Baby Snakes

One of the fascinating things about Frank Zappa’s career is all the musicians he worked with and how many of them went on to form significant groups of their own. And with the album “Baby Snakes,” we have three musicians on the album that went on to form a major New Wave band in 1980, albeit a short-lived one.

Those three were Terry Bozzio, Warren Cuccurullo, and Patrick O’Hearn. The band they formed was Missing Persons, which presented an image that comingled punk, New Wave and glam. Their almost-eponymous album, “Spring Session M,” was an outstanding debut for a full-length album. I played the hell out of that album, as every song was fresh and exciting. But alas, they were to be a flash in the pan and by 1984 everyone was going their own way. Still, Bozzio, Cuccurullo and O’Hearn didn’t disappear from the music scene, as their talents carried them forward. Bozzio went on to play with Jeff Beck (was he there when I went to see the Beck/Stevie Ray Vaughn tour?), Cucurullo to join the 80s supergroup Duran Duran, and O’Hearn to continue recording instrumental New Age albums.

The fact that Missing Persons was such a short-lived effort causes me to wonder just how prescient Zappa was when he wrote “Tinseltown Rebellion.” I wonder how much of Missing Person’s sound was their own and how much was concocted by the record company. Bozzio was certainly around Zappa as he ridiculed hair bands, and there was always the song about Punky Meadows. And, ironically, just look at all that hair on those band members in Missing Persons! Zappa always had exceptional musicians playing with him, but for these three to flame out so quickly working together brings me pause.

Cuccurullo’s appearance on “Baby Snakes” is strictly related to the movie, as the opening dialogue on the CD includes him; he didn’t join Zappa’s band until 1978, and the songs in the movie soundtrack that were compiled for this CD come from the 1977 Halloween shows at the Palladium in New York City (coming soon). Interestingly, the bootleg “Jones Crusher” asserts itself to be the 1977 Halloween show at the Felt Forum (Zappa played there the year before).

The movie “Baby Snakes” represents well the dichotomy of reactions Zappa faced regarding his work, a split of opinion that was often clearly marked by the Atlantic Ocean. Recordings that only faired decently in the U.S., or even failed miserably, were frequently better received in Europe, and the movie “Baby Snakes” was no exception. Zappa couldn’t find a distributor for the film in the U.S., even after he had hacked its length from 166 minutes down to 90 minutes. He ended up distributing the film on his own. Barry Miles writes in “Zappa: A Biography” –

“It premiered on 21 December, 1979, at the Victoria Theater in New York to less than ecstatic reviews, probably because of the extended footage featuring an inflatable sex toy. Typical of this criticism was Tom Carson’s piece in Village Voice: ‘Once, Zappa built a satirist’s career on the idea that all of life was just like high school; now it turns out that all he ever wanted, apparently, was a high-school clique of his own – and on the evidence of Baby Snakes he’s found one.’ Zappa was unfazed by the criticism. Foreign critics were more sympathetic and in 1981 Baby Snakes won the Premier Grand Prix at the First International Music Festival in Paris.”

Perhaps what was most amazing about the film was a clay animation sequence by Bruce Bickford, an interesting character who, as described by Barry Miles, speaks like “the people under the piano on Lumpy Gravy.”

Zappa, as told to Barry Miles, describes Bickford: “He talks real slow – as he states in the film he has had some contact with chemical alteration of his consciousness and his speech pattern is probably related to the fact that he’s been chemically modified … For some of the more complex parts (of the film) in there he could shoot only four frames in a day. And remember 24 frames go by in a second. If it takes him one day to shoot four frames of something complicated, it’ll take him six days to shoot one second of complicated stuff. So, what you see in the film is a product of about three years’ work to give you a half hour of animation. But not all the stuff he does is complicated.” Once sequence in the animation, Zappa notes, was shot in one evening.

Cuccurullo’s intro rap at the start of the CD introduces the sole studio track on this “live” recording, the title song, which is from “Sheik Yerbouti.” It’s a fun song to get things going, but the real gems are the concert items, which start with “Titties & Beer.” This is not the same version as what appears on “Zappa in New York,” as those songs were recorded between Christmas and New Year in 1977.

This is followed by “The Black Page #2,” which is really very cool and well played. Ed Mann is outstanding on this. This transitions right into “Jones Crusher,” a rocking song that has one of the oddest lyrics in the Zappa catalogue: “The Wind can’t blow because the sky is gone.”

“Disco Boy” is one of the few direct musical commentaries Zappa made into the realm of disco. Originally from “Zoot Allures,” I’ve always like this song despite its rather shallow description of the disco scene. Granted, the disco scene was shallow, but one cannot always count on Zappa having intimate knowledge of all the topics he writes songs about; one must remember that he is, more often than not, commenting on the musical nature of his target, not the actual social scene. For example, virtually all of his songs reflecting the gay scene are focused on the leather and S&M crowd.

The obligatory performance of “Dinah-Moe Humm” is hardly worth noting. While I really love the album “Over-nite Sensation,” as well as this song, I would never be disappointed at a concert if the song wasn’t played.

“Punky’s Whips” is great performance that is filled with musical variance and Terry Bozzio’s faux-Zappa vocalizations are really spot on; how ironic that he mentions Jeff Beck. And finally, we get a song with a Zappa guitar solo. A delicious solo. Listen to Bozzio’s drumming too, it’s perfectly maniacal.

Overall, I rate this recording 4.5 of five stars. Share your rating below.





Released: March 28, 1983, Barking Pumpkin Records. Recorded Oct. 28-31, 1977, The Palladium, NYC.

Track listing:

1. Intro Rap/Baby Snakes – 2:22
2. Titties & Beer – 6:13
3. The Black Page #2 – 2:50
4. Jones Crusher – 2:53
5. Disco Boy – 3:51
6. Dinah-Moe Humm – 6:37
7. Punky’s Whips – 11:29

Personnel:
Roy Estrada – vocals, voices
Frank Zappa – director, keyboards, vocals, guitar
Adrian Belew – vocals, guitar
Tommy Mars – keyboards, vocals
Peter Wolf – keyboards
Patrick O’Hearn – bass guitar
Terry Bozzio – drums
Ed Mann – percussion

You Can’t Do That On Stage Anymore Vol 3

With six volumes to this collection, I wanted to break up the monotony of simply posting about the tracks on each issue. And with Volume three, I thought it might be a good time to explore the issue of bootlegging again.

Clinton Heylin reveals in his 1995 book “Bootleg: The Secret History of the Other Recording Industry,” Zappa’s intense hatred of bootleggers. But this hatred was not simply over money, as Zappa suggests in the opening track of the first “Beat the Boots” release, “As An Am.” In that sound bite, Zappa states that it angers him that bootleggers will record concert performances of material he hasn’t released yet. But there was another factor in Zappa’s antipathy for bootleggers, and that centered on Zappa’s control issues.

“Zappa had always been a control freak,” writes Heylin, “and hated the idea of bootleggers offering an alternative to his own, sometimes questionable, decisions about what should and should not be made available.”

Heylin interviewed a particularly prolific bootlegger identified as “Richard,” who was very likely a huge thorn in Zappa’s side.

“I’m a big Zappa fan,” says Richard. “In fact, my ‘Mystery Box’ got Zappa as upset as Columbia got over ‘Ten of Swords’ (a Dylan bootleg that Richard compiled).” Zappa was apparently so upset about the release of ‘Mystery Box’ that he contacted the FBI, which apparently had no interest in investigating the allegations.

“I guess,” Richard continues, “the problem was that Zappa was doing his (own) ‘You Can’t Do That on Stage Anymore,’ his ongoing series which has just ended, and ‘Mystery Box’ was like a giant ‘You Can’t Do That on Stage Anymore.’ A lot of reviews were saying that ‘Mystery Box’ was better because it was chronological and didn’t jump all over the place and didn’t have all these stupid edits in it. That kind of thing can annoy you if you’re an artist putting out your own thing.”

Zappa blamed bootleggers for profiting off his material and that caused him to lose money. But Zappa had so many other things going on in the legal realm that were costing him money that to point to bootleggers as a culprit seems more like an effort to eschew responsibility for his own travails. And besides, as “Richard” points out, most Zappa bootleggers recorded concerts and distributed their recordings for free or at a cost that was just enough to cover their own costs. The Zappa audience was too esoteric to make any real money off of, so most Zappa bootleggers were doing it because they loved his music.

And besides, the criticism that Zappa was a bit overzealous with his editing that turned a song from one performance into a quilt of sound clips from multiple shows was justified. What started as a technique in the early days that enhanced the quality of his recordings later turned into an obsession that might have improved the sound quality of a recording, but which also led some of his music losing its gut.

This was because Zappa believed that music was unemotional, that it was merely sound. The idea that music had an emotional element was absurd to him.

From Barry Miles’ “Zappa: A Biography”: “See, I take a real cold view about that stuff. I think that music works because of psycho-accoustical things – like the way in which a line will interact with the harmonic climate that’s backing it up. And all the rest of it is subjective on behalf of the listener.”

One of Zappa’s musical idols and influences, Igor Stravinsky, was even harsher in his view regarding music’s ability to convey emotion: “I consider that music, by its very nature, essentially powerless to express anything at all, whether a feeling, an attitude of mind, a psychological mood, a phenomenon of nature, etc… Expression has never been an inherent property of music.”

From that perspective, it is no wonder that Zappa spent hours and hours splicing bits and pieces of performances together and calling it a “live” performance, even when he would dub in a studio cut. To him, it was just music, just notes on a sheet of paper.

It is incredible that both Zappa and Stravinsky would have such points of view given that it is quite clear that each composed music that told stories. And how do you tell an emotionless story?

Two tracks on this recording really challenge this notion, both on Disc two: “Zoot Allures,” and “King Kong.” I can’t see how Zappa can play “Zoot Allures” without him channeling emotion into his guitar playing. He could play it strictly as music, as lines and dots on a page, but it is clear that he doesn’t. And the classic piece “King Kong” in all its many permutations; does not the fact that a performance is altered either through style or time signature change the impression the audience experiences from the piece? Zappa seems to lay all responsibility for any emotional response on the listener rather than the music; yet he ignores how that listener response changes when he changes the timbre or tempo of a song.

Just a few comments about this particular recording, which overall is pretty damn good.

Dweezil’s guitar solo on the opening track “Sharleena” is competent, but rather boring and simplistic. It is only when father and son begin playing together that the solo finally gets interesting.

“Lucille Has Messed Up My Mind” is actually a composition by former Mothers of Invention member Jeff Simmons, which he released on an album of the same name in 1970. Zappa plays guitar on the Simmons release as well.

“Drowning Witch” is a compilation of edits from shows at Stadio Communale, Bolzano, Italy, July 3, 1982 and the Bayfront Center Arena, St. Petersburg, Florida on Dec. 1, 1984 and the Bismarck Theater, Chicago, from Nov. 23, 1984, and the Paramount Theatre, Seattle, Wash., Dec. 17, 1984. It also contains musical quotes from a Hawaiian Punch commercial, Dragnet (Schumann/Rósza) and Le sacre du printemps (Stravinsky).

This CD contains the only releases of “Ride My Face to Chicago,” “Carol, You Fool,” and “Chana in De Bushwop,” which were performed at the Bismarck Theater, Chicago, Nov. 23, 1984. The latter song also included Diva Zappa.

“Zoot Allures” contains two edits, with the first part from Kosei Nenkin Kaikan, Osaka, Japan on Feb. 3, 1976, and the guitar solo from Les Arenes, Cap D'agde, France May 30, 1982.

The sequence of “Society Pages” through “Charlie’s Enormous Mouth” comes from the Halloween show at the Palladium in New York in 1981.

“Cocaine Decisions” is comprised of two edits from the Bismarck Theater, Chicago, Nov. 23, 1984, and Stadio Communale, Palermo, Sicily, July 14, 1982.

This is the only official release that has “Nig Biz,” and it comes from the show at the Stadio Communale, Palermo, Sicily, July 14, 1982. It also contains a musical quote from “The Tracks Of My Tears” (Robinson/Moore/Tarplin).

“King Kong” contains musical quotes from “Shakin’ All Over” (Heath), “Big Swifty,” “Yo Cats” (FZ/Mariano), “Uncle Meat,” “A Love Supreme” (Coltrane), “Midnight Sun” (Hampton/Burke/Mercer) and the “William Tell Overture” (Rossini). It is also comprised of too many edits from various shows to enumerate.

“Cosmik Debris” contains portions from three shows including the Paramount Theatre, Seattle, Wash., Dec. 17, 1984; the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, Portland, Ore., Dec. 20, 1984; and the ending from The Pier, New York City, Aug. 25-26, 1984. It also contains a musical quote from “Who Knows” (Hendrix).

I rate this four out of five stars. Add your own rating below.





Released Nov. 13, 1989 on Rykodisc; various live recordings from Dec. 10, 1971 to Dec. 23, 1984.

Track listings:

Disc one
1. “Sharleena” – 8:54
2. “Bamboozled by Love/Owner of a Lonely Heart” – 6:06
3. “Lucille Has Messed My Mind Up” – 2:52
4. “Advance Romance” – 6:58
5. “Bobby Brown Goes Down” – 2:44
6. “Keep It Greasey” – 3:30
7. “Honey, Don’t You Want a Man Like Me?” – 4:16
8. “In France” – 3:01
9. “Drowning Witch” – 9:22
10. “Ride My Face to Chicago” – 4:22
11. “Carol, You Fool” – 4:06
12. “Chana in de Bushwop” – 4:52
13. “Joe’s Garage” – 2:20
14. “Why Does It Hurt When I Pee?” – 3:07

Disc two
1. “Dickie’s Such an Asshole” – 10:08
2. “Hands With a Hammer” (Bozzio) – 3:18
3. “Zoot Allures” – 6:09
4. “Society Pages” – 2:32
5. “I’m a Beautiful Guy” – 1:54
6. “Beauty Knows No Pain” – 2:55
7. “Charlie’s Enormous Mouth” – 3:39
8. “Cocaine Decisions” – 3:14
9. “Nig Biz” – 4:58
10. “King Kong” – 24:32
11. “Cosmik Debris” – 5:14

Personnel:

Frank Zappa – arranger, editing, keyboards, lyricist, vocals, producer, main performer, liner notes, guitar, compilation
Mark Volman – vocals
Howard Kaylan – vocals
Lowell George – guitar
Denny Walley – guitar
Steve Vai – guitar
Dweezil Zappa – guitar
Jim Sherwood – guitar, vocals, wind
Ray Collins – guitar, vocals
Ike Willis – rhythm guitar, vocals
Ray White – rhythm guitar, vocals
Ian Underwood – guitar, wind, alto saxophone, keyboards
Patrick O'Hearn – bass guitar, wind
Roy Estrada – bass guitar, vocals
Jim Pons – bass guitar, vocals
Scott Thunes – bass guitar, vocals, synthesizer
Tom Fowler – bass guitar, trombone
Peter Wolf – keyboards
Allan Zavod – keyboards
Andre Lewis – keyboards
Don Preston – keyboards, electronics
George Duke – keyboards, vocals
Tommy Mars – keyboards, vocals
Bobby Martin – keyboards, vocals, saxophone
Napoleon Murphy Brock – saxophone, vocals
Bruce Fowler – trombone
Bunk Gardner – horn, wind
Ralph Humphrey – drums
Art Tripp – drums
Chester Thompson – drums
Chad Wackerman – drums, vocals
Jimmy Carl Black – drums, percussion
Aynsley Dunbar – drums
Terry Bozzio – drums, soloist, lyricist
Ruth Underwood – percussion, keyboards
Ed Mann – percussion
Diva Zappa – lyricist
Mark Pinske – engineer
Kerry McNabb – engineer
Bob Stone – engineer, engineering supervisor, remixing, supervisor

You Can’t Do That On Stage Anymore Vol 2

While Volume 1 of the “You Can’t Do That On Stage Anymore” series lacked an overt theme for the selected songs, Volume 2’s material is focused around two 1974 concerts at the Kulttuuritalo in Helsinki, Finland.

There are two very remarkable items on this recording that are worthy of mention. First is Zappa’s performance of “Inca Roads” from one of the shows. A portion of his amazing guitar solo was used for the studio release of “One Size Fits All” for the same track. However, there is some disagreement about the origin of the solo edit. Both the Wikipedia entry for Vol. 2, as well as the Wiki song entry for “Inca Roads,” mention that the solo edit was taken from the Helsinki show that was published on YCDTOSA Vol 2. But Barry Miles’ “Zappa: A Biography” states that the solo was taken from an Aug. 7, 1975, show in Helsinki. That doesn’t seem to make sense, because “One Size Fits All” was released in June, 1975, and he wasn’t in Europe touring at that time either. Zappa played for KCET-TV in August 1974, where he performed “Inca Roads,” ostensibly dropping in the solo from Helsinki. But again, he wasn’t to play Helsinki until a month later, and the record isn’t clear anyway as to whether the KCET-TV show was Aug. 7 or Aug. 18. Miles also asserts that YCDTOSA Vol. 2 is from a single Helsinki show, which is contrary to most other sites that credit the double-CD as culling material from both shows. While Miles’ biography is a good read, I find myself frequently confused about when some of the events he describes take place.

The second is an audience member shouting out “Whipping Post!” at the band just before they begin playing “Montana.” Besides that outburst prompting Zappa to ad lib the lyrics a bit in “Montana,” it also was very likely the incident that prompted Zappa to later have the band learn the Allman Brothers classic, versions of which showed up on “Them Or Us,” as well as the bootleg from the 1981 Halloween early show.

All in all, this is a really outstanding and diverse recording. Zappa had often said he enjoyed his Finnish audiences, perhaps in part because he could perform some of his more obscure works and receive great appreciation from these crowds. Interestingly, the band’s lineup at this time was similar to, if not identical with, the lineup I saw at the Ferris State Field House in April, 1974, in Big Rapids, Mich. And with this lineup, when it comes to guitar, it’s all FZ. In fact, he opens the show with two guitar-centric numbers, “Stinkfoot” and “Inca Roads.”

With the former, Franks makes his guitar howl like a dog in a narcotic swoon over the stench of his python boots. The band then launches into “Inca Roads.” This is a really great orchestration of this number; Ruth Underwood and George Duke are both outstanding.

Ruth Underwood continues to display her extraordinary talent with “RDNZL,” a song that was released on “Studio Tan.” Zappa is killer on this as well, his guitar playing sounding a bit like Al Dimeola after swallowing huge doses of LSD and then channeling Eric Clapton. Seriously though, it is totally Zappa.

We get a swinging “Village of the Sun,” which had just been released on “Roxy & Elsewhere,” with Napoleon Murphy Brock rockin’ and rollin’ on saxophone. The next song “Echidna’s Arf (Of You)” is so cool (Also from Roxy, in fact, we have four songs in a row here from Roxy). The incredible rhythmic variations are superbly rendered. After an interlude that includes the ramblings of “Room Service,” and “The Idiot Bastard Son,” from “We’re Only In It For the Money,” the first disc closes out with more Roxy fare with “Cheepnis,” Zappa’s ode to cheesy sci-fi movies. Oh, by the way, did you catch the nod to War’s “The World is a Ghetto” during “Pygmy Twylyte”? (The Mozart nod is an easy catch, as well as the reference to “The Twilight Zone.”)

Disc two starts with “Approximate,” which contains an allusion to “Eva’s Wedding,” a reference to an incident Zappa had at the hotel where he was staying that involved a Finnish bachelorette party and a wedding invitation.

We get a very long and avant garde rendition of “Dupree’s Paradise” that is both intriguing and chilling. Things build up after the band gets through the dialogue portions with the full theme coming through. Napoleon Murphy Brock plays some totally kick ass flute, which is followed by a very cosmic and mysterious bass segue by Tom Fowler, whose plucking is accentuated with brief rhythmic interplays by Chester Thompson on drums. The piece drifts into jazz fusion as George Duke comes back on the keyboards and Thompson goes very heavy on the cymbals. This is followed by a Thompson drum solo that carries with it a bit of “Uncle Meat.” Ruth Underwood’s quote in the February 1994 edition of Musician magazine that carried Frank’s obituary is relevant: “Frank really lived in a world of percussion.”

It all finishes with a musical quote from “Louie Louie” as the band moves into playing a Finnish tango called “Satumaa,” which brings the cheers and hand clapping from the audience. In fact, the band moves through several short bits, including “The Dog Breath Variations” and “Uncle Meat” before they perform the next major piece, “Montana,” from “Over-nite Sensation.”

Another interesting item regarding “Montana” is that Frank starts the song at, what sounds to me, an incredibly fast pace. He stops everything to slow the tempo down. I’m not completely sure, but I think he really wanted to play the song with that fast a tempo, which seems incredulous to me; true, it should have been a bit faster, but I’m not sure as fast as he tried to start it. Despite it being “such a ballad” at that tempo, Frank delivers a righteous solo.

The show concludes with Frank performing on guitar the closing melody from "Big Swifty," which is normally a horn part from "Waka/Jawaka."

There was an interesting Finnish article regarding Zappa’s experiences in Finland that included a description of his mercurial nature, as well as his being treated like a prima donna because he had burned his fingers on a hot shish kebab.

I rate this 4.5 of five stars. Add your own rating below.




Released Oct. 25, 1988, on Rykodisc; Recorded Sept. 22-23, 1974 at the Kulttuuritalo, Helsinki, Finland.

Track listings:

Disc one
1. “Tush Tush Tush (A Token of My Extreme)” – 2:48
2. “Stinkfoot” – 4:18
3. “Inca Roads” – 10:54
4. “RDNZL” – 8:43
5. “Village of the Sun” – 4:33
6. “Echidna’s Arf (Of You)” – 3:30
7. “Don’t You Ever Wash That Thing?” – 4:56
8. “Pygmy Twylyte” – 8:22
9. “Room Service” – 6:22
10. “The Idiot Bastard Son” – 2:39
11. “Cheepnis” – 4:29

Disc two
1. “Approximate” – 8:11
2. “Dupree’s Paradise” – 23:59
3. “Satumaa (Finnish Tango)” (Mononen) – 3:51
4. “T’Mershi Duween” – 1:31
5. “The Dog Breath Variations” – 1:38
6. “Uncle Meat” – 2:28
7. “Building a Girl” – 1:00
8. “Montana (Whipping Floss)” – 10:15
9. “Big Swifty” – 2:17

Personnel:

Frank Zappa – lead guitar, vocals
Napoleon Murphy Brock – saxophone, flute, vocals
George Duke – keyboards, vocals
Ruth Underwood – percussion
Tom Fowler – bass guitar
Chester Thompson – drums