Continuing from last week, here we arrive at Weasels Ripped My Flesh, the seventh studio by The Mothers Of Invention And eight overall (in addition to being the tenth entry into the Zappa canon). Released August 10, 1970 on Bizarre Records, this marks the final album to feature the original incarnation of the Mothers, who disbanded the previous year. This also marks the only time in Frank Zappa’s career that an album contained the same lineup as the previous record; this album features Frank on lead guitar and vocals, Don Preston on keyboards, Lowell George on rhythm guitar and vocals, Ian Underwood on alto saxophone/winds/keyboards, Bunk Gardner on tenor saxophone and winds, Buzz Gardner on trumpet and flugelhorn, Motorhead Sherwood on baritone saxophone and tambourine, Roy Estrada on bass and vocals, and Jimmy Carl Black and Art Tripp on drums and percussion. Compared to Burnt Weeny, this is largely based on live performances and the free form nature of the Mothers shows.

So let’s kick this motherfucker off!

1. “Didja Get Any Onja” (Frank Zappa):

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFWiJAYmADQ

We open the album with “Didja Get Any Onja”, which was recorded live at Philadelphia Arena on March 2, 1969.

We begin the track, Buzz wails away on the trumpet like a madman. This sounds like the Dixieland band from Hell. You have the military beats of Jimmy and Art, the rambling bass of Roy, Don sounds like a ward patient that got behind the institution’s organ, and you have Bunk’s saxophone just screeching away, hollering like another patient crying in agony. This is almost Wild Man Fisher like in a way, who of course Frank had produced around that time. You have Roy, who sounds like a patient caught between crying in despair and laughing through the pain, and topping it off is my man Lowell George as the token German rambling about his childhood in a story that may or may not be true.

This track, to me, sums up the difference between the Mothers’ sensibility and that of Frank’s other bands. His other bands were wacky and silly, but the Mothers were flat out demented. And I love my Zappa as demented as possible, and no band of his could do that better than the Mothers, and I do love many of Frank’s later groups. Hell, I would love to see what the 88 band could have done with this track with all the horns , and you could have Ike or Keneally do the monologue and adlib a different one each performance. I don’t know, maybe it didn’t work as well in rehearsals, too sporadic, who knows?

Well, no matter. This is one of my favorite Mothers tunes, it’s such an insane tune to begin your album with.

2. “Directly From My Heart To You” (Richard Pettiman):

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PdZKJOVH2WM

From the madhouse to Little Richard, this is a cover of “Directly From My Heart To You”, and singing it is none other than Mr “Sugarcane” Harris himself. For the longest time, it’s been a mystery rather or not the organ was Don or Ian, but if the recent Hot Rats Sessions is to go by, it is Don as I suspected. And interestingly enough, Roy thought it was someone else playing bass on here, but again, all signs point to him being the bassist. Who knows, maybe he was daydreaming about little girls and forgot about recording the song. And as the resident blues man drum wise, it is Jimmy Carl Black you’re hearing on this track.

And man, the blues groove is superb, and Sugarcane’s violin sizzles throughout, his vocal heartfelt and tender. I should mention to those not aware of his history is that Sugarcane started out as part of a duo called Don & Dewey that was basically a duo of two Little Richard like performers, except Don played guitar in that setup. The duo had no real hits of their owns, though covers of their work like “Farmer John” by The Premiers, “Big Boy Pete” became “The Jolly Green Giants” by The Kingsmen (yes, the same guys that did “Louie Louie”, a track that Frank often referenced in his early work), and “Koko Joe” was a staple of the Righteous Brothers’ shows. Of course, that seemed to the dates of most black performers. You make nothing, but the white boys get rich off your work.

Don & Dewey eventually broke up and Don started to focus more on the violin while playing with Johnny Otis, who gave him the name “Sugarcane”. He ended up fading into obscurity until Frank decided that a track could use a Sugarcane-esque solo, so he bailed Sugarcane out of jail and started using him on his records. And boy, was he a diamond in the rough, and my oh my do I love his playing so. It was a real bummer to hear of his death in ’99 and his drug and health problems, because he was such a rare talent and any track he appeared on was made better by his presence. Even this one, I love me some Little Richard, but this buries the original version as far as I’m concerned, it is an awesome track, yet not one of my favorites on here.

Long live Don “Sugarcane” Harris, he was a bad motherfucker.

3. “Prelude To The Afternoon Of A Sexually Aroused Gas Mask” (Zappa):

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YfS_7_b7rd4

How bout some gas mask ridonkuloulessness? This was inspired by the gas masks that Frank’s old man would bring home from his job at Edgewood Medical Center, which Frank would than fiddle with and make all these weird snorkeling sounds even though it was supposed to protect him from any gas leakage. Anyway, the track is made up of performances from the Royal Festival Hall performance on October 25, 1968 (which also made up Ahead Of Their Time) and the Miami show on February 8, 1969.

Very strange track, not so much music but sort of performance art put to tape. The music that begins the track is so creepy and unnerving, shards of guitar are thrashed out amongst the organ and wind instruments, the occasional snaps of drums snapping everything back into shape, with the saxophone screeching over before this weird ass vocal starts, which sounds like the ghost of a murder victim crying in pain, before we get this demented ass evil laugh. Capping it off is Mr Motorhead Sherwood delivering the gas mask goods. Gotta love Motorhead, he may not have been able to do what Bunk or Ian could do on Sax and winds, but other than Frank and maybe Jimmy, he was the coolest member, he was that cool kid that just didn’t give a fuck and was relentlessly fucked with the teacher. And him snorkeling over this pretty sounding organ is something I can get behind.

I love this song, so let’s head on down to the short forest.

4. “Toads Of The Short Forest” (Zappa):

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=acpOO0kvfn4

The first part of this song was recorded during the Hot Rats sessions and features Shuggie Otis on bass and Ron Selico on drums, so same rhythm section as “Peaches En Regalia”, and this sections does remind me a little of “Peaches”, it has that kind of rich, layered sound that Hot Rats had, and you start to get into the groo-

What the hell? We now head into this band that sounds like its colliding into each other, and this sections was recorded in February of 1969 at Thee Image in Miami Beach. And the band goes into a vamp as Frank starts to tell the audience what time signature the players are each playing in, as the alto sax blows its nose.

Compared to the first three tracks, it’s not as good, but overall I dig it.

5. “Get A Little” (Zappa):

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=af9y7DO6xWI

Hey, let’s get a little! This track was recorded at The Factory in NYC on February 28, 1969.

Motorhead gives us an anecdote about getting laid as somebody is coughing the stoner cough. And as soon as he says the title, the band goes right into this groove, and oh my God. The groove is just cosmic, orgasmic, this is so awesome for just cranking while lazily dozing in the car as it slowly cruises the highway.

Let’s also bring up Parliament-Funkadelic, because this track reminds me a lot of the P-Funk crew. And that makes sense as George Clinton is a huge Zappa fan, and apparently, Frank thought about bringing Glen Goins and I think Gary Shider the Diaperman into his band at one point. Damn, would that have been awesome. Even just comparing the two bands, they have a fair amount in common (mix of social satire and lowbrow humor, a revolving door of colorful characters and musicians, and Parliament-Funkadelic even got their start as a doo-wop group called The Parliaments. Even got an early single of theirs on Record Store Day (couldn’t find Trout sadly).

Back to “Get A Little”, great stoner music (ironic, as Frank famously hated stoners), and I would love to see a band like Electric Wizard cover this bad boy.

6. “The Eric Dolphy Memorial Barbecue” (Zappa):

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5WakFj0Kea0

Now we flip the vinyl over and kick off Side Two with “The Eric Dolphy Memorial Barbecue”, an ode to free jazz saxophonist and wind player Eric Dolphy, who previously appeared on the Freak Out! list.

Before this album, I had no clue who Eric Dolphy was, but I certainly was interested in who this guy was that Frank wrote a whole piece about, so I looked into his catalogue, and my oh my. Out to Lunch!, amazing record, and then you have other stuff like Straight Ahead and Cornell 1964 with Charles Mingus. Listening to Dolphy’s alto sax and bass clarinet, I can hear a lot of what Ian, Bunk, and Motorhead would do, as well as what Beefheart would do. Even the vibe work on Out To Lunch reminds a fair bit of Frank, particularly his work from Uncle Meat on.

And now let’s tackle the track itself. My God, so beautifully orchestrated. I love Roy’s little walking bass line throughout, nicely ties the track together along with Jimmy playing in the pocket. Don provides some cool rhythmic playing in the clavinet and organ, and we get some stellar guitar work from Frank. But really, the star of this track is Arthur Tripp himself. His drumming so exquisitely orchestrated even through the off kilter time changes and arragmements. He’s not really brought up a lot in discussions of drummers, but he was a fantastic drummer, and Mr Barriemore Barlow from Jethro Tull agrees with me, and he’s a motherfucker on the drums. And people seem to forget that he was invited to stay on with Frank after the Mothers broke up, but chose not to. He left of his own volition, and he definitely would have made more staying with Frank than joining Beefheart, and then left music when his heart was no longer into it. Remember all this next time somebody tries to argue that everyone is a sellout. I got some words for you: Art Tripp, Bill Bruford, Bill Ward, Robert Fripp, Robert Plant, everyone in Rush. And Ruth, let’s not forget her.

Let’s also talk about Mr Ian Underwood and Bunk and Buzz Gardner. The wind and horns are so superb on here. Buzz’s trumpet line is so lyrical in its execution, brilliantly contrasting the lore loopy work of Bunk, Ian, and Don. If all Buzz did was introduced Don and Bunk to each other, he’d still be a bad motherfucker in my book, but beyond that, he really brought a great dimension to the Mothers in those last months. Just a shame he didn’t do more with Frank, same with Art, but no matter, they were still brilliant players who added a lot to the material they played on.

This track is a masterpiece, one of Frank’s finest compositions and among the Mothers’ finest pieces. I don’t know if it’s my favorite, but I do think it’s the best on here.

7. “Dwarf Nebula Processional March & Dwarf Nebula” (Zappa):

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FZB2B-v71NY

Here we get a pretty little classical piece, Ian and Bunk playing some sweet wind work, and then Frank decides to throw a wrench in the cog, all this crazy noise dragging the track across the road like roadkill. So a little bit of musique concrète from the Money era, totally screwing with your head all while Frank laughs his ass off at the madness and chaos he has created. That’s one thing that’s lovably frustrating and frustratingly lovable about Frank; never let you or even himself get too comfortable. Probably also why these are the only two albums in his career with the same lineup, and yet even these two feel very distinct from each other.

8. “My Guitar Wants To Kill Your Mama” (Zappa):

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0Oj-eZqpHE

Well, how bout some guitaricide, shall we? This is “My Guitar Wants To Kill Your Mama”, which was retitled “My Guitar” when it was released as a single.

This is such a fun song, very much in the vein of all the old Stax records with the horn line and the pocket style playing by Roy, Art, and Jimmy. Frank’s voice has the spirit of those records with a tongue firmly in cheek. Though I would definitely have loved to see what Ray Collins could have done with this song, Frank still does an excellent job on here. He may not have been a virtuoso vocalist, but he commanded a song in a way that few can, every song truly felt like his, even the covers.

A lot of Zappa/Mothers stuff takes time to digest, and certainly exploring Frank’s discography can seem like a pretty daunting task, but this is one I could see people not really into Zappa digging, and it certainly made sense as a single. But honestly, the factor that it was The Mothers Of Invention (bear in mind that Frank wasn’t an established brand in of himself at the time, which likely factored into why he continued using the Mothers name into the mid seventies) probably scared DJs away, something I talked about a little in the Clear Spot review with Beefheart’s direction around that time. And like Clear Spot, this is accesible but still have the Mothers/Zappa spirit, it’s not a sellout. Then again, I don’t even consider the Flo and Eddie material to be a sellout. It’s not my favorite era of Zappa, but even with the streamlined direction, I was still able to accept it as Zappa. But then again, and getting into the Flo and Eddie era, if I had been one of the OG Mothers fans and saw Frank and the others as an alternative to the comparatively vapid pop as well as being the antiheroes, yeah, I’d likely be disappointed as well. But I was born long after that whole thing, and when I discovered Frank, the PMRC thing had already occurred, him taking the piss out of SNL while on the show, and him being one of the first to openly and regularly mock organized religion and the televangelists, that had all happened, so he was back to being rock’s antihero. And of course, I went in already knowing about the revolving door policy of his band, so the Flo and Eddie period was simply another phase of Zappa to either like or not like on its own merit.

And that’s my review of “My Guitar Wants To Kill Your Mama”. It’s a great song, next!

9. “Oh No” (Zappa):

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1zjJw9YvA18

The Mothers respond to “All You Need Is Love” with “Oh No”, which was recorded in 1967 and this features Ray Collins on lead vocals and Billy Mundi on drums.

First off, Ray Collins. He was awesome, and this track is further proof of that. So perfectly sardonic and bitter, yet so heartfelt and tender. Ray towed that line better than most, and honestly better than almost everyone that sang for Frank afterwards. But then again, that was Ray in a nutshell. As dry and sardonic as Ray could be (and he could be, definitely gave Frank a run for his money in this sense), he was still a man of passion and love, and even though he didn’t do a whole lot post Mothers and post Frank, he never stopped singing, he still lived to perform (as you can see in a fan video recorded shortly before he died, or some home demoes from over the years), and his niece has always told me and other fans on Facebook about the time she spent with her Uncle Ray working on her singing. The only think that sucked about Ray was that we don’t have more of his voice on record or more footage of him. Well, I’m sure I’ll talk more about Ray in future Zappa/Mothers reviews, certainly for Cruising, so let’s get back to the song.

And I have to admit, while I liked “All You Need Is Love” as a kid, revisiting it for the first time since I listened to it as a kid, it has not aged well. Lyrically, musically, it really does come off like dopey hippie dippy tripe. I’m all about love and understanding and being kind to your fellow man, but at a certain point, you need to recognize that in this world, there are dicks, pussies, and assholes. Pussies get mad at dicks because dicks can fuck too much or fuck when it’s not appropriate, ya know, pussies get fucked by dicks. But dicks also fuck assholes, and if they didn’t fuck the assholes, we would have our dicks and our pussies all covered in shit. It would be 9/11 time 100.

In all seriousness, yes, we are sometimes too gung-ho about entering war or entering a fight, and regular citizens often end up paying the price. Violence should never be the first resort, and we need to be in check. Sometimes, however, there are people who cannot bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.

Two of my favorite movies in one song review! And this is one of my favorite Mothers tracks, one of my favorite Zappa songs, and it leads right into….

10. “The Orange County Lumber Truck” (Zappa):

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8Lkppy9vfTE

From “Oh No” into “The Orange County Lumber Track”, this is an excellent track.

The band is so tight and in the pocket, the two drummers creates such a dense and propulsive feel to it. Compared to much of the album, Don and the horn section is more subdued, complimenting the melody and arrangement as well as Frank’s lead work while shining all the way through. Roy Ralph Estrada, his groove on here is impeccable, beautifully gliding through this crazy contraption of a song. And Frank’s guitar work, beautiful, you can almost sing it in a way. His lead work is so curious, ever wandering for the note. And yet…there’s purpose. There’s method, it’s so meticulously planned at a Xanatos level. It’s amazing. This reminds me again why Frank is my favorite guitar player.

It’s a great track, so let’s end with….”

11. “Weasels Ripped My Flesh” (Zappa):

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xpm2TBG5op4

The title track, which is a crashing flood of cacophonous noise, like the doctors in the mental ward have finally snapped and join their former patients in a psych cell for the remainder of their days. Their minds are dead and will never return. There is no you left, all there is is a shell. An empty, drooling shell. Everything is real, and nothing is real. The doctors might be nice and might care about you; they might be lying to you and are prepared to kill you or use you for their own means. And nobody will believe you, as you’re too delusional to provide a credible testimony. And indeed, why should they believe you? You don’t believe you. The outside world slips away each day of your life, and your connection to other people will disappear completely.

Good night.

OVERALL THOUGHTS

Burnt Weeny Sandwich and Weasels Ripped My Flesh, two killer albums. The Mothers are at their absolute best, delivering impeccable performances on all fronts-instrumentally, vocally, comedically. While Frank did a lot of great things after, and I do dearly love Ruth, George, Mark And Howard, Napoleon, The Fowler Brothers, Bozzio, O’Hearn, Belew, nobody could replace this crazy bunch. Such a lovably strange group, the rascals. They were part jazz, part orchestra, part rock band, part theater, part comedy, they really couldn’t be put in a box, just like Mother Superior himself. Sure, later bands were more polished, but none of them had the spirit of this band. As cheesy as it sounds, they were meant for each other. It may not have been able to last, and a fair few of them are not here anymore, but what they did in those four years (five of you count their time as The Soul Giants or The Blackouts or whatever name they had that week before settling on the Mothers) lives on.