Trout Mask Replica - Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band
If forced into making one of those desert island album lists, I'd just have to have this one. It's one of those recordings that's so odd, so multi-faceted...so fricken' weird...that's it's hard to describe in words. I mean, a list of the musical styles can be constructed (rock, folk, jazz, spoken word, music concrete, country, field recordings), but that doesn't help at all. One thing for sure is that you can listen to it once, ten, fifty, a hundred times...and each time there something new starin' back at ya.
Lester Bangs described it this way:
- "...four sides of discordant yet juicy swampbrine jambalaya roogalator..."
Yep, that does sorta sum it all up. Or maybe we should go to the words of Mr. Van Vliet himself:
- A squid eating dough in a polyethylene bag is fast and bulbous, got me?
(First posted on Mark Is Cranky)
Article comments
1 - Rodney Welch
I can't remember the name of the critic who said Captain Beefheart sang like an old man telling neighborhood kids to get off his lawn. Anyway. Did you notice No. 62 of the Rolling Stone list? For whatever else might be said of that list, this selection shows some sense of adventure.
2 - Mark Saleski
well i'll be damned, i didn't notice that.
..and that description of Beefheart is just about right!
3 - Eric Olsen
Weird AND great is best of all Mark! the line you quote sounds suspiciously like Beck, or vice versa.
4 - Mark Saleski
which line? bangs or beefheart?
the beefheart comes right from Trout Mask
my computer at work used to be named "bulbous"....it got pretty tiring having to describe the reasoning behind that one.
5 - Banjopete
Trout Mask Replica is, in my opinion, one of the greatest recordings of all time. Funny how few people have ever heard of Beefheart and even fewer like his music. I love it! Nice to see that other people do too :)