THE MOTHERS OF INVENTION: UNCLE MEAT

I bought this double CD as a youngster, guided by the weird covers and promising song titles. I hit to the bull's eye, but it took me some time to realize that. I like both ZAPPA's early chaotic humor stuff and jazz music, and this album has both of these elements. There's also some humor doo-wop songs in vein of RUBEN & THE JETS here, and they were mostly quite funny. It's hard to name the favorite tracks, but some hilarious highlights for me were "Dog Breath...", "Louie Louie", "Sleeping In A Jar" (short!), "Cruisin' For Burgers" and of course "King Kong". As an anecdote, Finnish TASAVALLAN PRESIDENTTI used to play this on their gigs! There's also long audio excerpts from the "movie" which they were doing back then. I remember I used to laugh at all of those weird noises and explanations in it, but after I got the movie, those excerpts lost quite much their meaning. There's also lots of unnecessary but fun material in the CD booklets, and there's a wonderful audio missile triggered in the "Tengo Na Minchia Tanta" song. "I'm using the chicken to measure it!"

4.0/5.0 What a great album! Zappa finally avoids some of his nonsense satire/ parody or meaningless blah-blah and he delivers what I want him to deliver: music! And what a show it is! Ok, to be honest there is still some blah-blah, but it is more discrete and it is more part of an overall MUSIC album and not the center of it. I particularly like "The Dog" and songs like this and the "King Kong" suite is absolutely awesome, particularly King Kong IV. I just can't get enough of this distorted keyboard.

Listening to this album, it seems Zappa finally was able to express his jazz feelings and as weird as this album is (but still less than the previous ones) it is coherent and enjoyable from a prog point of view!

With less blah-blah, I would have given a higher rating. But still, an excellent addition to your prog collection!4.0/5.0

Though I sat down first with Hot Rats as part of my own Zappa trilogy, Uncle Meat should have been the starter in my Zappa three course musical meal. And anyway, it is the beginning point of this trilogy in a chronological manner. Uncle Meat, Hot Rats and Burnt Weeny Sandwich are the trio that started and ended my Zappa collection, at least for the moment, but to be honest, I don't envision myself exploring further. Those three albums were fulfilling in themselves. Uncle Meat, a feast of two records, is a right mixed bag of all sorts. Interestingly enough, it was originally to coincide with a film based on the Mothers Of Invention as they moved along the road. This information helps somewhat. Much of the first record is as haphazard as it can be, Zappa and his crew switch styles on a whim, gracelessly with grace. There are some candid recorded moments here, and an interesting insight to the financial plight of a certain Mother, as he gets heated about "Getting Head" as he "Can't Get Ahead". And the album is all the better for these snippets. Zappa would soon part company with the original band and head out as just plain old Frank Zappa for the next album, the highly acclaimed Hot Rats, and the success of that album must have frustrated the old band no end. But anyway, there are still enough musical strengths for this one to be just as popular as Hot Rats, and it is certainly more engrossing than Burnt Weeny Sandwich, but being a double album it was always going to have that advantage, and it is easy to put up with what many may term the "crazy [&*!#]" because it really is a fantastic album, infused with, not only that trademark wit, but some fantastic music, obviously enough. "Mr. Green Genes" is a genre away from its urgent son on Hot Rats, while "Cruising For Burgers" is so singable it's superbly infectious, while side four of the album contains the beast that is "King Kong" in all its parts. "King Kong", parts 1 to six I do believe, is a piece of fused rock and jazz that takes the album off on another plain and becomes a musical window to where Frank would be headed to with his next album. I haven't seen the film of this, but if anyone has a copy then drop me a line.

To me, this brilliant double set represents the finest work of the Mothers of Invention along with the wonderfully satirical 'We're Only In It For the Money' and the bizarre compilation 'Weasels Ripped My Flesh'. Originally composed as a soundtrack to the Zappa produced movie of the same name, but the project was not completed until 1987, the music here is very experimental and mainly chamber rock oriented with some incredible bizarre snippets of offbeat intern humor and tape effects inbetween. The whole thing is brilliantly put together, cleverly edited and features some of Zappa's most unique compositions in this field. Surely a massive influence on the forthcoming RIO-movement in the late 70's, but this should also be viewed as a milestone within experimental rock. While FZ did even better albums than this one later on none of them has the charm that this one have and I recommend it strongly, especially for those who have a knack for woodwinds and vibes (and yes, this is Ruth Underwood's first album collaborating with FZ).

This was to be the sound track for a movie that Zappa was making called Uncle Meat, but the movie was left unfinished due to lack of funds.This 2 album work consists of about 45 minutes of mostly talking on the opening three tracks of disc two. It's like listening in on to what is happening on the set. Very boring but at least it's easy to skip. I should mention these three tracks aren't part of the original double album and so won't be incIuded in my rating.

"Uncle Meat : Main Title Theme" is a short instrumental opener with lots of vibes and other intricate sounds. "The Voice Of Cheese" is a very short funny spoken word piece. Haha it's funny. "Nine Types Of Industrial Pollution" features lots of guitar and percussion. "Zolar Czakl" is less than a minute of classical-like sounds. Funny ending though. "Dog Breath, In The Year Of The Plague" has vocal melodies,horns and more and is quite upbeat. Vocals after a minute as it gets humerous. Horns lead late. "The Legend Of Golden Arches" is classical sounding like Chamber music really. I like it. A change before 2 minutes then it's classical sounding again. Spoken words end it. "Louie Louie" is a live tune. "The Dog Breath Variations" is a beauty. "Sleeping In A Jar" is a funny song with the focus on the vocals. "Our Bizarre Relationship" is spoken words. "The Uncle Meat Variations" is a very intricate instrumental. Some helium affected vocals before 3 minutes. Guitar to the fore around 4 minutes. "Electric Aunt Jemima" is like fifties doo wop.

"Prelude To King Kong" is mostly a horn and drum piece. "God Bless America" is a live track with the song being led by a kazoo as vocals come in. "A Pound For A Brown On The Bus" is another classical sounding tune. "Ian Underwood Whips It Out (live on stage in Copenhagen)" opens with spoken words before the sax and drums kick in and lead. "Mr.Green Genes" is also good and the father (I guess you could say) of "Son Of Mr.Green Genes" from "Hot Rats" that would come out after this record. "We Can Shoot You" has lots of intricate sounds to it. "If We'd All Been Living In California" is spoken words. "The Air" is a funny fifties sounding tune. "Project X" is another instrumental highlight from the first disc. "Cruising For Burgers" ends disc one. Disc two features the "King Kong" suite made up of six songs and is a side long suite. This is a free Jazz monster ! Each part blending into the other, with the last part being a live song. Love that last song ! The highlight of the whole recording for me.

4 stars for Uncle Meat.

The first time I heard this CD, it shocked me. This was not the heavy rocking (or even jazz-rocking) Zappa I knew from 1970s albums like APOSTROPHE or GRAND WAZOO. Not a trace of George Duke, Terry Bozzio, Napoleon 'Murphy' Brock or even Zappa's characteristic electric guitar! UNCLE MEAT sounded like a typical 1960s "underground" album.

Now that I've lived with UNCLE MEAT for a few decades, it has started sounding more and more modern. One of the reasons is that I've spent a little time listening to Stravinsky, Messiaen and Toru Takemitsu. It's easy to hear their influence (or the influence of musical styles similar to theirs) all through Zappa's album. On the other hand, once you're familiar with Canterbury bands like Gong and Hatfield and the North, you will see that they must have listened a lot to UNCLE MEAT as well.

The interesting thing about UNCLE MEAT is that it includes several totally different types of music. Zappa makes no attempt to fuse them. He puts them on his album in no particular order and forces the listener to get on with them. I must admit some of those pieces are no great favourites of mine. The blaring free jazz of "Prelude to King Kong", "Ian Underwood whips it out" and "King Kong pt. 6" usually get the skip-button treatment. To my relief, such pieces are definitely in the minority, though.

Far more interesting are Zappa's attempts at, whatchamacallit, "neo-classical chamber music". Most of this is written for a combination of harpsichord, organ, vibes, clarinet, bass, drums, semi-acoustic guitar and (occasionally) silly voices. Some of the pieces may sound weird at first, but believe me: they grow on you. And the good news is that all of them are remarkably melodious! After a few spins, you'll find yourself happily whistling along.

Another category of music included is "subversive pop songs with surreal lyrics". There are about seven of those, and they're tremendous fun. This time you won't be whistling; you and your whole family will fill the house with delirious singing! By the way, it seems undeniable that Yes lifted one of their "Heart of the Sunrise" riffs straight from Zappa's "Cruising for Burgers", which even happens to be about getting "lost in the city".

The above-mentioned categories alone warrant UNCLE MEAT a place in any decent record collection. If nothing else, they prove that Zappa was one of the 20th century's most multi-talented composers. Throughout the album, his music is interspersed with whacky dialogues, spoken by the Mothers of Invention and various hangers-on. In addition, the 1987 Rykodisc reissue includes thirty minutes of rather confusing film dialogue. (UNCLE MEAT was originally meant to be a movie soundtrack.) In my opinion, this extra half hour can safely be ignored. With or without it, UNCLE MEAT is undoubtedly a PROGRESSIVE CLASSIC.

Uncle Meat was the last studio album released while The Mothers of Invention were still together as a band, well at least it was recorded while they were a band. Zappa would release Weasel Ripped My Flesh and Burnt Weeny Sandwich after the band was disbanded. In true Zappa style the songs don´t neccessarely come from the same session but he always makes them fit into the concept of the album anyway. Uncle Meat is one of the most unique Zappa albums and it´s also a very unique album in the history of rock music. blending his r´n´b/ doo woop influences with baroque and modern avant garde classical music is a bit of a job. Then add some blues rock, some great guitar solos and a song like King King that still stands as one of the finest moments from The Mothers of Invention. This is if you shouldn´t have guessed it already a classic album.

The album starts with the main title theme from Uncle Meat. It´s such a great song and almost sounds like rock chamber music. The extensive use of hapsichord throughout the album has a chamber music like effect. The Voice of Cheese then appears and we´re drawn into the groupie status of The Mothers of Invention, with Susie talking about herself as a groupie. Zappa always carried around his tape recorder and there are a couple of examples here on Uncle Meat which are great fun. Nine Types of Industrial Pollution has an insistent groove with lots of avant garde percussion noises in the background. This serves as a vehicle to a great Frank Zappa guitar solo. It´s a very long solo but it´s worth your time. Zolar Czakl is a short instrumental song. Strange and avant garde like.

Dog Breath, in the Year of the Plague is one of my favorites here, it´s got a lot of intriguing atmospheres. The Legend of the Golden Arches is a very slow song with a dissonant clarinet theme. Suddenly we´re witness to The Mothers of Invention live at the Royal Albert hall. Don Preston plays Louie Louie on the big Pipe organ. Not the most pretty thing you could ever wish to hear, but it´s great fun. The Dog Breath Variations are as the title indicates variations over the theme from Dog Breath, in the Year of the Plague. This is typical Zappa to distort and change his own themes and make something different out of them.

Sleeping in a Jar is a pretty strange little vocal driven song, it´s a great kind of psychadelic song with the strangest lyrics. Our Bizarre Relationship is Susie Creamcheese talking once again about her groupie career and about Zappa´s groupie status. It cranks me up every time. Hilarious I tell you! Just Hilarious. The Uncle Meat Variations is one of the highlights here for me. This version includes the Uncle Meat theme played in a different version and mouse like singing and there are even some soprano female singing. This is a great progressive song. Electric Aunt Jemima is a great r´n´b/ doo woop song sung with mouse like voices. It´s really enjoyable. Prelude to King Kong is a variation over the King Kong theme and a solo.

God Bless America serves as an introduction to A Pound for a Brown on the Bus which is basically The Legend of the Golden Arches played in double tempo and with different instrumentation. Ian Underwood Whips It Out has Ian Underwood telling us how he got the job with The Mothers of Invention and then he plays a great sax solo. Mr. Green Genes is a pretty slow and heavy song. Not heavy in the sense that it is heavy metal though. The vocals from Ray Collins is a real treat but also the part where Ruth Komanofff ( later Underwood) plays the xylophone is really powerful. There arre some excellent dark wind playing here too.

We Can Shoot You is another avant garde song which is very entertaining if you give it a try. If We'd All Been Living in California...is probably the most funny thing on Uncle Meat, this one is hilariously funny. Jimmy Carl Black talks to Zappa about why The Mothers of Invention don´t make money than they do, and when he gets to the part where he says: We´re starving man, This [%*!#]ing band is starving, you can really hear the desperation in his voice. This is a good example of how many rock musicians live. On the brink of economic collapse. Jimmy Carl Black had a couple of kids back in California and The Mothers of Invention lived in New York at the time Uncle Meat were recorded and really when you´re away from your family for a long time like Jimmy Carl Black was you would expect to be able to send back a lot of money, but The Mothers of Invention never made lots of money, only enough to survive. There were lots of frustration among the members of the band over this issue and it was one of the reasons Zappa disbanded The Mothers of Invention in 1969. If We'd All Been Living in California...serves as a comment to that situation and if you think about it, Zappa´s not being very nice and especially not when If We'd All Been Living in California...seques into The Air which is a sarcastic doo woop song. Well that´s how I chose to see it, but it´s great to be a witness to the argument. The album continues with Project X which is an avant garde piece. I must admit to being a bit turned of by this song in the beginning, but I´ve come to love it. Cruisin' for Burgers ends the original LPs side 3. It´s actually a pretty special song. Ray Collins sings some great vocal lines in doo woop style, but there are also a bluesy rock part where Zappa sings. In addition to those styles there are some symphonic keyboards in the song. Does it sound confusing ? It sound great I promise you.

The whole of side 4 on the original LP whas made up of King Kong, but on the CD version CD 2 starts with Uncle Meat Film Excerpt, Pt. 1 which is some useless dialog from the movie score and what´s worse is that it lasts for 37:34 minutes. Uncle Meat was meant to be a movie but it wasn´t released at the time. Tengo Na Minchia Tanta is also a very useless song. It´s has a humour factor though, but really it isn´t worth your time. It´s notable that Chad Wackermann plays the drums on this track. I´m not sure about this but the drums sound like they are recorded in the eighties and it´s definitely Chad Wackermann´s style. It´s really strange that Zappa chose to put a song like this on the CD version of Uncle Meat. Uncle Meat Film Excerpt, Pt. 2 is another dialog excerpt from the movie and equally as useless as the first one but thankfully it only last for 3:50 minutes.

Well the useless CD extras aside lets go on to side 4 of the original LP and the great song King Kong. King Kong is divided into smaller chapters but really is one long song. It´s taken me almost 15 years to enjoy this song and really understand it, but boy it´s been worth the wait and the continued listening over the years. It´s one of the best Mothers of Invention songs IMO. The King Kong theme is of course the dominant part of the song and through the song it is twisted in all directions. The most innovative thing is the distorted clarinet ( I think it´s a clarinet, but I´m not sure to be honest) solo which is doubled it´s so crazy and dissonant and it is especially this part I had a hard time coping with. King Kong ends with The Mothers of Invention playing the song live at Miami Pop Festival which is typical Zappa to mix studio and live recordings.

The musicianship is astonishing to say the least. There where not many bands in the sixties who could do what The Mothers of Invention did on Uncle Meat. About 10 different Mothers contributed in one way or another to Uncle Meat and they all did the job of their lives.

The production is very unique both in Zappa´s discography and in rock history, nothing has sounded like this before and nothing has sounded like this since.

There was a special charm to The Mothers of Invention that is very much present here on Uncle Meat. Even though they often worked like horses under Zappa´s strict command and really didn´t get much to show for their efforts they still seemed like they loved the music and had fun. That kind of commitment shows in the music, and if you want to use a cliché you could say that the music has soul. It´s one of my all time favorite albums and I don´t think you should underestimate the incredible importance Uncle Meat had on a progressive genre like Zeuhl. This is my personal opinion of course, but listen to the brilliant album yourself and then judge. 5 big stars is well deserved for this outstanding album.

As the cover of the album tells the listener, Uncle Meat was "most of the music from the Mother's movie of the same name which we haven't got enough money to finish yet." Now, some bands, when they do a soundtrack, tend to homogenize their sound for that soundtrack, making the songs kinda tie together with some unifying 'theme.' It's ironic, then, that not only is this the first M.O.I. album to not have an underlying theme, but it's also the most hilariously all-over-the-place album they'd ever do. This is the Mothers' "whatchagot stew" album (if you've never read any Patrick McManus, allow me to explain; two hikers are hungry and decide they should stop and eat. One says to the other, "Whatcha wanna eat?" The other responds with, "Whatcha got?" The two of them then proceed to dump the entire contents of their backpacks into a boiling pot of water, making sure to not actually look and see what's going in there - this should only be made and eaten in darkness, you see - and eat the resulting concoction, known as "whatchagot stew."), and for a band as ludicrous as the Mothers, this means some interesting results. Brief bits of Suzy Creamcheeze dialogue are interspersed with great acoustic guitar-driven instrumentals with weird doo-wop with saxophone-driven Spanishy pop with whatever, with jazzy bits dumped over everything.

Want to know some of what I consider highlights? Well, there's the opening 'title track,' which says a whole lot in two minutes by smooshing together classical and jazz and neat vibe sounds and military rhythms (the later "Uncle Meat Variations" is also neat, especially when it gets into the goofy area with the high, high-pitched voices singing something about fuzzy dice). There's "Nine Types of Industrial Pollution," a six-minute demonstration of Frank's talents at making electric guitar sound like acoustic (or is it acoustic? I can't tell), that never once bores me. There's "Dog Breath, In The Year of the Plague" (and the later "Dog Breath Variations"), one of the finest catchy-pop/jazz fusions I could ever imagine (and actually, now that I'm reminded while listening, this is where the fuzzy dice bit first pops up). There's a hilarious live excerpt of Frank playing the chords to "Louie, Louie" on the giant pipe organ at The Royal Albert Hall (the very thought of this makes me bust out in laughter if I'm not careful), and another of the band doing "God Bless America" in such a twisted and sloppy and blatantly ironic way that I love it. There's ... well, there's some more stuff I like (even the bits of Creamcheeze banter, and the part where Jimmy Carl Black is complaining about the band never getting gigs, and the part where Ian Underwood explains how he came into the band, which is followed by him wanking on his sax for a good while).

Essentially, I like almost everything on the first disc. There are a few tracks I could easily lop off ("The Legend of the Golden Arches" and "A Pound for a Brown on the Bus" come to mind, as they're largely the same track, and I'm not as fond of "Cruising for Burgers" or "Project X" as I suspect I should be) without missing them, but overall, the first disc is pretty much great. So what about the most infamous piece on here, the 18-minute instrumental "King Kong?" Well, I still don't adore it entirely; as much as my taste for jazz has gone up over time, there's still just a little too much rambling noodling for my tastes in the second half (except for a stretch for a couple of minutes in part six where it becomes so frenzied that I'm pulled back in). What can I say, I like jazzy elements in some of the music I listen to, but unless it's really top-notch, I have a tendency to get bored soon. That said, I've come to adore about the first eight minutes or so of it. The main theme is fantastic, and the instrumental interplay is really energetic and rousing and fascinating, with a lot more focus than I once gave it credit for. I don't know if this deserves credit as the first jazz fusion piece (it predates In a Silent Way, after all, but there might be something that came before), but wherever it fits in the grand scheme of things, it's still a nice piece.

So, in all, the album gets docked a bit because I don't like all of the noodling on here, and I think a good portion of the "normal" material could get cut without much damage to the final product. That said, I still find it extremely enjoyable overall, and it's a must for any decent rock collection.

PS: the rating above is for the original edition of this album, the one that (unlike the current CD version) doesn't contain 40 minutes of horrible movie dialogue and a completely out-of- place early 80's recording of somebody talking about their penis in Italian.

Sixth album, Uncle Meat is an impressive double-disc affair that returns to Zappa's better early works in the AF and FO tradition, but holds also the same flaws as those, including loads of 50's/doo-wop and dumb sketches (like the return of Suzy Creamcheese and the Wowie Zowie term) and monologues, which if funny at first listen, they quickly lose their novelty and wear out their welcome well before the music has unravelled all its mysteries. Like the excellent six-minutes Industrial Pollution or the more experimental (and dissonantly burlesque) Zolar Czalk or Prelude To King Kong, the Frank-ly whacky Dog Breath (ants reprise), etc... There are some killer moments as well, mostly the instrumental passages (generally the jazz rock and the Varese-Cage influenced tracks), where the Inventive Mothers show the width of their talent and brilliance at their respective instruments.

The second disc is filled by the title track film extract and the legendary King Kong suite. The former is not exactly a riveting-in-your-seat piece, it is some of the boring-est junk (sorry Francesco, it must be said) ever committed on vinyl, and in the CD version, it lasts some whopping 37 minutes, even if depicts some strange RnR stars' deviances (namely drummer Ainsley Dunbar, credited on guitar on this album), and is definitely not worth the effort of staying awake through it. It is quite a relief (if you've pushed the skip button and wasted 37 minutes of your life) to reach the Tengo Na track, which is a brilliant rock track, where guitars and drums are feasting, but unfortunately we return for another three minutes of Uncle Meat's soundtrack. The latter piece is the brilliant king Kong piece, a sort of proggy jazz-rock suite avant-la-lettre, made from six movements for a total 18 minutes (excluding the intro on the other disc), where Gardner and Underwood are having a great time on reeds. What this superb suite is announcing is the great Jaka/Wazoo experiments that finishes in an organized dissonant chaos.

Certainly one of Zappa's more impressive and progressive works in his early career, Uncle Meat, despite its positive critical aura, is anything but an easy listen, but if you're into Zappa already, this shouldn't be a problem. It is however a bit of shame that such an outstanding and avant-garde work should be marred by the usual goofiness that pervades throughout The Mother's oeuvre, especially in this one with the title track. I'm sure that a careful condensing of this double disc album into a single one would've made an extraordinary chef d'oeuvre, but unfortunately, in its actual form, it'll never be anything than just another Zappa album.

Uncle Meat marks an amazing shift in Zappa's career. After albums filled with pop-parody-clichés and lyrical banter, Zappa delivered a challenging work of art full of influences from modern classical (Stravisnky), free-jazz and avant-rock.

At 120 minutes it's a lot to swallow, but it can roughly be divided in three large chunks: 45 minutes of babbling and film dialogue that you should preferably skip, next a couple of short pop songs with either silly Zappa vocals or operatic female contributions (which I tend to skip as well), and finally a good hour of astonishing instrumental music that reaches miles beyond anything else that was happening in rock in those years. But not only their innovative quality is noteworthy; all pieces are short, snappy and very inspired.

The quality of the recordings varies a bit depending on the sources, some of the pieces are recorded live and sound a bit thin, such as the jazzy Ian Underwood whips it out. Other tracks such as Mr Green Genes reveal the high studio recording standards that Zappa set for himself, and Tengo 'na Michia Tanta with its fat drums can't possibly be from 69.

While not everything is to my liking, Uncle Meat offers an excellent introduction into Zappa's 60ties albums, featuring not only the silly pop pastiches of those years but also some great jazz-rock and lost of modernist avant-rock. With the remote control close at hand, this sure is an excellent listen.

"What can you do that's fantastic? Alright, whip it out."

I won't pretend to have any idea what "Uncle Meat" is really about, or that I enjoy the album as much as the (by this point) quaint "Freak Out." If you thought things couldn't get any weirder than "WOiiftM," you'd be wrong. "Uncle Meat" is a transitional work, a soundtrack, and initially one of the most unapproachable albums you'll ever hear (though that will change later as you become accustomed to it.)

The album documents the shifting of the early Mothers humor-wop style into the coming jazzier Zappa, and the two are thrown off balance more by the avant soundtrack craziness present. It's all jumbled together with the usual little clips of Suzie Creamcheese and assorted Mother-centric commentary. The strange cough sound immediately following Suzie's introduction of herself is the funniest sound I've ever heard-if I could sample that and use it as my ringtone or doorbell, I would. Thankfully I'm not that tech savvy. Some of the best bits include one of the Mothers complaining to Frank about the lack of money he's making, Suzie's assessment of her groupie prowess, and Ian Underwood's dry explanation of how he foisted himself into the band. The humor-wop stuff is not as fresh as the early albums but the soundtrack material and the jazz-fusion (King Kong suite in particular) are fascinating and pretty amazing for the late 67-early 68 recording period. "Nine Types of Industrial Pollution" is a nice slice of lead guitar work. "Golden Arches" is a chamber music break from the craziness. "Uncle Meat Variations" is another highlight with maniacal munchkin-like voices and superb jamming-love the lead guitar toward the end. Ian Underwood's live sax solo in "Whips it Out" is blistering. "Project X" offers some ambitious and fantastic-sounding instrumental work from all manner of guitars, woodwinds, percussion, and general strangeness.

Some complain about the latter day CD issue which adds a 40 minute chunk of film rehearsal banter/dialogue to the album, but at this point, why complain? It can always be skipped if you're not in the mood. If you are, it's a humorous time capsule to have and seems to be well at home with the spirit of the album. Despite the album having numerous gems and a true underground feel, I don't think it's the masterpiece so many others do. It is a good album and well worthwhile for Zappa fans, as well as another piece of the fascinating Zappa puzzle. 3 ½ stars.

The Mothers of Invention (Frank Zappa) - Uncle Meat (1969)

In the year 1969 there are already so much interesting progressive rock (related) releases. The Mother's we're making a movie and recorded Uncle Meat and released it as a sound- track for the film that would never be finished. Looking at the great anti-commercial cover art insight arises in what this double album might offer.

Uncle Meat is actually a very logical step forward for the band when you hold it next to 'We're only in for the Money', released a year earlier. The band still has making stupid semi- political songs on the agenda and the use of innovative composition (which I would call proto-Canterbury) in instrumental passages. New are the free-jazz solo's/compositions and the modern classical music inspired compositions with their own specific avant-garde sound. No songs/compositions evolve as expected and the listener is guarantied to be surprised at least once a minute. Also still present are the silly stories by strange characters.

With it's two hours of music this is perhaps one of the longest albums ever. It's however worthy to mention that the first 43 minutes of second cd (Uncle Meat film excerpts) weren't present at the vinyl release of 1969. This noteworthy amount of musical material is not being reviewed in this specific review. I simply don't own it.

Getting bored during the other 80 minutes of a little hard, because Zappa and crew keep on firing new ideas on us. Most passages are worthwhile, showing the band with innovative - if not ground-braking - composition and performance. I like the modern classical pieces and I think it's great that the band made very strange avant-garde without letting it get to dark or unpleasant. Most of the avant-garde moments sound happy and have a positive, yet slight psychedelic feel. The song-writing is still strong, but I must admit I think the songs on 'We're only in it for the money' are more original and memorable. On side four we get to listen to some great fusion/avant-garde moments (the King-Kong parts) that finally bring some continuity in the sound of the Mothers. It does make side four the most conventional of the record, but I can't listen to awkwardness whole day.

My only real complaint about Uncle Meat is about the weaker live parts on side one and two, a bit unnecessary mainly because of the bad recording quality.

Conclusion. This is quickly becoming one of my favorite avant-garde releases. I'm amazed at how innovative The Mothers of Invention are and how music critics could cope with it. Somehow all hard-to-get-into music is smashed into pieces, but Zappa got himself a card- blanche in music criticism. I myself can enjoy this music very much, but I'm must admit I think the sound of the album is a bit dated. I've heard many better recordings dating from 1969. I'm pleasantly amazed by how much influence Zappa & the Mothers seem to have had on the Canterbury scene, and I would strongly recommend fans of this genre to listen to this record, along with fans of avant-garde and listeners of the more challenging progressive music. Four stars.

Note: as several other reviewers have chosen to do, I'm reviewing the album as it was originally released - without the 40 minute "penalty tracks" tagged on to the front of disc 2 as excerpts from the never-finished Uncle Meat movie and Tengo Na Minchia Tanta, a daft Zappa composition from the 1980s which has nothing to do with this album.

Uncle Meat represents the start of the final phase of the original Mothers of Invention - as also documented on Burnt Weeny Sandwich and Weasels Ripped My Flesh. Having got their commercial urges out of their system on Cruising With Ruben and the Jets, the group threw themselves into performing Zappa's challenging and increasingly jazz- and classical- influenced works, forming the missing link between the early Mothers albums and Zappa's later solo career. (Indeed, one song on here, Mr Green Genes, would lose its quasi-operatic vocal and get a big shot of fusion before being rolled out on Hot Rats as Son of Mr Green Genes).

That isn't to say the occasional parody of more commercial pop idioms is absent - The Air and Cruising for Burgers are some of the best Mothers songs in that style, as is the first part of Dog Breath In the Year of the Plague before it takes a left turn into driving proto-fusion and jazz-classical third stream experimentation - but the group no longer makes any pretence of hoping to attain commercial appeal - as the occasional spoken word interjection from "Suzy Creamcheese", returning from Freak Out!, attests to. To be fair, they didn't necessarily mean to - whilst not seeing much popular success in the States, they did at least have a loyal following in the UK at the time, as the extracts from a performance at the Royal Albert Hall on Louie Louie attest.

Aside from Zappa, the band member most worthy of note here is Ian Underwood, whose woodwind and sax playing is key to the band's new sound (having been a presence since We're Only In It For the Money), and gets to showcase his playing on Ian Underwood Whips It Out. Also notable is the fact that this is the first Zappa album to feature the marimba and vibes stylings of Ruth Komanoff (who would become Ruth Underwood on marrying Ian the following year), which would be a key part of Zappa's sound for much of the 1970s. The band as a whole shines on the album's closer, the sidelong epic King Kong, which fusion fans in particular should pay particular attention to since in style it seems to be a seminal work of that particular type - the likes of Weather Report and the Mahavishnu Orchestra would only catch up to this sort of pounding, furious, volcanic playing in the 1970s, whereas this was recorded in 1968!

To my mind, there's not a bad track on the album ("penalty tracks" excluded), though admittedly there's a wide range of musical styles on offer and if you don't like them all you might find some parts of the album drag. But if you can stomach avant-classical, jazz, bubblegum doo-wop and proto-fusion all coming together in Zappa's creative blender, you can't go wrong.

This album marks a maturation of Frank Zappa's musical style. Here he shifts away from the focus on his lyrics, and more toward the music. While "Lumpy Gravy" also focused on the music, it is here that Zappa develops the rhytmic and tonal qualities that will permeate his music for the rest of his career. And the addition of Ruth Komanoff (eventually Underwood), gives him a percussionist able to to keep up with his compositions.

While most of the pieces are short and to the point, they also provide many of the songs that would become favorites of Frank and the band for the next two decades. Dog Breath, , A Pound For A Brown On The Bus and Cruising For Burgers all first appear here. And while King Kong was part of "Lumpy Gravy" a few years earlier, it is here where it was first released in all of it's glory.

The album isn't perfect. There are some pieces that just sound like filler, like playing Louie Louie on the Royal Albert Hall pipe organ, or getting the crowd to sing God Bless America. But that hardly diminishes the album.

4.5 stars, rounded up for the original album.

The CD is extended with over 40 minutes of dialogue from movie that was supposed to be released from the album, but was never completed at the time. This portion is detracts from the album, and is unfortunately inserted before King Kong. It is made up of Zappa feeding the cast words and phrases that they were to integrate into their parts. The only bright spot is Phyllis Altenhaus, who Zappa hired away from Tom Wilson, who adeptly uses Zappas odd phrases, without sounding overwhelmed by him.

One of the phrases that keeps popping up is "Tengo na minchia tanta" (I don't know if Frank provided it, or it just occured), but Zappa much later (in the 80's, it sounds like) took the phrase, and recorded a song around it, with vocals by Italian journalist Massimo Bassoli. This song, while it goes with the dialogue, is out of place on this album.

Only 4 stars for the CD. But I'll use the LP rating here.

Uncle Meat was originally supposed to be a soundtrack to a film of the same name. It was started but the funds ran out. On the latest CD release you can hear some (a lot of) dialogue from the film as well as a hard rock song from the early 1980s about penis sung in Sicilian (I guess). The original double-album was way ahead of it's time, being both an influence on later jazz fusion and avant-rock. But it also contained some doo-wop and "Louie, Louie." The thing about Zappa was how he liked to mix the simple with the complex; the melodic with the dissonant; the silly with the serious. On this album he really brings these contradictions together for the first time, with his first few Mothers albums being considered comedy/novelty by some. Speaking of the Mothers we get an expanded version of the original line-up but even these musicians were not up to Zappa's standards; he would have to wait until the mid-1970s before he found musicians capable of performing his crazy musical ideas.

Zappa was mixing jazz and rock since his first album but here he goes even further. Between this album and Hot Rats he was making fusion at the same time as, but independent from Miles Davis. The avant-garde influence is also a lot stronger here than on earlier releases. You can tell a lot of later RIO groups were listening to this album. Some of the music here sounds similar to Lumpy Gravy. Some of it was recorded live (including "Louie, Louie" played on pipe organ at the Royal Albert Hall). There seems to be a little more acoustic guitar here than most Zappa albums. There are spoken word sections from Suzy Creamcheese, new member Ian Underwood (who will marry Ruth Komanoff, who also appears here) and Jimmy Carl Black. Not to mention the oddball sound effects you would expect to find.

The early Mother albums were recorded on 4-track and sound awful compared to the 8- track recording of Uncle Meat. Frank would go one step further with Hot Rats and be one of the first to record with 16 tracks. Both the production and musicianship here is a step above Frank's previous work. Again, it was just a lack of funds and talent that prevented him from realizing his musical vision. Don Preston makes good use of an electronic organ which sometimes sounds like a synthesizer. There is lots of wind instruments on the album and both Ruth and Art Tripp (who will work with Captain Beefheart in the future) introduce the mallet percussion that will become a staple of Zappa's music to come.

The main title is avant-classical with lots of mallet percussion. The last half sounds like the musical parts of Lumpy Gravy along with the avant noises of We're Only In It... "Nine Types Of Industrial Pollution" starts off with some Varese style percussion and bluesy guitar playing which sounds speed altered. The track gets more dense and dissonant as it goes along. "Dog Breath, In The Year Of The Plague" is one of the better vocal songs. Almost doo-wop meets jazz-rock. Nice female opera singer. I like the acoustic guitar playing here. Eventually everything gets sped-up and more avant and dissonant. Ends very orchestral. "The Legend Of The Golden Arches" is like a slower, jazzier version of "A Pound For A Brown On The Bus." Halfway you hear some harpsichord get joined by reeds; very classical sounding. Then Suzy relates a story.

Even though it's short, "Sleeping In A Jar" has one of the best musical themes. "The Uncle Meat Variations" is more avant-classical goodness. Much longer than the main theme. Halfway you hear some chipmunk vocals. Later turns more R&B/Rock'n'roll with a great twangy guitar that turns into blues-rock soloing. Great acoustic guitar at the very end. "Electric Aunt Jemima" is the best of the pure doo-wop songs. Some cool synth-like studio effects here. "Prelude To King Kong" is what the title says: a prelude to the orchestrated jazz-rock of "King Kong" later on the album, except this sounds more improvised. "A Pound For A Brown On The Bus" is a shorter, more classical take on "Legend Of The Golden Arches." Ian Underwood tells an amusing story in "Ian Underwood Whips It Out" and then it goes into a live recording of Ian wailing on a sax with repetative drumming behind him. The rest of the band slowly joins in.

"Mr. Green Genes" is a standout track and the father of the song on Hot Rats. Love the lyrics and how they follow the melody. Ends very symphonic. "We Can Shoot You" is more Varese inspired avant-classical with studio altering. Wind section talks for a bit then goes into some proto-chamber prog. "Project X" starts off with a melody on acoustic guitar which sounds almost exactly like a hit song from the late 1990s. I first heard Uncle Meat at a time when that hit song was all over radio/tv. When I first heard "Project X" I was stunned. (The song I'm taking about is called "Kiss Me" by Sixpence None The Richer). What an odd coincidence for two songs recorded 30 years apart. Before long some wind instruments, mallet percussion and drums come in and make everything dissonant, with the acoustic guitar melody still playing. Music stops and then wind instruments and electronic organ play in a dissonant way. More of a sense of rhythm and melody as the piece progresses.

"Crusin' For Burgers" is one of the best songs. I like how the song keeps changing, similar to some '70s Zappa. Seems longer than just 2 minutes. The beast that is "King Kong" is divided into 6 parts, all being one piece except part six which is mostly a live recording. The whole thing is ahead of it's time, sounding both like future Zappa and future fusion. Great soloing from the wind instruments. Good melodies. You don't hear much of Frank himself though. The keyboards are great. Part 5 is studio altered avant-garderie. Part 6 is mostly live, the last minute or so is more studio altered weirdness. Uncle Meat is both one of the first progressive rock albums and one of the most important. There was nothing else like it out at the time but the next few years would see an explosion of experimetal rock music. I can't really call this a 'masterpiece' of prog but it's importance cannot be denied. My final verdict is 4.5 rounded down to 4 stars.

I had been struggling with Frank Zappa's large body of work despite the Mothers era being very appealing to me. I had yet to find that Zappa album that just gave that musical euphoria like no other album. In comes UNCLE MEAT, and after track two, I ended up flushing my expectations down the drain.

Let's give UNCLE MEAT credit where credit is due, and those are the pieces where Frank decided there would be something resembling music. Most of it is in the jazz-rock realm that Zappa was mining around this time (think HOT RATS), and the big unearthing is the mammoth ''King Kong'' jam that concludes the album. It's very jam-based like ''Gumbo Variations'' and ''The Grand Wazoo'', but more stable than either of those tracks which makes the pieces (the innovative sounds over the top are really the sprinkles). Two other big jazz tracks are the two that are more in the free-er direction in ''Nine Types of Industrial Pollution'' and ''Ian Underwood Whips it Out''.

There are much more bite-sized nuggets of fun. Some stem from remnants of early Mothers work like ''Sleeping in a Jar'', ''Electric Aunt Jemima'' and ''The Air''. Others make more music progress like the ''Uncle Meat Theme'', ''Legend of the Golden Arches'', ''Dog Breath'' and any reprises/variations.

Here comes the big gag reflex; those little dialogue/humour tracks. Why are these necessary? The only good I find in them is wearing that skip button on my CD player's remote control. I've found no musical or humour value in any of them; it's like putting five versions of ''Are You Hung Up?'' at random throughout the album. That alone drive me bonkers, but swift kick is the UNCLE MEAT movie in there, and I've lost patience. I know it's a bonus track and many reviewers discount it, but in short, nobody wants to LISTEN to a movie, they want to watch one. Even though the film never came into fruition, why forty minutes of?THIS?

These irritants are quite severe. Even then, UNCLE MEAT is a jumble of what Frank Zappa had been and where he might go. While there are great tracks, it feels more like a compilation of new songs than a bold new Zappa album.

Part Zappa-style orchestration, part Zappa-style improvisation, and part Zappa-style documentary, Uncle Meat is an odd combination of pleasures that entertains but seldom impresses. In a way, it's a reflective work by Zappa and the Mothers' musical career up to that point; here the noodling outnumbers the music, which when present is great, but you'll have to do a ton of bushwhacking through comedic or psychedelic or meditative scat to get there.

Uncle Meat opens with a bouncy and jaunty instrumental composition, indicative of Zappa's ambition as composer. It's a highlight, as is the extended and personality filled jamming of "Nine Types of Industrial Pollution," where Zappa's acoustic guitar just doesn't quit. "Dog Breath" is bottom heavy and playful, while "Golden Arches" is another showcase of precision and complex arrangement. Beyond that the tunes are fun but nothing outstanding. Scattered throughout are 10 - 15 minutes of recorded dialogue, on stage antics, and general Zappa weirdness. It's usually interesting but doesn't encourage the same kind of replay-ability that you'll get in other releases.

Bottom line, for me Uncle Meat is a lot of fun, but not an essential Zappa album. Start with something more musical, but definitely find your way here if you enjoy the Mothers' sound.

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

'Uncle Meat' was part of a project by Frank Zappa and the Mothers called 'No Commercial Potential'. The other albums in this project were 'We're Only In It For the Money', 'Cruisin' with Ruben and the Jets', and 'Lumpy Gravy'. These 4 albums share a conceptual connection. Uncle Meat was also supposed to be a movie about the exploits of the band, but it never really got finished and the unfinished film finally got released in 1987. This album has a lot of the material and music that was going to be used in the final film, so this is why it is so varied in its style. Most of the album centers not so much on the lyrics, but on the instrumentals. There are also a lot of conversations amongst the band and etc that were going to be used in the movie.

One of the things that the critics were raving about on the album was the way it was edited and mixed. FZ used many interesting techniques to splice and edit the flow of the album together and these techniques and the equipment used was quite state-of-the-art. FZ wanted a cinematic sound on this album to match a movie soundtrack, which is partly what he was trying to achieve here, so he used his current group of musicians and hired some new ones, including Ruth Underwood, the amazing percussionist, who he hired on a whim. He utilized the equipment they had, including instruments, to mix the sound to make it sound like a full orchestra. There are even times when you can swear you are listening to a brass section, and it turns out it is just a few reed instruments processed through a mixer with adjusted speed. These things produce a much fuller sounding music.

The tracks are made up of quite a variety of Frank's styles including jazz, classical, r&b, doo wop, and rock, plus some field recordings of the band. All of these elements are melded together in an almost continual running bunch of tracks that run and segue into each other almost seamlessly. There are studio recordings and live recordings, sometimes it is very hard to tell which is which, and, like many of FZ's albums, sometimes switching back and forth from studio to live in the same track. This album is an excellent example of Frank's ability to manipulate sound and music in order to get the kind of end product that he felt was perfect.

So, there are so many tracks on this album to really do a track by track analysis. But the highlights here are mostly the instrumentals. There are vocal tracks here, but many of them are just snippets of songs, or they have been taken out of context, so they don't have the same effect as they would in their original form. But, that really doesn't take away from this album as much as it does in other instances, because, going into this knowing that it is supposed to be sort of a document of the band's history makes it all make more sense. Plus the fact that it runs so seamlessly makes it seem like these tracks were meant to be together. Frank said that if he took a knife to the tapes and spliced them together in a different order, that the finished result would still be the same, and he was meaning that by all of the albums in the 'No Commercial Potential' project.

So, if you have the vinyl copy, then the first 3 sides are a bunch of tracks that run the gamut of the band's style, from avant- garde jazz to classical to humorous novelty songs. Most of these tracks are all melded together with short snippets of audience participation and recorded conversations. It's left up to the listener to translate these tracks however they want. There are studio recordings and live recordings, some of these taken from long instrumental jams based off of the familiar themes that fans of the band know and love, like 'Dog Breath', 'King Kong', 'A Pound For a Brown' and the 'Uncle Meat Themes'. You also get a look into the band satirizing 'Louie Louie' as they often did, where an audience member jumped up onto the stage and wanted to play trumpet with the band. The fan thought it would be easy just to play anything avant-garde, but when Zappa had Don Preston climb up to the organ in the Royal Albert Hall (the organ was supposed to be off limits to the band, so Don had to literally climb up to it) and start playing Louie Louie, the fan couldn't keep up. You also hear FZ speeding up many recordings and manipulating sound through his favorite toy that he called the Apostolic Blurch Injector. This is pretty much what the album is made up of.

So what I just described is on the first 3 sides of the record, or the first disc of the CD release. The fourth side of the vinyl has several versions and solos taken from different recordings of 'King Kong' which is a popular theme used by Zappa on which he lets his band do improvisation and solos off of. The CD version, in contrast, starts off with an over 30 minute excerpt from the 'Uncle Meat' movie, followed by the track 'Tengo Na Minchia Tanta', and Italian song which literally means 'I Got A Big Bunch of Dick' sung by Italian rock journalist Massimo Bassoli and place here for some humorous reason, followed by another 3 minute excerpt from the movie. Those three tracks are not something that you would want to listen to too many times, so I actually prefer the vinyl version simply for the fact that those tracks are not on there. After that, the King Kong variations follow as on the vinyl.

So this album can be a good introduction to Frank Zappa in that you get a little taste of everything here. Listening to it without knowing what it is about can be confusing and frustrating, but if you understand a little better what is going on here, then it makes everything more enjoyable. There is probably a bit more avant-prog music on here than a lot of people would like, but that doesn't bother me, and a lot of the humor is in the music itself here more than in the lyrics. But, if nothing else, the album should be recognized for the editing and mixing techniques that were used during a time when this type of recording was very difficult to make. In that respect, it is an innovative recording, at least for the time that it was made. It's not a perfect album, but it is entertaining and has a lot of great performances on it.