| Album notes
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| Until the release of this album, only a few people realized what the hardcore Zappa fanatics had known all along… that FZ can play the guitar. While the papers and magazines shouted the praises of every other fashionable guitar strangler and condemned Zappa for having the guts to sing lyrics they felt were disgusting, he quietly continued to play things on his instrument that were far more blasphemous than any words could convey. In the rush to be offended by what he said, the music press forgot to listen to what his guitar was talking about. Zappa’s guitar solos, as captured in this album, say a lot of things that just might prove to be embarrassing to the writers who forgot to listen.
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| Album notes by John Swenson (reprinted from “Guitar World” - November 1981)
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| These three records (two discs) are destined to become an extremely important and valued adjunct to Frank Zappa’s main body of recorded work, as important a conceptual break / link to his other projects as his brilliant and overlooked instrumental composition “Lumpy Gravy”. The concept here presents a series of Zappa’s guitar solos, most of which are taken from live performances dating back over the last two years (one is from 1977, several are not dated). These instrumental passages (they’re not simply solos, all have beautiful performances from the backing group as well) are used as bridges at Zappa’s concerts between more familiar songs and are thus directly related to records like the recent “Tinsel Town Rebellion” (it seems likely that some of the tracks here recorded from the Berkeley Community Theatre and the Hammersmith Odeon in London are from the same shows featured on “Rebellion”).
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| These records are obviously important to guitarists studying Zappa’s technique, especially since transcription books of most of this material as well as a lot of other Zappa compositions are now available. But this is not a project solely for the techie. Anyone who’s appreciated the beauty of Zappa’s playing and his prolific melodic construction will delight in this material. The significance of Zappa’s decision to release three instrumental records goes far beyond a mere footnote to his career, however, because the project fits neatly into Zappa’s increasingly modular approach to the gamesmanship of juggling recordings, live performance and composition. Zappa was fortunate in that a technological revolution in recording equipment occurred during his career. The first three Mothers of Invention albums were made on four-track recording machines. By the time of “Hot Rats” sixteen-track was available. Now you can have as many tracks as you like by chaining together 24-track machines. What’s more, remote facilities have advanced to the point where live performances can be recorded with studio level precision.
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| Zappa has taken unique advantage of these technological breakthroughs. Dating back to the “Sheik Yerbouti” album he has begun to experiment with a recording / composition technique which he calls xenochrony, or strange synchronization. Most simply, Zappa’s idea is that instrumental passages from completely different songs (bass part from one song, drums from another, guitar from another, etc.) can be fitted together musically. Yet a more elaborate application makes a pre-existing part, particularly a guitar solo, the compositional foundation for a completely new song.
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| Most of “Joe’s Garage” was composed and recorded this way. Live guitar parts were extracted from concert tapes and used as the blueprint for elaborate studio constructions completely different from the solo’s original context. “When I suggested doing it, the engineer I was working with looked at me like I was really nuts”, laughs Zappa. “While we were working on the album he called it the Ampex guitar, ‘cause when it came time for a solo all I did was play the master tape and sit by the ATR and when it was time I pushed the button and the guitar solo would go on”.
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| Only a mind as diabolically clever as Frank Zappa’s could exploit these opportunities so deftly - the hoopla over Brian Eno’s self-consciously arty collages and found objects is child’s play next to Zappa’s conceptual superstructure. It amuses Zappa to find synchronicity in apparently unrelated objects the way some people do the crossword puzzle over their morning coffee. But at a time when so many poseurs in the music business insist on their credentials as artists, Zappa’s offhanded, humorous overview of his work as one potentially undifferentiated piece ▶ is truly refreshing. Theoretically, Frank Zappa could release an infinite number of new records just working from the boxes and boxes of guitar solos stacked up in his basement recording studio. “Shut Up ‘n Play…” is only the tip of the iceberg.
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| [Album notes by John Swenson] The first record opens with “five-five-FIVE” an intense guitar assault in big, cascading waves of energy, segued via Lumpy Gravy-like bits of prepared voice track into the ugly, bristling Heavy Metal of “Hog heaven”. The title track follows with one of Zappa’s most awesome solos rolling sheets of molten gold sound. The side ends with an exciting track called “While you were out”.
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| [Instrumental]
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| [Terry Bozzio] God, that was really beautiful!
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| [Patrick O’Hearn] Uh
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| [Instrumental]
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| [Terry Bozzio] We’ve been out here a long time, man, I wonder if he’s really… entertained by this
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| [Album notes by John Swenson] On the flip, the eerie, full band reggae of “Treacherous cretins” breaks to the screaming, saxophone-like guitar solo of “Heavy duty Judy”, backed by a repeated funk passage stated by Tommy Mars on the synthesizer and a churning rhythm section. “Soup ‘n old clothes” closes it out with a majestic flourish.
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| [Instrumental]
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| [Terry Bozzio] It’s gone
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| [Patrick O’Hearn] What? Your talent for sucking?
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| [Terry Bozzio] I…
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| [Patrick O’Hearn] Never…
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| [Instrumental]
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| [Terry Bozzio] Talk him down, Vic
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| [Davey Moire] Mmm
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| [Patrick O’Hearn] Come on down, Johnny
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| [Davey Moire] OK
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| [Album notes by John Swenson] “… Some More” opens with the witty and self-explanatory “Variations on the Carlos Santana secret chord progression” and the short “Gee, I like your pants” before “Canarsie”, which lays Zappa’s sinuous, beautifully deep-toned SG in bizarre rhythm passages over Warren Cuccurullo’s sitar and also features some incredible bass accompaniment by Patrick O’Hearn. “Ship ahoy” puts Zappa’s distorto funk guitar shuffle over a cooking section.
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| [Instrumental]
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| [FZ] Identify your last port of entry, space wanderer
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| [Warren Cuccurullo] Canarsie, where everyone looks the same
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| [Instrumental]
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| [Terry Bozzio] L-l-l-l-l-l…
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| [Patrick O’Hearn] Oh, ship ahoy
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| [Album notes by John Swenson] “Deathless horsie” forms a rhythmic base out of a beautiful ascending / descending melodic scale phrased on keyboards with the guitar solo overlay. “… Some More” opens with Zappa’s oft-referenced “Orange County lumber truck” melodic phrase which evolves into a stately guitar solo. “Pink napkins”, cousin to “Black napkins”, presents Zappa’s softest soloing touch.
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| [Album notes by John Swenson] “Return…”, the last of the records, may also be the best, opening with the screaming “Beat it with your fist” then the title track, a breathtaking soloist’s tour de force. After another brutally intense solo on “Pinocchio’s furniture” one of those disembodied voices says “Huh huh huh, you don’t think so” before “Why Johnny can’t read” crashes in, a high powered, partially chorded solo followed by screeching feedback, Bachian scale exercises and a trance-like Eastern cadence, then finally a short blues outro.
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| [Instrumental]
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| [John Kilgore] Can’t burn ‘em uh…
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| [Spider Barbour] It’s…
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| [John Kilgore] Goes out with Gross Man. I know they’re Gross Men.
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| [Girl] No!
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| [Louis Cuneo] Scars all my body! No, I didn’t have it. Boogey-man or something, nothing’s in your head, boogey-man!
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| [Spider Barbour] … who God’s put away, man
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| [Patrick O’Hearn] Holy Christ! […] God, what a fuckin’ warclub that is! Get that thing off the piano, will ya? For Chrissake. You’ll stain the fuckin’ wood.
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| [Terry Bozzio] I’m gonna beat this fuckin’ surface, man
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| [Patrick O’Hearn] Not with that, though. Great […], for Christ, beat it with your fist, for Chrissake.
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| [Instrumental]
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| [Patrick O’Hearn] Heh heh heh heh heh. I was there last night.
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| [Instrumental]
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| [Patrick O’Hearn] Oh-ho-ho, you don’t think so, huh?
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| [Album notes by John Swenson] “Stucco homes” is Zappa playing on a full and resonant-sounding Acoustic Black Widow (parts sound like a bass solo) while Cuccurullo phrases gentle rhythm guitar accompaniment and Vinnie Colaiuta adds excellent drum accompaniment. The project closes with an indescribably beautiful duet between Jean-Luc Ponty on baritone violin and Zappa on bouzouki in a lush interplay that alternately suggests raga, blue-grass and avant garde classical music.
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| [Instrumental]
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| [Terry Bozzio] ✄ Once in a while!
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| [Patrick O’Hearn] Oh, sing it
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| [Terry Bozzio] Da-dwe-dee-da-doo-dwe-da-dee-da-doo-da-ah!
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| [Instrumental]
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| [Terry Bozzio] Yeah
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| [Patrick O’Hearn] Kinda reminds you of home, doesn’t it?
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| [Instrumental]
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 Photo by John Livzey.jpg "(Front) Photo by John Livzey")
 Photo by John Livzey.jpg "(Inside) Photo by John Livzey")
Songs list
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Title origin
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