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Gavin B. · 06-19-2013, 07:42 AM

I applaud Trollheart's brave decision to give a thumbs down to Trout Mask Replica which is a sacred cow album among hipsters. It's taboo to make negative remarks about a sacred cow album and doing so results in your immediate banishment from the ranks of hipsterhood.

I love Captain Beefheat's music, but I think Trout Mask Replica is a mediocre album. The entire album is Captain Beefheart's bombastic recital of his contrived Dadaist, stream-of-consciousness poetry backed by the amateurish imitations of delta blues musicians by the Magic Band. I challenge all of those Trout Mask hipsters to sit down and suffer through the 78 minute run length of the album and still pretend like it's a brilliant landmark album. You'd have to be a masochist to enjoy this sort of punishment.

Over the past four decades, Trout Mask Replica has become a fetish object for hipsters because of it's musical inaccessibility and the obscurantist themes of the album. These are the same hipsters who hailed Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music as a brilliant avant garde masterpiece. Lou Reed bitch slapped the hipster types who attempted to deify Metal Machine Music with the self effacing but hilarious one-liner: "Anyone who liked Metal Machine Music is dumber than I am."

Safe As Milk, Captain Beefheart's first album is a far more inspired effort. It's probably the best psychedelic garage band album of the era. Safe as Milk features the slide guitar playing of Ry Cooder, who could really play authentic delta blues. Most of the players on Safe As Milk were selected by Ry Cooder and were far more accomplished players than the members of the Magic Band.

My favorite Beefheart album is Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller) (1978). In the decade following the release of Trout Mask Replica, Captain Beefheart fired every member of the original Magic Band. It was apparent that the original band members lacked the musical chops play the sort of ambitiously experimental music that Captain Beefheart was writing.

Shiny Beast came along in the wake of the two worst albums Captain Beefheart ever recorded: Bluejeans and Moonbeams and Unconditionally Guaranteed. Both albums seemed like make-work projects in which Beefheart accommodated himself to the musical limitations of the remaining members of the original Magic Band line up. Captain Beefheart didn't release a single album over the next for years, having dissolved the original Magic Band. The players on Shiny Beast were all hand selected by Captain Beefheart as the new lineup of the Magic Band.

The Magic Band line up on Shiny Beast is the most accomplished group of musicians who ever backed Beefheart among the members were: Art Tripp (Mothers of Invention), jazz trombonist Bruce Fowler, and Eric Drew Feldman (future keyboardist for Frank Black & PJ Harvey). Those three musicians were multiple instrumentalists and Captain Beefheart used their versatile talents to augment the sound of the band by adding several layers of overdubbed parts to the final mix of the album.

The two youngest members of the reorganized Magic Band, Richard Redus and Jeff Morris Tepper, were selected as guitarists by Beefheart. Redus and Morris stayed with the Magic Band until Captain Beefheart retired from the music business to become a highly successful artist under his birth name of Don Van Vliet.

In the last 10 years of his life Don Van Vliet earned far more money as a painter than he ever did during his 30 plus years as a musician. At the time of his death in 2010, Van Vliet's oil paintings were selling at prices between $30,000 and $350,000.

06-19-2013, 07:42 AM	#86 (permalink)
Gavin B. Model Worker Join Date: Jan 2009 Posts: 1,248	I applaud Trollheart's brave decision to give a thumbs down to Trout Mask Replica which is a sacred cow album among hipsters. It's taboo to make negative remarks about a sacred cow album and doing so results in your immediate banishment from the ranks of hipsterhood. I love Captain Beefheat's music, but I think Trout Mask Replica is a mediocre album. The entire album is Captain Beefheart's bombastic recital of his contrived Dadaist, stream-of-consciousness poetry backed by the amateurish imitations of delta blues musicians by the Magic Band. I challenge all of those Trout Mask hipsters to sit down and suffer through the 78 minute run length of the album and still pretend like it's a brilliant landmark album. You'd have to be a masochist to enjoy this sort of punishment. Over the past four decades, Trout Mask Replica has become a fetish object for hipsters because of it's musical inaccessibility and the obscurantist themes of the album. These are the same hipsters who hailed Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music as a brilliant avant garde masterpiece. Lou Reed bitch slapped the hipster types who attempted to deify Metal Machine Music with the self effacing but hilarious one-liner: "Anyone who liked Metal Machine Music* is dumber than I am." Safe As Milk, Captain Beefheart's first album is a far more inspired effort. It's probably the best psychedelic garage band album of the era. Safe as Milk* features the slide guitar playing of Ry Cooder, who could really play authentic delta blues. Most of the players on Safe As Milk were selected by Ry Cooder and were far more accomplished players than the members of the Magic Band. My favorite Beefheart album is Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller) (1978). In the decade following the release of Trout Mask Replica, Captain Beefheart fired every member of the original Magic Band. It was apparent that the original band members lacked the musical chops play the sort of ambitiously experimental music that Captain Beefheart was writing. Shiny Beast came along in the wake of the two worst albums Captain Beefheart ever recorded: Bluejeans and Moonbeams and Unconditionally Guaranteed. Both albums seemed like make-work projects in which Beefheart accommodated himself to the musical limitations of the remaining members of the original Magic Band line up. Captain Beefheart didn't release a single album over the next for years, having dissolved the original Magic Band. The players on Shiny Beast were all hand selected by Captain Beefheart as the new lineup of the Magic Band. The Magic Band line up on Shiny Beast is the most accomplished group of musicians who ever backed Beefheart among the members were: Art Tripp (Mothers of Invention), jazz trombonist Bruce Fowler, and Eric Drew Feldman (future keyboardist for Frank Black & PJ Harvey). Those three musicians were multiple instrumentalists and Captain Beefheart used their versatile talents to augment the sound of the band by adding several layers of overdubbed parts to the final mix of the album. The two youngest members of the reorganized Magic Band, Richard Redus and Jeff Morris Tepper, were selected as guitarists by Beefheart. Redus and Morris stayed with the Magic Band until Captain Beefheart retired from the music business to become a highly successful artist under his birth name of Don Van Vliet. In the last 10 years of his life Don Van Vliet earned far more money as a painter than he ever did during his 30 plus years as a musician. At the time of his death in 2010, Van Vliet's oil paintings were selling at prices between $30,000 and $350,000. __________________ There are two types of music: the first type is the blues and the second type is all the other stuff. Townes Van Zandt Last edited by Gavin B.; 06-21-2013 at 09:53 AM.