Brillo-ant

By Janet Burris

Austin Sun, September 30, 1977

Frank Zappa's orchestrated technological weirdness forms a backdrop for a mishmash of acid blabbering. Songs about women talk of blown fantasies: "She used to knock me out until her face broke out." His brash young side musicians musically duel and frolic tor the "king's" pleasure during hard-driving, yet spiritless, rock 'n' roll. ^[1] He parodies new dance crazes and punk rock, acting out "safety-pin disco boy needs disco girl." She's leaving with your friend – refrain: "Well, thank the Lord, you've still got hands to drown out your disco sorrow."

Songs of more derision about love's barriers: "Broken Hearts Are tor Assholes"; "Skin Doom" – "a rash that keeps the girls away" ^[2]; right down to the encore, "Camarillo Brillo" – "We did it till we were unconcho and it was useless anymore." Heartless sex.

Zappa's current music and show is like reading a graduate student's master thesis on mass taste in music – interesting to contemplate but not much to revel in. Using his acute sense of what audiences want to hear – not a display of creative genius that has heretofore been his trademark – it seems that Zappa is after the almighty music dollar. We came, we heard, but we only observed and spectated. Something was missing. The spark that exhilirates and draws you in was not there. Eighty-five thousand pounds of equipment hauled around in two 45-foot trucks and three months of rehearsals, doesn't a vision make.

1. Zappa had on September 13 two shows in Armadillo World Headquarters, Austin as a part of the "Sheik Yerbouti tour". The band: Frank Zappa, Adrian Belew, Patrick O'Hearn, Terry Bozzio, Ed Mann, Tommy Mars, Peter Wolf.

2. Punky's Whips. "He's been havin' a rash / (No shit) / That keeps the girls away / Skin doom / (Skin doom!) / Is what the doctors say."