ROXY & ELSEWHERE

Roxy & Elsewhere showcases Frank Zappa in the prime of his career. Apostrophe and One Size Fits All also arose out of this time. But this shows Frank Zappa's band where they're their best: live. This and the second You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore are full of the best Zappa band playing some great songs from a great time.

Peguin In Bondage is a great song to start of the show. It's kind of laid back for an opening song, but as with everything he does, somehow Frank Zappa pulled it off. The guitar solo is very enjoyable, but again as with most of FZs guitar solos, it's not your typical rock guitar solo. But what it lakes in energy and repetitiveness, it makes up for with originality and taste. 9/10

Pygmy Twylyte appears out of a segue from Penguin and Bondage and it takes the band a few measures to really lock into each other, but boy are they together through the rest of the song! The mallet percussion on this song is really impressive, as well as the horns once they start doubling the percussion. It's also very cool when the band brings it down old school funk style, with a Frank Zappa twist. 9/10

Dummy up is more or less Frank Zappa being Frank Zappa on stage. The humor break would probably be a lot more enjoyable if I was at the show, but the effect really doesn't transfer to CD too well. It's still good though. 7/10

Village Of The Sun is more of a catchy pop song than a Frank Zappa song. The cool thing with Frank is that he'll write anything. ANYTHING. 7/10

Echinda's Arf (Of You) is back to the real Zappa that I love. The band is crazy!!! When I saw the Zappa Plays Zappa tour they played this song and it was just as impressive as it is on this recording. It doesn't get too much more impressive than this. But it is still very get-a-ble. You can still rock out to it. 10/10

Don't You Ever Wash That Thing? is also quite impressive, but it isn't as catchy as Echinda's Arf. They should have switched the order of these two to build the show better in my opinion, because after Echinda's arf this song seems kind of boring, and it shouldn't. That being said, it is still a great track with a great drumming performance. 8/10

Cheepnis starts off with the bands first break from playing. They literally played straight through the first five songs. Cheepnis is a great song, with just the right amount of humor, along with some excellent guitar work. 9/10

Son Of Orange County is a good track, but when stood up against the other tracks shown on the CD it doesn't really stand up so well. I actually usually skip this track. 6/10

And I'm usually glad I skipped it because that brings me right to More Trouble Every Day, which is hands down one of the best songs on this CD. It is a great rendition from early, early Zappa. This song is down better than on the original by a mile. 10/10

The Bebop Tango is without question the most demanding song on here. It's Zappa starting to get "out there" (starting?!) but it is quite enjoyable. A little bit too much for me sometimes, but more often than not the slack in my jaw overwhelms the lack of musical taste. 7.5/10

This album is most certainly an excellent addition to anyone's music collection.