Mothers Of Invention

By ?

Hullabaloo, March 1967


If necessity is the mother of invention, what are the Mothers of Invention mothers of? New music!

This West Coast rock group has been stirring as great a stir of underground chatter as any group since The Fugs? They have made the title of their first Verve album, “Freak Out!”, more a part of the language than it was before them. They have made “shock rock” into a catch phrase, and they are just getting started!

The Mothers of Invention is the creation of one slightly mad genius named Frank Zappa. Zappa was a serious musician with an eye toward classical music when he decided to crack the rock barrier. His group has been a solid hit on the West Coast, and a national hit since their two-weekend visit to New York's Balloon Farm.

Under Zappa's delightfully whacky direction, The Mothers are breaking a new frontier in rock sound. They are both satirizing earlier pop music as well as making a new fusion of electric bands with modern classical music. At the Balloon Farm, the jaws of listeners were hanging slack as they heard Stravinsky rock, Mussorgsky rock, and Zappa rock all rolled together.

A new Mothers of Invention album will be out shortly and it promises to be a totally different concept from the first. The Mothers of Invention are rising on the horizon with bold, wild new ideas in pop song and we‘ll be watching the sunrise to see the lights.