One of the earliest double LPs, Freak Out! is the very first shot fired from the outrageous gun of rock's great satirists. Released in 1966, its dense mishmash of absurdist antics, Dada freakery and doo-wop vocal gymnastics sounded unlike anything else at the time; the only thing close was maybe Jan and Dean Meet Batman (but that was a commercial flop geared towards a totally different demographic). What made The Mothers' humor so sharp was their ability to lay waste to both the squares and hippies. And then there's the straight gross-out stuff, like the wildly incestuous "Motherly Love."
If Freak Out! didn't convince the pop world that The Mothers were the high priests of genius-spazz-rock and freak-satire, then its equally perverse follow-up Absolutely Free most certainly did. Zappa and company are so wild, manic and amped-up that it takes numerous deep-listening sessions to even begin to decipher what they're howling about (namely raking American society over the coals over, over and over). For a hearty dose of the group's musical prowess sans all the comedic shenanigans, check out "Invocation & Ritual Dance of the Young Pumpkin." They jam hard on that one for sure.
Zappa's satire is so deeply linked to its era that a lot of his jokes about long hair, squares, hippies, "Frisco," etc., feel somewhat dated. Nevertheless, purely as a sonic document, We're Only in It for the Money is stunning: a collage of epic proportions that includes everything from faux-Broadway schmaltz to swirling musique concrete to bizarro answering messages mentioning Laurel Canyon. Just about every voice, instrument and sound is manipulated, tweaked or processed. Interestingly enough, the Mothers' early aesthetic sounds awful inspired by the great (and wildly underrated) Jan & Dean.
his doo-wop spoof, passed off in 1968 as found tapes by unknowns, preceded Greil Marcus' similar Masked Marauders hoax by a year. It's an equally loving and hateful tribute to early '60s vocal music of Italian Bronx street corners and East L.A. Chicano car clubs, with special spite reserved for heartbroken sad-sacks like The Fleetwoods: Two songs feature explicit suicide threats. There's also what sounds like a prehistoric human beat box. But the masterpiece is "Jelly Roll Gum Drop," a title that rhymes with "pachuco hop," "L.A. slop," "streetcar stop," "soda shop," "eyeballs pop" and more.
Though compiling stand-out cuts from Freak Out!, Absolutely Free and We're Only In It For The Money, the quickly deleted Mothermania isn't an orthodox best-of collection. Rather, Zappa tinkered with many of the songs. A couple of examples are "The Idiot Bastard Son" (which boasts a significantly altered mix) and the explicitly rendered version of "Mother People." But despite these oddities, the tracklist contains all the basics for anyone curious about The Mothers' late-'60s output. By album's end (arriving in the form of "America Drinks & Goes Home") you just might be a hungry freak, too!
Intended as the score for a science-fiction flick (one that wound-up never getting made), Uncle Meat is more spaced-out and abstract than previous Mothers albums. Though it's littered with their trademark satire, what stands out is the group's instrumental prowess, namely their striking fusion of rock, jazz and chamber music. The jabbing, pointillist melodies on a piece like "The Legend of the Golden Arches" sound as though they inspired progressive rockers Henry Cow. Meanwhile, Zappa's mind-blowing editing and collage techniques may have influenced the Tropicalismo movement down in Brazil.
Having broken up the original Mothers a year prior, Zappa released two albums in 1970, Weasels Ripped My Flesh and Burnt Weeny Sandwich, both constructed from the group's vast well of outtakes. While Weasels is packed with live material, Burnt Weeny contains more studio work. It's also less manic and over the top. Featuring Ian Underwood's virtuoso piano work front and center, this is an album for those who really want to experience what The Mothers could achieve as a searing art-rock ensemble. In this regard, the nearly 19-minute "The Little House I Used To Live In" is not to be missed.
A smorgasbord of previously unreleased recordings from the Mothers, Weasels Ripped My Flesh unfolds like a single, sprawling collage (albeit one riddled with schizoid juxtaposition and Dada-inspired pranksterism). In just the first three cuts, avant-garde jazz ("Didja Get Any Onya?") makes way for space blues ("Directly From My Heart to You"), which crumbles into stoned-opera madness ("Prelude to the Afternoon of a Sexually Aroused Gas Mask"). Later on Zappa unleashes "My Guitar Wants to Kill Your Mama," a distillation of the weirdo's psychogeniusartgarbage aesthetic in under four minutes.
The Mothers captured on Fillmore East is the reformed incarnation featuring Flo & Eddie (Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan of The Turtles). Basically, what we have here is one long -- and dense -- satire on the then-exploding rock scene, one soaked in scatological humor and lots of sex jokes about groupies. Oddly enough, much of the ensemble's dialog resembles the parody-based banter found in early pornographic films such as Deep Throat and The Devil in Miss Jones. Not a surprise when you consider Zappa's voracious appetite for American pop-junk: grindhouse flicks, pulp fiction, nudie rags, etc.
Recorded at UCLA's Pauley Pavilion in 1971, Just Another Band From L.A. documents the Flo & Eddie incarnation of The Mothers. Zappa fanatics, particularly those attracted to his musical chops, are divided about this phase in the ensemble's history. There's very little hard jamming here, just a lot of rock-scene satire and wacky tunes that are deeply rooted in Southern California culture, as well as the current events of the early '70s. If you find yourself tuning out the vocals, then shift your attention to Aynsley Dunbar; he's a monster on the drums who does some awfully interesting stuff.
Anchored, inasmuch as Zappa can ever be anchored, by two trash-rock classics (Stooge-guitared and poodle-bestial "Dirty Love" and Alice Cooperish anti-TV Jeopardy riddle "I'm the Slime") and one more novelty that '70s junior high smart-asses knew by heart (dental-floss cowboy gag "Montana"), this 1973 album is otherwise distinguished by what can only be called adult content, notably the disco-marimba perv wager "Dina-Moe Humm." An insane voodoo woman with curly hair ("Camarillo Brillo") and a Jean-Luc Ponty-violined jazz-metal werewolf ("Zomby Woof") also show up.
It can be argued that Roxy & Elsewhere is the artistic peak for mid-'70s Mothers -- the grand culmination of Zappa's experiments in combining jazz, prog-rock and (of course) his bizarre humor. That said, comedy ultimately takes a backseat to the ensemble's dizzying interplay, which dominates the proceedings. Particularly intense is "Echidna's Arf (Of You)" and "Don't You Ever Wash That Thing?," on which the group tears, slashes and grooves with an utterly unique balance of nerdy precision and spazzoid muscularity. Yet another monster is "Cheepnis," and it probably will make your head explode.
One Size Fits All sits smack dab in the middle of The Mothers' mid-'70s flirtation with Billboard chart success. The outfit's core is the same as on both Over-Nite Sensation and Roxy & Elsewhere: George Duke, Ruth Underwood, Chester Thompson, Napoleon Murphy Brock and Tom Fowler. In fact, the music found herein -- a well-balanced mix of jazz-fusion workouts and Zappa's trademark comedy-rock -- represents something of a bridge between those two albums. Some of these cuts ("Sofa No. 1," " Po-Jama People," "Can't Afford No Shoes") are fairly straightforward -- by Zappa standards, that is.
Released in 1975, the mix of studio recordings and live jams found on Bongo Fury stands as a key highlight in post-beatnik hippiepunkfreak jazz-spazz and psycho-slather-rock. With Zappa and the Captain backed by most of the former's early-'70s unit, they romp, stomp and roll with madness and aggression and genius. In addition to unleashing the poems "Sam With the Showing Scalp Flat Top" and "Man With the Woman Head," Beefheart growls like a rabid dog on troglodyte swamp-rocker "200 Years Old" and scorching opener "Debra Kadabra." Also not to be missed is hilarious "Carolina Hard-Core Ecstasy."
For those who dig Roxy & Elsewhere-era Mothers, the second volume in the excellent You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore series is absolutely mandatory listening. As these archival recordings make clear, this particular line-up was in the zone all throughout 1974. Played in a scorching double-time, amazingly enough, the version of "Don't You Ever Wash That Thing?" found here is a frenzied behemoth hell-bent on obliterating skylines like Godzilla. In fact, most of the pieces that overlap with Roxy feel more amped up. Who knows, maybe Zappa really felt a need to blow away those wacky Finns.
This installment of the You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore series skips across several eras. The first disc is a collection of recordings that dates back to The Mothers' first incarnation (1966 to '69). Just a single piece, the comedy skit "German Lunch" breaks the six-minute mark; this is kind of odd for a Zappa release. Disc two is from 1982, and it captures the maestro's funk-meets-hair-metal-meets-new-wave phase. If you're not totally turned off by the highly polished synthesizers and B.C. Rich-style ax insanity (courtesy of a young Steve Vai), the jamming is pretty wicked in places.
Playground Psychotics is an utterly fascinating document of a very specific period in The Mothers' history: the Flo & Eddie years. A lot of the record consists of quirky backstage banter, airport shenanigans, hotel downtime, press interviews and other '70s rock-scene action. Zappa and crew are really quite funny; they take absolutely nothing seriously and have a wise-ass comment for everything that enters their collective perception. Beatles fans take note: The end of disc one contains the group's insane collaboration with John Lennon and Yoko Ono, who of course screeches her brains out!
The first disc documents Progress?, a one-off play performed at Royal Festival Hall in 1968. Featuring musicians from the BBC Symphony Orchestra, it contains some quality hipster satire (i.e. "here in London, you're not going to get any p*ssy unless you look like a pop star"). The second disc, in contrast, captures a typical Mothers performance from the same era. Sound fidelity isn't the best, but there's some killer jams to be explored. "The Orange County Lumber Truck (Part II)" might be the best of the bunch: pure greaser groove and longhair riff-riding like early Alice Cooper and UFO.
