In Defense of Trout Mask Replica

You may ask yourself, “What were they doing?” The answer is more sinister than you could ever imagine: exactly what they were supposed to.

art by Cal Schenkel (gatefold/verso by Ed Caraeff)

Don Van Vliet/Captain Beefheart: vocals, principle songwriter, saxophone, musette, horns, sleigh bells on “Hobo Chang Ba”

Victor Hadyn The Mascara Snake: bass clarinet, saxophone, backing vocals on “Ella Guru”

Bill Harkleroad/Zoot Horn Rollo: guitar, “glass appendage” slide. He’s credited for flute. To this day, he asserts he did not play the flute.

Jeff Cotton/Antennae Jimmy Semens: guitar, “steel appendage” slide, “flesh horn” on “Ella Guru,” spoken word on “Pena” and “The Blimp”

Mark Boston/Rockette Morton: bass, vocals on “Dachau Blues” and “Fallin Ditch”

John French/Drumbo: drums, arrangements

Special guests: Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention; Gary/Magic Marker, bass on “Moonlight on Vermont” and “Veteran’s Day Poppy;” Doug Moon, guitar on “China Pig;” unknown neighbor kids on “Hair Pie: Bake 1;” unknown, recording on “Dachau Blues”

Produced by Frank Zappa, engineered by Dick Kunc

David Fricke became one of my favorite music writers after my VH1 Classic Albums series binge. Around the time I wrote the Disraeli Gears episode (and erroneously suggested today’s album in question as a 50,000 subscriber incentive,) I went poking around Rolling Stone’s online archives for some of Fricke’s work to read. One of the last substantial things of his Rolling Stone has published was a 50th anniversary celebration of Trout Mask Replica.

It was hard not to be swayed by descriptions such as: “improbably severe angles in ice-pick treble,” “broken bones slicing through skin,” “u-turn spasms of loose-limbed time and tempo” and “hellhound bass to whacked falsetto.” (David Fricke, “Why Captain Beefheart’s ‘Trout Mask Replica’ Still Sounds Like Tomorrow” Rolling Stone, 6/15/2019) Fricke’s writing inspired me to try Trout Mask Replica for myself.

People’s experiences with Trout Mask can generally be filed into 3 categories:

1. Immediately recognizes as genius

2. What the fuck is this?? Turn it off now!!

3. Starting out hating it, then after a few passes, understanding it.

Simpsons creator Matt Groening’s experience fell into the 3rd category. He would’ve been a 12-year-old Frank Zappa worshipper at the time of Trout Mask’s release. Upon first listen, Matt thought it was “the worst thing (he’d) ever heard.”

“...I listened to it a couple more times, because I couldn’t believe Frank Zappa could do this to me – and because a double album cost a lot of money. About the third time, I realized they were doing it on purpose; they meant it to sound exactly this way. About the sixth or seventh time, it clicked in, and I thought it was the greatest album I’d ever heard.”

quoted from: The Artist Formerly Known as Captain Beefheart (dir. Elaine Shepard, 1997)

I had to try for Trout Mask Replica. I spent over a month writing this video, and only made it all the way through this album in one sitting twice. I’ll say what everyone is thinking: this is…a lot…at once. It’s a 28-song double album of some of the most mangled shit ever put to tape. Some call it unlistenable. And they’re kind of right! As a double album package, Trout Mask Replica is damn near unlistenable. Around When Big Joan Sets Up, the fatigue sets in. A lot of this album is in the same key, recorded the same way with the same treatments. Everything gets to sounding the same. I often had to break up my listening between discs to hear anything distinguishing about the 2nd. Steal Softly Thru Snow and Hobo Chang Ba still get lost in my memory, despite the studio antics attached to the latter (Beefheart reportedly bought 20 sleigh bells just to record “Hobo Chang Ba.”) No other album has worn out my ear this way. I found no comfort in this.

“But AD, can’t you hit the pause button?”

Not really! I could lift the needle to absorb what the hell just happened, and I can take a break between sides. But while you lot get the luxury of just clicking pause, I have to get up, change the record, and drop the needle on this shit four times! Every time I’d play it!

For days, I struggled with how the hell I was going to structure a Trout Mask Replica review. Since its release, many a writer has tried to articulate why this album works; Bangs, Christgau, even Fantano has taken a stab at it. There’s just too much here to go track-by-track – but would just sharing my likes and dislikes be a copout? What could I possibly say about this that someone who’s more knowledgable about music hasn’t already said? Is there a right way to talk about Trout Mask? Is there even a “right” way to feel about Trout Mask? It doesn’t matter if your experience is category 1, 2, or 3, SOMEONE’S gonna say you’re wrong.

So I’ll go with my usual double album format...cautiously.

There are some positively listenable cuts on Trout Mask: psych-adjacent Moonlight On Vermont, lo-fi down-and-dirty blues China Pig, the almost-composed Veteran’s Day Poppy. God, “Veteran’s” is sweet, sweet relief at the end of all this. But after all this, “Veteran’s” comfort and modern sounds feel like wearing your slippers on the wrong feet. Personal favorite Ella Guru is another of the more traditionally palatable tracks; it would’ve been my pick for a single. It’s got the now-immortal “fast and bulbous” joke. It’s got texture while not being grating – perhaps in spite of the sparkly Sunset Sound fidelity, this album’s manner of recording feels like sandpaper to the ears. There’s some semblance of a hook (“Eeeeeella guruuu!”) and parts that are, dare I say, catchy; like the disjointed ascending guitar that begs for a knock-kneed kickline. “Ella Guru” gets stuck in my head the most.

But here’s the thing: even the “listenable” tunes are subverted by stream-of-consciousness lyrics. The strongest example is the protagonist of “Moonlight on Vermont,” Little Nitty. He drifts into frame “with his lil pistol showin’, and his lil pistol totin’ – well that goes to show you what a moon can do.” White moonlight on mountainssomehow becomes sexually arousing to these characters. There’s allusions to sex, sexual hang-ups, and STDs all over the place on Trout Mask. It’s like Freudian Dream Analysis: The Album. There’s more semen than Aeroplane!

Nonsensical as the titles and lyrics of X-ray gingham dresses can be – it honestly reads like fridge magnet poetry, “Hobo Chang Ba” is notably nonsensical – the word smashes are on the money. As many allusions as Don uses in the lyrics, thanks to the stark imagery and hair-raising delivery, they end up uncomfortably realistic. Though it may be 15 songs in, Trout Mask still has tricks up its sleeve with Pena. Smiles are wiped from faces by cartoonish, frenzied poetry that sounds like either helium or varispeed was involved; recited over disembodied screaming. It truly sounds like someone enjoying the sun while sitting on a turned-on waffle iron. “Smoke billowing up from between her legs made me vomit beautifully!” That’s some stomach-churning stuff! I don’t know whether I should be laughing or screaming too. Lots of tracks cross into this firecrotch-and-brimstone grotesquerie: “meaty dream wet meate,” “her ragged hair was shining red-white-and-blue, and all the children screaming,” “three little children with doves on their shoulders, their eyes rolled back in ecstasy cryin...” And those are just selections from disc one.

Though its title references mouth stuff, Hair Pie: Bake 1 does, in fact, sound like the horror of cutting into a steaming sweet-smelling gorgeous pie only to discover a matted cowlick-encroached scalp dressing inside.

I think the word people are looking for when they describe Trout Mask is arresting. To my ears, Beefheartsounds like if Howlin’ Wolf guzzled gasoline right from the pump. Then there’s the music; engaged in a sparring match with itself. It’s all about as stable as a foundation built on sand. To quote noted Trout Maskdevotee Tom Waits: “...to dance to this? There aren’t really any existing dances appropriate!” (“Captain Beefheart: Trout Mask Replica” Studio 360, 1/13/2012)

Most of Trout Mask’s best moments have that one thing in common: arresting. For example, the album doesn’t start with any of the remotely listenable cuts. It starts with Frownland. It’s a bruising 100 seconds of an opener to endure. I can’t say if this was intentional or not, but “Frownland” does a lot of legwork to turn listeners off from Trout Mask. It runs those outer grooves as if to say, “either shit or get off the pot!” The songstarts in stunted 7/8 time, then descends into, in the words of my best friend from high school in the parking lot of my local movieplex, “Holy polyrhythms!”

Hearing “Frownland” for the first time, you may ask yourself, head in your hands, “What were they doing?” The answer is more sinister than you could ever imagine: exactly what they were supposed to. The Magic Band rigorously rehearsed the music of Trout Mask to sound just like this, across nine months.

For this, we can credit (or blame) Gary Marker and Don Van Vliet. Gary introduced Beefheart to avant-garde and free jazz music, like Stockhausen, Steve Reich (Miss Pamela Des Barres’s memoir tells a fantastic anecdote about walking in on the band listening to “Come Out” on repeat,) Pauline Oliveras, Ornette Coleman, Archie Shepp, and of course, Albert Ayler. Then Gary got the hell out of dodge. As he should have!

In response, Don tried his hardest to peel back his and his band’s conventional music roots. It worked pretty well with the band – though it required a fair amount of literal actual psychological torture to get there. It didn’t work so much with Don. He still incorporated the blues holler, talking blues, and Delta and Chicago blues styles into his performances.

After seeing Frank Zappa and multi-instrumentalist Mother extraordinaire Ian Underwood rehearsing on piano, Don decided he wanted to write on piano. Don could not play piano. A long-held myth about this album is that Don wrote all of Trout Mask by himself on the piano. Another is that the album is all random musical parts layered on top of each other, with Don’s vocals dubbed in. Both are false. Trout Mask was a carefully-orchestrated group effort. Listen to this demo from Grow Fins; it’s near-identical to what wound up on the LP.

Do you recognize this one?

When an idea came to him, Don would drop everything to get it out. Therefore, everyone had to drop everything to work out what they were supposed to be playing for a new song. As described by Drumbo, “...there was a sense of total urgency, and you better be totally committed to catching it while it was there.” (FSTB) While the guys were held against their will, they weren’t playing this music against their will. It took getting used to, but they really liked the challenge; it’s why they put up with so much of Don’s shit!

The group effort of arranging this thing made the meters everyone plays absolutely WILD stacked on top of each other. Then you have Don, wailing about “the sky! And the sun! And the moon! And all my eyes can see!!” Like dude, calm down, you’re gonna give yourself an asthma attack!

“Frownland” is a microcosm of the greater Trout Mask Replica. There’s catchy elements, like the guitar for the first 15 seconds or so of the song or the lick at approximately 41 seconds in. The rhythm section is tight, the drumming is great, the accents Drumbo has to put in lest he’s drowned by the vat of cold musical spaghetti are genius. But when you zoom out...what do you do with this? It’s like picking through vomit for chunks.

The most consistently shocking thing about Trout Mask is the manner in which Don decides to use his voice. If you listen to any Beefheart album that isn’t Trout Mask, you’ll hear he had a great voice. In his 331/3 installation on this album, Kevin Courrier alleges Don had a four-octave range. But on cuts like My Human Gets Me Blues, Well, Octafish, and so many more, Don uses it like a southern gospel preacher with a fever of 104. It makes otherwise casual stream-of-consciousness drabblings like, “She pulled up her blouse and compared her naval to the moon. I dig my life for a while.” a trip and a half!

Talk about arresting: having a song about the Holocaust as track three is a Choice. I’m disappointed that the vocal track was removed from the streaming service version of Dachau Blues. Why are we censoring this? When Trout Mask was released, we were only one generation removed from the Holocaust. This song is a sonic expression and important reminder of one of the most horrible acts committed in human history. It’s ironic considering the line, “The world can’t forget that misery.” The vocal track of “Big Joan” is removed too, I have no idea. If you don’t mind the original vision of the album being mucked with and you do check out the Spotify version of “Dachau Blues,” you’ll find it possesses of the best instrumentals on the record. Considering Victor couldn’t play the clarinet, his scrambled solo highlights the horrors Don sings of, in the impossibly low end of his vocal range. The Captain’s voice may be abrasive as hell, but man can he sing.

Speaking of screeching woodwind instruments, “Hair Pie: Bake 1!” It’s the superior of the Hair Pies for its wheezing, honking saxophone duet. Don and Victor imitate the mating calls of swans with knots in their necks. What in the Albert Ayler is this? I’m pretty indulgent of, even partial to, the abstract soloing that happens on Trout Mask, as it just adds so much character. Everything about “Hair Pie: Bake 1” screams intrigue: the interplay between instruments, a muddled “Hair Pie: Bake 2” in the background, the neighbor kids interrupting to ask about what on earth they’re hearing. (Don accidentally calls it “Octafish.”)

As much as I appreciate the whack shit, recitations like The Dust Blows Forward..., “Well,” Orange Claw Hammer, and Old Fart At Play – which does such cool stuff with its degradation of fidelity – instrumentals the Hair Pies and Dali’s Car, and undone “China Pig” are much-needed palate cleansers. I appreciate “The Dust Blows Forward” most. It’s like a field recording of a blues man singing to himself, giving it an oddly sensitive quality? Not to mention it’s funny as hell. The false start at, “and a- and a lipstick Kleenex” makes me giggle, and I’ve been quoting “me and my girl named Bimbo. Limbo. Spam.” To myself all week. Trout Mask iscartoony in its reverence and irreverence, The Blimp reads like a MAD Magazine parody of The War of the Worlds. This album is famed for its injokes: “fast and bulbous” and “neon meate dream of a Octafish” function as leitmotifs. Humor is very subjective, not everyone will find Trout Mask funny. But to me, it’s hystericalbecause of how absurdly committed to the bit everyone is.

Take the intro of “Pena.” Don is taking this fast and bulbous recitation so seriously. He even corrects Victor for cutting off “also, a tin teardrop.” You hear Victor go, “Oh, Christ.” Me too man!

“Octafish” makes me laugh out loud. Hearing “TRA LA! TRA LA. TRA LA.” Spat with such conviction over a screaming mystery instrument is perfection. We also have “Pachuco Cadaver.”

Someone at Bizarre heard, “A squid eating dough in a polyethylene bag is fast and bulbous, got me?” And said, “Now THIS. This is gonna be a hit with the kids!”

(Then you realize that person at Bizarre who selected “Cadaver” for the single was probably Don or Frank, and the situation comes into focus.)

Fantastic as that opening line is, if you’re trying to get the advancement of music into more people’s ears? I don’t know if “Cadaver” was the right choice for a single. As for “Moonlight On Vermont,” that could’ve been a local hit! It could’ve slung some copies among the more open-minded listeners of LA, or the particularly acid-dredged of San Fransisco. There’s really great ’60s California groove riffs buried in this song. The Trout Mask guitar tone is like no other. It can either be harnessed like this or transformed into screeching razorblades; thanks to slapping a capo on, playing way up the fret board, and cranking the amps up to 10. When the chords form themselves into something remotely familiar, I cheer. Rockette Morton (and Magic Marker on select cuts’s) respective bass do a lot of work to either put shape into or take the spine out of Trout Mask. Sugar N Spikes would’ve been good too; it could pass for a more out-there psych tune. It’s gota genuinely good instrumental, everyone actually sounds like they’re on the same page! Ant Man Bee andWild Life have the bones of a blues tune; one in instruments, the other in vocals. That is, before they go all squiggly and invertebrate.

In the grand scheme of things, Trout Mask Replica…really isn’t that challenging? If we’re talking Zappaverse, The GTOs’ Permanent Damage is harder to grasp than Trout Mask. Permanent Damage came from a very specific context – the groupie scene on the Sunset Strip in 1968 – a context most listeners don’t have. Don’t get me wrong, Trout Mask came from a specific context too: the LA freak music scene in 1968. But it’s ever so slightlyeasier for the typical “music fan” (being listeners in their late 20s-middle age, mostly men) to immerse themselves in. Not to mention free jazz gets way weirder than this.

For anyone who’s ever listened to, written about, or been held hostage by Trout Mask Replica, all our feelingsfall somewhere under the umbrella Marc Masters described for Pitchfork:

“Like life in a cult, the music seems crazy to an outside observer but makes perfect sense once you’re inside.”

quoted from: Marc Masters, “Trout Mask Replica” Pitchfork, 4/28/2018

Every once in a while, you encounter an album that rewires your brain. For better or worse, this is one of mine. Never before have I sniffed out quirks and intricacies in music like this. The masterful drumming in Sweet Sweet Bulbs (John French, you genius!) And ever-melodic bass from Rockette Morton. The chemical reactions between Zoot Horn and Antennae Jimmy, the grooves you have to scavenge for. This is an album you have to work at, but it’s incredibly rewarding. Trout Mask has changed my taste.

I’d been wanting to get into Albert Ayler for ages, but just couldn’t grasp that buzzing hornet sound. Live InGreenwich came on my Spotify once and for the next 11 months I circled that drain, hoping its glory would reveal itself to me. Months go by, I listen to Trout Mask. I went to a record store last week and there in the new arrivals bin was Live In Greenwich. I bought it, threw it on my turntable, and it’s beautiful. So I’ll shake Trout Mask’s hand for making me a more adventurous and open-minded music listener...but I’m wearing gloves. I don’t want to catch whatever this thing has.

As written in the liner notes of my Third Man Records edition of this album, John Peel said: “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.” If I had to describe Trout Mask’s sound in art: it’s the gross side of surrealism mixed with abstract expressionism. Twisted figures in sparse landscapes that melt into evidence of aggressive, impulsive, gesturing motions.Running with the beef theme and surrealist overtones, think Un Chien Andalou. (You know the shot.) Considering “Dali’s Car” was named for Salvador Dali’s Rainy Day Taxi installation, this comparison might not be too far off.

pictured: Salvador Dali, Rainy Day Taxi (1938) [photographed by Denise Bellon, 1938)

It’s the blues, field recordings, and free jazz. The most idiosyncratic record ever made. The combo’s got a pungent odor, one that no one has ever or will ever be able to replicate. It’s one of the few albums in existence that shows you what happens when the building blocks of music are completely disassembled, shredded, wet to a pulp, and molded into something completely original. I just really wish it didn’t take putting the band under physical and mental duress to do it. It does make for every musicians’ respective performances conveying high stakes like no other album. The biblically accurate arrangements are truly something to behold.

Trout Mask Replica is the ultimate trust exercise. But don’t worry, it WILL drop you.

Personal favorites: “Frownland,” “The Dust Blows Forward N The Dust Blows Back,” “Ella Guru,” “Moonlight On Vermont,” “Hair Pie: Bake 1,” “Pachuco Cadaver,” “Neon Meate Dream of A Octafish,” “Pena,” “Veteran's Day Poppy"

– AD ☆

Watch the full episode above!