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I refuse to get into an argument with a half-wit. I refuse.

The first time I listened to this album was last year I think (when I was 17). I didn't hate it the first time I listened to it but I didn't fully understand it, although songs like Ella Guru and Monlight kinda clicked straight away and excited me (which appears to be a common theme). After a few more listens it completely blew my mind and completely changed the way I listen to music. I consider it the most important album I've ever listened to.

I interviewed Bill Harkleroad. He explained it that first of all John French and then he had the role of interpreting what Van Vliet wanted the song to sound like. With Decals, the role was entirely Harkleroads as JohnFrench quit only to be brought back for the recording at the last minute.

Bill Harkleroad is a deeply modest and cool guy and his take seems to be that the band did the hard graft but he also asks the question of why they chose to do it. Part of it was Beefhearts sheer charisma in keeping them interested and keeping them thinking it was a good thing to do (and also the conditions they were living under but these are related) but the reason they did it was because they genuinely saw that the music being made was amazing and unique. I do think the band got a hard deal and are STILL getting a hard deal about their input - did anyone see the DVD on the reunion Magic Band? It didn't even mention Harkleroad (who was there at the start of the reunion but dropped out) or Jeff Cotton or Alex St Claire or Doug Moon or Morris Tepper or Richard Snyder etc etc preferring to make out that the reunion band was somehow definitive...
anyway - they got a raw deal out of it but to dismiss the input of Beefheart and give the credit for the whole album to a kid (as Harkleroad was) is fucking mental NerblyBear.

MrFood wrote:I couldn't believe what I was herring.

No, it's Trout.

I was 22.

I knew about it for a long time and stuff, not sure why it took me so long to buy it.

Either way, my first thought, and I can picture where I was when I thought this, was, "wow, US Maple isn't as original as I thought".

Trout Mask Replica came to me when I was doing my Master Degree....in my early 20's.

Hated it at first !!!
The most fucking annoying record I ever own !!
The others are almost all records by Boredoms !!

Funnily, I treasure them all very much !
Still listen to them all once in a few months or so...

NerblyBear & Ubercat . I think your conflict you can be amicably resolved by the captain ...mr. van filet himself. Just ask your questions by sending him an email. I think his address should be

captainbeefheart@gmail.nl

honeyisfunny wrote:anyway - they got a raw deal out of it but to dismiss the input of Beefheart and give the credit for the whole album to a kid (as Harkleroad was) is fucking mental NerblyBear.

This is a misinterpretation of what I wrote. I don't deny that Beefheart should get a lot of credit for the creation of the album. After all, of course, his charisma, his single-minded (some would even say pathological) control of the musicians, and his unique lyrical style all helped to contribute in a great way. He was indeed the focal point around which the band's lifestyle and worldview were shaped. That accounts for the band's adventurousness and willingness to blaze new paths.

The sole point I made was that, in my opinion, the lion's share of the credit for the *musical development* should go to the musicians who tinkered around with the piano-parts and practiced a wholly unique style for 9 fucking months, every single day. This is a point wholly separate from the question of Beefheart's overall instigation of motivation and work ethic, although I admit that it is difficult to separate the two for the purposes of argument, since these things are blended together so inextricably that our disjunctive conceptions can't wholly represent the reality of the situation. Okay, so Beefheart should get some credit for coming up with those piano parts, sure. But Harkleroad himself said that he hardly spent any time coming up with them and that he had no musical know-how to speak of.

My reaction to hearing it for the first time was a positive one. I was with a close friend, and I was dropping him off at his place after a night out, doing whatever we did when we were 23. He asked me if I wanted to come in and get stoned and listen to some records(something we'd usually do pretty often). I'm not sure why, but he played me Trout Mask.. and I was totally blown away by the guitar playing. It was really like seeing fire for the first time or something. I didn't really care for Beefheart's voice yet, but the actual playing made a pretty big impact. Coincidentally, he also played me Revolver by The Beatles for the first time that night. A band I'd sworn off, due to my parent's allegiance with them. I guess I was wrong.

NerblyBear wrote:

honeyisfunny wrote:anyway - they got a raw deal out of it but to dismiss the input of Beefheart and give the credit for the whole album to a kid (as Harkleroad was) is fucking mental NerblyBear.

This is a misinterpretation of what I wrote. I don't deny that Beefheart should get a lot of credit for the creation of the album. After all, of course, his charisma, his single-minded (some would even say pathological) control of the musicians, and his unique lyrical style all helped to contribute in a great way. He was indeed the focal point around which the band's lifestyle and worldview were shaped. That accounts for the band's adventurousness and willingness to blaze new paths.

The sole point I made was that, in my opinion, the lion's share of the credit for the *musical development* should go to the musicians who tinkered around with the piano-parts and practiced a wholly unique style for 9 fucking months, every single day. This is a point wholly separate from the question of Beefheart's overall instigation of motivation and work ethic, although I admit that it is difficult to separate the two for the purposes of argument, since these things are blended together so inextricably that our disjunctive conceptions can't wholly represent the reality of the situation. Okay, so Beefheart should get some credit for coming up with those piano parts, sure. But Harkleroad himself said that he hardly spent any time coming up with them and that he had no musical know-how to speak of.

which is sort of ignoring how good those parts are in places. No matter how long it took to come up with them, he did come up with them. It didn't take Hendrix long to write Are You Experienced either if you see my point.

I used to be in this one band and a couple of the guys in it came up with the music pretty much. It was very laboured and they knew more about what they didn't want than what they did and it was really down to the rest of us to make sense of it and make it work which we did. If you took away the other 2 and left the 3 of us, it'd have been shit and this is the same as the Beefheart situation except they managed to make several impeccable albums and we just made ourselves ill.

If you were going to argue though that Harkleroad and Mark Boston should get more credit for Clear Spot then that's a different matter - the guitars completely run that record.[/i]

simmo wrote:OK, second statement accepted. But gimme that harp, boy! Think before you speak!

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