b o b

This album has been spoken glowingly of on the Zappa newsgroup several times over the years, so when I found a cheap CD copy I grabbed it, sound unheard. Having no idea what to expect, I popped disc one into the car CD player on the way home and spent the next hour trying to decide if I had just lucked into a gem of an album, or if I had just flushed $15 down the toilet. The liner notes start out by proudly proclaiming that this was the second worst selling LP in Columbia Records' history. It's easy to see why - Bruce Hampton's voice is a very acquired taste, and the music behind it shifts between Zappaesque complexity and humor to Beefheart-style weirdness and dada to the Grateful Dead's psychedelic jams to the Grease Band's own unique sound. One minute the music will sound very amateurish, the next minute they'll be tearing through a dual-guitar instrumental assault that most prog bands would love to be able to play. Odd time signatures and hot jams abound. Hampton's vocals sound like he might be channeling the good Captain. The lyrics are usually stream-of-consciousness, often taken from found sources. For example, to come up with lyrics for the first track, the band opened an encyclopedia at random and hit the entry on Halifax, which inspired the title and lyrics about six thousand miles of graded roads, radar stations and the cleanliness of the air. The opening lyrics of "Hendon" come from the warning label on a can of spraypaint. Hampton's delivery resembles Beefheart's gruff style, but whereas the Captain sounds like an old blues singer, Bruce sounds like a lunatic. He definitely adds color to the music. The album was originally going to be made up of just the three 20 minute tracks, but the record company asked for some shorter songs, hoping for something a little more radio-friendly. The closest they got was "Hey Old Lady/Bert's Song" and "Maria". The former is an upbeat rocker with lyrics about bag ladies, life and death, the latter is a catchy little number about young Spanish kids in love. But even those were too weird for singles, (not to mention "Maria" containing phrases like "wish that she would touch my bone"), so the existing tracks were just released as a double album and marketed as a comedy record. As bizarre as it is, this album contains a ton of good music and I keep finding myself listening to it over everything else I've bought recently. But this definitely isn't an album for everyone. Fans of Zappa, Beefheart and the jazzier end of prog (particularly Canterbury) will probably enjoy it, if they can get past the, um, "unique" vocals. review by Bob Eichler — undated —

s t e v e

A classic! Their music combines the vocal-style of Captain Beefheart with the lyrical-humor of Frank Zappa (Harold and Bruce appear on Zappa's Lumpy Gravy), and the complex American (bluegrass, southern jazz, New York and San Francisco avant-garde) instrumental interplay of The Grateful Dead. In fact, the guitar interplay between both guitarists is really unique and fascinating. They trade off inventive jazz licks, chords, and avant-garde noise rarely heard on "jazz-rock" albums (Trey Anastasio of Phish may have been influenced by this album around the time Junta was composed). The 20-minute songs are half-composed/half-improvised and have tons of parts. The shorter songs are also excellent, and vary from an improvisation to catchy 70's rock. This 90-minute monster has no filler, every minute offers top-notch musicianship, and composition (whether improvised or actually composed). review by Steve Hegede — undated —