# The Zappa Reviews: 1 - Freak Out! (1966) [Part 2]



## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

_Monster Magnet_ captures the atmosphere of a loud, abrasive, isolating house party. A relentless series of 4/4 beats ranging from surf rock to a fast boogie underlines a series of harsh noises, clusters of incoherent shouting, laughs, cries, science fiction movie synthesisers, people talking in nonsense languages, and naturally a few obscured snatches of _Louie Louie_. It is the album's central thesis stripped down to its bare bones, condensed, raw. Here you are, this is what you look like, this is what you sound like, this is your life, are you happy here? Or, as a voice out of nowhere suddenly blurts out: did you pick up on that?

_Trouble Every Day_ bookends the first forty minutes of the album, returning to the direct social commentary of _Hungry Freaks, Daddy_ and, strategically placed as the first track of side 3, makes for an interesting framing device which calls attention to both the duration of a single LP and the fact that this is a double LP. It was written during the Watts Riots, and comments specifically on how the media abuses such events for ratings, as well as racial tension and class struggle. In his youth, Zappa formed a band called The Blackouts, the first racially integrated group in his area. They experienced a lot of trouble with locals, threats of violence, and even a brawl with the white middle class sons of business owners who essentially ran the community. As the song recalls: "all that you can ever be is a lousy janitor unless your uncle owns a store." Zappa was eventually arrested for "vagrancy" while walking down a street on the day the Blackouts were scheduled to perform, and the band eventually broke up under the pressure. Zappa's future line-ups were almost always racially integrated. The Mothers' earliest incarnations featured no African Americans, many later versions would, but two of five members were Hispanic and Native American, Roy Estrada and Jimmy Carl Black (née Inkanish) respectively. In the middle of the song, Zappa proclaims: "You know something, people? I'm not black, but there's a whole lot of times I wish I could say I'm not white," but the song avoids taking the easy way out, also commenting that "he wants to go and do you in because the colour of your skin just don't appeal to him no matter if it's black or white because he's out for blood tonight." As usual, anyone Zappa thought was deserving of criticism would receive his attention, and he saw beyond the politics of the time to make the crucial point that fragile human beings reduced to animalistic behaviour by the pressure of harsh situations are the same no matter their ancestry or skin colour.

_You're Probably Wondering Why I'm Here_ seems at first to be a simply mockery of bar and club audiences. "I only get paid to play," sings Ray Collins, yet throughout the song he passes judgements on various members of the audience, imagining their lives outside of the bar, coming to the conclusion that they are dreary and empty, feeling no sympathy toward their requests for "Caravan with a drum sola," or for their reckless driving habits and promiscuity. But the song is satirical, in effect questioning what business a band has in attempting to judge or police others, an interesting thought in a time when protest bands and politically oriented independent music scenes were essentially doing just that. It could even be seen to mock The Mothers' own efforts in observing and commenting on various social, political, and sexual phenomena of modern America: "you're probably wondering why I'm here, and so am I" sings Collins, hinting ever so slightly "but I'm also wondering why you're listening to me."

_Freak Out!_ features an inventive mix of rock 'n' roll, blues rock, pop, doo-***, avant-garde music, and sound collage. In addition to the band proper Zappa employed "The Mothers' Auxiliary" (mocking the aforementioned Verve exec's original suggestion of name change), consisting of brass and string players, timpani and other percussion, the last of which is used extensively from the outset. Even here Zappa's instrumentation is exploratory, a glimpse of things to come on later records such as his first solo album _Lumpy Gravy_, and The Mothers' large looming and eclectic masterpiece _Uncle Meat_. _Hungry Freaks, Daddy_, the caustic, fast-paced opener, adds to typical fuzz box inflected rock group instrumentation the vibraphone, an unusual but essentially non-confrontational pairing, but throughout the album these additions of classical, jazz, and electronic instruments and sounds are augmented in increasingly elaborate ways, not to mention the triumphantly deranged kazoo on _You're Probably Wondering Why I'm Here_. Zappa was a big fan of doo-*** and group harmony, both of which are lampooned throughout the album on tracks such as _Wowie Zowie_. On this album, as in others, he played with the configuration and style of vocal elements, ranging from Ray Collins' melodically confident lead to off-key sprechstimme, comic overuse of _doot-doots_ and _yeeeee-uhhhs_, the Valli-esque ending to _Wowie Zowie_, and of course the vicious and near-chaotic dodecacophony of _It Can't Happen Here_.

_I'm Not Satisfied_ has perhaps the richest orchestration on the album, a full complement of piano, percussion, brass, and strings plays strident back-up to three-part vocal harmonies and a snare heavy beat, reminiscent of songs such as Roy Orbison's _Pretty Woman_ in its strutting rhythm. It is the earliest indication of the musical direction both The Mothers and Zappa's solo work would take over the next few years, its future-echoes of _Lumpy Gravy_'s Abnuceals Emuukha Electric Symphony Orchestra, while being very much in a pop vein, are heard in some signature Zappa figures, especially in the finale. Similar can be heard in _You Didn't Try To Call Me_, another rich orchestration (if the richest ain't _I'm Not Satisfied_, it's this), which occasionally and very briefly dips into the Stravinskian, so well integrated into the composition that you have to listen out for it specifically.

_Freak Out!_ is a remarkable debut, seeming to come out of nowhere, mixing the familiar and the new in equal measure to bizarre effect and with undeniable skill, as showcased by the many brilliant arrangements for large numbers of instruments which, in the manner of Van **** Parks' _Song Cycle_, the masterful but hated 1969 debut of a one-time Mother whom Zappa nicknamed "Pinocchio" back in 1965, showcases an intimate understanding of pop music alongside staunchly free and idiosyncratic personal touches. However, while shocking and disorienting to audiences at the time, _Freak Out!_ was only a glimpse of The Mothers at full strength, what little documentation of early performances exists shows far more experimentation, deconstruction of pop formulae, and vitriol than is possible to capture in the studio - for this reason Zappa would later derive basic tracks for his albums from live performances, augmenting them with overdubs to create unique hybrids of live and studio material. Ultimately it is good but not quite great, but greatness was something The Mothers and Zappa would strive for and reach the following year with _Absolutely Free _and _Lumpy Gravy _respectively.


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