December is the month of Zappa. In our last broadcast, we said we would like to come back to Uncle Meat. And tonight, we will. Unfortunately, we were unable to get our hands on the earlier version with extended tracks, Meat Light. But Uncle Meat has enough potential that listening to that single record is enough. Please listen for the next three hours to the album: Uncle Meat. Because of the airing time, the last three tracks will not be played.
“Uncle Meat is sort of the missing link between the early albums which were basically songtype things, into what we’re doing now which is a lot more like serious music, if you want to use that expression, and a very little of it is vocal music, you see.” (FZ-1969)
In late 1967, New York and especially the Garrick Theatre were the base of Zappa and his then Mothers. In this period, Zappa worked with undying energy on numerous projects. The most important are the coinciding recordings and practice sessions at Apostolic Studios of both Ruben & The Jets and Uncle Meat from October 1967 up to February 1968. Ruben’s work took of around December 1967 by the coming of new Mothers drummer Art Tripp, who came from the Boston Symphony Orchestra and could play drums and percussion, mainly the marimba and vibraphone. All tracks for Ruben & Jets and the base tracks for Uncle Meat were all finished by February 1968. Ruben was released in the summer of 1968, but Zappa continued work on Uncle Meat until after April 1968. He added more and more elements through overdubs: “Here’s an interesting thing about this album: A lot of it was written in the studio. While they were recording one section of a song I’d be in the control room writing the next score and then copy the parts. The album was put together basically by me, Bunk, Ian and Art Tripp. Because we did most of the overdubbing, ’cause they’re the ones that read best in the group.” (FZ-1969)
When all the overdubbing is complete, Zappa has a mountain of material, enough to plan the release of a triple record, under the name ‘No Commercial Potential’, which refers to te reactions to Freak Out and maybe refering to the expected reaction to Zappa’s ‘new style of music’.
The carefully compiled material would appear a year later in Apri 1969, but as the double record Uncle Meat. The responses of both audiences and music media were favourable, but people are looking for many sources and references to explain this ‘different-sounding’. Some names that are heard, are: Igor Strawinsky, Edgard Varese, Ornette Coleman, Albert Ayler, Conlon Nancarrow, John Coltrane, The Penguins, Duane Eddy, Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers, William Walton, Charles Mingus, Arnold Schonberg, and Anton Webern. An fitting example: “This is a group of 8 musicians who can play all kinds of music (Varese, Stockhausen, Coleman, Beatles, Fanfare- and Barbershop, traditional jazz) and still succeed in establishing their own musical identity, using all kinds of jokes, gimmicks and skills at their disposal in the studio. Popularity, synthesis, the power both to charm and shock.” (Jazz Magazine-1969)
if you look at the names, it’s a mix of contemporary classical, jazz and doowop; exactly, the three strongest pillars of Uncle Meat. In America, the record makes it to the album Hot 100’s within three months with its highest ranking of 43. In Europa it isn’t very successful. Although Zappa was popular among Europeans, especially the German and the Dutch, who loved the experimental Zappa, the record didn’t do well, because the first distributor, Pye Records, refused to release the record after hearing the word ‘fuck’. Eventually, Uncle Meat would appeared at Transatlantic Records, a small folk label (!) that didn’t have the budget to adequately promote the record.
This is a pity, because with Uncle Meat Zappa also has other interests. The record is released through Zappa’s own brand new label Bizarre Records, founded with Straight Records of FZ and his then business parter Herbie Cohen to be able to release alternative music and Zappa’s own albums. So, for Zappa this is an important release, both musically and business-wise: “A lot depends on how well Uncle Meat sells as to whether or not we’re going to be able to even survive continuing in that direction. Because if you stop singing, the audience stops listening. You have to either talk to them or sing to them but they are not prepared to listen to music at all, they just want sit through it. They have a bad interest span for instrumental music unless it happens to be glandular music, you now those loud blues. They can dig it because they can tap their feet to it. But you whip a bunch of atonal 5/8 en 7/8 on ’em and THAT they can’t uh… groove with and that they have to think about. Then you’re in dangerous territory when you consider that next week you’re going to have to pay your rent.” (FZ-1969) *
Uncle Meat sounds more mature compare to the previous albums. Because the songs are outnumbered, the music with its richness in styles is noticeable: from film music from the 20’s to free-jazz and from atonal to rock. A multitude in styles that, as can be read above, leads the critics to comparisons with other artists, but really to the right ones. This is simply Zappa with his very unique sound.
But what makes Uncle Meat so special and to one of Zappa’s key works? There are a number of reasons:
1. One of the most important arguments is the strong, collage-like structure. This isn’t new, since we have seen something similar on We’re Only In It For The Money, but on Uncle Meat Zappa went further, by adding conversations with a documentary character, something he will continue to do, even up to Civilization Phase III. Apart from that, there is a stronger blend of music styles and, most the most essential part and part of the documentary-like structure: live recordings.
2. Live recordings are what give that Uncle Meat the ‘messy’, but very authentic character which is so typical for Zappa’s next records.Where on Uncle Meat live pieces are still alternated with studio tracks, later on Zappa will be using more and more live recordings at the base of his studio recordings and/or overdubs. Looking at Zappa’s work it becomes evident that most of his oeuvre is live work.
3. An other important item is the clear emphasis on percussion for the first time. And not just drums, but sometimes even a double set or percussion in the shape of marimba and vibraphone. Uncle Meat is mainly played by percussionist Art Tripp, accompanied by Ruth Komanoff, the then girlfriend of Ian Underwood who later would become known as Ruth Underwood. The emphasis on percussion becomes clear in Zappa’s work, up to Yellow Shark, in two ways: by his fixation with the instrument, being an ex drummer and as a serious composer who is heavily influenced by Varèse, and a preference for the sound of percussion to demonstrate the 20th century with its machines, industry and noises and as a supporting/accompanying medium for his guitar solos.
4. Dubbing; something Zappa always loved to do, but he takes to extremes on Uncle Meat. He takes its so far that he proudly, seeing the primitive recording equipment of the 60’s, puts it on the album cover: “Things that sound like a full orchestra ware carefully assembled, track by track, through a procedure known as over-dubbing. The weird middle section of Dog Breath has forty tracks built into it.” (cover text Uncle Meat)
The phenomenon is used to often after Uncle Meat that after a while, he jokingly puts: ‘contains no overdubs’ on his album covers. This argument also includes the electronically speeding up or slowing down of instruments by using for example the predecessor of the Moog Synthesizer – Robert Moog is still thanked for his filters on the album cover – to adapt the sound of the instruments.
5. The often repeated item, the’sound’ van Uncle Meat; it’s very different from previous albums and not heard again on later releases. Uncle Meat is one of a kind in this way but sort of resembles the sound of Burnt Weenie Sandwich. That last album however had classis sounds, while on Uncle Meat, despite the presence of classic sounds, would sooner categorize at jazz, partly because of its many sax solos. Hot Rats seems to a sequel to Uncle Meat, not just by selecting as a partner the generalist Ian Underwood, but also the extended jazzy sound. Remarkable is the mainly jazz or jazzy sounds that continue to form a important aspect in Zappa’s work and sometimes dominates it, for example on The Grand Wazoo or the resounding sound of strings of the ’88 Broadway-band.
6. Uncle Meat’s many ‘hits’. Songs like Pound For A Brown, Uncle Meat-theme, Dog Breath-theme, Cruisin’ For Burgers and of course King Kong, which was already being performed live around the time of the release, which took about 70 minutes(!), are the most popular and most performed works. If you look at the list of tracks that were officially released, all the above-mentioned songs had a place in the top 10 of most released works of Zappa. Zappa must have noticed this himself, as three out of the nineteen track on the album The Yellow Shark with Ensemble Modern come from Uncle Meat.
in conclusion, Uncle Meat is basically the first work where Zappa truly develops his theory of The Big Note. The Big Note in a nutshell: everything in the universe originates from a single vibration and since sound comes from vibrations, this is The Big Note. Everything Zappa does leads back to that single note. This is the foundation of Zappa’s master plan of conceptional continuity.
Aftereffects and the Uncle Meat film:
After the release of Uncle Meat, a short tour through Canada, Europe and the US followed, during which Frank worked on Permanent Damage by the G.T.O.’s and Hot Rats (released on 10 October 1969). In October 1969 The Mothers were disbanded… : “I like to play, but just got tired of beating my head against the wall. I got tired of playing for people who clap for all the wrong reasons.” Zappa, 1969
Zappa then went on holiday to Europe, played in Amougis with, among others, Pink Floyd and from November 1969 up to februari 1970 worked on the Uncle Meat film. Between the lines, Burnt Weenie Sandwich (Dec ’69) and King Kong by Jean-Luc Ponty (jan ’70) were released and work continued on the film up to May 1970, which was interrupted by a Rats tour and by working on the music for a new project, 200 Motels.
The film for the album is mainly a documentary around the lives and music of The Mothers and consists of a collage of concerts, interviews with Mother members and a part deals with the ‘the mythology and validity of The Mothers’. They found a sponsor to finance the project, but…: “We had a business meeting with the Mothers, just prior to the week of shooting, and there was a whole bunch of arguments and bullshit and hysteria. Four of the guys decided they wanted to have nothing whatsoever to do with any of the movie-projects.”
And that was not all: “We had money to finish that picture, and all of a sudden, the people who gave us the money took the money back. I couldn’t do anything more with it. I had 40 minutes of it cut at the time the money ran out.” (FZ 1971)
Part of the material was later used in a eighteen-minute film to promote Burnt Weenie Sandwich te promoten, the rest remained on the cutting room floor. The Uncle Meat film would finally be released in 1989 by Zappa’s own video publisher Honker. It wasn’t the film FZ had intended to make in the 60’s, but apart from some fun authentic material on/round The Morthers it’s a lot of nonsense on how to measure things using a rubber chicken.
Analysis of an amplifier
In conclusion, Frank Zappa gets the last word in: “I get kind of a laugh out of the fact that other people are going to try and interpret that stuff and come up with some grotesque, I mean really grotesque, interpretations of Uncle Meat. It gives me a certain amount of satisfaction. You can imagine how insane that must get on a song ‘Electric Aunt Jemima’, which was written about an amplifier. Yes, it’s a Standall, about this big, that I used on a couple of sessions.” (FZ 1969)
More on Zappa and Uncle Meat can be found here; www.littleumbrellas.nl
01. Uncle Meat: Main Title Theme 1:54.
02. The Voice of Cheese 0:27.
03. Nine Types of Industrial Pollution 5:56.
04. Zolar Czakl 0:57.
05. Dog Breath, in the Year of the Plague 5:51.
06. The Legend of the Golden Arches 1:24.
07. Louie Louie (At the Royal Albert Hall in London 2:28.
08. The Dog Breath Variations 1:36.
09. Sleeping in a Jar 0:49.
10. Our Bizarre Relationship 1:05.
11. The Uncle Meat Variations 4:40.
12. Electric Aunt Jemima 1:53.
13. Prelude to King Kong 3:24.
14. God Bless America” (Live at the Whisky a Go Go) 1:22.
15. A Pound for a Brown on the Bus 1:29.
16. Ian Underwood Whips It Out Live in Copenhagen 5:08.
17. Mr. Green Genes 3:10.
18. We Can Shoot You1:48.
19. ‘If We’d All Been Living in California…’1:29.
20. The Air 2:57.
21. Project X 4:47.
22. Cruising for Burger 2:19.
23. King Kong Itself (As Played by the Mothers in a Studio) 0:53.
24. King Kong (It’s Magnificence as Interpreted by Dom DeWild) 1:15.
25. King Kong (As Motorhead Explains It) 1:44.
Sources:
CD: Uncle Meat – Zappa Records 0238392.
