FRANK ZAPPA/MOTHERS - Roxy & Elsewhere (Ryko) +2 listens

I promise, I'll stop soon. I mean, not stop, but slow down.

My sixth, Zappa's 19th. Suggests that the interplay between weirdness in composition, arrangement and production which I've been enjoying may be quite precariously balanced, since the 'live' sound mostly cripples the latter (and I hear this was heavily overdubbed!) yet long sections feel much, much flatter than the vivid One Size Fits All. I had a sense that since it repeated very few tracks from any studio albums this might be a different concept of 'live album' than I was used to (maybe more like Wire's It's Beginning To And Back Again?) but no, still kind of mixed.

Zappa's speaking voice is great! No longer surprised I like his singing better than his bandmates'. Kinda wish there was a studio "Cheepnis" somewhere.

Critical continuity note: I now find myself totally at ease with some instrumental songs. I might like "Echidna's Arf (Of You)" better with vocals but it's not the pointed obstacle to listening it was before. More to the point, perhaps, the fear of running into an entire album of instrumental music while exploring Zappa's career will no longer cause me to hedge bets.

My friend Marco says, "I just want you to know... if you turn into a Deadhead, I can still be your friend."

FRANK ZAPPA - Meets The Mothers Of Prevention (Ryko)

#7 for me, #44 for Zappa. My first encounter with this 'Synclavier' I've heard about. Even considering that the compositions might not be his best (like maybe I heard this was a thin record?) I have trouble seeing how anyone could become particularly interested in this instrument. It has the aura of first-generation technology in the hands of someone mistaking novelty for transcendence.

The 'rock' songs have even less to recommend a second listen. I turned off the unfunny (and unobservant) latter-day anti-hippie track "We're Turning Again" halfway through. For now I'm sticking a 'here be dragons' on the mid-80s in my mental Zappa map and going back to his 70s work.

FRANK ZAPPA - ' (Ryko) +3 listens

Zappa's 18th album; my eighth of his. Few of my favorite bands have even put out eight records.

Seems like Zappa prefers to start records with the simpler stuff, in this case two tracks of mostly spoken goofiness about Eskimos over unexceptional music. My dad used to sing the final line from "Don't Eat The Yellow Snow" to us with a strange intonation... looking back, I have no idea whether he thought it was the stupidest lyric possible (I know he wasn't a big fan of popular music) or if it struck him as funny. But I think he had the melody wrong. Still, I wouldn't mind the first six minutes of this album vanishing entirely. The rest has some of the most dense and frenetic material of the Overnite-Apostrophe-One Size sequence.

My excitement about Frank Zappa has been partially fueled by the coincidence between his music being novel for me -- probably MORE than for a lot of listeners at the time who would have been more aware of his contemporaries and influences -- and his music deriving some of its energy from internal novelty. I'm glad to see that even with the external novelty fading the music still surprises and delights me within its own frame of reference.

I should write about guitar solos at some point in this.