Frank Zappa - Bongo Fury
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Free Music Notes for Bongo Fury
Free Music Review: great and unusual album
Hit: 5 Stars
This was actually my introduction to Zappa. When I was 13 (1976) a relative bought me this album. Many years later I asked him how he picked it and he had no idea. I played "Debra Kadabra" and nearly fell out of my chair. I had never heard anything like it. I couldn't deal with it. I put it away! A year later I revisited it and began to appreciate it. That introduction was truly revelatory, as it opened my ears and mind to a world of alternate possibilities beyond the mainstream 70's rock I was used to.
"Debra Kadabra" starts the album off with a full-blast attack of manic dissonance - wonderful! "Carolina Hardcore Ecstasy" combines an absurdist vaguely off-color storyline with one of Zappa's best and most melodic guitar solos ever, IMO. "Sam with the Showing Scalp Flat Top" and "Man with the Woman Head" are great examples of Beefheart surrealist word soup imagery, with the Mothers providing the instrumental backdrop. The instrumental second part of "Muffin Man" is one of Zappa's most memorable riffs, and a concert favorite throughout his career. "Advance Romance" is not an outstanding song, but the instrumental from Zappa and Denny Walley, plus Napoleon Murphy Brock's vocals and Beefheart's harmonica and grunting, are great. "200 Years Old" is a bit of a throwaway tune, but very nice guitar from Zappa and harmonica from the Captain.
Aside from "Willie the Pimp" on "Hot Rats", this is the only album where Zappa and Beefheart play together, and for that alone it's worth owning. This is the last album with the mid-70's band with George Duke, etc., which was one of his best. This is perhaps not the most crucial Zappa album, but certainly a worthy addition to a Zappa collection.
Free Music Review: Maybe the best of both . . .
Hit: 5 Stars
I bought this recording back when "Bongo Fury" was first released. I eventually wore out the vinyl. Then I bought a cassette version, which I also wore out before the mid-90s. The CD should last longer. Zappa and Beefheart seem to bring out the best in each other. The performance captured here is better than anything I've heard from Zappa (except for maybe "Freak Out!" and "Shut Up 'n Play Yer Guitar"). And it's up there with the best of Beefheart's records, though I admit to being a big fan of the Captain's later work such as "Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller)" and "Ice Cream for Crow." Although this live performance was a sort of "celebration" of America's bicentennial, it still holds up...things really haven't changed all that much. This is great in-your-face stuff. There are no losers on this CD, with "Sam With The Showing Scalp Flat Top" and "Poofter's Froth Wyoming Plans Ahead" being my favorites. Get it and see what all the excitement is about!Free Music Review: Zappa & Captain Beefheart dual madness.....
Hit: 5 Stars
Again Zappa produced a jewel with this album by allowing Captain Beefheart - who worked with him on "Hot Rats" in 1969 - to be full of unrestrained irreverence. The live performances are out of this world. I have had the chance to see Zappa twice in Paris in the seventies and Zappa had the audacity at one concert to tell the audience that we all looked liked rats from the stage.... I also saw him four times in the U.S. in the 80's. Zappa was a master conductor on stage. His band members had to keep a close eye on his hand-gestures and body postures at all times. At any moment, he would turn to his band and showed a specific hand-signal to tell them to immediately change the current beat to a "Weather Report" fast-pace beat. The guitar solos on this album are Vintage Zappa. He did not miss a note. I used to describe Zappa as a scientist of Music. He treated Music as if it was constantly evolving. He was never afraid of exploring new sounds and arrangements. That's why he could never be pinned down as a rock, blues, jazz, funk, punk or classical musician. He was all of it and none of it. His music was different because Zappa was unique. "Bongo Fury" allows us again to spend a wonderful moment with a Genius....Free Music Review: A kleptomaniacs 'virgin' FZ experience.
Hit: 5 Stars
As a teenage music student in the summer of '75 parusing the 8-track racks at K-Mart, the last case was left open. Inside was only the 'Z' section in rock and showtunes. So I grabbed the only two 8-tracks - Roxy & Elsewhere and Bongo Fury - stuffed them in my socks (bell bottoms) and hurried home. I ended up playing the crap out of these since they were the first two 8-tracks I had!They were phenominal! So 'hip' and 'trendy'. And above all LIVE!!!!! As a budding musical hack they blew me away.
But one thing disturbed me. A week before my crime the American Freedom Train was in town and I was still drunk in all the patriotic hoopla surrounding the upcomming bicentennial. So hearing Poofters Froth WY. Plans Ahead and Frank's foretelling of america selling out in '76 I was skeptical. Boy was I WRONG! For those old enough to remember, America truely did cellebrate a BUYcentennial. Everything was red, white, blue, and 50% off!! It was then that sarcasm entered my life and I embraced the prophet Zappa and my life has been wonderfully twisted since then.
Musically speaking, this is the perfect transition of Captn. Beefheart between Trout Mask Replica and his Magic Band album Shiny Beast.
Free Music Review: "... so THIS was a drive-in restaurant in Hollywood, so .."
Hit: 5 Stars
Due to a dispute between Beefheart's label (Virgin) and Zappa's, this album was never released in the UK as an LP, so we had to buy it as an expensive import. Fortunately Zappa cleared up the problem when he bought the rights to all his recordings in preparation for CD re-mastering.It is a strangely operatic masterpiece -- the horns, the poetic ramblings by Beefheart, the multiple taunting voices and the narrative structure of live songs such as 'Debra Kadabra' and 'Caroline Hard-core Ecstasy' give the album the qualities of a modern-day opera.
Much of Zappa's own comments are directed at the prevailing commercialism of the time -- for the forthcoming 1976 bicentennial celebrations -- which would seem trivial today.
On the first few listens, the stand-out track, musically, is the 'Muffin Man', a straightforward rock tune with a great solo. But flip back a couple of tracks and you soon discover that the brilliancy on the album is 'Advance Romance', where another of Zappa's discoveries, Denny Whalley, provides a fantastic slide guitar solo.
I've enjoyed this more than any other Zappa album in the 25 years I've known it, although I might be persuaded to admit that 'Hot Rats' is the greater masterpiece.