JOE'S GARAGE, ACTS II & III

This is another double LP: the continuity of the "Joe's garage Act I" album, again with many of the Frank's vocal intervention as the Central Scrutinizer. This album has many excellent guitar solos, among the best Zappa's solos, sounding a bit like on the "Wet-T shirt" song: "Keep it greasey" contains such an outstanding combination of excellent long guitar solo, tons of fast drums and a catchy & fast popping bass. The guitar solo on "He Used to Cut the Grass" is absolutely delightful, but the best solo is on the next track "Packard Goose": along with "Black Napkins" (Zoot allures), this solo makes the history, with its unbelievable wah-wah effects. "Packard Goose" is also an excellent 11 minutes song: very catchy, full of rhythm & melody changes and excellent lead & backing vocals (even Dale Bozzio has its place!). The reggae & relax "Sy Borg" is about having sexual gratification by a robot. "Watermelon in Easter hay" has a perfect Oriental-like, echoed & atmospheric guitar sound: Zappa REALLY takes care of his sound here! The last track "Little green rosetta" has a party ambience: full of pleasant & childish xylophone and party vocals, you make it play while you eat a barbecue T-bone during a hot night of July: do not forget to turn on the multicolor plastic lights laying on the lawn! Some tracks are more ordinary, like "Outside Now", "A Token of My Extreme" and "Dong Work for Yuda". I you look for a Frank Zappa at his best on guitar, then this record is the right one!

The stunning middle and conclusion to Frank Zappa's epic Joe's Garage series is a lot like Act I. Very guitar oriented, very blunt and to the point, and very technically complicated. From the 5/4 sections of Keep it Greasey, to the blistering guitar solo of Watermelon in Easter Hay, Acts II and III do not disappoint. Frank Zappa keeps the same crew of personnel this time around, but now has Terry Bozzio in on drums as well as Vinnie Colaiuta. Spot on performances and spot on vocals are highlights of this part of the story.

The Central Scrutinizer continues the tale in this section of the story, in which Joe is now in prison doing work to get by without getting sexually assaulted. Soon he imagines his own song, and then laments over the decisions he has made in life. Finally, he is released and decides to work in the Utility Muffin Research Kitchen. Highlight tracks are Packard Goose, which has an outstanding vocal line, great guitar and bass play, and some awesome alternating time signatures during the verses. Watermelon in Easter Hay is a guitarist's dream, a 9 minute guitar solo that goes through all the motions, evolving and unevolving into a brilliant and emotional piece of work. And the finale, Little Green Rosetta, with its party atmosphere and a great ramble in the middle from Uncle Frank himself.

Overall, I feel that not only does this album surpass Act I, it totally exceeded my expectations of what Frank Zappa could do with his music. This is a masterpiece of an album in my opinion, and no one should miss it. It might not be everyone's cup of tea, and some might find it too crude to listen to, but to me it cannot get any better than Joe's Garage Acts II and III. 5/5.

This album gets a three star rating for the same reason that Act I does: you need the compilation of all three acts together for the true experience of this story.

On its own, Acts II & III is a pretty good Zappa album, beginning with some very odd tunes and then exploding into full-blown progressive songs the like of which still remind me to Zappa's 1969 magnum opus, Hot Rats. We've got some commercial sorts of songs early on, but on the whole, this is complicated (and very weird; at least, more so than usual) music from Frank, and so it's certainly worth looking into if that's your favorite side of the man. However, without Act I, this album is fairly weak and incomplete. Not only is the story unfinished, but the musical styles present in the first release add so much build up and cleverness to the music in Acts II & III.

Again, I'm going to borrow my words from my review of the compilation, to save you time:

Act II begins with A Token of My Extreme, where Joe is visiting the Church of Appliantology. The second act features slightly longer songs, a few more progressive bits, and more jamming. Also, Act II features the most explicit lyrics on the whole shebang, possibly in Zappa history. The strongest track here is Keep It Greasey, a rather unpleasantly-lyricked track with absolutely inhuman bass. Plus, we get a particularly long guitar solo over some strange time signature that I can't count out because I'm not good at math. Act II, I think, on the whole, is the weakest of the three.

The last act is only four songs, but here Frank stretches the songs out, building massive jams for the first three. Packard Goose features a wonderful, twisting guitar solo for a good portion of its length--the song is streamable from this site. Watermelon in Easter Hay is my personal favorite, featuring a lovely clean solo played in 9/4 time or something. I think. Did I mention that I'm not good at math? Anyways, the final song, A Little Green Rosetta, is a rather random concluding band jam with a lot of folks singing the title over and over again. It's fun, and I suppose Frank couldn't have ended the album in any better of a way.

A good album, but denied its possibly deserved fourth star on account of you should buy the compilation of all three acts. It's the only way to properly listen to and enjoy this release.

A deranged high school play.

Joe's Garage is an amazing piece of work, Zappa really outdid himself with this.

Acts II and III are way better than Act I but I still have some small troubles with it for the same reason. The vulgarity. Now, Act III isn't really vulgar it's the most progressive act but Act II is extremely vulgar. It's funny at first but it just grows into something that I can't really handle...

All that aside, the playing on this album by Zappa is darn near his best and you have to love that. On pretty much every song the guitar solo is either emotional or stunning or sometimes both (like Watermelon In Easter Hay). The concept is a funny/serious one so there is a good mix of humor and "serious business" involved.

The songs on Act II are all wonderfully catchy and the ones on Act III are downright epic. Take your pick.

4 Stars everybody, hope you don't mind a little (lot) dirty humor.

"And for those of you in the 4th world where life is really hard, keep the record going by rubbing two sticks together..."

If Joe's Garage really were a live musical, I would walk out in the third act.

The first two acts are amazing, but this last disc drops the ball so staggeringly that I was genuinely let down. The sardonic wit which worked so well in the first disc misfires here completely, given that the first 13 minutes are about prison-rape, and the remaining songs don't advance the story in any worthwhile way. The lyrics are scatter-brained and unfocused, as the meandering songwriting. The satirical pop feel of the first two acts vanish entirely, and the art-rock style doesn't work as well with the timbre of Zappa's playing or vocals here.

That being said, there are some instrumental highlights which caught my eye-- though mostly because they were the fey bright spots in this release. "Keep it Greasy" has some funktastic bass work and a groovy jam section, while most tunes feature very smooth, extended Zappa guitar soloing, which isquite satisfying. However, these are scarce compensation for vacuous song-writing. If Zappa could read a review like this (which I am sure he never would), he'd probably laugh and say something snarky... but I know entertaining music when I hear it, and Joe's Garage Part 3 isn't.

Readers should note that the first two acts are contained on a single disc in the compilation of Joe's Garage, which is the way to go if you're interested in checking out this album; this third act isn't irredeemable, but I can almost garuantee that the first disc will see much more play then this one.

Songwriting: 2 Instrumental Performances: 3 Lyrics/Vocals: 2 Style/Emotion/Replay: 2