Mark,

just playing devil's advocate here. I sometimes wonder with Trout Mask Replica whether there's actually anything to "get."

I mean, one of the aims of "modern" art is to turn the viewer's own perceptions back on himself, in the Plato's Cave sense.

In the case of Trout Mask, I have a hard time penetrating the obvious aspects of the record-- the howling, the off-the-beat playing-- to actually get at the theory and structure underneath. Moreover, I have a hell of a time figuring out whether to take it seriously or not. Is this one of the most intricately put together records in rock, or just a mess? Just totally bewildering.

Again, just playing devil's advocate, but is it possible you can get so much out of the record because you have such an active imagination as to see shapes where there's just shadows?

i probably do have an active 'musical imagination'...but what i love about this record is the interplay between the musicians.

on first listen, the whole sounds kind of disjointed and chaotic...but really the playing is surprisingly tight. i just dig it.

now that i think of it, interplay just might be the most important aspect of what gets me interested in a particular piece of music.

Now you've made me want to go down in the basement, get my old scratchy vinyl album, and put it on. But my wife hates it, so I'll have to wait for a day when she's out.

Thanks a lot. ;-)

Oh, there's definitely plenty of stuff to "get" here. It's all quite structured, and carefully thought out. A lot of it's just that it's not structured in just the ways you might usually expect.

I can understand how Trout Mask Replica and Beefheart in general might not be to everyone's taste. However, there are real songs here. They're really quite catchy, even- in a uniquely personal way.

al has that exactly right. the structure isn't 'normal'.

Al and Mark, I agree totally. The more I listen to the record, the more I hear that intense interplay you speak of. That's definitely what sucks me in to the record. And also, "High Yellow Guru" gets stuck in my damn head for days.

But on another level, I wonder. Objectively, it makes no difference whether The Magic Band achieved such levels of musical interplay on purpose (a la Frank Zappa's best bands), or by organized accident (a la Zappa's experiments in "tape xenochrony" or Charles Ives' double-band pieces). But on the music-nerd level, it makes me think.

To the listener-- which is where it matters-- it makes no difference. Either your ears can make sense of the music or they can't. But, idly, I wonder if the nutballs in the Magic Band really were the superhuman team of crack rhythm-masters they are said to have been, or just very good players making beauty out of a mess.

If any of you know of books, interview, or other sources on this, please let me know. I'm really curious about this.

yes, i sometimes wonder how i would have reacted to Trout Mask if i had listened to it before reading all the stuff about how intense and crazy the recording process was.

that's why it is a "blues" album - most great blues, especially the self-accompanied Delta prime meat, is very oddly timed and eccentrically syncopated. Have you ever tried to actually play a Robert Johnson song exactly like he played it? I don't think it can be done.

Beefheart at his best expands that rhythmic eccentricity to a band format, and it proves there is nothing remotely "simple" about the best blues.

John Lee Hooker said something like "Bands start off playing the blues because it's the simplest form of popular music. They try jazz, and rock and roll, and other forms, then return to the blues because it's the hardest."

And Hooker should know!

Eric, that's totally right!

One of my favorite things about the country blues is the off-kilter meters. Robert Johnson is probably the best example, but 2/3s of the Fat Possum roster do the same thing today-- Asie Payton, Cedell Davis, RL Burnside's early stuff.

But, as a trained musician, playing that stuff like they do is muuuuurder.

yea...i remember reading an interview with some musician who commented on how tough it was to be in a backing band for John Lee Hooker...who sort of makes it up as he goes along.

I like Clear Spot, which is tight and catchy and accessible and stuff like that, while still preserving the Captain's essential weirdness.

I remember Lester Bangs writing that his favorite Beefheart album was Lick My Decals Off Baby, which should count for something I guess.

That was when I considered Lester to be a boring old fart.

Incidentally, I read (somewhere, sorry) that Beefheart's sidemen said that they had considerably more creative input, and the Captain much less, than he claimed.

The book by Zoot Horn Rollo, "Lunar Notes" has a lot of interesting stuff about the process whereby they rehearsed the material for "Trout" for 6 months while holed up in Beefheart's house. I think Rollo (and some of the other band members) were always a little pissed off they didn't get much recognition for their input.