200 MOTELS

Back in the mid-seventies, Verve Records inexplicably pulled all of the early Frank Zappa albums out of print. United Artists quickly followed suit with this, the soundtrack album for Zappa's controversial movie. For, this made things difficult. This was the same time I was trying to buy all the Zappa records I could find. "200 Motels" was the most elusive.

When I finally did locate a copy of the album, I didn't like it. The orchestral pieces were badly recorded, and this, the Flo & Eddie version of the band was just not as tight as any other Mothers lineup. But in the years since, I have come to love much of this album.

The orchestral tracks have some great moments. The Sealed Tuna Sandwich theme is wonderful. As is the often played Strictly Genteel that ends the album. And many of the other incidental pieces throughout the album show Zappa's fondness for quoting Stravinsky and Varese, among other composers. Dispite the recording flaws, even on the CD version, these tracks are great.

The other songs, if you can get past all of the penis jokes, have some fine moments, too. Jimmy Carl Black just about steals the album on Lonesome Cowboy Burt, a sendup of country music, that still accurately portrays the denizens of bars in the south. Another great song is Magic Fingers (but I still prefer some of the later live versions of this).

The radio ads tacked on to the end of the CD don't add much to the album, but the bulk of this is worth owning.