Overnite Sensation:
This has proven one of Zappa's most popular releases, for reasons the ironies of which are certainly not lost on him. Musically one of the least interesting, Sensation sports a very slick band including George Duke, the Fowler brothers, Ruth Underwood, and Jean Luc Ponty. The songs are, shall we say, accessible, the lyrics---about dental floss, kinky poodles, and the vacuity of TV---trivial. By this time ('73), however, Zappa's impeccable production values were in full swing, and the band, which sounds like the studio band of the gods, is wonderfully recorded. …
Frank Zappa on CD and LP, Part II
Stereophile Vol.11 No.5, May 1988 Freak Out! (1965) Rykodisc RCD 40062 (CD). AAD. TT: 60:34 Verve V6-5005-2X (2 LPs, op). Tom Wilson, orig. prod.
Cruising With Ruben & The Jets (1968) Rykodisc RCD 10063 (CD). ADD. TT: 41:28 Verve V6 5055-X (LP, op)
Uncle Meat (1968) Rykodisc RCD 10064/65 (2 CDs). ADD. TT: 120:49 Bizarre 2MS 2024 (2 LPs, op). TT: 70:35
Hot Rats (1969) Rykodisc RCD 10066 (CD). ADD. TT: 47:16 Bizarre RS6356 (LP, op) TT: 43:41
Joe's Garage (1979) Rykodisc RCD 10060/61 (2 CDs). AAD. TT: 115:28 Barking…
Uncle Meat:
The obscure and little-bought Lumpy Gravy aside, 1968's 2-LP Uncle Meat, "most of the music from the Mothers' movie of the same name which we haven't got enough money to finish yet," was Zappa's first major musical statement. The complexity and density of this music, even almost 20 years later, is staggering, and all the more remarkable when one realizes that, at the time of recording, at least half of Zappa's musicians could not read a note of music. They learned these thorny, post-Vienna-School scores entirely by rote. For those who have yet to hear Uncle Meat, this will be…
Again, Zappa's talent for finding new and previously unheard voicings among the standard orchestral instruments is well evidenced here. His eclectic, Stravinskian compositional style seems particularly well suited to chamber orchestra; more to the point, his works have never been conducted by a conductor of Boulez's stature and acumen. The latter's legendary attention to detail finds a worthy foil in Zappa's demanding scores. Zappa's orchestral pieces, like Strauss's tone poems, tend to the extremely programmatic. As his notes to these seven "dance pieces" hint, and listening confirms, he…
ZAPPALANCHE! (Frank Zappa, Part III)
Stereophile Vol.12 No.1, January 1989 You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore, Vol.1 Ryko RCD 10081, 10082 (2 CDs only). ADD, DDD. TT: 137:39
You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore, Vol.2: The Helsinki Concert Ryko RCD 10083, 10084 (2 CDs). ADD. TT: 116:58 Barking Pumpkin D1 74217 (3 LPs). ADA. TT: 106:06
You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore, Sampler Barking Pumpkin D1 74213 (2 LPs only). ADA, DDA. TT: 81:40
Guitar Ryko RCD 10079, 10080 (2 CDs). ADD, DDD. TT: 132:20 Barking Pumpkin D1 74212 (2 LPs). ADA, DDA. TT: 80:58
Does…
The next 21 minutes replicate side 2, and then some, of Roxy & Elsewhere, but at speeds almost double those of Roxy---and those were hardly slow. Schizoid tempo changes and Brock's frenzied sax breaks pervade "Village of the Sun," "Echidna's Arf (Of You)," "Pygmy Twylyte," and "Don't You Ever Wash That Thing?" FZ solos with riveting dramatics on the last, against nightmarishly difficult percussion and bass parts. "Twylyte," taken at half speed, has one of the most lyrical, unironically guitar-slinger FZ solos on record, owing much, alternately, to Hendrix and Clapton. "Room Service," a…
Side 2 is devoted to a "Republican Medley" which takes on a Democrat or two as well. "Dickie's Such An Asshole," a 1973 tune resurrected from Watergate days, laments the missing Watergate Tapes (remember that 18-Minute Gap? Ah, the easy villains of yesteryear...) and the gummint's creeping invasions of privacy that continue to this day. "When the Lie's So Big" can even pass as poetry ("They got lies so big they don't make a noise") if you don't listen too hard, and equates, by implication, Republicans with Nazis---hardly a novel conceit. "Rhymin' Man" is a delicious lambasting, Johnny Cash…
The Old Masters
Stereophile Vol.12 No.6, June 1989 The Old Masters, Box One Includes Freak Out!,* Absolutely Free,* Lumpy Gravy, We're Only In It for the Money, Cruising With Ruben and the Jets, Mystery Disk I. Barking Pumpkin 77777 (7 LPs). ADA.
The Old Masters, Box Two Includes Uncle Meat, Hot Rats, Burnt Weeny Sandwich, Weasels Ripped My Flesh, Chunga's Revenge, Fillmore East---June 1971, Just Another Band from L.A., Mystery Disk II. Barking Pumpkin 88888 (9 LPs). ADA.
The Old Masters, Box Three Includes Waka/Jawaka, The Grand Wazoo, Overnite Sensation, Apostrophe…
Considering the antediluvian source material, the sound is much better than it has any right to be, and FZ's notes to the 1963(?) "Charva" are interesting: "FZ, vocals, piano, bass & drums. Studio Z [Zappa's Cucamonga storefront studio] had the world's only staggered 5 track recorder (designed by Paul Buff). While the big guys were wondering whether stereo was going to catch on, we were doing massive overdubs." The Old Masters, Box Two Uncle Meat (XI-5): The OM LP has greater ambience, artificial or not---you can hear the recording booth, or whatever, in "Voice of Cheese." On the same…
Mystery Disk II: Side 1 is from the Festival Hall Show, London, 1968, with a rather well-recorded chamber orchestra. This is more 200 Motels music in yet another---and in some ways the cleanest---incarnation, three years before the film's release. In and around the sometimes sophisticated (often not) atonalities are thrown chunks of a loose skit about certain Mothers quitting the group to play "disciplined" music. Stirring, naturalistic lines like "We must overthrow the diatonic system!" abound; late-'60s cultural agitprop at its least subtle. But the whole side is fresh, fun, stimulating,…
