#665 Frank Zappa - Joe's Garage Parts 1, 2, and 3

Frank Zappa was pretty weird.

You might know that, but unless you've really done your homework you really don't know how weird he really was, how many different kinds of weird he was, how many screwed up directions he went careening in, and therefore how really goddamn brilliant he was.

You might have come across the bent do-wop of We're Only in it for the Money, the batshit pre-post-psychadelia of Freak Out, the frantic jazzy jamming of Hot Rats, and more. And then you still might not know about the depraved genius that is Joe's Garage, an epic that careens between styles, touching on Thin Lizzy feelgood raveups, through frenetic funk, into loungy languisher, past dubby downbeat jams, through future-fucked-euro-new-wave, before exploding into cyber funk that would make Midnite Vultures-era Beck wince and shrug.

The whole thing is wrapped around a loose narrative, full of satiric bile and bite, about the perils of rock and roll, taken to ridiculous extremes. Its sex and sluts and STD's, and that's all before things start to really get freaky and there's motor oil in orifices and worse.

Strange, brilliant, possibly awful, certainly demanding of further attention, with a solid half-point deduction for the intrusive, incessant spoken interludes that prevent this from being a remotely smooth listen 4/5