Outer Music Diary

Sometime around mid-october I decided it was time to revisit the entire catalog, from the very beginning to the end, in a sort of top-to-bottom re-evaluation. Were the things I used to think were so good really as good as I thought they were? And those that didn’t stand out for me, was it really the music or was it just me. This is the first full-length comprehensive trip I’ve taken through his catalog since around the time he died in ‘93.

With the exception of the Flo & Eddie period (which is still quite good musically, if those guys would just shut up with the 6th grade locker room humor), everything from Freak Out up through the mid-70s is, with very few exceptions, pretty damn good. From the early Mothers period, Uncle Meat and Absolutely Free are probably still my faves, but Weasels and Weeny are much better than I remember them being, and Hot Rats I always liked but this latest listen revealed all kinds of surprises I hadn’t noticed before. Even the doo-wop sides of Freak Out and Ruben & The Jets — which I previously was sort of ambivalent about, have endured well and even surprised me at times. Bootlegs from the laste 60’s also reveal that seemingly chaotic brilliance that made his stuff so special then.

When they were current, I listened to 200 Motels and the other Flo & Eddie period albums a LOT, and I thought they were great at the time. I can still sing every word and vocal part from side B of Just Another Band From LA, I probably listened to that album 500 times. Sadly that whole period really sounds pretty lame to me now. He had great players, but the bottom line is that it’s dated and a little embarassing to hear now after all these years.

But Zappa turned it around. His fusion period stuff like Grand Wazoo & waka/Jawaka really made up for the 71/72 Flo & Eddie dip, and really one-upped the focus of his strengths. Those strengths, combined with a more sustainable and focused lyrical approach carried on through Over Nite Sensation, one size fits all, The Lather period, and Zoot Allures. Still a very solid band and Zappa is coming up with great material.

I think the point where things started going noticeably downhill is around the Sheik Yerbouti album. There is still some good material, but I get the feeling that we’re starting to get a lot of rehash and filler, half baked ideas. This becomes even more pronounced on Joe’s Garage (in fact that whole damn ’scrutinizer’ thing that threads through the three parts of JG has to be one of the most annoying things FZ has ever done, possibly matchedonly by the yokel that yaps all the way through Thing Fish). Granted I’m still hearing some great stuff in this period, but it’s nowhere near the quality of his best early-to-mid 70s work. Ship Arriving has its moments, as does Tinseltown, even Man From Utopia, but these are not the same level of quality as, say Zoot Allures or Apostrophe. I saw the decline at the time, and it’s even more noticeable now.

Then begins a period of rehash. Basically just various live reworkings of older stuff with a few new tunes thrown in. Roxy and Elsewhere, Helsinki Concert and Zappa In NY from earlier years were fine live albums, but featured plenty of new material and great ideas. Something like Baby Snakes doesn’t have anything new on it that hadn’t been done better previously. Surprisingly, though, in this period where his rock output is getting increasingly boring, Zappa’s output on other fronts (albums like LSO, Jazz From Hell, Yellow Shark,and ultimately Civilization III) are getting far more interesting. As I continued to listen to this stuff, it started seeming like a waste of time; after Jazz Noise and Best Band you’ve never heard, Broadway The Hard way with all their songs sped way up into a slick programmed live presentation, I decided I couldn’t take it anymore. So… there it is — unfinished. I almost made it through.

Claude Perraudin - Mutation 24

I’m getting to the point where I expect a string synthesizer every time I put progressive rock, France and the late 70s together and sure enough this one has tons of it. I did a demo with a band called Ixtlan about 15 years ago and in one of the segments I used a Crumar string synth. My interest in how it sounded (besides the fact I never used it again) probably ended about the time I heard the final version and when playing it for someone later they remarked that it’s best to use the string synth only lightly and I had to agree and still do. It’s one of those sounds that seems to suck up every timbral possibility the music has by its application.

So getting around to the point, that’s basically the main problem here. While this isn’t progressive rock in terms of the band sense (in fact this bears more in common with Mike Oldfield or Michel Moulinie), it’s almost entirely dominated by string synth and guitar work and without good vinyl and proper mastering the album’s middle becomes clogged up with twee, eradicating the sort of dynamics that are essential to making an album like this breathe. And without a great deal of other instrumental tones, the entirety sounds samey and amateurish and while the latter can often be part of the charm of this-era progressive (like, say, Synopsis), the emotional communication has been totally flatlined here. It makes it hard to say anything about the work melodically, except for the obvious Oldfield influences which were never processed in time for this debut work.

Ophiucus - Ophiucus
Ophiucus - Salade Chinoise

I read a review a while back that kind of stuck with me. I think it was in one of the Clearlight Mantra reissues and was either an album review or concert review of Clearlight from a very anglophile perspective, but what it basically said was that in terms of rock music, the French were behind the eightball by the mid 70s. While I don’t agree with that by any means (the word Magma kind of obliterates the theory), it does say something interesting about French rock at its very earliest, particularly that late 60s/early 70s era when it was clear that most efforts were influenced by the British and US groups. A good example of this would be the French band Alice, a pop/rock group without a great deal of ambition (especially if you compare them to Magma or Ange of the same time period). I think you can file Ophiucus there as well.

I used to use a battered copy of the old Musea French progressive rock tome, before it was updated and released in the red cover. Groups with names like Ophiucus (a constellation whose name means serpent holder) used to fascinate me, apparently, sometimes more so than the description of the music. Because Ophiucus basically didn’t have much of an identity on either of these records and for a group with a European/mythological name, they’re strongly influenced by American music.

It’s best to talk about both albums at once, as it accentuates what’s generally genre hopping. For the most part Ophiucus stick to a pop/folk/songwriter type of style that ranges anywhere from the early Eagles to Crosby Stills and Nash without the harmonies. However bizarre divergences occur, such as the Achim Reichel-esque echo guitar instrumental on the first album. Towards the end of the second album I swear I’d walked in on a French Canned Heat cover band. The listens were so maddening in this way that I ended up playing them both a few times. And never was there any coherency among the albums, it was as if a bunch of youngsters enamored with the earthier more Americana end of pop (Grateful Dead, NRPS etc) decided to make a go of it. Both albums come off as very limp efforts and I’d say it’s mostly because they were part of the era that they were included in a progressive rock book. A couple rarities you can avoid.

Grateful Dead Road Trips, Volume 1, Number 1 - Fall ‘79
Disc #2 “Playin’ In The Band”
Holy shit! If the whole set was as good as this one 20 minute stretch this set would be a 15+! The whole set is surprisingly good, but this cut (preceeded by “Terrapin Station” that runs right into it) is one of the most amazingly telepathic jams i’ve heard by these guys. Made more surprising because it’s late ‘79, way past their prime. This jam sounds like it could have just gone on forever, but after about 20 minutes mydland starts making some goofy sounds on a synthesizer that don’t fit in that well, and not surprisingly it’s faded out shortly after that.
Some great moments on the other two discs as well, but disc 2 and this stretch in particular is the highlight of the set for me. I’ve gotten up twice in the middle of the night just to spin this cut again!