In 1970 I was doing my usual disappearing act by catching a ride up to Boston. One of the guys who I liked a lot there was a fill-in keyboard player for the Dead. I’d visit with him, kill off a few chromosomes, and then go play pinball until I was kicked out of the student center; after which I’d wander the tunnels under MIT, hit on college freshmen, and generally be outside the reach of societal norms for a few days before making my way back home and attending enough of my sophomore year not to be expelled, which was all I could bear before lighting out to the Pancake house, the city or, once again, points north.
That week, however, I was invited to tag along to a sit-on-the-floor concert by an artist described to me as “A buddy of Frank Zappa, who is &*(# amazing and who has a FIVE OCTAVE RANGE” Whatever. I went.
My mind was totally and completely and irrevocably blown.
We talked with the Man after the concert (there were fewer than 50 people there and most left well before the end). We found out he was performing in NY the next day and everyone decided to go see it. Since I was already in deep yogurt for disappearing from my home which happened to be in NY I figured I’d catch the ride, catch the concert and then go home and catch hell. We lost a wheel on 95 and we missed the concert…
Every five or ten years I rediscover the Captain, and he is, now that I’ve reached my dotage, even better than I remember. Today I chucked some of my 40 year old LPs and bought three MP3 albums:
Safe As Milk was one of my three favorite Beefheart albums, the other two (Trout Mask Replica and Lick My Decals Off) are not available on MP3 or CD. My 14 year old daughter, who lives an incredibly and wonderfully different life, and who is more inclined towards Jay Z than Frank Z, wasn’t thrilled with Safe As Milk, but to my delight, really liked Doc At The Radar Station. There is hope for the future.
Myself and some friends spent the greater part of a day listening to Trout Mask Replica back in ’69. At first it was cacophonous and just odd. But so were we, and we stayed with it. The full immersive sound got better and better as the day progressed. Afterwards we switched to the Rolling Stones. That’s an impossible segue to make after C.B.! We could not listen to that tinny empty sound after spending the day with the Captain.
I had to look because I couldn’t believe Trout Mask Replica wouldn’t be available. I did find it now on Amazon as Audio CD for the amazing price of 12.23. There’s also a C.B. area with lots of mp3s. Although none of ‘the blimp’. I’d Love to hear again, what sounded like a very stoned , Frank Z’s amazement at the end of ‘the blimp’!