Frank Zappa: Studio Tan

By Jeff Pike

International Musician And Recording World, January 1979

Frank Zappa
Studio Tan (Discreet)

Uncle Frank goes secretive. For some reason, he has chosen not to tell us who plays with him on this album. (In fact, the very ugly sleeve carries more information about who designed it than about the who, where and when of the recording within.) Perhaps this is intended to concentrate our minds on to listening to the music without any preconceptions, which is rather a pity because it’s the worst thing Frank has recorded in recent years.

Not that it’s bad. Just nowhere near the amazingly high standards he sometimes hits. I happen to like Zappa’s songs and admire his guitar playing. And there isn’t half enough of either here. Side One consists of a long fable, a monologue with music, all about Greggery Peccary (“a little pig with a white collar that usually hangs around between Texas and Paraguay”). The story is not very interesting, not very funny and if there is a moral it was so subtle or so obvious that I missed it. Frank narrates in two voices: his oily leering one and a speeded up version of the same, which sounds like a Smurf on Mandies. The music is disjointed, full of startling time changes and odd instrumentation, and ultimately very frustrating because it never gets anywhere. It’s like listening to a Tom and Jerry soundtrack without being able to see the cartoon.

Side Two has one song on it and a couple of lengthy instrumentals. The latter are both clever cleverly constructed and cleverly played but fundamentally hollow. Good guitar by Frank on one of them and stirring piano by somebody on the other, but not much else to write home about. Which leaves the song, “Let Me Take You To The Beach". It’s a delicious teenage ditty, as the title implies, full of off-pitch Beach Boys falsetto vocalising and corny guitar licks. Lovely. But not worth buying the album for.