YOU CAN'T DO THAT ON STAGE ANYMORE, VOL. 5

Disc 1 contains unreleased live material (and a couple of studio parts and tracks) by Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention. All tracks on Disc 1 are recorded between 1965 and 1969. Most are from the last part of the career of the original Mothers of Invention. There are some pretty great tracks featured here like "The Downtown Talent Scout", "My Guitar Wants To Kill Your Mama" and "Run Home Slow: Main Title Theme" but ultimately too much of the material on Disc 1 are of a bit questionable quality to my ears. But that´s actually no different from most other live recordings of the early Mothers of Invention that I have heard (there are of course exceptions). There are both r´n´b influenced tracks, avant garde rock songs, improvised compositions and spoken sketches on Disc 1 which is more or less business as usual for Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention. The sound quality varies but it is generally acceptable. We´re not dealing with a high quality audio product though.

Disc 2 contains 13 tracks recorded live by the 1982 Frank Zappa band. About half of the material come from a concert in Geneva, Switzerland. According to the liner notes that concert ended in a small riot after Frank Zappa stopped the concert because the audience kept throwing unpleasant items on stage. The end to that concert can be heard on the last track on Disc 2 titled "Geneva Farewell". After repeatedly asking that the audience should not throw any more stuff on stage, a very angry sounding Frank Zappa ends the concert by saying: "House Lights, The Concert is Over". Frank Zappa explains in the liner notes that this was a reoccurring problem on the 1982 tour and ends by mentioning that the audience in Milan threw used hypodermic syringes on stage. Sounds pretty foul to my ears. Well the music on Disc 2 is fortunately not affected by those unfortunate circumstances. The sound quality is perfect, the musicianship are outstanding and the track selection nearly perfect too. We are presented to some of Frank Zappa´s most complex and technically challenging instrumental compositions like "Moggio" and "The Black Page #2" as well as some of his humourous and more easily accessible material like "Dancin' Fool" and "Doreen".

The listener is treated to some very impressive vocal performances by Bobby Martin and especially by the fantastic Ray White on tracks like "Shall We Take Ourselves Seriously?", "Advance Romance", "City Of Tiny Lites" and "Doreen", but the focus is predominantly on the instrumental side of Frank Zappa´s music on this disc. Lots of experimental atonal guitar soloes by Frank Zappa but the composed instrumenal parts are maybe the most stunning here. I never get tired of listening to the crazy theme from "The Black Page #2" or the insane ditto of "Moggio". "RDNZL" also appears here in one of the best released versions I have heard (the original studio version from "Studio Tan (1978)" always lacked something IMO). In addition to the great tracklist and strong musical performances on disc 2 there are also two (at the time) unreleased tracks on the disc in "Dead Girls Of London" and "Shall We Take Ourselves Seriously?" and while those two tracks might not be the major attractions on the album, it´s always great to hear unreleased material (of good quality) when dealing with Frank Zappa.

So what you get on "You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore, Vol. 5" is one disc of Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention tracks that I personally find decent for the most part but not really special and in some cases unfortunately rather dispensable, and one disc featuring absolutely brilliant live material by the 1982 Frank Zappa band. So rating this release is a bit hard. I guess a 3.5 - 4 star (75%) rating isn´t all wrong.

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