Draft:Hair Pie
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| "Hair Pie" | |
|---|---|
| Instrumental by Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band | |
| from the album Trout Mask Replica | |
| Released | 16 June 1969 |
| Recorded | 1968–1969 |
| Studio | Whitney Recording Studio, Glendale; Magic Band house, Woodland Hills |
| Genre | Experimental rock; avant-blues; collage; free improvisation |
| Length | Bake 1 4:58; Bake 2 2:43 |
| Label | Straight Records |
| Songwriter | Don Van Vliet |
| Producer | Frank Zappa |
Hair Pie refers to the two related instrumental pieces Hair Pie: Bake 1 and Hair Pie: Bake 2, included on Captain Beefheart and Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band’s 1969 album Trout Mask Replica. The pair is frequently cited as one of the clearest demonstrations of the album’s modular construction and fractured rhythmic language, as described by Marc Masters in his review of the 2018 Third Man reissue for Pitchfork.[1]
Hair Pie: Bake 1
[edit]Bake 1 opens with an outdoor field recording captured near the Magic Band’s rented house in Woodland Hills. The ambient sound includes wind noise and a brief exchange between two neighbors (“We just moved in from Reseda”), documented in transcription archives associated with Beefheart listeners and discographic sites.[2]
Despite being an instrumental, Don Van Vliet appears on Bake 1 playing soprano saxophone (referred to by him as “musette”), adding short, nasal, free-form bursts above the ensemble texture. This is consistent with the instrumentation listed for the album and with John French’s description of Van Vliet’s wind-instrument contributions during the Trout Mask period.[3]
After the field-recording introduction, the ensemble enters with loosely connected instrumental fragments, drifting guitar cells and sliding bass figures. Ted Mills, writing for Open Culture, places Bake 1 within the album’s broader use of location audio and musique-concrète practices.[4]
Marc Masters characterises Bake 1 as a “cubist dismantling of blues logic,” highlighting the music’s non-linear structure and its emphasis on discontinuity.[5]
Hair Pie: Bake 2
[edit]Bake 2 appears later in the album (typically opening side C). Compared with Bake 1, it is faster, more compact and more rhythmically coordinated. A student music review for the College Media Network describes it as “a compressed burst of interlocking guitar figures and sudden metric pivots.”[6]
The piece contains no field-recording material and presents a fully assembled instrumental module derived from Van Vliet’s piano sketches. The 2018 Third Man Records archival notes indicate that Bake 2 required secondary tape sources due to deterioration of the original master.[7]
John French has stated that passages of Hair Pie ranked among the most technically demanding material he ever performed with the Magic Band, due to the irregular, non-unison rhythmic structures.[8]
Background
[edit]According to Mike Barnes’ biography, Van Vliet composed the core material for the Hair Pie pieces on piano, which French then transcribed into detailed rhythmic parts drilled over months of rehearsal.[9]
Producer Frank Zappa recorded the band using a dry, unprocessed mix and minimal overdubs to preserve the precision and independence of the instrumental lines.[10]
Personnel
[edit](Information from album credits and official archival documentation.)[11]
- Don Van Vliet – soprano saxophone (“musette”) on “Bake 1”; composition
- Bill Harkleroad – guitar
- Jeff Cotton – guitar
- Mark Boston – bass
- John French – drums; transcription and arrangement coordination
- Frank Zappa – production
References
[edit]- ^ Marc Masters, “Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band: Trout Mask Replica (Third Man reissue review),” Pitchfork, 28 April 2018.
- ^ “Hair Pie: Bake 1 – Transcript Extract,” ShiningSilence / Beefheart Archive.
- ^ John French, Beefheart: Through the Eyes of Magic, Proper/Omnibus Press, 2021, ISBN 9780992806231.
- ^ Ted Mills, “The Case for Why Captain Beefheart’s ‘Awful-Sounding’ Trout Mask Replica Is a True Masterpiece,” Open Culture, 21 March 2019.
- ^ Marc Masters, Pitchfork, 2018.
- ^ “Review: Captain Beefheart – Hair Pie: Bake 2,” College Media Network.
- ^ “Trout Mask Replica – Third Man Records Release Notes,” The Captain Beefheart Radar Station, 27 June 2018.
- ^ John French, Beefheart: Through the Eyes of Magic, 2021.
- ^ Mike Barnes, Captain Beefheart: The Biography, Omnibus Press, 2011, ISBN 9781780380766.
- ^ Marc Masters, Pitchfork, 2018.
- ^ “Trout Mask Replica – Credits Overview,” The Captain Beefheart Radar Station, 2020.