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Any Zappa fans here? I need directions!

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Have recently discovered Hot Rats. I know his discography is a jungle (did he ever sleep?) and I’ve heard loads that didn’t grab me, but as a fan of Hot Rats – where should I go next? Anything similar in there somewhere?

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  1. Can’t go wrong with Waka Jawaka and The Grand Wazoo. Going previous, Burnt Weenie Sandwich is possibly the earliest “music music” album and a damned fine listen. If you want to stretch a little, but still be comforted by musical virtuosity with the minimum of irritating stupidness, One Size Fits All offers dazzling instrumentation and vaguely challenging songs.

    • All excellent selections. His early ’70s band were playing some of his best compositions and were probably the most musically accomplished and well-integrated band he had. Some of the live stuff from that band, if you can find it, is stunning, as many available YouTube clips will demonstrate. “Roxy & Elsewhere”, “You Can’t Do That On Stage Anymore Vol. 2 – The Helsinki Concert” and “Piquantique” are good examples.

      I didn’t like his late ’70s – early ’80s bands so much, although they had their moments. Much more rock-oriented, less jazzy, appealing more to the Arena Rock audience. Lots of very good guitar playing and onstage smut and buffoonery, if those are your things.

      His final touring band from 1988 was pretty damn good. Big brass section, very tight, imaginitive arrangements and lots of political commentary, with plenty of smut and buffoonery as before.
      But the problems he had with that band squabbling among themselves, plus his approaching illness, put him off touring ever again.

      “The Yellow Shark” is pretty sensational stuff IMO, where the German contemporary music group Ensemble Modern recorded a short series of live orchestral concerts with a terminally-ill Frank in 1992. Again, there are YouTube clips to be found.

  3. I would go for “Roxy and elsewhere”, “Overnite Sensation”, “One Size Fits All”, “Apostrophe”, and “Live in new York”, as I think these provide the perfect synthesis of fun, funk, complex arrangements, plenty of sardonic observations, and a plethora of knob jokes. Loved it at 14, still love it at 56. Immature, me? [Blows raspberry and asks friend to “pull my finger”.]

  5. Anything similar to Hot Rats for one who hasn’t heard much else that grabs? Very little in my experience. Very little indeed. I had the same wish to hear more in the same vein. If you like this, you’ll not like much else, take it from one who’s tried. I got One Size and it wasn’t it. I got Chunga’s Revenge. Ditto, although there are moments. Burnt Weeny Sandwich however I do like a lot. It rocks in a Hot Rats fashion in certain sections. It’s mostly instrumental and has great soloing including fantastic electric violin by Sugar Cane Harris. The second best Zappa album I have heard. Not that I’ve heard them all. Vocal free, as in shut up and play your guitar, is my preference and with that in mind I got Guitar, which I also rate highly. It’s just Zappa solos successfully extracted from live performances. Quite challenging at times though but a rewarding challenge not a fruitless task as is often the case. I picked up Studio Tan too when I saw it cheap on secondhand vinyl. This was originally released without Zappa’s agreement. The first side is an irritating attempt at playful silliness but side two, while containing singing, does feature top notch musicianship plus guitar solo that rocks and grooves without so much stop start wanking about and general instrumental smart arsery that is so unfortunately prevalent on so many other of the man’s recordings.

    • *sigh*

      Waka Jawaka (Hot Rats II) and The Grand Wazoo should both appeal if you like your rats hot. They’re both very melodic, jazz-slanted (actually more jazz then rock. Or polka) and sound similar in terms of production to Hot Rats.

      • Grand Wazoo’s jazz rock isn’t rock enough for me. Waka Jawaka not really in same league. The point is that Hot Rats is a way in for many but also ends up as the way out again for good reason.

  9. Many great Zappa albums already mentioned, but don’t expect a Hot Rats clone among them. But given that he was a clever bastard, a few more options would be
    Uncle Meat (click the Harold Holt link upthread for my thoughts on this double-LP),
    Weasels Ripped My Flesh (possibly the closest in spirit to Hot Rats),
    Lather (actually reconstructed triple-CD doorstep Zappa originally didn’t convince Warners to release).

    Let us know how you get on, Neela. There’s a lot of stuff to discover.

    • I’m going to have to mud-wrestle you for saying that Weasels Ripped My Flesh is possibly the closest in spirit to Hot Rats. It’s a very seventies-sounding patchwork of tracks that don’t quite gel into a cohesive album, and it’s frequently nail-on-blackboard difficult to listen to – not a natural step from Hot Rats for someone who likes that album. Burnt Weeny Sandwich was recorded in the same time frame as Hot Rats and is much closer in spirit and sound.

      • Mud-wrestle? Wouldn’t we look fine, two 60+ geezers arguing in a quagmire over music made damned near 50 years ago? Okay, I’m game..

        Anyway, I don’t disagree with your choices outlined above: Waka Jawaka is good, if a little conventional, but those 2 middle vocal tracks are hard going. Grand Wazoo is a personal favourite though, but possibly a little too bigband for the casual convert. Hot Rats, after all, was a very compact line-up, just Zappa and Underwood plus rhythm section and Sugarcane (and a single vocal from Beefheart). Burnt Weenie Sandwich, meanwhile, is indeed a fine listen, despite changing tack rather too often on side one. Sugarcane’s contribution to the long track is an obvious parallel to what was happening on Hot Rats. Dunno about you, HPS, but I was always less than happy with Zappa’s doo-wop excursions: this record begins and ends with them. I’ve always enjoyed his instrumental and compositional prowess, in fact I also think he wound up surrounding himself with vocalists of questionable quality, to the extent that later albums, while still good musically, had major vistas of crap crooners all over them. Groan.

        Maybe you can see where this is going: I particularly love Weasels for its instrumental interest and relative lack of vocals, same reason I’ve been enjoying Hot Rats since 1970. Maybe it doesn’t “quite gel”, well fair enough, it is a collection of leftover stuff, we all know that. Seems you don’t quite appreciate its delights, the clue is in your nail-on-blackboard remark, in which case, how about giving it another listen? Must admit, I’m a seasoned jazz listener (including free and deconstructed) and also love modern classical, so abstract/noisy isn’t an issue. But come on, the two bits you’re probably talking about are short and skippable. To my ears, Weasels is sensational, much better than it needed to be. It’s the Zappa album I play most, along with, natch, Uncle Meat. And I started with Hot Rats as well.

        One other point: what exactly do you mean with “seventies-sounding”?

        • My comments aren’t lists of Zappa likes and dislikes, merely suggestions for someone who likes Hot Rats. The titles I mention share some of that album’s qualities. I find a lot to like in most of Zappa’s work.

          Both Weasels and Chunga’s are directionless treading water exercises (as he admitted) while he killed off the original Mothers. They both have their moments, but the direction that he chose from them was the Turtles Of Invention, a Marmite n’ Jam Sandwich if ever there was. The title track of Weasels is two minutes of unendurable noise – the most cynical kiss-off possible – which you’re welcome to. I’ll take the good-natured doo-wop of Burnt Weeny (the bread for the sandwich). I can’t see Weasels – the track or the album – being an attractive proposition for someone who finds the values of Hot Rats attractive. They both feature the kind of rug-pulling Zappa indulged in to disorient the listener – give them a minute or so of melody and harmony, then subvert it with noise. It all takes its place, but it’s hardly the next thing on Neela’s list, I’d have thought.

          (As to “seventies-sounding” I think I might have been referring to Chunga’s by mistake!)

          • Aha! Never heard that bread for the sandwich detail before. Anyway, Neela’s been well served, he’s got plenty of perspectives to work from, the best stuff has been mentioned. And us? We’ll just agree to disagree on the quality of Weasels. Probably the best album sleeve ever, though, eh?

  10. Thanks everybody! Quite a few recommendations here. Hope to find some of them on Spotify.

    Appears to be a couple of albums I should explore, but not expect them to sound too much like Hot Rats. Well, Zappa doesn´t strike me as the Mike Love type. “That was a hit, so let´s make more just like it.” Though I guess Zappa didn´t have any proper hits anyway. Bobby Brown was a huge hit in Sweden, possibly because people didn´t understand all the words…

    Neela will be back in What The Hell Was All That!

  11. FZ definitely didn’t make another Hot Rats, but apart from the other recommendations above check out the recordings of his “Wazoo” project, his first live band after his enforced layoff due to the Albert Hall incident. There’s the 2CD set Wazoo, Imaginary Diseases and I think Buffalo is also from those gigs. A hot little mainly instrumental combo.

  13. My standard answer to this question is “Chunga’s Revenge” – you get a bit of everything, some songs, some humour, some more jazz inflected. Then “Apostrophe”. Quick mensh of the “Classic Albums” DVD for “Apostrophe”. Really excellent.

  15. While I don’t have the in-depth Zappaology of you lot, I can at least claim to be an early adopter. *insert snarky comment here* I bought all Zappa/Mothers albums up to Chunga’s Revenge, and even the single of Trouble Comin’ Every Day / Who Are The Brain Police? (promo copy, never released in UK, wish I still had it).

    I then sort of drifted away, only buying occasional albums more or less at random (ie second hand) thereafter, eg Sheikh Yerbouti. Which is why I have a very soft spot for Broadway the Hard Way – not major Zappa perhaps, and plenty juvenile in places, but tightly played and infectiously enjoyable nevertheless. If the band were really not getting on, it doesn’t show. I even quite like Sting’s weird appearance.

    And of course Francesco Zappa. I can’t believe we’ve got this far, etc…

    • In the ’88 touring band, the bass player, Scott Thunes was designated “Clonemeister”, in charge of organising and leading the rigorous and extensive pre-tour and on-tour rehearsals, in the absence of Zappa himself, who usually turned up after they had been playing for a couple of hours.
      A large section of the band (all of the brass players, percussionist Ed Mann and drummer Chad Wackerman in particular) grew to hate Thunes’ abrasive style and eventually, halfway through the European part of their world tour, a delegation approached Zappa and demanded his replacement. Zappa refused point-blank and instead cancelled the rest of the tour and laid them all off, swearing never to take a band on tour again. Which he didn’t.

      • That is a sad story in so many ways. ST was probably trying to be as demanding as FZ but didn’t have his charm and mana (that’s a Kiwi word – look it up)

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