Joe's Garage

Joe's Garage

Original cover art for the single LP release Joe's Garage Act I, depicting Zappa in blackface.
Studio album by Frank Zappa
Released September 17, 1979 (Act I)
November 19, 1979 (Acts II & III)
Recorded March — June 1979 at Village Recorders "B", LA
Genre Rock opera, progressive rock, hard rock, jazz fusion, comedy rock
Length 1:55:14
Label Zappa Records
Producer Frank Zappa
Frank Zappa chronology
Orchestral Favorites
(1979)		 Joe's Garage
(1979)		 Tinseltown Rebellion
(1981)
Singles from Joe's Garage
  1. "Joe's Garage"
    Released: October 29, 1979
  2. "Stick It Out"
    Released: 1979

Joe's Garage is a 1979 rock opera by Frank Zappa. Zappa self-deprecatingly described the album as a "stupid little story about how the government is going to do away with music."[1] Originally released as two separate studio albums on Zappa Records, the project was later remastered and reissued as a triple album box set, Joe's Garage, Acts I, II & III, in 1987. The story is told by a character identified as the "Central Scrutinizer" narrating the story of Joe, an average adolescent male, who forms a garage rock band, has unsatisfying relationships with women, gives all of his money to a government assisted and insincere religion, explores sexual activities with appliances, and is imprisoned. After being released from prison into a dystopian society in which music itself has been criminalized, he lapses into insanity.

The album encompasses a large spectrum of musical styles, while its lyrics often feature satirical or humorous commentary on American society and politics. It addresses themes of individualism, free will, censorship, the music industry and human sexuality, while criticizing government and religion, and satirizing Catholicism and Scientology. Joe's Garage is noted for its use of xenochrony, a recording technique that takes guitar solos from older live recordings and overdubs them onto new studio recordings. All of the guitar solos on the album are xenochronous except for "Crew Slut" and "Watermelon in Easter Hay", a signature song that Zappa has described as the best song on the album, and according to his son Dweezil, the best guitar solo his father ever played.

The album initially received mixed to positive reviews, with critics praising its innovative and original music, but criticizing the scatological, sexual and profane nature of the lyrics. Since its original release, Joe's Garage has been reappraised as one of Zappa's best works. This is Official Release #28 and #29.

Background

After being released from his contractual obligations with Warner Bros. Records, Frank Zappa formed Zappa Records, a label distributed at that time by Phonogram Inc.. He released the successful double album Sheik Yerbouti (1979, recorded 8/1977-2/1978), and began working on a series of songs for a follow-up album.[2][3]:370 The songs "Joe's Garage" and "Catholic Girls" were recorded with the intention that Zappa would release them as a single.[2][4] Throughout the development of Joe's Garage, Zappa's band recorded lengthy jams which Zappa later formed into the album.[5]:331 The album also continued the development of xenochrony, a technique Zappa also featured on One Size Fits All (1975), in which aspects of older live recordings were utilized to create new compositions by overdubbing them onto studio recordings,[6][7] or alternatively, selecting a previously recorded solo and allowing drummer Vinnie Colaiuta to improvise a new drum performance, interacting with the previously recorded piece.[7]

Midway through recording the new album, Zappa decided that the songs connected coherently and wrote a story, changing the new album into a rock opera.[2]:149 Joe's Garage was the final album Zappa recorded at a commercial studio.[7] Zappa's own studio, the Utility Muffin Research Kitchen, built as an addition to Zappa's home, and completed in late 1979, was used to record and mix all of his subsequent releases.[7]

Style and influences

Lyrics and story themes

"Eventually it was discovered, that God did not want us to be all the same. This was Bad News for the Governments of The World, as it seemed contrary to the doctrine of Portion Controlled Servings. Mankind must be made more uniformly if The Future was going to work. Various ways were sought to bind us all together, but, alas, same-ness was unenforceable. It was about this time, that someone came up with the idea of Total Criminalization. Based on the principle, that if we were all crooks, we could at last be uniform to some degree in the eyes of The Law. [...] Total Criminalization was the greatest idea of its time and was vastly popular except with those people, who didn't want to be crooks or outlaws, so, of course, they had to be Tricked Into It... which is one of the reasons, why music was eventually made Illegal."
- Joe's Garage Acts II & III liner notes, 1979.

The lyrical themes of Joe's Garage involve individualism, sexuality, the danger of large government, and "the foolishness of white males", according to Kelly Fisher Lowe in The Words and Music of Frank Zappa.[2]:149 The album is narrated by a government employee identifying himself as The Central Scrutinizer, who delivers a cautionary tale about Joe, a typical adolescent male who forms a band as the government prepares to criminalize music.[2]:150 The Central Scrutinizer explains that music leads to a "slippery slope" of drug use, disease, unusual sexual practices, prison, and eventually, insanity.[2]:150 According to Scott Schinder and Andy Schwartz, Zappa's narrative of censorship reflected the censorship of music during the Iranian Revolution of 1979, where rock music was made illegal.[3]:370

The title track is noted as having an autobiographical aspect, as the character of Larry (as performed by Zappa himself) sings that the band plays the same song repeatedly because "it sounded good to me".[2]:150 In real life, Zappa said he wrote and played music for himself, his sole intended audience.[2]:150 The song also takes lyrical inspiration from bands playing in bars like The Mothers of Invention once had, and shady record deals Zappa had experienced in the past.[2]:150 In "Joe's Garage", Joe finds that the music industry is "not everything it is cracked up to be".[2]:151 The song refers to a number of music fads, including new wave, heavy metal, disco and glitter rock, and is critical of the music industry of the late 1970s.[2]:151

"Catholic Girls" is critical of the Catholic Church, and satirizes "the hypocrisy of the myth of the good Catholic girl."[2]:151 While Zappa was in favor of the sexual revolution, he regarded himself as a pioneer in publicly discussing honesty about sexual intercourse, stating

"American sexual attitudes are controlled as a necessary tool of business and government in order to perpetuate themselves. Unless people begin to see through that, to see past it to, what sex is really all about, they're always going to have the same neurotic attitudes. It's very neatly packaged. It all works hand-in-hand with the churches and political leaders at the point, where elections are coming up."[8]

This view inspired the lyrical content of "Crew Slut", in which Mary, Joe's girlfriend, falls into the groupie lifestyle, going on to participate in a wet T-shirt contest in the following track, "Wet T-Shirt Nite."[8][9]

"Why Does It Hurt When I Pee?" was written in the summer of 1978.[10] Zappa's road manager, Phil Kaufman, alleged, that the song was written after Kaufman had asked that very question; within the context of the album's storyline, it is sung by Joe after he receives a sexually transmitted disease from Lucille, "a girl, who works at the Jack in the Box".[10] The Central Scrutinizer continues to express the hypothesis that "girls, music, disease, heartbreak [...] all go together."[2]:155 Halfway through the album's libretto, Zappa expressed the belief, that governments believe, that people are inherently criminals, and continue to invent laws, which gives states the legal grounds to arrest people, leading to the fictional criminalization of music, which occurs towards the end of the album's storyline.[2]:155

"A Token of My Extreme" satirizes Scientology and L. Ron Hubbard, as well as new age beliefs and the sexual revolution.[2]:155[11]:114 It describes an insincere religion, which co-operates with a "malevolent totalitarian regime."[12] "Stick It Out" contains lyrical references to Zappa's songs "What Kind Of Girl", "Bwana Dik" and "Dancin' Fool".[13] "Dong Work For Yuda" was written as a tribute to Zappa's bodyguard, John Smothers, and features Terry Bozzio imitating Smothers' dialect and speech.[14] "Keep It Greasy" is a lyrical tribute to anal sex.[2]:157 Following Joe's imprisonment and release, the libretto describes a dystopian future, accompanied musically by long guitar solos, which Joe imagines in his head.[2]:159 The penultimate song, "Packard Goose", criticizes rock journalism, and features a philosophical monologue delivered by the character Mary, who had been absent since the first act.[2]:158–159 In the epilogue song "A Little Green Rosetta," Joe gives up music, returns to sanity, hocks his imaginary guitar and gets "a good job" at the Utility Muffin Research Kitchen Facility (a self-reference to Zappa's own personal studio), and the Central Scrutinizer turns off the plastic megaphone that he has been whispering into, sings the last song on the album in his regular voice, and joins in a long musical number with most of the other people that worked with Zappa around 1979.

Music and performance

Joe's Garage is noted for its extensive guitar-oriented work, including live improvisations which were incorporated into new studio compositions using xenochrony.

The music of Joe's Garage encompassed a variety of styles, including blues, jazz, doo wop, lounge, orchestral, rock, pop and reggae.[2] "Catholic Girls" makes musical reference to Zappa's controversial song "Jewish Princess", as a sitar plays the melody of the earlier song during the fadeout of "Catholic Girls".[2] "Crew Slut" is performed as a slow blues song, with slide guitar riffs and a harmonica solo.[2]:152–153[5]:333 According to Kelly Fisher Lowe, the song is "more Rolling Stones or Aerosmith than it is Gatemouth Brown or Guitar Watson".[2]:152–153 The extended three and a half minute, two-part guitar solo in "Toad-O-Line" is taken from Zappa's earlier song, "Inca Roads."[15]

"A Token Of My Extreme" originated as an instrumental song played during improvised conversations by saxophonist Napoleon Murphy Brock and George Duke on keyboards. It typically opened Zappa's concerts in 1974; a recording of this version of the piece was released under the title "Tush Tush Tush (A Token of My Extreme)" on You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore, Vol. 2.[2]:155

"Lucille Has Messed My Mind Up" first appeared on Jeff Simmons' album of the same name, on which its writing is credited to "La Marr Bruister", one of Zappa's pseudonyms.[16] The Joe's Garage arrangement is radically different, and is played in a reggae style.[16] "Stick It Out" originated as part of the Mothers of Invention's "Sofa" routine in the early 1970s.[2]:120 The Joe's Garage version is musically influenced by funk and disco, with its lyrics performed first in German, and then in English.[2]:156[17]:270 "Sy Borg" derives from funk, reggae and R&B.[2]:154, 156

"Keep It Greasy" had been performed by Zappa since 1975; the Joe's Garage album version features a guitar solo from a March 1979 live performance of the song "City of Tiny Lights".[2] Another March 1979 guitar solo from "City of Tiny Lights" is incorporated into the song "Outside Now" using the same recording technique.[2] "Packard Goose" also uses xenochrony, with its guitar solo taken from a March 1979 performance of "Easy Meat".[2]

The album concludes with a long guitar instrumental, "Watermelon in Easter Hay", the only guitar solo recorded for the album, in 9/4 time; every other guitar solo on the album was xenochronous—overdubbed from older live recordings.[2]:154[9]:381 In their review of the album, Down Beat magazine criticized the song,[9]:376 but subsequent reviewers have championed the song as Zappa's masterpiece. Lowe called it the "crowning achievement of the album" and "one of the most gorgeous pieces of music ever produced".[2]:159 Zappa told Neil Slaven that he thought it was "the best song on the album".[9]:376 The songs' title is thought to have come from a saying used by Zappa while recording the album: "Playing a guitar solo with this band is like trying to grow watermelon in Easter hay". After Zappa died, "Watermelon in Easter Hay" became known as one of his signature songs, and his son, Dweezil Zappa, later referred to it as "the best solo Zappa ever played".[18]:90–91

The song is followed by "A Little Green Rosetta", a song that was originally intended to appear on Zappa's shelved Läther album, but rerecorded with different lyrics for Joe's Garage.[2]:159[19]

Release

Joe's Garage Acts II & III was released in November 1979, with cover art depicting a makeup artist applying blackface to Zappa's face.

Joe's Garage was initially released in separate units, beginning with the single LP Act I in September 1979. For the album artwork, Zappa was photographed in blackface, holding a mop.[9]:381 The gatefold sleeve of Act I was designed by John Williams, and featured a collage, which included a naked Maya, vague technical drawings, pyramids and fingers on the fret of a guitar.[9]:381 The lyric insert featured similar illustrations, which related to the content of the songs and storyline.[9] The title track was released as a single, with "The Central Scrutinizer" as its B-side. It did not chart.[20]

Act I peaked at #27 on the Billboard Pop Albums chart.[21] It was followed by the double album Acts II & III in November.[2] The gatefold of Acts II & III featured collages taken from a medical journal, while the cover for Acts II & III featured a makeup artist applying blackface makeup to Zappa's face.[9]:381 Acts II & III peaked at #53 on the Pop Albums chart.[22]

Joe's Garage was reissued in 1987 as a triple album, combining Acts I, II & III into a single box set, and as a double album on compact disc.[2] The song "Wet T-Shirt Nite" received two alternate titles, when the album was released on CD: the libretto referred to the song as "The Wet T-Shirt Contest", while the back cover referred to the song as "Fembot in a Wet T-Shirt".[23] In an interview, Zappa explained that the "fembot" was the name given to a female robot in an episode of the TV series The Six Million Dollar Man.[23] The instrumental "Toad-O Line" was renamed "On the Bus".[24] The Central Scrutinizer monologue at the end of "Lucille Has Messed My Mind Up", which concludes the story's first act, was indexed as its own track on the CD reissue, under the title "Scrutinizer Postlude".[16]

Reception and legacy

Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic (Acts I, II & III)[25]
AllMusic (Act I)[26]
AllMusic (Acts II & III)[27]
Rolling Stone(favorable)[28]

Joe's Garage received mixed to positive reviews upon release, with criticisms aimed at its profane lyrical content, but has since been reappraised as a landmark album.[2] AllMusic writer William Ruhlmann gave 3 out of 5 stars for the individual releases Act I and Acts II & III.[26][27] Ruhlmann wrote of Act I, "although his concern with government censorship would see a later flowering in his battles with the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC), here he wasn't able to use it to fulfill a satisfying dramatic function."[26] Ruhlmann also felt that Acts II & III "seems so thin and thrown together, musically and dramatically".[27]

Don Shewey of Rolling Stone magazine wrote, "If the surface of this opera is cluttered with cheap gags and musical mishmash, its soul is located in profound existential sorrow. The guitar solos that Zappa plays in Joe's imagination burn with a desolate, devastating beauty. Flaws and all, Joe's Garage is Frank Zappa's Apocalypse Now."[28] The collected Acts I, II & III release received 4.5 out of 5 stars from Allmusic's Steve Huey, who wrote "in spite of its flaws, Joe's Garage has enough substance to make it one of Zappa's most important '70s works and overall political statements, even if it's not focused enough to rank with his earliest Mothers of Invention masterpieces."[25]

For his performance on Joe's Garage, Vinnie Colaiuta was named "the most technically advanced drummer ever" by Modern Drummer, which ranked the album as one of the top 25 greatest drumming performances of all time.[29]:58 On September 26, 2008, Joe's Garage was staged by the Open Fist Theatre Company in Los Angeles, in a production authorized by the Zappa Family Trust.[30]

Track listing

All songs written and composed by Frank Zappa. 

Act I
No. Title Length
1. "The Central Scrutinizer"   3:28
2. "Joe's Garage"   6:10
3. "Catholic Girls"   4:26
4. "Crew Slut"   6:31
5. "Fembot in a Wet T-Shirt" (originally titled "Wet T-Shirt Nite") 4:45
6. "On the Bus" (originally titled "Toad-O Line") 4:19
7. "Why Does It Hurt When I Pee?"   2:36
8. "Lucille Has Messed My Mind Up"   5:43
9. "Scrutinizer Postlude"   1:35
Total length:
 39:32
Act II
No. Title Length
1. "A Token of My Extreme"   5:30
2. "Stick It Out"   4:34
3. "Sy Borg"   8:56
4. "Dong Work for Yuda"   5:03
5. "Keep It Greasey"   8:22
6. "Outside Now"   5:50
Total length:
 38:15
Act III
No. Title Length
1. "He Used to Cut the Grass"   8:35
2. "Packard Goose"   11:34
3. "Watermelon in Easter Hay"   9:09
4. "A Little Green Rosetta"   8:15
Total length:
 37:33

Personnel

The Musicians

The Cast

Production staff

Charts

Album - Billboard (North America)

Joe's Garage Act I
Year Chart Position
1979 Pop Albums 27[21]
Joe's Garage Acts II & III
Year Chart Position
1979 Pop Albums 53[22]

References

  1. ↑ Bill Robertson (Nov 24, 1979). "Frank Zappa, Joe's Garage Act One, Zappa Records, (dis. PolyGram)". Star Phoenix.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 Lowe, Kelly Fisher (2007). The Words and Music of Frank Zappa. University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 978-0-8032-6005-4.
  3. 1 2 Schinder, Scott; Andy Schwartz (2008). Icons of Rock 2. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 0313338477.
  4. ↑ Swenson, John (13 December 1979). "Frank Zappa: The Myth Of 'Joe's Garage'". Rolling Stone.
  5. 1 2 Courrier, Kevin (2002). Dangerous Kitchen: The Subversive World of Zappa. ECW Press. ISBN 1550224476.
  6. ↑ Gulla, Bob (2008). Guitar Gods: The 25 Players Who Made Rock History. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 0313358060.
  7. 1 2 3 4 Michie, Chris (January 1, 2003). "We are the Mothers...and This Is What We Sound Like!". Mix. Retrieved 21 February 2012.
  8. 1 2 Miles, Barry (2004). Zappa. Grove Press. pp. 284–285. ISBN 080211783X.
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Slaven, Niel (1997). Electric Don Quixote: The Definitive Story Of Frank Zappa. Music Sales Group. ISBN 0857120433.
  10. 1 2 François Couture. "Why Does It Hurt When I Pee?". AllMusic. Retrieved 2012-02-19.
  11. ↑ Bould, Mark; Butler, Andrew M, ed. (2009). "L. Ron Hubbard (1911-86)". Fifty Key Figures in Science Fiction. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 9780415439503.
  12. ↑ Prince, Michael J. (Spring 2005). "The Science Fiction Protocols of Frank Zappa". Chapter&Verse (PopMatters Media, Inc.).
  13. ↑ François Couture. "Stick It Out". AllMusic. Retrieved 2012-02-19.
  14. ↑ François Couture. "Dong Work for Yuda". AllMusic. Retrieved 2012-02-19.
  15. ↑ "Inca Roads: FZ album(s) in which song has appeared" at globalia.net
  16. 1 2 3 François Couture. "Lucille Has Messed My Mind Up". AllMusic. Retrieved 2012-02-19.
  17. ↑ Watson, Ben (1996). Frank Zappa: The Negative Dialectics of Poodle Play. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 978-0312141240.
  18. ↑ Drenching, T.H.F. (2005). "'Watermelon In Easter Hay': The Function of the Reverb Unit & the Poverty of the Individual Spirit". In Watson, Ben; Leslie, Esther. Academy Zappa: Proceedings of the First International Conference of Esemplastic Zappology. SAF Publishing Ltd. ISBN 9780946719792.
  19. ↑ François Couture. "A Little Green Rosetta". AllMusic. Retrieved 2012-02-19.
  20. ↑ François Couture. "Joe's Garage". AllMusic. Retrieved 2012-02-19.
  21. 1 2 "Charts and Awards for Joe's Garage Act I". AllMusic. Retrieved 2008-08-22.
  22. 1 2 "Charts and Awards for Joe's Garage Acts II & III". AllMusic. Retrieved 2008-08-22.
  23. 1 2 François Couture. "Wet T-Shirt Night". AllMusic. Retrieved 2012-02-19.
  24. ↑ François Couture. "Toad O Line". AllMusic. Retrieved 2012-02-19.
  25. 1 2 Huey, S. (2011). "Joe's Garage: Acts I, II & III — Frank Zappa | AllMusic". allmusic.com. Retrieved 21 July 2011.
  26. 1 2 3 Ruhlmann, W. (2011). "Joe's Garage: Act I — Frank Zappa | AllMusic". allmusic.com. Retrieved 21 July 2011.
  27. 1 2 3 Ruhlmann, W. (2011). "Joe's Garage: Acts II & III — Frank Zappa | AllMusic". allmusic.com. Retrieved 21 July 2011.
  28. 1 2 Shewey, D. (20 March 1980). "Frank Zappa: Joe's Garage Acts I, II and III: Music Reviews : Rolling Stone". web.archive.org. Archived from the original on 2009-05-25. Retrieved 10 May 2012.
  29. ↑ Lackowski, Rich (2008). On the Beaten Path, Progressive Rock: The Drummer's Guide to the Genre and the Legends Who Defined It. Alfred Music Publishing. ISBN 0739056719.
  30. ↑ Morris, Stephen Leigh (2008), "Frank Zappa's Joe's Garage Gets Its Premiere 29 Years On", LA Weekly.

Further reading

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