Frank Zappa: Frank Zappa Meets the Mothers of Prevention (Barking Pumpkin)
Bought at Dave Kuzy's yard sale
Dave is the guitarist for the band Microwaves, a band I greatly respect, in addition to appearing onstage with them. I wrote in my previous posting that Dave had this in a box of vinyl, with a sticker that read "$1/it sucks." And I said, yes I know, but even these records have maybe that one piece on it that I like, worth $1.
Let me back up. Since writing to this blog (semi-)regularly since late December 2022, I've written about Frank before. Ergo I might be repeating myself; I haven't exactly gone back and reviewed my own missives, just thrown them out spontaneously come what may.
Frank Zappa has a distinctly important part of my musical development. I'm certain I've shared this before that discovering two reel-to-reel tapes in my father's collection with Hot Rats, Absolutely Free, Uncle Meat, We're Only In It for the Money (I think) and a little of Cruisin with Rueben and the Jets was one of the first really epiphanous musical moments in my life. It sounded like music that was created for me. I was "that guy" in high school who was telling others to check out Zappa. The first thing I wrote for my high school paper was a review for Sheik Yerbouti (I honestly hope no physical copies of that issue still exist).
As I've grown older, as I've checked out more of Frank's body of work, my opinions have become more varied and hopefully nuanced. Something I didn't see at the time, and is easier to view in hindsight, is that Sheik Yerbouti for me now is an approximate marker for when I think Frank's work takes a turn for the ugly. It's not a hard and fast point where I think it happens, there are signs on earlier records. SY has varying degrees of homophobia and (probably more notably) misogyny that would come more to the surface in subsequent records.
Frank was nothing if not self-promoting and driven. I'm tempted to write that he was also supremely self-important, except he really was a vital artist at one time. That wouldn't be entirely bluster. What I do believe though was that he, by the time of this record (1985) had largely lost the ability to be self-critical. I think he really failed to see why his earlier records were significantly better than this, grungier they may be. I think he failed to recognize, or at least underplayed, the importance of particular musicians on his music. There's nobody on playing on here that approaches the flexibility and humor brought by George Duke or Napoleon Murphy Brock. His choice of players sounds increasingly robotic as he headed into the 1980s: Tinseltown Rebellion, You Are What You Is, Them Or Us, The Man From Utopia, this.
And then there's the Synclavier. He seemed to love his Synclavier, which I'd expect he would considering the six figures the thing cost. Now he had a device that made music that truly was robotic. The music he produced on it initially sounded startling, but to my ears has not weathered well. His sampled remixes of voices from the Senate hearings on "Porn Wars" is more annoying than anything. The Synclavier, cutting edge technology at the time, now makes this sound dated. And, I don't know if the technology even exists to transfer the data to MIDI format. Assuming his or anyone else's even works any longer, it's more outdated than a crumhorn now.
Which brings me to another self- for Frank, self-righteous. He made a personal campaign of appearing before the Senate, on hearings that more or less didn't amount to much of anything. I could never get too upset about the idea of a warning label for lyrical content, especially when it was self-regulated. Ironically, the lyric warning label became a selling point, particularly in the newly burgeoning rap/hip hop world. Even the "label" on the cover of this (probably his worst cover art ever) reads: "Warning guarantee: This album contains material which a truly free society would neither fear or suppress. In some socially retarded areas, religious fanatics and ultra-conservative political organizations violate your First Amendment Rights by attempting to censor rock & roll albums." etc etc etc etc etc.
If you think using the word "retarded" seems to have aged poorly, listen to Ike Willis' "Thing-Fish" speaking in exaggerated, fake African-American vernacular popping up on this album. It was embarrassing then, let alone now. I know the character, the talk, was intended to be satirical, but it's just awful.
If Zappa thought things were bad in the Reagan era, he had no clue how much worse it could get. And believe me, I don't look back on the Reagan era with the rose-colored glasses of nostalgia. While I love/loved the boom in independently produced music at the time, while I met my wife and my daughter was born during that time, that decade of America was shitty.
I've probably written this before, but it's worth repeating. There are days when I wish Frank was still around to give his acerbic opinion on current events. I'm sure he would have called out Trump for the illiterate moron he is. Frank Zappa, J.G. Ballard, William S. Burroughs, Philip K. Dick, Charles Mingus, how I would have loved to read your opinions on current events. Reminds me that I was lucky to share a planet with those men in my lifetime.
As for the record? Even the best tracks ("Alien Orifice", "What's New in Baltimore?") are tertiary-level quality pieces. This record, as Dave wrote, does indeed suck.
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