Frank Zappa "Zoot Allures"

By Chris Welch

Melody Maker, 26 February 1977

FRANK ZAPPA: “Zoot Allures ” (Warner Bros).

It is difficult to listen to Frank at work without succumbing to a host of memories. Such an intensely creative, original and perverse musician, such a powerful and enigmatic personality, tends to leave a trail of impressions behind him like a comet trailing gas, ice and stones. The very name Zappa reminds me of nights in the hippie year of '67, lying on the floors of countless bedsitters and listening through a haze of intoxicating smoke to the early Mothers Of Invention records, and being enraged, intrigued and finally delighted. And then there was the night when Frank came onto the stage at the Royal Albert Hall and surprised us all with a long and stunningly powerful guitar solo, during an age when Clapton was King. Much water under the bridge since then.

 Frank is still capable of being brilliant, or just plain silly, and is still one of the few real band-leading catalysts of rock, as well as one of its best producers, a professional at the mixing desk where so many amateurs fake. Just listen to the bass sound on “The Torture Never Stops,” the use of human shrieks juxtaposed with menacing chords from the boys in the band. The silliness (at least in my opinion) is his continuing obsession with the more disgusting aspects of human nature, but once you have waded past his imageries, apparently designed to titillate bored West Coast college audiences, there is a wealth of fine musicianship. Frank always picks ’em. Take drummer Terry Bozzio, who, along with familiar faces Ruth Underwood and Roy Estrada, helps to provide the basic tracks. Terry is as solid as Aynsley Dunbar ever was. But what does surprise me (in view of my praise for Frank’s record-producing skills) is the way he tends to bury vocals deep into the track, particularly on “Ms Pinky,” an uninspired riff which closes side one on rather a disappointing note, after the agonised excesses of the otherwise intriguing “Torture.” Maybe in '77 Zappa is having difficulty in maintaining his position as a commercial proposition (and you can’t take that much equipment around without selling a few tickets here and there) whilst finding a real musical direction within the framework of a changed rock world. Whatever he does, with varying degrees of success, there is always a modicum of inspiration, a morsel of provocation, and a lot more cerebral activity than one detects in your average combo. But all in all, I don't think this is an exceptional work by his own standards. It tends to be a patchy collection of unrelated performances, cobbled together for the sake of having something out, though moments of greatness there are (like the introduction to “Friendly Little Finger,” with Ruth going ape on the marimbas and synthesizer). Really, the best cuts are the instrumentals, and I get the feeling Zappa today is happier blowing than labouring over lyrics that become more and more devious, perhaps out of contempt for the whole process of rock songwriting. In the words of Peter Cook, he's protesting in the only way he knows how.

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