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We're Only In It For The Money - Frank Zappa
by cheffrey
With just one glance at this album's sleeve it is instantly obvious at whom Frank Zappa and his Mothers are chucking this barbed piece of musical satire. But while the Beatles' multi-coloured milestone 'Sgt. Pepper' comes in for a bit of a roasting, it's just the tip of the iceberg as music's greatest satirist turns his razor-edged ... tongue and musical wrekcing ball on not just on that one album, but pretty much the whole counter-culture and its soundtrack of psychedelia and 'flower-power' motif as a whole. Talk about sticking it to the man, Uncle Frankie sticks it to the man who tries to stick it to the man, and also himself in the process. Spend enought time analysing Frank's work and you'll end up with a post-modernist headache that couldn't be quelled by a week on codeine and reading something nice and simple, like the Beano.
Err, anyway, Zappa's vision always seemed to be a grand one. As a satirist, he took no prisoners in lampooning the easy right-wing targets of stuffy conservatives and republicans, but took just as much maniacal glee in putting down the wishy-washy liberals and posing lefties as well. Yet his satire extended to the norms and conventions of musical structure that he so despised, seeing them as a stultifying set of universally accepted rules that were there to be broken and messed up and re-arranged into something more interesting. It wasn't a new idea; Franz Liszt had been mucking about with jarring atonal bits back in the rigid era of the 19th century, throwing in these little hand grenades to alarm listeners who had become too used to hearing the same things over and over. Here, Zappa applies the same philosophy to popular music. Doo-wop,one of his favourite genres and big influences, is turned into a groaning, churning piece of meltdown on the worryingly titled 'What's the Ugliest Part of Your Body?', a question Zappa answers himself by declaring it to be 'your mind'. This barbed attack on American values and the reaction to it, and then the counter-reaction, is all part of Zappa's 'conceptual continuity', fitting in with his previous record, 'Absolutely Free', and the biting satire of 'Plastic People' and 'America Drinks and Goes Home'. It's all part of the same thing, the albums really only acting as a framework or set of divisions between his work as a whole.
The music itself is one big melting pot of the music of the time and Zappa's youth. Doo-wop, rhythm and blues and musique concrete all meet head-on in a giant car crash that is fascinatingly ugly and remarkably engaging all at the same time. 'Concentration Moon' is more mangled doo-wop that is almsot laugh out loud funny, with its exaggerated intonation. Finishing it all of is 'The Chrome Plated Megaphone of Destiny', which is one of the outright freakiest bits of sonic meltdown ever recorded. Thought that Revolution #9 was weird? You ain't heard nothing yet...
'Let's Make the Water Turn Black' mightily takes the piss out of the psychedelic song-stories of the era that Zappa found so insincere, telling a story that ostensibly about little gnomes that Pink Floyd sang about, but is really about the weird antics of the children of some old neighbours of his, and his disapproval of their use of marijuana and moonshine. For a guy so off-the-wall in his musical approach and appearance and ideas, Zappa could be remarkably conservative about certain things. A vocal opponent of the use of recreational drugs, the pro-acid section of the rock music movement were at odds with one of their weirdest members here.
Even 40+ years on, this album remains a challenging and refreshing blast of precise musical mayhem. Often lauded as one of Zappa's finest works, it is perhaps best taken in the context of the preceding records, that is 'Freak Out' and 'Absolutely Free'. This trilogy of albums is a refreshingly entertaining satire on the 'plastic people' of America at the time, and with our current obsession with plastic celebrities and insincere pop stars, probably has just as much relevance today.
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The Collection - Traffic
by JOHNDMR
TRAFFIC
Traffic were formed in 1967 by Steve Winwood, a successful multi-instrumentalist and solo artist over the last three decades or so, but at that time known as the former vocalist with the chart-topping Spencer Davis Group, guitarist Dave Mason, drummer and vocalist Jim Capaldi, and sax/flute player Chris Wood. Over a ... seven-year career and several line-up changes they went from psychedelic progressive pop to a hybrid of blues, folk and jazz, completely turning their backs on chart-oriented music.
THE MUSIC
This compilation takes material from their first five albums, recorded between 1967 and 1970. The 17 tracks are in totally random order, so to try and maintain some kind of logical thread I'll look at the singles first.
The first two are by far their best known, and still regularly crop up as oldies on the radio. 'Paper Sun' (highest position No 5), their debut, followed the Beatles and the Rolling Stones in its use of sitar as a lead instrument, and the combination of this and Winwood's soulful voice made for one of the summer of 1967's most recognisable hits.
Its success was eclipsed by 'Hole In My Shoe' (No 2), written and sung by Mason. Sent up mercilessly by Neil (Nigel Planer in 'The Young Ones') in 1984, it always was something of a hippie joke. I mean, can anybody take someone seriously who sings of dreaming about an elephant looking at him from a bubblegum tree while his feet are getting wet as he has put the wrong pair of shoes on, and this little girl suddenly interrupts about climbing on the back of a giant albatross? Far out, man, and pass the joss sticks. But for all that I rather enjoy its period charm. The other members of the band never liked it as they felt it was unrepresentative of their usual style, but they doubtless welcomed the royalties.
One more hit single followed at Christmas 1967, the theme song to the movie 'Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush' (No 8). This was even more odd. It had a singalong chorus tacked on to an ethereal verse or two, with one verse sounding like the volume has been turned down by accident, interspersed by some Beach Boys-like organ, followed by a largely single note coda that, as with that weird ending to the Beatles' 'Strawberry Fields Forever', seems to have nothing to do with the song. All of this happens within only three minutes or so.
That was their hit parade career over, unless you count an album track which was extracted as a single and made No 40 a few months later. The gentle 'No Face, No Name, No Number' doesn't really have 'hit single' stamped on it, though it made a good album track. A subsequent flop single on here, the funky 'Medicated Goo', has some OK staccato piano chords and guitar on the intro, but the song is rather dull.
That leaves an additional eight tracks from the early 1967-68 period, after which they temporarily disbanded when Winwood formed the shortlived Blind Faith with Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker. When Blind Faith fell apart Winwood began what was intended to be a first solo album, but it turned into a set from what gradually became a reformed Traffic. That therefore leaves us four numbers from the less interesting 1970-71 era.
From those early days, probably the best-known is 'Dear Mr Fantasy'. Almost six minutes long, it's a slow, anguished, almost bluesy number with vivid organ, strong drums and wailing harmonica, culminating in a rich guitar solo. For all that, I think the version which Winwood played in his recent concerts with Clapton (immortalised on a 'Live at Madison Square Gardens' CD and DVD, and shown on TV) is stronger and more spirited than this.
'(Roamin' Through The Gloamin' With) 40,000 Headmen' is pleasant in a dreamy way, with nice touches of flute. 'Coloured Rain' and 'Pearly Queen' both sound a little like Cream, as if Winwood had a presentiment that he was shortly to find himself working with two of their members. Less inspired are 'Who Knows What Tomorrow May Bring' and 'Am I What I Was Or Am I What I Am' rather lack interest - well-played and pleasantly funky, but with not much else to draw attention to them. The cheery 'You Can All Join In' is cute and almost childlike - their version of 'Yellow Submarine', perhaps?
Finally, there's the quite out of character 'Berkshire Poppies'. A cheesily semi-drunken singalong around the pub piano is the best way of describing this, as if the Small Faces had joined Chas and Dave. I read somewhere that an uncredited Steve Marriott of the Small Faces can be heard bawling along on this - if so, it wouldn't surprise me.
Of the four late-period Traffic songs, they have their good and not-so-good moments. 'The Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys' opens promisingly with some jazzy sax and organ, with a fairly catchy hook on the chorus before drifting off pleasantly into a soft jazz piano section until the chorus comes in again. But at over ten mintes long, it would have been improved by gentle editing.
The traditional 'John Barleycorn Must Die' is closer to Fairport Convention than Traffic, with its flute, acoustic guitar and folksy vocal harmonies. 'Freedom Rider' is driven nicely by piano, sax and flute, though the song is nothing special. Finally there's 'Rock And Roll Stew', written by bassist Ric Grech and drummer Jim Gordon, who as a member of Derek and the Dominos had previously been responsible for co-writing the classic 'Layla'. There are no Winwood vocals to be heard here, and the result sounds rather like a third-rate Slade track. It's not Noddy Holder singing, although it sounds not unlike him.
OVERALL
Traffic had their good moments, but they were few and far between. This was the age when bands were breaking down the barriers of the four-minute single and doing their own thing, the results of which were often rather undisciplined, not to say almost boring for the listener. I've loved a good deal of Winwood's solo work - from the mid-1970s he certainly discovered his songwriting muse, albeit often with collaborators - but on the whole Traffic were better musicians than songwriters, and they would have benefited from a strong producer to keep the more indulgent tendencies in check. Improvised open-ended psychedelia seemed right at the time, but hasn't always aged that well. If you can pick this one up cheaply as I did - it is a budget price compilation, around £4-£5 new - it's OK, but some tracks you might not play that often.
THE PACKAGING
A two-page foldout with one small rather fuzzy picture of the band on the front, and a concise comprehensive biographical note inside next to the track listing. Amazon and dooyoo seem to have inadvertently used the picture from their second album for the image above - my copy, and I think it only has been issued with one design, shows a different group picture with white lettering against a light green background superimposed over part of the photo.
[Revised version of a review I originally posted on ciao]
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