Author: Peter Podbrežnik
Artist: Zappa, Frank
Label: Rykodisc Records
Released: 1975
Runtime: 38:55
Rating: 4/5
What happens when two of the biggest oddballs in the history of avant-garde rock join forces? One is a genius of musical experimentalism, a master of social satire and the great-grandfather of progressive rock. The other is an eccentric poet and painter who loved posing in a fish-head mask back in the day. Together they record a live show featuring some pieces that never made it onto any earlier or later Frank studio release, because they were cooked up on the road, mid-tour. The answer is the live album “Bongo Fury”, a proper bomb of mad musical experimentalism, somewhere between hell and heaven. We’re talking, of course, about the legendary composer, musician, guitarist and a whole lot more, Frank Zappa, and his longtime comrade, for plenty of avant-garde rock fans no less legendary: Captain Beefheart (real name Don Van Vliet).
Over the years of their friendship, which stretched all the way back to their childhood days, the two champions of musical weirdness and innovation had a special, often sharply contrasting relationship. It ran from successful musical collaboration (Frank produced Beefheart’s most popular album “Trout Mask Replica”, while Beefheart guested on Frank’s most popular album “Hot Rats” as well as the hardly less beloved “One Size Fits All” and “Zoot Allures”) and a warm bond in the first half of the 70s, to a gradual cooling off, especially in the 80s when they cut off all contact, and finally a thaw and a repair of the friendship a few years before Frank’s death.
“Bongo Fury” is the only record where they appear as equal musical partners, even though plenty of people expected at the time of its release that they’d team up a few more times in a similar fashion. The concert tour on which most of this record was captured (apart from two studio pieces that Frank recorded in his own studio) was their first and last tour together, since their relationship soured noticeably soon afterwards.
For Frank’s career, this live recording, made in Austin, the capital of Texas, also carries special weight because it features his early-70s lineup for the last time, still going by the legendary name The Mothers Of Invetnion, whose core members helped record albums like “Apostrophe (‘)” and “One Size Fits All”. “Bongo Fury” also marks the first appearance of the then-young drummer Terry Bozzio, later a drumming legend of rock and jazz. Over the following years, right up to the end of the 70s, he won the status of Frank’s favorite drummer and went on to build a magnificent musical career (including as a member of UK, The Missing Persons and Jeff Beck’s backing band). Other longtime and important Frank collaborators sharpening their instruments on this recording are keyboard wizard George Duke, singer/saxophonist/flutist Napoleon Murphy Brock and drummer Chester Thomspon.
Most of the live performances, with the exception of “200 Years Old” and “Cucamonga”, which are studio in origin and the result of repeated overdubbing in Frank’s studio, are the fruit of true collaboration, with the two splitting the vocal duties by mutual agreement. The contrast between their voices is precisely one of the main virtues of “Bongo Fury”. While Beefheart prowls around scaring everyone with his trademark “drunken” approach (not far from the one Lemmy of Motorhead popularized later), somewhere between the rage of a rabid dog and a guy who’s had his toes stepped on good and proper, with recitals from American literature and poetry thrown in between, Frank is, as ever, in his natural, nonchalant form as the eternal sarcastic needler who gives America’s conservative bigwigs no room to breathe. While he doesn’t skimp on guitar shenanigans, Beefheart joins him on harmonica every now and then. As you’d expect, the individual pieces are loaded with burlesque elements and wander stylistically between avant-garde, prog rock, hard rock, blues rock and proto punk. The satirical lyrics are as bizarre as you’d expect from artists of their caliber, and with their sharpened barbs they sink into every pore of all sorts of clichés of human society, with an emphasis on their home turf, America (especially when it comes to the achievements of all sorts of American religions and their “culture”). So it’s no surprise that most of the arrangements are rather “cowboy”, with an emphasis on harmonica, saloon piano and deliberately dopey vocal harmonies.
The shenanigans kick off with the opener “Debra Kadabra”, a lyrical burlesque about modern-day witches, where Beefheart fires all cannons with a grotesque vocal delivery at the level of a head-cold-stricken wild boar, and unleashes extremely grotesque recitals from random American literature as well as movie quotes. It’s an utterly avant-garde piece with scattered hard rock riffs, prankster woodwind accompaniment, crazed solos and mad rhythmic inserts. The joking at the expense of lonely American teenage girls and their fantasies continues on “Carolina Hard-Core Ecstasy”, which name-checks, among others, the Doobie Brothers and The Who singer Roger Daltrey. Here Frank’s vocal harmonies take center stage, along with circus-style arrangements halfway between jazz, hard rock and prog rock. Of course, Frank’s trademark frenetic guitar solo is also there, spicing up the scattered rhythms and goofy vocal harmonies.
“Sam With The Showing Scalp Flat Top” is an exceptionally bizarre and avant-garde piece, even by usual Zappa-Beefheart standards. It’s a grotesque Beefheart recital about a guy named Sam, in which the title of this album gets a mention too, along with a heap of totally half-baked improvisations in between. Much more fun and accessible is the country burlesque “Poofter’s Froth Wyoming Plans Ahead”, which rolls along over sleepy guitar passages and which Frank introduces as a cowboy song dedicated to the then-upcoming bicentennial of the founding of the USA. Along the way he specifically warns his countrymen not to buy just any old “crap” they find on the street this year, which is otherwise a typical American investment. Next comes Frank’s studio piece, the jokey blues rocker “200 Years Old”, where the rustic images of the elderly folks of the American Southwest come to life again. Potent bluesy guitar riffs, harmonica and piano accompaniment, and an equal vocal approach from both comrades are pulled off very successfully and sound like a blast with every repeat listen. The dreamy “Cucamonga”, another studio piece containing an allusion to the Zappa classic “Don’t Eat The Yellow Snow”, is also in a similar blues rock style and slow tempo.
On the 11-plus-minute “Advance Romance”, which brings us back to the stage, the vocal improvisations of the excellent Napoleon Murphy Brock take center stage. Here too we get a mix of drowsy blues rock and jazz, plus a gastronomic Frank guitar solo that stretches the relatively simple structure of the song by at least five minutes. Beefheart, for his part, throws in an interesting harmonica solo. His vocal grimacing blends beautifully here with the singing tragicomedy of Frank and Napoleon. The lyrics are, of course, anything but romantic, a nebulous parody of the most worn-out clichés in the usual relationship between a dude TM and a chick TM.
“Man With The Woman Head” is another short and exceptionally bizarre recital, which Beefheart created without Frank’s help and which is once again laid over the “cowboy” backing that dominates most of the record. The final treat, “Muffin Man”, which once more pokes fun at hollowed-out romantic relationships, is the only real Zappa classic on the album and a great way to wrap up the record. The song opens with a Frank recital followed by a very witty chorus. Right after that comes an orgasmic Frank guitar solo, which drags the central motif of the song along and carries it successfully to a triumphant finish, with the chorus repeated once more along the way (this time with Beefheart on backing vocals). I’m not exaggerating one bit when I say this is one of the best guitar solos of his career. At the end comes Frank’s band introduction and thanks to everyone who came to the show. Frank would go on using the Muffin Man to close his concerts for years afterwards.
Despite its rather short running time, and the fact that most of the satires are closely related (parodying American culture and the usual clichés within romantic relationships), “Bongo Fury” is a very good live album, one that manages to capture the soul of both artists and at least partly hints at what they could have created if they had ever recorded a studio album together. It’s honestly sad to think today that Frank said goodbye to us more than a decade ago, while Beefheart hung up his musical pursuits a good many years back. This recording ensures that the rare joint creations of these two musical masters remain immortal. Every devoted fan of both musicians will no doubt have “Bongo Fury” in their collection, and the record is also a highly recommended appetizer for anyone not yet well acquainted with their legacy. Of course, because of their highly experimental progressive rock nature, most of the pieces on it aren’t for every taste, and it’s not guaranteed that Zappa fans who don’t vibe with every period of the genius’s career will like them. To be honest, though, there aren’t many of those.
Lineup
Frank Zappa – guitar, vocals
Captain Beefheart – vocals, harmonica
George Duke – keyboards, backing vocals
Napoleon Murphy Brock – saxophone, backing vocals
Bruce Fowler – trombone
Tom Fowler – bass guitar
Denny Walley – slide guitar, backing vocals
Terry Bozzio – drums
Chester Thompson – drums (on 200 Years Old and Cucamonga)
Robert “Frog” Camarena – unconfirmed backing vocals on Debra Kadabra
Production
Frank Zappa
Tracklist
1. Debra Kadabra
2. Carolina Hard-core Ecstasy
3. Sam With The Showing Scalp Flat Top
4. Poofter’s Froth Wyoming Plans Ahead
5. 200 Years Old
6. Cucamonga
7. Advance Romance
8. Man With The Woman Head
9. Muffin Man
