This is Trout Mask Replica. On the album
cover is Captain Beefheart, a fish on his
face and a top hat on his head. The image
is surreal, it's grotesque, and it's the
perfect visual depiction of the music
you're about to hear.
My smile stuck. I cannot go back to your
frownland.
the 80 minutes of music on Trout Masks
Replica by Captain Beefheart and his
magic band have been compared to rusty
barbed wire, and the New York Times once
said that Captain Beefheart's voice
makes Tom Waits sound like Julie Andrews.
But, here's the thing, 41 years after its
release in 1969 this cacophonous double
album was inducted into the Library of
Congress's National Recording registry
right alongside Al Green's classic "Let's
Stay Together" and the American standard
"Take Me out to the Ball Game". Not only
that, a number of iconic musicians, visual
artists, and creative thinkers have named
Trout Mask Replica a shining point of
inspiration for their work. How can an
album that sounds like the musical
equivalent of barbed wire be recognized
as such a significant piece of American
culture?
Let's start with Don Van Vliet known as
Captain Beefheart. He grew up in
California on the edge of the Mojave
Desert and by the age of 10 was an
incredible sculptor. Growing up he became
captivated by the blues perfected by
musicians like Muddy Waters and Howlin
wolf some 2,000 miles away in the
Mississippi Delta just as much he was
entranced by the free jazz of Ornette
Coleman and John Coltrane by the late
1960s he had an album and a small-time
hit a cover of Bo Diddley's "Diddy Wah
Diddy." For his next project he signed to
his former high school classmate, Frank
Zappa's, label with the clear request for
unbridled creative freedom to do
whatever the hell he wanted for his next
project. By 1969 Trout Mask Replica was
created and those years were a glorious
mess for everyone involved in its making.
This is Samuel Andreyev. He's a composer
who studied composition and music
analysis at the Paris Conservatory. A
number of things, first of all it's an
album that I'm personally obsessed with.
I think it's a phenomenal work of art.
it is mind-bendingly creative and
honestly pretty difficult to listen to,
but its uniqueness can be discovered
within its songs, especially Frownland.
Well the purpose of Frownland as an
album opener is to just plunge you
headfirst into a maelstrom of just
absolute strangeness.
Here's something interesting you can do
as an experiment: compare it to a piece
like "You really got me" by the Kinks. Okay
so the main guitar riff in that song da
da da dum da da da da that's two notes
okay and that's what the song is built
out of. The most important thing is at
the rhythm guitar, lead guitar, bass, drums,
and vocals are all locked into one
rhythm - they are playing in sync. So
contrast that with "Frownland" where in
minute 40 seconds you have no fewer than
I think like 23 individual motifs - it's
actually 21 but that's still a whole lot -
and these 23 motifs are all individually
rather complex. Added to that is the fact
that they're all heard stacked on top of
each other all the time. Not only that
the traditional roles of rock
instrumentation found in songs like you
really got me we'e just completely
thrown out the window. Just listen
closely to the first five seconds of the
track.
You'll immediately notice that the
rhythm is off-kilter. That's because the
rhythm guitar and the lead guitar are
playing a five over seven polyrhythm.
That means one guitar is playing five
beats per measure at the same time the
other is playing seven. Okay so try
clapping five beats in one hand and the
same time you clap seven. Not
only is a piece polyrhythmic, it's also
polytonal. Both guitars are playing in
different keys throughout the piece
against each other and often they're
changing keys. Typically the bass would
ground the harmony and the rhythm but
here it's treated like a third guitar so
it lives in its own world as well. And,
it's playing chords which just rarely
happens in rock music. And on top of that
you have these insanely virtuosic drums
that have another function altogether.
The drummer is trying to take elements
of what the guitar is doing and what the
bass is doing and basically glue them
together so that the piece coheres. In
the end you have a really condensed song
with multiple instruments constantly
changing keys tempos and time signatures
and across the entire album this happens.
Trout Mask Replica is a masterpiece
because it does something that is almost
impossible hard to do, it comes from a
very rare place of art making. So art
scholars talk about the sentimental
versus the naive. On one end of the
spectrum you have sentimental art - art
that comes from a place of a lot of
formal training. At the other end you
have naive art - art that is almost
childlike. It exists purely because the
compulsion to make it was so strong. The
great thing about Trout Mask Replica is
that they literally splice together
naive impulses into a structure. So it
sounds totally improvised it sounds like
they're making it up on the spot but
they rehearsed these pieces, that's
really hard. So how do you teach these
musicians
to play your music? A kind whip. A kinda quip. A kind well
hell you know tape with the piano. A
tape. Captain Beefheart was the singular
creative force behind Trout Mask Replica
and he composed every song on the piano
without knowing how to play it.
He pretty much didn't play any
instrument, but he had his magic band
which consisted of remarkable young
musicians like Zoot Horn Rollo, Drumbo,
Antennae Jimmy Semmens, and Rockette Mornton.
Their job? translate Captain
Beefheart's avant-garde approach into a
blues and free jazz inspired rock album
based on the music he created on an
instrument he really didn't know how to
play. Let that sink in for a second. A
piano has 88 keys and with two hands you
can easily play the lowest and the
highest keys at the same time if you
wanted to.
Don Van Vliet expected those same sounds
from his two guitarist and a bassist
who's instrument ranges were just vastly
different. Here's Bill Harkleroad, you
might remember him as Zoot Horn Rollo. Oh
I think it was just that there were
parts and then well why can't you play
those notes what's wrong with you? Why
can't you play that note that's not
on the guitar or seven notes at a time?
So there was no choice but to do it. He used
to say you think you got a hard job man
I got a sing to that shit. And that is
John French, the drummer. He had the
arduous task of helping other members of
the band learn everything that came out
Don's piano. Sometimes I wondered I
wondered if he knew that it was in a
different time signature you know, but he
didn't know what time signature was.
They painstakingly rehearsed over the
course of a year until they were able to
record the entire double album all the
way through in just a few hours.
When I first came across Trout Mask Replica, I was instantly captivated by
the sound of those three words strung
together. Every song title made me laugh
and so I listened to it and it instantly
expanded my understanding of what music
could be. For some people it can be
offensive it sounds like they're
deliberately flaunting the rules I don't
think I don't view it that way I don't
think anyone's deliberately flaunting
the rules I think I don't think it's
contrarian for the sake of being
contrarian I think rather what it is is
its artistic for the sake of being
original. Hey all thanks for watching
first I want to give a huge shout out to
Samuel andreyev he was sort of the
inspiration for this video
he made a 30-minute video about the
music theory of frownland that's
linked below you should really really
check it out if you want to know more
about that specific song in addition
he's the one that conducted the two
interviews with John French and Bill
Harkleroad they're also on his YouTube
channel thanks so much for watching and
I'll see you in a couple of weeks
