The 180Gs : Trout Mask Replica Replica – review & interview

Astounding, astonishing, awesome and any number of superlatives all the way through to zut alors (or should that be zoot alors!)

This tour de force is THE craziest attempt at covering Beefheart’s music ever … but it works. An exact five-part harmony a cappella version of every sonic second of one of the most challenging albums of all time. So exact, in fact, that you can play the original and the cover together and they will mesh perfectly! Here is the proof :

This is not the first attempt by The 180Gs at covering the seemingly impossible. After an amble through the foothills of strange music with cover versions of albums by Negativland, the Cardiacs and The Residents the band decided to strike out for the summit and conquer the towering legend that is Trout Mask Replica.

As exhilarating, disconcerting and off-kilter as the original, the 180Gs have still managed to retain the humour and humanity of Don’s masterpiece. To have achieved this obviously took immense dedication, a very precise attention to detail, infinite patience and not a little musical ability.

Take a listen for yourself to the complete album and buy a copy of the CD at – Trout Mask Replica Replica | The 180Gs | David Minnick (bandcamp.com) – and don’t forget to read the rather wonderful sleeve notes too.

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To find out some of the background to this bold venture by The 180Gs I interviewed arranger, producer and spokesperson for the band, David Minnick :

Radar Station : Who are the 180Gs?

David Minnick : The 180Gs are a group of five brothers, Chris, David, Don, Mark and Peter,  with misguided ideas about popular music. but are sincere about what they’re doing. The Gs have no idea what music should or shouldn’t be covered a cappella so they’re just doing the best they can to recreate music they enjoy, believing that everyone else enjoys it too. NONE of the music the 180Gs have covered lends itself easily to a cappella treatment; to the point that it’s difficult to imagine until one hears it. The feeling of making progress on a song that I believed to be impossible is one of the feelings I live for. I always find the process of making the music more fulfilling than the result.

RS : The obvious question to ask is ‘why’ attempt an a cappella version of “Trout Mask Replica”?

DM : “Why?” Is an excellent question (and one I kept asking myself every time I faced a section of music that seemed impossible to decipher or recreate). The 180Gs’ “thing” is making a cappella versions of albums which seem impossible. Part of the intent is to invite the question “Why?” and then only to answer it with “here it is; it exists” After covering Negativland, Cardiacs and The Residents, “Trout Mask Replica” seemed to be the next (and probably last) logical step. The Gs make tribute albums of super-iconoclastic records and act as if it’s a normal thing to do (the same way Pentatonix might cover a Bruce Springsteen song or something).

When I first considered the idea, it was so ridiculous and impossible that I found it too compelling to resist. Just the mere idea of an accurate a cappella version of TMR made me start giggling. Also, while it was extremely challenging, it was a ton of fun to make. For five and a half years (yes it was begun in 2018 – RS) I never had to ask myself “What should I work on?” whenever I had free time.

Trout Mask Replica is a unique record by any standards. None of the patterns or structures one finds in other rock/blues/pop/classical music are present on this album. It makes up its own rules from the ground up. Because of this, it took a while to decide how to approach it.

Most “rock” (even complex or experimental rock) music can be paraphrased to some degree. If you recreate the chords, melodies and rhythms of a typical “song” it’s possible to change/add/delete a lot of elements without losing its soul. I finally decided that TMR had to be covered as accurately as possible; note for note, all the intentional and unintentional tempo changes, all of the parts where the instruments and vocals aren’t in sync with each other: it ALL had to be there. The soul of Trout Mask Replica resides in the perceived incongruence of the parts, the wild abandon with which is was executed and the complicated layers which don’t point to particular chord progressions (or to a few simultaneous chord progressions). This album could NOT be paraphrased without losing what makes it special

I knew there was far more to this record than meets the ear on a surface level and wanted to find out what made it tick. I was not disappointed and now have an incredibly higher level of respect for this album and the band that created it. As it turns out, it has a lot in common with the music of Cage, Feldman, Berio, Xenakis and other composers I love. Also, the album has a huge cultural and historical significance. The short answer, however, is I just wanted to see if it was possible. I was rarely convinced while working that it was.

RS : When and how did you first get into Beefheart

DM : A friend played TMR for me in high school (early 80s). I was stunned; couldn’t believe what I was hearing. It took me a while to really warm up to it even though I had enormous respect for the musical vision of the album. I would listen to it on and off during college; enjoying the fact that nobody else I played it for could stand it. Also during this time I picked up other records (Safe as Milk, Luck My Decals Off Baby, Bat Chain Puller). I enjoyed these albums but none of them hit me in the face the same way as TMR. I’m not a record collector at all, so that side of Beefheart fandom passed me right by. I probably have all of the studio releases in some form but keep coming back to TMR.

Full disclosure: I wouldn’t consider myself a hardcore Beefheart “fan” but TMR is STILL unlike any record I’ve heard and has been in my top 10 albums since I first heard it. I never researched Beefheart to know any more than he was friends with Zappa. That situation has been remedied since I started working on this project.

RS : Don Van Vliet was a fascinating character with a lot of original, creative ideas but wasn’t above mythologising what was already extraordinary. John French’s book gives a good insight into the man

DM : Yes, I gathered that. He doesn’t sound like a guy I’d consent to work with for very long. Brilliant guy though and his lyrics are unlike anything I can think of (besides possibly beat poetry).

From what I’ve heard about Don’s personality and the dynamics of how the band worked, I tend to see the band in a much more favorable light than I do Don. Having been in bands for decades, I can understand to a small degree the environment the Magic Band were working in. Hearing about Don triggered some resentments around that stuff. However, I am able to separate the man from the music and it doesn’t compromise my enjoyment of the music.

RS : Which of the tracks was the most difficult for whatever reason?

DM : In general, the longer a song was, the more difficult it was and the songs with sax were more difficult than the ones without. The 2 that were the most difficult from that angle were “Hair Pie: Bake 1” and “When Big Joan Sets Up”. Both songs also had extended atonal, improvised sax/bass clarinet solos with a lot of fast parts. These were super difficult to get accurate because it’s hard to comprehend all of those notes and impossible to sing them that fast. For several licks, I had to sing every other note and interlock them. “Hair Pie: Bake 1” also has the long quiet “bush recording” at the end (in addition to being a complicated song with improvised sax throughout). Frownland was hard because it was the first and I didn’t know what I was doing yet. The “woo hoo hoo!” in “China Pig”, the vocal part at the beginning of “Big Joan” and the screaming through “Peña” were physically painful because I had to do them so many times. Dali’s Car was the easiest: it only took a few hours (minus the mixing).

RS : I really like the way you nailed the fade-in of the band during “Hair Pie Bake 1”. Somehow I thought “Neon Meate Dream” might have caused some difficulties!

DM : The last section of “Neon Meate Dream” (after the drums stopped) was a bit of a nightmare to untangle. Once I had the reference tracks though, I just sang along with one part at a time. Not easy, but at least that section was only about 45 sec long.
“Peña” was really hard in that respect too. Mostly because I refused to use the AI isolated tracks (which became available when we were about halfway through the recording of the album) and the song has the piercing high vocal and the screaming all the way through. It was really hard to hear what was going on in the instruments.

RS : Yes, I appreciate “Pena would” have been a bit of a nightmare!

DM : It was the last song to be recorded. It felt like reaching the end of a marathon to find that the finish line was at the top of 10 flights of stairs. Also, by the time I started recording “Peña” (having already recorded the other 27 songs), I was pretty well versed in the language of the album and knew what kinds of things to expect.

We recorded the songs from the outside in, starting with “Frownland”, then “Veteran’s Day Poppy”, “The Dust Blows Forward”, “Old Fart At Play” and gradually working to the middle finishing with “Pena” (what a song to save for last!). I knew that over 5 years the sound of the arrangements and recordings would gradually change, so I did this to give the album a more consistent sound.

The result is not 100% perfect. It is simply a ridiculous impossible musical idea made manifest (much like the original album).

RS : Which track are you particularly proud of?

DM : The ones I’m most happy about the way they came out are “Frownland”, “ My Human Gets Me Blues”, “Steal Softly Through Snow” and “Well”. I’m most proud of actually completing “Pena “ and “Neon Meate Dream” because they both seemed impossible before I started working on them.

RS : Are all the guys in agreement?

DM : Each of the guys has his favorites. Don and Peter like “The Dust Blows Forward”, “Well” and “Orange Claw Hammer” because those songs sound like “regular” music. Chris is fond of “Moonlight on Vermont” and “Ella Guru” because they “f****n’ rock”. Mark is rather fond of the last part of “Veteran’s Day Poppy” and “Dali’s Car” because he finds them “deep and meditative”.

RS : Of, course, some of the songs on TMR were a cappella anyway, so how did you decide to approach these?

DM : I knew for those three songs (“Dust Blows Forward”, “Orange Claw Hammer” and “Well”) it would be pointless to just copy them as is. It would leave me just trying to imitate Captain Beefheart’s voice and would add no new perspective to the songs. My versions would come out as nothing more than inferior imitations of what had already existed for 50+ years. I wanted to make versions of these songs which implied that they were actually composed songs instead of the improvised stream-of-consciousness pieces they are. I wanted to musically IMPLY a history for these songs which goes back to barbershop quartet pieces, sea shanties early American folk music etc… So, the nuts and bolts of it is: I would copy the original song by singing along with it one short phrase at a time, making sure that the singing and the silences lined up precisely with the original. Since, for the most part, these songs stay in the same key (with just a few stray notes here and there) I would come up with chord progressions implied by each phrase, record them on piano, and layer voices on top. The last step was taking out the piano. I tried to arrange the progressions with a variety of textures so that monotony wouldn’t set in. Sometimes the voices hum, “ooh”, “la la la”, “doo doo doo” etc and sometimes they all sing the words. These three songs are particularly haunting when the Gs’ lead vocals are taken out and replaced with Don’s original vocals. I’m pretty sure that I can’t release those versions legally since they use the original recording of the entire song (just the solo vocal).

I also transcribed and harmonized the “melodies” of the spoken parts between songs (the end of “Dachau Blues”, “Hair Pie Bake 1”, the beginning of “Peña” and “Fallin’ Ditch” etc.. I figured out the rhythms and pitches of the spoken parts (slowly, by ear) and added appropriate harmonies under the resultant melodies. I had done this process throughout a few albums by the Sursiks in the past and thought it added a bit of musical continuity to this album. I feel I must state again that no AI was used to figure out these parts. This album is a 100 % human endeavor. Possible exceptions to this rule are using digital modifications to the voice parts to achieve notes which were above the Gs’ physical vocal ranges (usually found in the sax parts).

RS : Are you able to explain how the songs were deconstructed from the original and reconstructed for the Replica replica?

DM : Each song took a few months to complete. I would put the original song into the DAW and use beat mapping to have the project I was recording into precisely match the tempos of the original song. Frequently this meant that there was a tempo change every 2 or 4 beats throughout each song. The tempos were like 123.7604 BPM; not the usual whole number tempo markings.

The next step is “tracing” the original song with MIDI instruments. Usually I’d use a basic MIDI drum kit, electric bass, 2 pianos (one on the left and one on the right) for the guitars, and, whenever necessary, a sound to loosely imitate the sax or bass clarinet. (by the way, this project would REALLY have been impossible were the guitars not panned left and right on the original album). This was often a very time consuming process; I would record a few seconds at a time, one instrument at a time, playing what I heard (combined with what I know about guitar technique) on the keyboard. I would often have to boost the low frequencies WAY up on the original song to hear what the bass was doing. After all of the reference tracks were recorded, I’d listen to them all together to make sure I didn’t miss anything.

Next was recording the voices along with the reference tracks. Every single line was 4 to 8 voices layered on top of each other. For example, if I had to record a 4-note guitar chord, it was a minimum of 16 voices. Usually, I’d do the bass first, then the guitar on the left, the guitar on the right and then the sax or bass clarinet for the songs that had them. While recording, I never listened to any instrument tracks other than the one I was working on.

The drums were a combination of original and “factory” beatbox samples playing the MIDI sequence I had created for reference. Over these tracks, I would add live voice percussion tracks. Usually I’d end up replacing about half of the samples with live tracks.

The lead vocals were usually recorded along with the original song. I wanted to make sure I captured the rhythms and phrasing as accurately as possible.

At this point, I’d listen to a rough mix for a few days to see if it needed anything else.

Next, I would add “extras”. I would frequently harmonize the lead vocals to integrate them more with the music that was happening underneath them. Sometimes I would add short transitional elements to help the song go from one part to another a little more smoothly or to patch up parts hat sounded empty. Sometimes, I’d add backing vocals which didn’t sing at the same time as the lead.

A few weeks of listening to a slightly better mix; taking notes every day on what needed to be fixed, added or redone. I saved all of the final mixing for after all songs were recorded.

This process was used for MOST songs on the album and doesn’t precisely apply to songs like “The Dust Blows Forward”, “China Pig”, “Well”, “The Blimp”, “Orange Claw Hammer” and a few others.

RS : Thanks so much for sharing this insight into the recording process.

DM : OK, sorry it went on so long. it’s a thrill for me to let somebody know how this was done!