w.atching the w.orld unw.ind

Being the first of an occasional series of insights into my Music Library
(and if you don’t want to see the results, look away now)

Frank Zappa
"Zoot Allures"

Frank Zappa / Captain Beefheart
"Bongo Fury"

Lucky person that I am, my more recent "modes de transpor’ " did not come equipped with a cassette player, so for some time I’ve been unable to listen to old stuff that you can’t get on CD (and I’m chary of driving with earphones plugged in).

Now, however, I’ve acquired some software which enables me to burn vinyl onto CD (“Oh Gawd”, muttered the philistine that is Mrs.D.)

Emboldened by Quarsan’s recent Guest-blogging over at TD and prompted by today’s FlashBlog by CBS, my virgin burn involves two albums by the inimitable (“Thank all the saints for that”, she said) and much-lamented Frank Zappa.

“Zoot allures” has a graphically-obscene photo of the band (in particular Mr FZ himself) on both sides of the cover. So maybe it’s just as well I haven’t learned to post pictures yet. Disappointment for the laydeez, then.

“Black napkins” is a superb example of FZ’s guitarwork and his acid (sic) humour appears in “Ms Pinky” (“$69.95 boy, give her a try”), “Wonderful Wino” and the stilleto-like “Disco Boy” (“Leave his hair alone, but you can kiss his comb”).

I was lucky enough to see the band at Brighton Conference Centre shortly before FZ succumbed to cancer. His black lead vocalist sang “What’s that hanging from a neighbour’s tree? Looks like coloured folks, to me.” Only they could have got away with a lyric like that, in front of such a cosmopolitan audience..

"Bongo Fury" is the mainly-live recording in ’75 for the impending USA bi-centennial celebrations. As an import, it cost me £5 at the time, the amount we spent on food each week, so it’s been nursed through several house moves.

The album includes duets with Captain Beefheart (or Don van Vliet as his mum knows him) but although I really like his solo work, I still can’t get into his beatnik prose. Therefore, memorable belters like “Sam with the showing scalp flat top” and “Man with the Woman head” didn’t make it to the CD. (That’s the CBS connection).

But the humour was still there, with “Debra Kadabra” expressing mystification about the notion of masochism and the gloriously over-the-top entitled “Poofters Froth, Wyoming, plans ahead” ripping the proverbial out of the cynical commercialism involved in the “200 Years Old” festivities:
“T-shirts. Racks. Rubber snacks.
Posters rolled with matching tacks
And here’s a special beer for sports,
In paper cups, that hold two quarts”

And “Muffin Man” is just a killer.