#barracudas

Baby Get Lost - The Barracudas

1965

Louisiana’s finest fuzz

Pure 1960s grit from the Louisiana swamps.

It's been a long time since I covered a long fish and the great barracuda has volunteered. This beast is one of the top predators of the reefs and the largest of all the barracudas. I was going to do a blanket barracuda post, but most of the info I could find online was specifically about the great barracuda, so I decided to just cover it. For the best experience of this post, please listen to this song on repeat while reading.

(Image: three great barracudas swimming in a coral reef. They are long, skinny fish with pointed heads and large jaws. The dorsal and anal fins are far back on the body. They are a silvery color, lightening to white on the belly. Darker patches are on the sides of the bodies. End ID)

The great barracuda (Sphyraena barracuda) is the largest of the 28 species of barracuda. The size of mature specimens varies. The majority of mature great barracuda reach 60-100 cm (24-39 in) and 2.5-9 kg (5.5-19.8 lbs) but some can get much larger. The world record barracuda caught by rod and reel was 1.7 m (5.6 ft) and weighed 46.72 kg (103 lbs) and there are unconfirmed reports of great barracuda reaching 2 and 3 meters long. Barracudas are long, slender fish with snake-like bodies. Their dorsal and anal fins are located at the rear of the body, a configuration that supports rapid bursts of speed. They have very large jaws with fangs of varying sizes. There are also teeth growing from the roof of the mouth. Great barracudas are light blue-grey or green on top, silver on the sides, and white on the bottom.

(Image: a great barracuda facing the camera with its mouth open, showing the long, pointed teeth of various sizes. End ID)

Great barracudas are ambush predators that rely on sudden bursts of speed to catch their prey. They are opportunistic predators who primarily feed on smaller fish, squid, and crustaceans, but will take just about anything that can fit in their mouths. Vision is their primary sense used for detecting prey, so barracuda thrive best in clear waters. Great barracudas will also scavenge for food and can be found following larger predators like sharks to catch scraps. Young Barracuda hunt in shallow areas with structures like reefs, seagrass beds, mangrove swamps, and harbors. As they grow larger, they will transition to open ocean hunting, but even adults will sometimes hunt in shallow water and they use structures as shelter. While large adults are solitary, younger and smaller barracuda swim in schools. These schools provide protection from predators. A lot of eyes are better at spotting threats than two and when in numbers, each individual is less likely to be targeted. Cooperative hunting has been seen in adults, but not often. Barracudas have been seen herding small fish into a dead end and then waiting to eat them until they are hungry. Great barracudas live in tropical and subtropical waters in the Indian, Atlantic, and Pacific Oceans.

(Image: a great barracuda from the side. This one has large black patches on its dorsal and tail fins. End ID)

Great barracuda spawning depending on the temperature of the water. In tropical waters, they can spawn twice a year. Barracudas travel to shallow estuaries, mangrove swamps, or other places with vegetation to reproduce. They are broadcast spawners, meaning that sperm and eggs are released into the water. The parents return to deep water after spawning. Larval barracudas look little like the adults. They take shelter within plants, rocks, and other structures to avoid predators. Very few larval barracuda will survive long enough to metamorphose into a juvenile. Juvenile barracudas tend to swim in schools. As barracudas mature, they will switch from schooling to solitary life and move out into deeper water. Barracudas reach sexual maturity when the reach around 60 cm (24 in), what happens around ages 2-3 for males and 4 for females. They can live up to 14 years.

(Image: a juvenile barracuda. It is a miniature version of the adult. End ID)

Great barracudas are classified as least concern by the IUCN, meaning they are not in danger of extinction. Areas with high levels of fishing and poorer quality water have reported declining populations. Barracuda are popular for anglers because they put up a fight. They are edible, but have a chance of causing ciguatera food poisoning. This is caused by chemicals called ciguatoxins that are found in algae. Fish eating the algae accumulate the toxins in their bodies, which are then passed up through the trophic levels as those fish are eaten. Large predators like barracudas tend to accumulate high levels of ciguatoxins in their flesh. Ciguatera food poisoning can cause diarrhea, vomiting, numbness, inability to distinguish heat and cold, weakness, and lethargy. Barracudas are considered especially high risk for causing this food poisoning. There is no commercial fishery for them. Barracudas are often seen as dangerous, but they rarely attack humans. Most reported attacks seem to be a case of mistaken identity in low-visibility waters. Bites from a large barracuda can be serious and require medical intervention. Barracudas often follow snorkelers and SCUBA divers around reefs, apparently mistaking people for large predators and looking for scraps. They are attracted to shiny objects, so swimmers in barracuda territory are advised to remove any jewelry before getting in the water.

Barracudas - Bad News (1983)

From their 2nd LP, recorded after former Flamin' Groovies member Chris Wilson joined the band. I'm partial to their first album, but Mean Time is also strong, sounding, not coincidentally, like the Groovies. Lots of jangle with a bit harder edge.

An Artist's Catch: Watercolors by Frank Stick (1884-1966). Edited by David Stick. Published in 1981.

Great barracuda (Sphyraena barracuda)

Istiophoriformes. This order is made up of swordfish, marlins, sailfish, and barracudas

Toxotidae. This order is mad up of archerfish, also known as spinner fish, which predate insects by shooting water from their mouths to knock them into the water.

The Barracudas - "I Can't Pretend" The Roots of Powerpop! Song released in 1981. Compilation released in 1996. Power Pop / Jangle Pop

Given that the original subject matter of their songs had been the same exact idyllic California myth of endless surf and summer fun that the Beach Boys had once painted less than two decades prior, one could not be faulted for thinking that the Barracudas had hailed from the sunny climes of southern CA itself too. But guess what? These guys were actually from London, and their lead vocalist, Jeremy Gluck, who had just moved to town to officially start the band with guitarist Robin Wills in 1978, was from Ottawa. I suppose, somewhat ironically, while the US had bowed down to the British Invasion throughout much of the 60s, these guys had grown infatuated with the unique things that Americans were patenting at around that same time instead too—namely, vocal surf and garage rock.

And that's how The Barrys (that's what I'm calling them for short) first entered the UK's music fray, but it's not exactly how they stayed. The band's debut album, 1981's acclaimed Drop Out with the Barracudas, was really an LP that seemed to be of two separate minds: one was the fun-loving, perpetually happy surf fare that they'd first made their name from, and the other was a lot more realistic, leaning away from surf into things like significantly drearier, Byrdsian folk-rock.

But the opener, "I Can't Pretend," kind of split the difference further between these two minds too, because while the song may not have been as surfy as The Barrys had first presented themselves as, the music and tone still made for some super upbeat and catchy late 70s/early 80s power pop; and the lyrics, while still reflecting the inherent youthfulness of both power pop and surf, were far darker, as they were about ending a relationship because the other person was choosing to exasperatingly ruin their own life and the narrator had seen fit to extricate themselves from the situation. Terrifically infectious and anthemic group harmonies on the chorus that also comes with an added layer of satisfying jangling guitar, but not exactly one of those 'let's ride my woody to the beach and go catch the waves all day' kind of songs.

But the further neat thing about this one is that The Barrys might've still been channeling California with it all along, because while the power pop sound that's on display here was in multiple places at the time of its release—including the UK and the American midwest—southern Cali was an especially large hub for power pop too, serving as a more radio-friendly avenue for punk rockers to pursue. And with The Barrys already having had a history of making Cali-inspired vocal surf, and with them later taking cues from another Cali band in The Byrds on this album too, I think it might be safe to assume that they were modernizing their sound to emulate the nice power pop that was emanating out of that same state in the early 80s as well.

Funnily, the British Invasion had inspired a whole generation of American bands to replicate its own successful sounds and approaches, but I guess that whole thing really ended up going both ways, because here we have a band that was based out of London who seemed to strive to sound Californian instead—and so effectively, I might add, that they were able to get Voxx, a garage revival sublabel of LA-based BOMP! Records, who did a lot of work for local bands particularly, to release their music Stateside. So, in 1981, "I Can't Pretend" had kicked off Drop Out, and in 1996, it was kicking off BOMP!'s own essential Roots of Powerpop! comp too, serving as a neat tone-setter for both. With the former, it'd opened a path for The Barrys' debut album to go in two pretty different directions, and with the latter, it introduced a grip of power pop gold, that outside of this song itself, had predominantly come from the US. And if you hadn't known any better, you might've thought that these guys were part and parcel of that same exact American fabric too.