{"id":4069,"date":"2014-06-02T21:20:31","date_gmt":"2014-06-02T20:20:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thesenseofdoubt.com\/?p=4069"},"modified":"2016-12-12T12:35:53","modified_gmt":"2016-12-12T12:35:53","slug":"essential-captain-beefheart-trout-mask-replica","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/box2305.temp.domains\/~thesent5\/essential-captain-beefheart-trout-mask-replica\/","title":{"rendered":"Essential? Captain Beefheart – Trout Mask Replica"},"content":{"rendered":"

Essential? Captain Beefheart – Trout Mask Replica<\/h2>\n

Courtesy of Carsten Petersen \u2013 a controversial\u00a0and strange piece of flesh<\/h5>\n
*The views of this review do not\u00a0necessarily\u00a0reflect\u00a0the opinion of the\u00a0editor<\/h5>\n

Finally, the day has come. I have been looking forward to it for so long! Finally, in my 29 years of living, I get the opportunity and I wanna thank everybody who make this possible, mum, dad, my friends, my buddy, Alejandro De Luna, who did this site and of course Captain Beefheart.<\/strong> It is finally the time: I can tell a Chuck Norris<\/strong> joke and people will read it! So here we go…let me limber up first, ok, here we go: Chuck Norris<\/strong> has listened to Trout Mask Replica<\/em> of Captain Beefheart<\/strong> all the way through! ONCE! WITHOUT A PAUSE!<\/p>\n

\"Captain<\/a>Now, let’s get serious, because this ones a whopper! And I mean the kind of whoppers that are hard to chew! It is Trout Mask Replica<\/em> by Captain Beefheart,<\/strong> an album that has received both praise and complete damnation. Why don’t I start this review by saying that I..well…don’t like the record?! I don’t outright hate it, but you see, as a fan of Frank Zappa<\/strong>, weird Pink Floyd <\/strong>stuff, freaked out Peter Gabriel<\/strong> etc. I thought nothing could beat me, but this album did. It is cruel on the ears, ugly beyond words, it is random, chaotic and just completely unenjoyable. No kidding…Why couldn’t I just keep reviewing Springsteen<\/strong><\/a>? You see, I asked our editor who runs this site to review Stevie Wonder<\/strong>…And what do I get?A white, ugly, bastardized, ear-destroying, freezing, freaky version with a mustache…and not even a cool mustache like good old Frank<\/strong>…<\/p>\n

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Captain Beefheart<\/strong> was born and raised as Don Glen Vliet<\/strong> and he grew up in the distance of the deserts of California. The rest of his story is typical for a future fucked up musician. Van Vliet<\/strong> grew up as a pretty isolated young dude, with girls being as far away from him as the cup of coffee I need so very badly now. He became friends with Frank Zappa<\/strong> and well, if Frank Zappa<\/strong> is the only friend of yours, you know you did something bad. Calling himself Captain Beefheart<\/strong>, the guy started to record his first albums in the underground music scene. His sound from the very beginning was a very dirty, loud and raw version of the blues with a singing style that was basically deep growling, to imagine his singing, just think of an earlier version of Tom Waits<\/strong>. After a while, he formed a band that was simply called his “Magic Band”. After my introductory paragraphs, it shouldn’t come as a big surprise that despite the name, this band did not produce the typical Summer of Love Sound.<\/p>\n

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\u00a0READ ‘THE CREAM OF ZAPPA’<\/a><\/h3>\n
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\"Trout<\/a>Now, before getting into the album, it is pretty important to tell you, what working with the Captain<\/strong> was like. Basically, he was a mean, bitter, angry and paranoid dictator. His musicians, his magic band, had to work day and night, they were completely forbidden of partying and when doing or saying something wrong, they were sure to be a victim of Beefheart\u00b4s<\/strong> vicious attacks. No, the guy wasn’t an easy fellow to get along with, apparently he was one of these people who needed to be liked pretty badly but you know how it is, as soon as they suspense someone to jump ship, things can turn really ugly.<\/p>\n

How was the album recorded? Well the thing is, Beefheart<\/strong> recorded the album separate from his musicians! Beefheart<\/strong> was in the studio, singing whatever stuff came into his mind and later on put his ramblings to the music recorded by the band, no matter if these two fit together or not. Second, Beefheart<\/strong> wrote every frigging note of the record but it was his goal that each and every musician played something completely different at the very same time and do NOTHING that would even closely resemble structure or a traditional approach at songwriting, melody or playing. The result, as you can guess, is a real mess, something for the true die hard music freak.<\/p>\n

Basically the album consists of two types of songs. One is the song where the whole Magic Band<\/strong> plays all sorts of gruff, distorted, dissonant riffs with rhythm changing every two seconds and Beefheart<\/strong> howling madly over this chaotic mess. It should be noted that Beefheart<\/strong> was a great fan of the Blues Singer Howlin\u00b4 Wolf<\/strong> who sang like he was called. The Captain<\/strong> just howls, yells, gruffs and grunts his way through the dissonant jungle of metallic guitars and broken rhythms, being completely out of rhythm with the music that is completely out of rhythm and needless to say, even the rhythm is completely out of…well…you know the rest, and the rest is completely out of rhythm too.<\/p>\n

The second part of songs is basically just Beefheart<\/strong> solo, reciting his mad lyrics over no music at all. To be honest, I simply do not know what the hell he is rambling about, you go figure it out…If I should describe the sound of the record, well, you see, Beefheart<\/strong> grew up in the deserts of America and this is what his music sounds like! In a way, it goes along well with the colors of the album cover, just a very dry sound that makes you think of whirling sand and glowing bowls of dust. With the late afternoon, burning hot, deep red sun shining on what is left of vegetation in this forsaken place. Shut down huts, somewhere in the middle of a sand storm, if you see a cactus, just make sure, it is not you hallucinating. And if you are looking for an oasis with colours of green and blue, well, goodbye to you…<\/p>\n

Songs? Individual songs? Man, I would love that, but I am no Chuck Norris<\/strong>, so no, I will not explain every frigging of these 28 tracks, but maybe it will just keep you from killing me…However, there are indeed tracks, that make this whole mess into, well, something fascinating. Take “Ella Guru” for example. It is sort of the “Hit Single” of the record, meaning, it actually has a CHORUS, you know, you kind of predict that something will happen and that does not happen a whole lot on the record. The chaotic guitars are plain fun, the chorus just a pure delight and the whole chaos for once is not irritating but simply cool.<\/p>\n