Frank Zappa 43: Guitar

An extremely busy release schedule over a period of five years saw several Zappa albums appear on CD for the first time, along with over a dozen new titles. Some were distributed via his own Barking Pumpkin label, but the most elaborate releases came through his arrangement with Rykodisc.

The first such release was Guitar, something of a sequel to 1981’s Shut Up 'N Play Yer Guitar volumes. The premise was basically the same, being guitar solos excerpted from different live performances of about sixteen songs, mostly recorded in 1982 and 1984. Unlike the earlier version, there is no “grout” offered in the way of dialogue snippets, so it’s mostly just an onslaught of fancy fretwork. Given the popularity of hair metal and such virtuosi on the scene like Joe Satriani and Zappa alumnus Steve Vai, its release was somewhat timely.

The sameness of the material—usually the band vamping on one chord, sometimes over a reggae beat, sometimes over a prerecorded loop, while Frank lets loose—makes Guitar a connoisseur’s choice. (For example, “Republicans” and “Canadian Customs” are similar, but not identical, being that they’re both solos from “Let’s Move To Cleveland”, from different dates.) The synthesizers and electronic drums also date the material, taking some of the human element out of the listening experience. Once again, we’re not going to attempt to dissect each of the tracks, though a few stand out, such as the opening “Sexual Harassment In The Workplace”, which is an actual song with melody and structure, and “Outside Now”, which puts the solo back in its original context. The crowd is very happy to hear “Watermelon In Easter Hay”, if only for half of its album length.

The track titles are sometimes arbitrary (“Do Not Pass Go”), topical (“Jim & Tammy’s Upper Room”), or humorous (“Things That Look Like Meat”) but others are more obvious in their derivation. “For Duane” comes from a performance of “Whipping Post”; “In-A-Gadda-Stravinsky” begins with bassist Scott Thunes playing a certain Iron Butterfly riff while Frank quotes from “Rite Of Spring”; “It Ain’t Necessarily The Saint James Infirmary” quotes from both of those standards.

Again, having a constant onslaught of soloing isn’t everyone’s idea of easy listening. While the CD version added another 50 minutes of music—and another carrot for fans to make the switch from vinyl—the two-record set had different segues due to fewer tracks, and was separated into more palatable chunks of 20 minutes apiece. For those who wanted more songs, and interaction between everybody on those stages, they didn’t have to wait long.

Frank Zappa Guitar (1988)—3