Author: Peter Podbrežnik
Artist: Zappa, Frank
Label: Rykodisc Records
Released: 1982
Length: 36:13
Rating: 4/5
Legendary American composer, guitarist, singer, director and satirist Frank Zappa shot quite a few unforgettable music films over his rich and as-turbulent-as-it-gets career, and they’ll keep firing up the imagination of everyone who loves good music, musical mastery, social satire and, last but not least, toilet humor, one way or another, for a long time to come. Most of his directorial efforts are feature films that, besides Frank’s music, also feature staged, mostly bizarre scenes performed by band members and real actors, as in the case of “Uncle Meat” (1969)” and “200 Motels” (1971), while the rest are far more ‘innocent’ in nature and contain nothing but footage of the on-stage action from a current tour.
“Baby Snakes”, a concert compilation, falls into the latter category. The live footage, originally released on VHS, features a set of songs that will surely sound familiar to anyone who knows the legendary double live album “Zappa in New York” (1977). No surprise there, since the show these performances were picked from was one in a series of consecutive Frank gigs at New York’s Palladium. The show captured on “Baby Snakes” went down, fittingly enough, on Halloween night 1977. Frank obviously didn’t need any mask, since he was the best costume on that stage all by himself. And once again he had a great backing band to lean on when it came to entertaining the crowd.
That band was nearly identical to the one on “Zappa in New York”, which means that keeping Frank company on stage are such legendary scoundrels as Terry Bozzio (drums), Tommy Mars (keyboards) and Patrick O’Hern (bass guitar). The crew also included original The Mothers Of Invention singer and bassist Roy Estrada and the legendary guitarist and singer Adrian Belew, who made his biggest name later in his career as a member of British prog rock giants King Crimson. The remaining songs on “Baby Snakes” first appeared on the cult album “Sheik Yerbouti” (1979).
Every show by Frank and his sidekicks, even once they no longer went by The Mothers Of Invetion, was a real feast for the ears and eyes: a performance bordering on black comedy, burlesque straight out of black-and-white movies, a reality show between stage and audience, all of it combined with an incredible demonstration of musical chops and superior technical know-how from some of the most gifted and versatile musicians in the history of rock music. Of course, the whole thing was held together, conducted and dictated by the charismatic composer, guitarist and singer, who never missed a chance to make the crowd squirm with spontaneous skits he launched into between individual numbers. Humor was always a mandatory part of the Zappa show, and “Baby Snakes” boasts some of the wittiest creations of Frank’s entire career.
The opening dialogue between Adrian Belew and his employer, “Intro Rap”, which has nothing to do with rap (although Frank did dabble in that ‘musical’ genre too during his career, specifically on the 1988 album “Broadway the Hardway”), is a funny example of self-parody. It’s followed by a switch to the pop-rock satire “Baby Snakes”, where falsetto vocal harmonies laid over a hard-rocking riff always keep the mood jokey. Connoisseurs of toilet humor will easily figure out what the “baby snakes” metaphor is aiming at. Next comes the “Titties ‘n’ Beer” jam, which even after all these years still has a wonderful power to make the listener laugh till they cry, and the “culprit” is the unforgettable, outrageously juicy dialogue between Terry Bozzio as the arrogant devil and an even more arrogant Frank as the challenger. As always with this skit, Frank ends up pushing the ‘devil’ to the brink of rage and into serious embarrassment with his ‘modest’ demands in exchange for a soul. Of course, the “Punky’s Whips” jam is here too, another “Zappa in New York” classic, where Frank warns of the grave consequences of Bozzio’s unrequited (imaginary, naturally) love for the guitarist of the glam rock band Angel. The dialogue is once again played to perfection and fits like a glove into the playful yet intelligent and intricately structured musical backing.
The burlesque mood gets fanned even further by the “Sheik Yerbouti” classics “Jones Crusher” and “Disco Boy”, a satire on late-seventies disco trends, while the biggest surprise of the whole recording is a great version of the “Over-Nite Senzation” (1973) classic “Dinah Moe Humm”. Another real treat for the ears is the superb rendition of the fiendishly difficult drum solo “Black Page #2”, on which more than one of Frank’s drummers, Bozzio included, ‘broke their teeth’. It took Vinnie Colaiuta to be able to play this Frank masterpiece blindfolded while eating curry.
“Baby Snakes” nails the essence of Frank’s 1977 backing band, led by the incorrigible drumming “devil” Terry Bozzio. That’s why the album will first and foremost delight fans of the legendary drummer, who at the time was definitely Frank’s number one favorite among the band and the driving force behind every on-stage and backstage bit of silliness, with his wife Dale Bozzio, a former Playboy bunny and occasional musician, backing him up.
Frank and Terry are undoubtedly the main stars of the whole album, but their stage feats by no means overshadow the other musicians, who leave their recognizable instrumental stamp on the recording. The only downside of “Baby Snakes” is that it really contains nothing new, apart from “Intro Rap” not a single track we hadn’t heard before, which was rather unusual for Frank’s typical creative habits, since he’d introduce something new on every release. After all, it’s ‘merely’ a concert compilation, which ultimately makes a thoroughly decent companion to the “Baby Snakes” DVD, which holds three times as many performances.
Line-up
Frank Zappa – guitar, vocals
Terry Bozzio – drums, percussion, vocals
Adrian Belew – guitar, vocals
Roy Estrada – vocals
Ed Mann – percussion
Patrick O’Hearn – bass guitar
Tommy Mars – keyboards, vocals
Peter Wolf – keyboards
Production
Frank Zappa
Track list
1. Intro Rap (0:37)
2. Baby Snakes (1:45)
3. Titties ‘n’ Beer (6:13)
4. The Black Page #2 (2:51)
5. Jones Crusher (2:54)
6. Disco Boy (3:51)
7. Dinah-Moe Humm (6:37)
8. Punky’s Whips (11:29)
