Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band – Trout Mask Replica

Trout Mask Replica

Captain Beefheart & His Magic BandTrout Mask Replica Straight STS 1053 (1969)


Imagine if Cecil Taylor, Ornette Coleman, Jack Kerouac, Luis Buñuel and Jackson Pollock joined Howlin’ Wolf’s blues band. The result would probably sound like something resembling Trout Mask Replica. Exuding a disjointed zaniness, the Captain [a/k/a Don Van Vliet] was unlike anything else out there. One of the watershed recordings of the 20th Century, this is essential listening (though his debut Safe As Milk makes the best introduction).

Though the Captain pays respect to free jazz legends, it is more a slapstick homage. He plays two saxophones simultaneously (vaudevillian and/or Rahsaan Roland Kirk-style) on “Ant Man Bee.” This happens while he manipulating textures like early Steve Reich compositions. While he couldn’t really keep up in a free jazz group, the point is that no one had ever combined such seemingly disparate elements into a package so moving.

Beat poetry is subtly and perfectly delivered over a variety of backdrops. Desert-styled blues on “China Pig,” “Dachau Blues,” and “Orange Claw Hammer” highlight the backbone of Trout Mask Replica. Twisted gospel on “Moonlight On Vermont” makes it a standout song. Most of the material doesn’t make sense out of context though. The lengthy 70+ minute album must be digested together.  Comparing “Frownland” to “Veteran’s Day Poppy” shows the range in just this one album and why it takes time to absorb.

The most interesting aspect of Captain Beefheart is his zany, surreal approach to American music. A child-like determination fuels his humor. He tackles difficult topics without sacrificing an underlying idealism. His commentary is poignant and always deeply respectful. The clarity of his vision is what seems so unreal. Captain Beefheart was a child art prodigy almost from birth. He only attended school for a half a day of kindergarten. He brought an outsider’s perspective to the table. Trout Mask Replica is music the Captain wanted to play. It takes advantage of every bit of his abilities.

This is Captain Beefheart’s masterpiece. It is a testament to total creative control (Frank Zappa produces, but this one goes beyond Zappa’s world). The Captain’s debut hinted at British Invasion blues-rock. This sophomore effort can only hint at some other dimension of music.  The ingredients sound familiar but the soulful mixture is unique. Arty experiments and beat poetry never quite found a stage so absent of elitism. Trout Mask Replica is the kind of album that doesn’t get old.

Pere Ubu – Dub Housing

Dub Housing

Pere UbuDub Housing Chrysalis CHR 1207 (1978)


Pere Ubu was a remarkable band from an unlikely place. Hailing from Cleveland, Ohio, they created some of the most inventive music to come from the punk movement. While most groups remotely comparable at the time would be expected to come from England or New York, Pere Ubu almost single-handedly kept cutting-edge rock and roll alive in the Midwest (along with Debris’, and others). They emerged,along with patent punk stereotypes Dead Boys, from the demise of the queen mother of all cult bands, Rocket From the Tombs.

Cooperative performance and arrangements distinguished Pere Ubu from their ancestral roots. Tom Herman‘s amazing guitar work blends seamlessly with the rest of the group. Sometimes shaded by psychedelia, the atonal barrage works outside typical rock & roll form without losing the spirit. Pounding electronics massage thick beats. If rock is truly dance music, Pere Ubu can still satisfy. They go so much further though. Everything is a statement.

Singer David Thomas towers like Sleepy LaBeef and wails like Captain Beefheart.  Despite a limited vocal range, he did make use of every bit he had. Lyrics — the usual downfall of Midwestern bands — are legitimately interesting.  Something simple like drunken sailors missing their boat on “Caligari’s Mirror” is insightfully recast as a tale of inescapable waiting and an unbreakable connection to worldly moral disease (giving the Dr. Caligari folk tale echoes of Samuel Beckett). Without abandoning Midwest flavor, Pere Ubu works magic with their experience. Adopting a foreign persona is just unnecessary.

Dub Housing is often considered their masterpiece. Generally dark, a fairly constant wackiness avoids total bleakness. Old-fashioned rock and R&B crops up. It is more abstract than their debut album. Goofier. Weirder. Their take on “Drinking Wine Spodyody” is strikingly angular and dissolute. Allen Ravenstine‘s musique concrète manipulations are at their peak power. “I Will Wait” and “Blow Daddy-O” use the space of kraut rock in an American style. “Ubu Dance Party” is lively. It stays true to the spirit of old soul dance singles yet inverts the typical dance rhythm.

Pere Ubu played rock and roll in all its glory. They knew the pressure points and inner structure, well enough to bend the American rock demon to their will.  Unlike punk bands they destroy nothing. They leave rock & roll intact, reformed. Despite recording for a major label, Pere Ubu was largely a cult phenomenon. Their impact was as great as rock and roll ever produced.

Stanisław Lem – Solaris

Solaris

Stanisław LemSolaris (MON 1961)


A work of science fiction, yes, but Solaris is also as much about humanity as anything else.  Psychologist Kris Kelvin travels to a space station on the planet Solaris, where strange things have been happening.  The thoughts of the cosmonauts are made corporeal, as “visitors”, by the planet itself.  A kind of pink slime “ocean” covers the planet.  It is sentient.  The ocean is even able to adjust the planet’s orbit between two suns.  A fascinating (and horrifyingly realistic) subplot is the way that Kelvin uncovers a conscious/unconscious plot by scientists to suppress the nature of the planet in published reports, relegating certain information to an Apocrypha and discrediting those whose findings contradict official dogma, with scientists acting like the guardians of religious institutions rather than seekers of knowledge as they profess to be.  The scientists are only able to apply language that is internally consistent, like mathematics, but never explains the mystery of the planet itself.  The planet remains an impenetrable other, its motivations inscrutable and unknown to the scientists.  Is it experimenting on the scientists?  Is it trying to help them?  No one knows. Comparing the novel to Moby Dick, Lem said that he “only wanted to create a vision of a human encounter with something that certainly exists, in a mighty manner perhaps, but cannot be reduced to human concepts, ideas or images.”  But what dominates the story about scientists who cannot hope to understand the planet Solaris, is that they also fail to understand themselves.  Everything they experience about the planet is filtered through their own, flawed consciousnesses first.  The premise of the book maps directly onto the work of Jacques Lacan, Alain Badiou, and continental philosophy — Lem called the Freudian interpretation “obvious”.   Certainly, one of the greatest of 20th Century Sci-Fi novels.

Joanna Newsom – The Milk-Eyed Mender

The Milk-Eyed Mender

Joanna NewsomThe Milk-Eyed Mender Drag City DC263CD (2004)


It is altogether too easy for albums like Joanna Newsom’s The Milk-Eyed Mender to fall through the cracks and into obscurity. There is little effort to please. Her fragile, child-like voice is a singular medium of expression. So too is her harp, played eloquently at every moment. The real achievement though is her songwriting. She is amazing. Each song is so fully developed, with an openness that belies the precision one could find on close inspection. Her music swathes you like a worn blanket and fills you with warmth — precious obscurity.

Much can be praised in the album’s gently meandering collection of songs. “Sadie” is a mellow ballad, which would seem to be about a dog. Long, sustained notes from Newsom’s harp add to the genuineness of the songwriting. She deeply appreciates the importance of conventionally “small” events. There is deep conviction implicit in her music. “Sadie” has the richness of sincere personal experience. It is broken-in. “Inflammatory Writ” pairs Newsom with a piano. Her lyrics are vibrant. They are funny as well. Still, they hold an interest throughout in her oblique observational comments, like declaring that you “take no jam on your bread”. The pounding lilt of the piano draws out the jumps and breaks in Newsom’s voice. Then “Peach, Plum, Pear” has a harpsichord to constantly shift the texture of the sounds. The song takes more of a prodding tone than the others.

The Milk-Eyed Mender is a smooth album that wants for nothing. Joanna Newsom conveys contentment like no other in music. She twinkles with independence, and turns that energy to a love of family, friends, pets, afternoon naps, curios, and snacks. The Milk-Eyed Mender is cast as a kind of timeless wealth.  And her songwriting only got better from here.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)

Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

Directors: Joe Russo, Anthony Russo

Main Cast: Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Sebastian Stan, Samuel L. Jackson


The plot is entirely unoriginal.  I have heard it compared to the video game Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty.  But it also might be said to borrow from Star Trek: Insurrection and the Bourne series (with the theme of government corruption), Minority Report and the Terminator series (with “precrimes” and drones like “Skynet”), and Robocop (the “Winter Soldier” being much like the cyborg Robocop).  And that is not even to mention the plot holes.  Why exactly are the bad guys doing what they are doing?  And how did they get the money to do it?  And why do they drop hints for Captain America to use to uncover their plot?  Anyway, it isn’t any of those things that make this movie fun.  It is that the fight scenes require a minimum of suspension of disbelief and are intense, well choreographed, tautly paced, and impeccably executed.  Plus, the good guys are actually trying to do good, which is not always the case with superhero movies.  Like some of the recent Iron Man films, this is better than most superhero garbage.