Frank Zappa – Joe's Garage Acts I, II & III (1979)

Originally released in two parts in 1979, Zappa's 'rock opera' Joe's Garage is a satire on everything from the music industry and sexual fetishes to (possibly) the Christian authoritarianism many in USA feared a Reagan presidency would herald.

Doesn't Ronald Reagan seem normal these days?

This was the last of last week's purchases and the most eagerly anticipated. It's maybe the stand out of his late era rock albums, the most ambitious, the most commercial songs, the most explicit content, the most muddled. Telling the story of an unfortunate called Joe in the music industry, religious cults and a thought controlling regime, it starts with Central Scrutinizer, a recurring character representing the repressive state, whispered by Zappa, with a nice percussive aside. Then it's into the title track Joe's Garage, a catchy rock song taking us back to the early days of the garage band, followed by Catholic Girls, a satire on the Catholic Church, not worrying about straying into misogyny, a theme which continues in the bluesy Crew Slut, in which FZ shows how much respect he had for the groupies he wasn't shy to entertain frequently (according to daughter Moon Unit's autobiography, in Fembot In A Wet T-Shirt, Zappa at his most sleazy and tiresome. On The Bus is an enjoyable guitar solo, and Act One concludes with Joe's descent further into destruction following a liaison with a waitress called Lucille, in the catchy Why Does It Hurt When I Pee? (we know the answer, Joe) and Lucille Has Messed My Mind Up, a gentle soul reggae song.

Act II concerns itself with Joe's involvement with a cult - the First Church of Appliantology, run by L Ron Hoover, a cult whose followers are diagnosed by Hoover as having latent desires to have sex with household appliances. Given their litigious nature, this thinly veiled ridiculing of Scientology could be viewed as brave.

A Token Of My Extreme, a tune which had been about since the mid 1970s, repurposed to explain about appliantology, while Stick It Out and Sy Borg detail the sexual shenanigans in the Closet Club, as the appliantologists enjoy their favourite machines. Stick It Out, is partly in German, with a disco feel, while Sy Borg is slower, a proggy sound with a reggae beat. Having been sent to prison for the damage to the poor little sex robot described in Sy Borg, Joe's further sexual humiliations are described to complete Act II. Doing Work For Yuda is a plodding song is the style of an American spiritual hymn, while Keep It Greasy is a more upbeat funky rocker of dubious lyrical content with an extended guitar solo. Outside Now sees Joe withdrawing into imaginary guitar solos, as the rambling narrative song rolls along to end Act II.

In Act III, the abstract narrative feel from Outside Now continues in He Used To Cut The Grass, as Joe is now released from prison, with further guitar solos, cut from live Zappa shows. In fact much of Act III is guitar solo based, with, after negotiating the overlong Packard Goose, Watermelon In Easter Hay is absolutely gorgeous, many people's favourite Zappa guitar work. And, for me, it should be the end of the album, the singalong A Little Green Rosetta having little or no redeeming feature.

I've been disappointed here, and found this a difficult listen. I expected to enjoy this far more than I did, but not having listened to this album for a decade or more, I find that the obscenity and crudity which amused in my early thirties when I first heard this album, now sounds gratuitous and self-indulgent. But then, no one would accuse Zappa of being self indulgent, would they?

Although, musically, at times it confirms Zappa's flawed genius, hence the conflicts here.

Link to full album

3* - a difficult listen, where much of the lyrical content is trite and crude, yet some of the music beautiful