theministryofshrawleywalks

Friday Fictioneers: Trout Mask Massacre

Christ! What’s happened to my editor? I turn my back for 24 hours and all hell breaks lose, I have no idea what is going down with this version of WordPress, thank god for Rochelle who seems to be the only beacon of light in this cacophony of unasked for change, thanks also to Tedstrutz for the picture. I did have an idea, but this reading up has sort of rained on my parade a bit, so i’ll see what I come up with.

So

On My Marks…

Get Set…

GO!!!

“It would be like Trout Mask Replica” he said, except he lacked a magical musical genius possessed by Dom Van Vliet. His “magic” was provided by a truck with its engine running full of instruments which he found round the back of Turtle studios.

In his dead Grandmas house, months sustained by Tesco pork pies and Malibu and Coke as they bickered and argued, threatening to leave; thumping percussion and shrill woodwind cracked the silence of the sleepy suburb while cacophonic electric guitar jousted with wailing Banshee.

Gun shots, then silence as the echoes gave way to bird-song and lawnmowers

There we are, what a hassle, to try and put this together under the stress of learning something new, but 100 words on the nose, a band practice gone wrong.

50 comments

      • I’m sure. I have to admit that I haven’t heard it since my college days. I should see if it is on YouTube. I am still a huge fan of what Zappa was doing in that time period.

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      • I just listened to about half of TMR – it is an squired taste 😉 Even at his most bizarre in those days, like Lumpy Gravy, Zappa was much more accessible. Most of what Zappa did was a strange combination of rock, jazz and 20th century classical, though he moved a little closer to prog rock as the 70s moved along. With TMR, it sounds like Don Van Vliet listened to Velvet Underground and Zappa, liked what he heard, but then went and did something completely different and uniquely his own.

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      • Lumpy gravy is the phrase, it was unlike anything I’d ever heard, first time I think was in 1995 after SA won the rugby World Cup. The guy whose house I watched it in leant me the cd. Things were never the same musically after uni for me anyway this merely confirmed it for me. Music is a medium so vast that I’ve never wanted to stop discovering, this is why I’m always skint and my record shelves are freaking under the pressure!!

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      • I picked up Lumpy Gravy because it was packaged with We’re Only in it for the Money. It took a few listens… I agree, there is a huge ocean of music out there, and a big part of it is trying to discover new territory.

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  7. Dear Shrawley,

    Well that was certainly educational. Never heard of Trout Mask Replica. Yeah, I’ll take the lawnmower. 😉 I agree about editor. I keep fighting it and using the option to go back to classic. I’m not at all happy with the new version they’re forcing on us.

    Shalom,

    Rochelle

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  8. You certainly caught the din of a wannabee rock band! I shall attribute your merciless extermination of them to the frustration you felt towards WordPress! And, yes, on the whole I agree that the new editor is difficult to use and a pain in the…well, you finish the sentence.
    I have learned two things, though, in my struggles with the new editor. The first is that it’s not fully compatible with MS Edge. The second is that it’s not very compatible with MS Word. Apparently Word has too much formatting associated with it, and it can really mess up the html code used by WP. That’s official from WordPress, btw; it’s not just me rationalising my experience.
    I mean, how daft is that? You write a platform that ain’t compatible with what is still the industry-standard software? Mutter, mutter, grumble, grumble…

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  12. I can’t say I blame the neighbours for silencing them. Especially if they had no talent.
    As for this editor shit, I will never be affected as I work from the Admin page. They can try to force the block crap but it ain’t never gonna happen for me. Just go to the Admin section and create your blog posts from there. I have yet to hear of a single blogger who likes the block editor and I resent WP for trying to jam it down our throats. They best be careful another platform with better options does not appear…

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  15. After reading all the editor comments, I had to go back for a re-read because I’d forgotten the story. Yes, the best part was “gun shots, then silence…” Truly and ending to end it all. Well done.

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  16. There’s a lot going on here that I didn’t understand. I had to look up Trout Mask Replica and pork pies. My dad loved Frank Zappa but never mentioned Captain Beefheart that I remember. The concept of pork pies is still perplexing.

    I’m not sure who’s shooting whom, infighting in the band or neighbors tired of the noise, but these guys seem like horrible neighbors to have. Unless they make it. “Oh yeah, they used to rehearse down the block from me. It was awesome!”

    I must blog differently than everybody else. My blogging experience is exactly the same.

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