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Chris McGranaghan owned a record shop and label for many years (Those Old Records in Lichfield).Today, he's semi-retired and living near the sea in Northumberland, where he now hosts a radio show for Lionheart Radio.
In 'The Outer Limits', Chris explores a few artists/genres that are on or beyond the boundaries of Fruits de Mer...

Captain Beefheart - Trout Mark Replica - Doughnuts and Chicken Soup

.. I was introduced to the music of Captain Beefheart because I was loaned a copy of “An Evening with Wild Man Fisher by Wild Man Fisher” when I was sixteen and doing some DJing a local youth club. This strange double album was released on Reprise and had financial support and liner notes from Frank Zappa. So, like any aspiring record nerd, I checked out Mr. Zappa and picked up some of his early albums. I wasn’t exactly blown away by what I was hearing but I was just a skinny Led Zeppelin/Neil Young fan who knew nothing about most music other than guitar driven rock. The appreciation came a few years later.

I’d never really encountered anyone like Wild Man Fischer before, was he just one of those drunken guys howling at the moon that was all too common in Manchester or did I have to dig somewhere deeper inside myself to get an understanding of this. It’s like nothing else; it makes sense now that I’m a lot older but at sixteen this was too much. However, I was listening to John Peel, and he was raving about Captain Beefheart (the good Captain) in particular, his new release The Spotlight Kid. Peel would wax lyrical about his life not being complete without hearing the good Captain (clearly before he discovered The Fall and Teenage Kicks) and played most of the album.

I’m Gonna Booglarlize You Baby was my standout track, and I promptly bought the album. Then we got word of the Bickershaw festival (nr Wigan), and my pal and I set off. I’d never been to a festival before, we had no tickets, no tent, no food and existed on doughnuts and thin chicken soup most of the time. The Hells Angels clearly seen gate management as a line of work that they were suitably qualified for, so they got out the bolt cutters, cut a big hole in the fence and charged 50p to get in. Of course we went, why wouldn’t you?


Despite all that has been written it wasn’t all bad, at least until Sunday and the rain came down and pissed all over the five hours of the Grateful Dead! Saturday was fine, we seen the Kinks, Donovan (excruciating) Family and numerous others but the highlight was obviously going to be Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band. He was the main reason that we were there after all. The band came on stage in the early hours of Sunday morning, did a sound check for about an hour (the bass was very loud) then Beefheart appeared and blew the place apart. I’ve never heard anything like this music, it was way better than any of the albums and was just outrageously good, but the set ended far too soon. The sun was coming up, we wandered in a haze through the open campfires, the smell of weed and the guy selling liquid speed! We crashed into a communal tent until it was time for more doughnuts.

Which bring me to Trout Mask Replica which was released in 1970. I loved The Spotlight Kid, so you start by picking up the back catalogue. I’d read all the rave reviews in the NME, Oz and the rest so I was expecting to be blown away. The reality was that I found it flat, pretentious and virtually unlistenable, a view reinforced by my parents who ramped up the ante especially for this album. I re-read the reviews and left it to fester but as the years went by the fame of the album grew and I occasionally tried again to no avail. Then I bought it on CD so that I could play it in the car, this would be the 90’s and it still jarred and didn’t make any sense. I had listened to all his out albums over the years, but TMR still jarred, it still unsettled me.

Then I was reminded about that Wild Man Fischer album that I was loaned years back and it was at that point that Trout Mask Replica started to make some sense. I needed a frame of reference and Wild Man Fischer was getting the gig. So, I bought a copy of “An Evening With” and refreshed my musical memory. It was still a crazy album but easier on the ear than when I was sixteen. I liked it and still play it (well, some of it) Then I started to “understand” Trout Mask in some way. There are instrumental sections that sound like Ornette Colman or indeed Albert Ayler and I had enough knowledge to understand his love of the Blues and Howlin’ Wolf. It just started to make sense and then you realise just how far ahead his thinking was.

It isn’t my “go to” Beefheart album, that would be a toss up between The Spotlight Kid and Safe as Milk, but it stands as a unique musical statement by a man searching for identity and leaving us all wondering just what was going on. Just don’t think that you are picking up an accessible masterpiece, it may take you twenty years to figure just what the hell is going on but you do need it in your collection (ideally with the stapled lyric pages). Enjoy.


You can listen to Chris' latest radio show 'Influences' on Lionheart Radio

Read Chris' first piece for Fruits de Mer HERE