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Master master This is recorded thru uh flies ear ‘n you have t’ have uh flies eye t’ see it It’s the thing that’s gonna make Captain Beefheart And his magic band fat Frank it’s the big hit It’s the blimp It’s the blimp Frank It’s the blimp When I see you floatin’ down the gutter I’ll give you uh bottle uh wine Put me on the white hook Back in the fat rack Shad rack ee shack The sumptin’ hoop the sumptin’ hoop The blimp the blimp The drazy hoops the drazy hoops They’re camp they’re camp Tits tits the blimp the blimp TheRead More →

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Quietly the rain played down on last of the ashes Quietly the light played down on her lashes She smiled ‘n twisted she smiled ‘n twisted Hideously looking back at what once was beautiful Playing naturally magically O’ her ragged hair was shinin’ red white n’ blue All ‘n all the children screamin’ Why surely madam you must be dreamin’ You couldn’t have done this if you knew what you were doin’ Well the gold fish ‘n the bowl lay upside down bloatin’ Full in the sky ‘n the plains were bleached white with skeletons Various species grouped together according To their past beliefs TheRead More →

Ant Man Bee as imagined by OpenAI

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Originally appeared on Trout Mask Replica White ants runnin’ Black ants crawlin’ Yella ants dreamin’ Brown ants longin’ All those people longin’ to be free Uhuru ant man bee uhuru ant man bee All the ants in God’s garden they can’t get along War still runnin’ on It’s that one lump uh sugar That they won’t leave each other ‘lone Why do yuh have t’ do this You’ve got t’ let us free Why do yuh have t’ do this You’ve got t’ set us free Why do yuh have t’ do this You’ve got t’ set us free Why do yuh have t’ doRead More →

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IT’S THE BLIMP, IT’S THE BLIMP… And how. Beefheart is the blimp. The Captain is unique. No band in the world could manage what he and his magic men achieve. They tear and slash at the guts of their music, ripping its lungs out, grinding and crushing the bones, then pull it all together in a couple of bars. Their songs both lyrics and rhythms – destroy the tired-out bullshit conventions of every contemporary musical field. Saxes jag in and out among rasping guitars, the drumming is what ‘heavy’ used to mean, and Beefheart hasn’t managed a drink or a screw since he climbed outRead More →

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1969 US Original on Straight STS 1053 (double) Released on 16th June 1969. Stunning cover shot by Cal Schenkel of Don in full regalia holding a carp’s head. Gatefold sleeve with lyric sheet insert Label pictured below courtesy of David Naughton. 1969 UK Original on Straight STS 1053 (double) Released in early November 1969. Distributed by CBS. No lyric sheet came with this UK issue. 1969 German Original on German Straight SMS 2222/3 (double) Has ELECTROLA GESELLSCHAFT M.B.H. KÖLN on back of cover, thick smooth distinctive inner sleeve and Pink/Black/White StRaIGHt labels. 19?? US 8 Track release. Note reversed image. Scan kindly sent to meRead More →

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Don (Captain Beefheart) Van Vliet was among the most challenging and idiosyncratic of artists to come down the pike in the ’60s. Drawing his influences from the blues, free jazz and the avant-garde, he made music and poetry that was at once freakish and tradition-bound, nonsensical and intellectual, recalcitrant and disciplined-contradictions that kept his work consistently compelling from his early days right through his still-lamented retirement from recording in the ’80s. “Trout Mask Replica,” his fourth album, is perhaps his most celebrated. The two-record set was produced by Frank Zappa, his childhood chum and musical benefactor. Often repellent but undeniably evocative song/poems such as “NeonRead More →

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Trout Mask Replica, Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band (Straight Sm 1053) Captain Beefheart, the only true dadaist in rock, has been victimized repeatedly by public incomprehension and critical authoritarianism. The tendency has been to chide C.B. and his Band as a potentially acceptable blues band who were misled onto the paths of greedy trendy commercialism. What the critics failed to see was that this was a band with a vision, that their music, difficult raucous and rough as it is, proceeded from a unique and original consciousness. This became dramatically apparent with their last album. Since their music derived as much from the newRead More →

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Compiled by Jasper Leach. If you can help with any further info, please get in touch. All songs (unless noted differently) Produced by Frank Zappa Engineered by Dick Kunc Recorded at Whitney Studios, Los Angeles, CA; April 1969 1. Frownland Captain Beefheart: vocal Zoot Horn Rollo: glass finger guitar & guitar (left channel) Antennae Jimmy Semens: steel guitar & guitar (right channel) Rockette Morton: bass Drumbo: drums 2. The Dust Blows Forward ‘n the Dust Blows Back Captain Beefheart: vocal Produced by Don Van Vliet Engineered by John French Recorded at Beefheart House, Woodland Hills, CA; c. 1969 3. Dachau Blues Captain Beefheart: vocal, bassRead More →

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Not sure when this little collection was distributed but as it has the Straight logo and address we can presume it was as a promotion for the first release. Was it only sent out to the press, radio or who? It’s a collection of five handwritten poems, one for each member of the band included in an envelope that carries a great typed quote from a disc jockey. Significantly Drumbo is again left out (as he was on the credits of the original release). Update: John French was shown these poems and he immediately recognised the writing, it’s Jeff Cotton’s who often acted as ‘scribe’Read More →

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Recording details Date – late 1968 and March/April 1969 Studio – Sunset Sound, Hollywood; Whitney Studios, Glendale Producer – Frank Zappa Engineer – Dick Kunc Musicians Don Van Vliet Bill Harkleroad Jeff Cotton John French Mark Boston Victor Hayden Gary Marker Doug Moon Many of the musicians on this album had a poem written for / about them by Don Van Vliet. View Leach’s Listing for a thorough guide to who did what on Trout Mask Replica. Track list Frownland The Dust Blows Forward ‘N The Dust Blows Back Dachau Blues Ella Guru Hair Pie: Bake 1 Moonlight on Vermont Pachuco Cadaver Bills Corpse SweetRead More →

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Published by Continuum (33 1/3 series) ISBN 0 826427812 2007 152 pages Publisher’s blurb In the spring of 1969, the inauspicious release of Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band’s Trout Mask Replica, a double-album featuring 28 stream-of-consciousness songs filled with abstract rhythms and guttural bellows, dramatically altered the pop landscape. Yet even if the album did cast its radical vision over the future of music, much of the record’s artistic strength is actually drawn from the past. This book examines how Beefheart’s incomparable opus, an album that divided (rather than) united a pop audience, is informed by a variety of diverse sources. Trout Mask ReplicaRead More →

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[wp_quote] I’m Tom Flackman in Stockholm, Sweden, Beef-fan and assistant editor at “Vi Magazine”. I thought I should show you the cover of our latest issue. Yes, it’s a hommage à Captain Beefheart, but there’s nothing in this issue that’s connected to The Man. The cover is there to promote the food section (fish recipes…). But basically, it’s an esoteric blink to my Beefheart buddies. I was totally baffled when my boss said OK to this idea. [/wp_quote] – Tom FlackmanRead More →

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I must admit – Captain Beefheart’s music is an acquired thang. But once you acquire it – there’s no turning back, as the devout will tell you. When I first bought Trout Mask Replica (on the day of its release!), it was merely because at the time I thought anything Zappa was involved with – directly or indirectly, HAD to be good (little did I know). I brought it home and was appalled that there was not only one, but two records full of a hideous confused barrage of garble. This was the untrained ear’s interpretation. I couldn’t believe that I had forked out twiceRead More →

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Why do I like Beefheart? Hmmm……. not easy to answer. Maybe I should start with ‘how’… I think my story will be echoed by other fans in the UK. In 1966/67 the music scene exploded. Although those years are parodied or ridiculed by many they were critical in the freeing of music and it is difficult to explain how radically things were changed. The frontrunners – The Beatles and The Stones – were experimenting with new sounds, but the most exciting music seemed to be coming from the American West Coast. Weird music played by bands with strange sounding names. The only way many ofRead More →

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In March 2000, John French sent me a message commenting on Angel’s photographs of the house in Woodland Hills where the Magic Band lived and rehearsed Trout Mask Replica. I asked him if he would like to write a paragraph about the house that I could include at the Radar Station. This is what he sent me, many thanks, John. Actually, I know the people who live there and had their email address for a time. They allowed me to come in during August of 1998 and take pictures inside and out. However, the shots of the outside didn’t show as much detail because: itRead More →

Ensenada Drive road sign

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Many thanks indeed to Angel for sending along these splendid pictures and story of her and husband Chris’ visit to Woodland Hills to see the house where the Magic Band lived and Trout Mask Replica was endlessly rehearsed. See also John French aka Drumbo’s response to these photographs! Angel writes: [wp_quote] Well the whole thing was more exciting than I thought it would be. Just getting to the house is an adventure. It’s tucked away in a canyon(!) with very steep, narrow windy roads (not yer typical LA neighborhood, to be sure). We made a right off Canoga Avenue onto Arcos which took us straightRead More →

Still of the Trout House from The Artist Formerly Known As Captain Beefheart

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The Woodland Hills house on Ensenada Drive was the venue for the Magic Band’s endless rehearsals of Trout Mask Replica, and also where the Trout Mask Sessions on Grow Fins were recorded. Its inclusion at the Radar Station is a must! So many legendary stories surround this magical-looking building, which appeared to have been left to decay. Then in 2006 it was put up for sale, and in 2010 as well. Angel’s photographs of her & Chris’ trip to the Trout House John French’s response to these photographs … Stills of the Trout House from The Artist Formerly Known As Captain Beefheart See also: ConfluenceRead More →

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My first meeting with Don Van Vliet–whom I’ll just refer to as Beefheart–came on a rainy night about 12 hours before his wedding. It was November 1969; I was 19 years old. I was at my parent’s home in Northridge, California when the phone rang about 9:30 p.m. I thought it was my girlfriend whose house I had left an hour before. But it was my friend, Jan Jenkins. Jan had just been in a traffic accident while driving alone in Beefheart’s Volvo. She was not injured, but the Volvo had been towed. She needed a lift back to Beefheart’s house where she’d been livingRead More →

Trout House detail

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Charlie Rosenkranz, the current owner of the Woodland Hills “Trout House” where the Magic Band lived and conceived Trout Mask Replica, emailed me today to say the house is on the market again. You can see the seller’s info online and it has some great interior shots which I’ve never seen before. My favourite is this detail of one of the doors: If you have a spare $325,000 and your enthusiasm for Trout Mask Replica knows no bounds, this would be an unbeatable bit of memorabilia. Charlie writes: It’s up for sale.  I injured myself several months ago and haven’t been able to work orRead More →

Trout Mask tattoo

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I had a message from Claire from Brooklyn: A few months ago I was getting tattooed by Myles Karr at Three Kings Tattoo in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. I asked him what his specialty was. “Anything weird.” he said. “Oh, so like, the cover of Captain Beefheart’s ‘Trout Mask Replica’?” I asked, referencing the first “weird” thing that came to mind His eyes widened. “YES. Anywhere you want it, as big as you want it.” In his excitement he quoted me a ridiculously cheap price. I couldn’t really pass up such an offer from one of Brooklyn’s finest tattooers….  So now I’m wearing my very own ReplicaRead More →