ROXY & ELSEWHERE

A substantial improvement over Zappa's two prior live album releases (Fillmore East and Just Another Band from L.A., both recorded with the controversial Flo and Eddie lineup), Roxy and Elsewhere captures the legendary mid-1970s version of the Mothers of Invention in fine form. The comedic and theatrical elements to the live show are strongly emphasised - as witnessed by a skit in which Jeff Simmons tries to convince Napoleon Murphy Brock to smoke his high school diploma - but unlike in earlier live releases the top-notch musicianship isn't scaled back to make room for the comedy quite so much.

Compositions such as Don't You Ever Wash That Thing feature exceptional solos from many of the band members, and overall the quality of the music is extremely high. Zappa's wit on full display, for better or worse - the scatological and sexual preoccupations which sometimes derailed his lyrics aren't as obnoxious as in other eras, and Cheepnis is probably the best pre-Mystery Science Theater 3000 tribute to the joy of watching a really *bad* monster movie (and goes some way to explaining why so many of the MST3K crew were Zappa fans, and why Zappa was an MST3K fan...).

Sure, the Bebop Tango might not translate fully to audio, but this condensed summary of the Roxy residency (and some 1960s-era material from "Elsewhere") is a fine listen indeed. The Roxy Performances boxed set contains the full performances from the Roxy residency, but for those times when that boxed set is excessive, this stands in just fine.

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