windows.
External links
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