This is an extremely arcane reference to write a joke about,
but I’m going to do it anyway. There’s a guy named Al Trautwig (which sounds
just like “trout wig”), and he co-announces for all the NBC/Universal Sports
gymnastics stuff with Tim Daggett and Elfi Schlegel. (Any gymnastics fan would
know these names immediately.)
Well, anyway, when I was in college, I found out about this
double-LP album called Trout Mask Replica
by Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band. This record, if you’re just a casual
listener, sounds silly, fun, ridiculous, etc. It’s like nothing else you’ve
ever heard, and it’s just a hoot. Of course, if you happen to be an
accomplished musician, there’s an entirely different dimension to this
listening experience, and that’s the fact that you tend to say to yourself (or
just blurt it out loud): “What the hell? How are they playing that? What time
signature is that? Oh my God! Wow! How did they do that?” (This was made by session musicians, some of
the best in the world, who must have wanted a challenge, because I can’t
imagine wanting to hear that stuff more than once in a great while, much less
having to learn and rehearse it, no matter how admittedly amazing of an
accomplishment it is. But this is neither here nor there, but simply a means to
an extremely overly-labored inside joke.) So anyway, with this album title in
mind, please consider the following:
So someday, I hope NBC will put together a video collection
of Al Trautwig’s greatest hits, and package it as: Trout Wig Replica (as an homage to Trout Mask Replica). And the cover picture could have All Trautwig
wearing a mounted trout on his head like a hat. Now wouldn’t that be fun?
(Aren’t you glad you read all this? No?)
This is Trout Mask Replica, if you’re interested:
