b o b

This album started out as the soundtrack to a movie called Uncle Meat that Frank was trying to get made. The movie project was dropped due to lack of funds, although it was eventually released on home video for a short period, and then went out of print. I've seen a copy of it and it's a fairly bad combination of home movies of the Mothers of Invention, concert footage and a sub-b-grade monster movie. Don't go out of your way to track it down unless you're really fanatical about Zappa. But from the ashes of the movie comes the album Uncle Meat, and what an album it is. Made up of music written for the film, concert tracks and dialog snippets, this album is considered an early masterpiece by most Zappa fans. The CD release adds a lot more movie dialog in the form of two "bonus" tracks (one well over half an hour long), plus a new song called "Tengo Na Minchia Tanta" (a sort of hard rock pop song with lyrics comprised of a guy bragging about the size of his dick in Italian). These new tracks are so unpopular amongst some fans that they're referred to on the alt.fan.frank-zappa newsgroup as the "penalty" tracks. When one considers that the album could have been a single CD release without these penalty tracks, it's even more irritating. But on the other hand, they are worth listening to at least once, and without the film excerpts the world would not know the phrase "I'm using the chicken to measure it", and would be the poorer for it. Anyway, the music on the album ranges from rock to jazz to avant experimentation to "electric chamber music" (to steal a phrase from other reviews I've read). The themes from the title track, "Dog Breath", "Pound For a Brown", "Mr. Green Genes", "King Kong" and others would pop up throughout Zappa's career, being played by nearly every live band he ever had and even showing up on orchestral albums. This is pretty advanced stuff for a rock band, and Zappa was obviously proud of it. The band had been playing a lot of this music live for some time before recording it for Uncle Meat, so they pretty much had it perfected. What's surprising is that the studio versions are usually much shorter (compare the 20+ minute live version of "Sleeping In a Jar" on Our Man in Nirvana with the under one minute version here). The "documentary" tracks paint a picture of what the Mothers of Invention were like at the time. We get an update on what Suzy Creamcheese has been up to in "The Voice of Cheese", we hear the band abuse the Royal Albert Hall's pipe organ in "Louie Louie", we hear about the groupie situation in "Our Bizarre Relationship", we get to hear Ian Underwood's story of how he joined the band in "Ian Underwood Whips it Out", and we even get to hear Jimmy Carl Black bitch about the group's lack of money in "If We'd All Been Living in California". The bonus track "Uncle Meat Film Excerpt Part 1" gives even more documentary info, and outlines some of the surreal plotlines of the movie. There's even some music buried in the background (including synclavier!), but it's still not something you're likely to want to hear every time you listen to CD2. Other highlights of the album include the very proggy sounding "Project X", another concert favorite "Cruising For Burgers" (which would be used as a rapid-fire guitar solo vehicle in later live performances), and the excellent, side-long, six part avant-jazz piece "King Kong". Based on a catchy melody (and a catchy rhythm section), they first play it straight and then take it though several variations and jam away on it for over fifteen minutes. Looking at the big picture, this album is a cornerstone of the Zappa catalog, and a must-hear for anyone who's serious about exploring the man's music. Anyone who's interested in prog, jazz, or experimental rock of any kind should give this album a spin. review by Bob Eichler — 2-27-04 —

n i c k

Here's a question many of you have probably not thought about; if there is a single album that stands as the Rosetta Stone in experimental progressive rock, what would it be? One would not have to do a great deal of research to find out. All one would need to do is read this review and pick up a copy of Uncle Meat, Zappa's pivotal double album from 1968. Composed as a soundtrack to an aborted movie project of the same name, Uncle Meat is Zappa's first real statement of purpose. Although touched upon by previous albums, the whimsy, humor, improvisation, and deconstruction of both the popular and classical idioms that Zappa's subsequent career (and the careers of others) would be founded on appear here as elements of a complete listening experience. Also interesting to note is the sequenced and synthetic quality of many of the instrumental bits, presaging Zappa's work with the synclavier by at least fifteen years. Indeed, it's a bit futile to discuss the music of Uncle Meat as separate tracks, but we can try. It begins, appropriately enough, with a track entitled "Uncle Meat: Main Title Theme," a sprightly tune that serves as melodic material for other parts of the album. After a bit of dialogue we learn about the "Nine Types of Industrial Pollution," a track featuring what is perhaps the first example of Zappa's use of "xenochrony." Zappa's use of sped up vocals and instrumental lines on the greasy little surf number "Dog Breath, in the Year of the Plague" takes us to a sunny California populated with munchkins. "Dog Breath" is another tune that gets developed throughout the album. There is no turning back once you have entered the "Land of the Golden Arches," the next track of the album. Zappa's mastery of melody is in full evidence on this track, as he takes a simple motive (later to appear on "Pound for a Brown") and weaves it through a dense, colorful, contrapuntal texture consisting of treated woodwinds, harpsichords, and vibes. The next several tracks of Uncle Meat consist of short, but thoroughly demented in-joke tunes such as "Electric Aunt Jemima," separated by little bits of dialogue and musique concrete. On "Prelude to King Kong," Zappa's three piece horn section lets loose on the melody of "King Kong," ripping it to shreds to wonderful effect. The genius compositional energy of Uncle Meat begins to slacken on "Ian Underwood Whips It Out," a rather pointless exercise in note blowing over a primitive rock beat. Skip this track. The remainder of the first disc is similar to that of the earlier material on the album. The standout track on latter part of the first disc is "Project X". The breezy guitar strum at the beginning of this track can no way prepare you for the overdubbed percussion orchestra and labyrinth rhythms to follow. The second disc includes the premier of "King Kong," an improvisational workhorse that would appear on subsequent Zappa releases in various permutations. Unfortunately, the second disc of the Ryko re-release is padded with dialogue from the film (it's easy to hear why it was aborted) and a rather feeble pop rock song Zappa did in the 1980s. All and all, however, Uncle Meat is an essential in any Zappa fan's collection, or anyone who fancies themselves as a fan of avant-garde prog. review by Nick Paluzzi — 12-20-03 —