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Trout Mask Replica
Kevin Courier
(continuum)

Number 44 in the excellent 33 1/3 series of books by continuum, wherein writers wax lyrical about their favourite album, in this case the magnificently deranged Trout Mask Replica by Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band, truly one of the few albums one can say came from out of nowhere and, other than encouraging bug-eyed experi-mentalism in all manner of bands since, left little traceable mark on what followed. Courier expertly ties together all of the disparate threads that helped spawn this notoriously difficult album, from Howlin’ Wolf to Ornette Coleman via gospel, do-wop and some of the most demented lyrics ever committed to page (or not in some cases). It’s hard to imagine anyone but a Magic Band fan picking this up but even if you have yet to fathom the delights of Beefheart you will still find much to enjoy here, not least the discovery that the good Captian was in fact a despotic, less than benign dictator (and something of a musical dunce), who hi-jacked the Magic Band and bullied them into recreating his muse, and it’s testament to the band that they were in fact able to actually play this mad noise and to Courier for making sense of it all for us.
Ruby Palmer

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White Bicycles
Joe Boyd
(Serpent’s Tail)

From tour managing Muddy Waters and producing the nascent Pink Floyd in the 1960s, to championing folk and world music with his splendid Hannibal label in the ‘80s, Joe Boyd seems to have lived pretty much every part of the musical life possible without actually playing an instrument. At the root of his continued success is a genuine love for roots music fermented in youth, but as this wise if brief memoir makes clear, he’s also always been sufficiently savvy to avoid becoming locked into any one scene. Early experiences on the road are described evocatively, but the book comes in its own when Boyd recalls the late ‘60s creation of his own Witchseason stable of folk-rock artists. Working with the likes of Fairport Convention, the Incredible String Band and Nick Drake (recalled here with obvious affection) during this period did much to shape his ideal of music as a living, breathing, organic thing, and he’s highly astute on the record industry’s subsequent abandonment of analogue warmth in favour of digital multitracking’s supposed perfection. The closing section on the betrayal of ‘60s idealism by corporatisation is also highly impressive, and might be a good starting point for a separate book.
David Davies

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Billy Bragg

What does it mean to be English? What does it mean to be British? Is the cross of St. George a proud symbol of a great tradition, or the badge of a neo-Nazi? Massive questions one and all and not questions which can be easily essayed in just 300 odd pages, especially when accompanied by huge great swathes of autobiographical material and a lengthy dip into music history. In essence this is two books (at least) uneasily jostling for position, the early Bragg years tracing a line from the young Barking boys discovery of folk and introduction to punk via Simon and Garfunkel will please fans but probably leave those seeking deep political insight cold and visa versa. Bragg has certainly penned some pithy, smart and rabble rousing lefty lyrics in his life, and will doubtless pen more, but clever couplets do not a sodding great book make. Ultimately what he attempts to do here fails, but as Jack Nicholson’s Murphy says in One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest after failing to lift a ludicrously heavy sink unit ‘at least I tried’, and try Bragg certainly has, creating a flawed but entertaining and thought provoking read as a result.
Ruby Palmer

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