ROXY & ELSEWHERE

Frank Zappa

RIO/Avant-Prog

4.39 | 397 ratings

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infandous

A fantastic live album with some of the Mother's best tunes and a killer line up.

This was my first live Zappa album, and I couldn't have picked a better one. This is probably not a bad place to start for the uninitiated, especially if you are fond of 70's style jazz rock.

For that, the middle instrumental number of Echidna's Arf (Of You) and Don't You Ever Wash That Thing? are not to be missed. Lots of crazy percussion with crazy changes and masterful playing. This band is incredibly tight! Penguin in Bondage is a great vocal number, with a fantastic Zappa guitar solo. Cheepnis is a sort of mini epic about low budget horror films, which is funny and complex at the same time, with another great Zappa solo. Son Of Orange County is a great ode to Nixon, with a great slow groove and another killer solo from Zappa. The typical on stage humor routines are mercifully short on this album as well, with only Dummy Up and the last half of the Bee-bop Tango being dedicated to these comedy routines that made Filmore East and Just Another Band From LA so tedious for me. I do enjoy the silly, humorous side of Zappa, but I find that I can only take it in small doses and / or mixed in with outstanding music. On this album, it works well for me, restricted as it is to those two places and Zappa's short intros to a couple of songs.

In all, a great live album and one of my favorite Zappa albums of all time. Probably one of his more proggy works as well, due to the jazz rock content and the complex pieces in the middle, as well as the first half of Be-bop Tango which is probably the most impressive thing here, musically speaking. A fun album with lots of great music. What more could you want?

infandous | 4/5 | 2008-4-29

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