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Do I Need Thing-Fish?

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I recently counted that have over 40 Frank Zappa albums in my collection. As Zappa fans will know, this makes me a bit of a casual fan, owning about a third of his output. To be fair though, I do have most of the albums he released in his lifetime, missing the odd You Can’t Do That On Stage Anymore here and the odd Bongo Fury there (and having actually heard Bongo, it’s likely to stay over there).

One of the albums I’ve never owned is Thing-Fish. I got into Zappa buying second hand CDs as a student. Even second hand, the double CD was quite the investment, and Thing-Fish never had the best of press. It still doesn’t. The reviews on All Music have it pretty down as for Zappa completists only, which in effect is saying that there may be 100 Zappa albums you want to buy before this one.

So I ask the Zappaphiles of The Afterword – do I need this album? Is it unfairly maligned and overlooked, or it just another 80s Zappa clunker?

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Comments

  4. Very slight detour … there was an excellent Mojo Special on Zappa in 2010 (70 years since his birth), the best Mojo/Uncut Special of them all, and, given the huge amount of stuff released just in the last 10 years, a new such publication at the end of this year is surely on the cards.

  5. Of course you need “Thing Fish” – that is, if you are comfortable with Zappa’s smuttier, more florid mythos played in his early 80s style. He is satirising mid-80s America, and raising the tone in relation to the raised tone he saw. If he was around now, the equivalent would be even stronger stuff. “The Mammy Nuns” and “The Evil Prince” are good tracks. “Won ton on” is beyond derisory. He could be uncritical of his own work, which means it can lack focus, but then it wouldn’t be his creation if that’s what he did. Even the truest Zappa fan finds something annoying or weaker in his work at some point. Some hate the knob jokes, some the snorks. See it as part of what it makes it him; also remember his observation that “there is a big difference between kneeling down and bending over”. Me, I’m thinking I need a new copy before its banned.

    • I’m ok with him being smutty, but when we’re talking early 80s, do we mean good smutty, like Joe’s Garage, or not good smutty, like The Man From Utopia?

      • Joe’s Garage smut is smut with a point. Integral to a genuine (if warped) narrative. Zappa did too much smut for smut’s sake. I know that’s kind of the point, but it’s a point that got blunt very quickly. It’s the least engaging aspect of his work and the least relevant today.

        I don’t subscribe to the view that if you get into Zappa, you need the Big Picture, the warts and the stains as well as the musicianship. If I get beetroot in a salad, I push it to the side.

        • Anyone who dismisses lyrics that use sexual/erotic/suggestive content as “smut” is obviously not going to be interested in or entertained by “Thing-Fish” – however misguided or over-used you’ll find certain parts for your own taste.

          And yes, there’s a lot of very fine (and funky) music on “Thing-Fish”.

          • Oh, tsk. I’ve never found Zappa sexual, or erotic (he’s anerotic, if that’s a thing) or anything like as subtle as you have to get to be suggestive. I doubt he’d have used those terms himself.

            His smut is just that – filthy, infantile, obsessed with piss and shit and the squirty mechanics of the sex act. I’m not offended by it, but neither am I amused or interested, let alone aroused. Still, if Zappa’s lyrics turn you on, Fatima …

            • He was in real life a rampant sex addict to such an extent that even Wilhelm Reich would have said ‘Whoa there sonny! You need to cool that danger down!’ (in an Austrian accent).

  6. I have sort of the opposite conundrum with Zappa. I noticed last week that I have 9 or 10 Zappa CDs in my collection and I’m not sure I need any of them.

  12. I bought everything from Freak Out! to Chunga’s Revenge when they first came out, and that was that apart from a brief flirtation with Broadway the Hard Way. Oh, and I was mildly amused by Francesco Zappa.

    So I was a completist, and then not. Happy with that.

    • My first Zappa album was Uncle Meat, bought as an import, not the stupid Transatlantic version. I worked back and forwards, losing the passion (but not the interest) during the eighties. Fave records are what they’ve always been – Uncle Meat, Lumpy Gravy, Burnt Weeny Sandwich, Hot Rats. These are excellent long-playing record albums I would recommend to any hi-fi enthusiast who appreciates an RIAA curve when he sees one.

      • My Zappa collection:
        Freak Out
        Hot Rats
        The Grand Wazoo
        Over-Nite Sensation
        Apostrophe
        Sheik Yerbouti
        Joe’s Garage 1, 2 & 3
        Shut Up ‘n Play Yer Guitar

        That’s all I really need. I prefer instrumental Frank. I’m not in the least offended by the smutty humour, just bored by it. Sometimes he gets the satire just right, otherwise I tend to just let it glide by as I revel in the exquisite grooves beneath.

        • Freak Out to Chunga’s Revenge? Why, that’s my period, exactly.

          Including Joe’s Corsage, Joe’s Xmasage, Mystery Disc, Greasy Love Songs, and about eight or so titles still to get, I’m aiming for about 25 CDs to cover the 60s.
          My least favourite is still Hot Rats.

          The only YCDTOSA volume I want is 5 and, according to HMV twice, it is no longer available … erm … Stop Press: it’s now on Amazon for £9.74.

  13. I’m reading the aforementioned Mojo Classic Zappa edition.
    Of Thing-Fish, they said “Was Zappa testing the patience of his audience?”
    Asking that of this particular album, says much about its quality, I suspect.

    Including boots, I have around 30 Zappas, so a bit of a lightweight compared to Vincent, HP, Fatima et al. But I did once play Baby Snakes live, in a trio with a couple of mad Geordies. Many times, in fact.

  15. I have Hot Rats, Burnt Weeny Sandwich, One Size Fits All, Chunga’s Revenge, Guitar and Studio Tan, which is quite a lot for a Hot Rats only type civilian. Burnt Weeny Sandwich is actually pretty great, The longest track is a Hot Rats type groove which is most welcome. One Size I find a bit off putting for it’s sound, a little too smooth somehow. Some good moments, but I am otherwise unmoved. Chunga’s is a mixed affair also. Side two of Studio Tan is very nice. Guitar being instrumental only of course, is worth playing. I’d be open to more if I could identify what might suit. I like also some of Uncle Meat. King Kong is great. The clip on Youtube of the Mothers doing that track on the BBC in the sixties, once they stop the goofing around, is awesome. Really,

    • Live In New York is pretty damn good. Superb musiciains as usual. Michael Brecker’s solo is a highlight -see below
      Some lovely guitar on Zoot Allures.
      Live in Oz is pretty good Sydney show from 1973, Grand Wazoo period.

      • The Grand Wazoo is definitely a favourite chez Duvet. I have a particularly fine vintage Reprise pressing. The album closes with a tune I would play to anyone who claimed not to like any FZ, Blessed Relief. What’s not to like about this?

        • My mate (who has twice the Zappa I have) has a wife who hates Zappa (mine just looks at me with sadness and incomprehension). His missus can sniff a Zappa track out, however tuneful it is (and God knows, he’s tried). “When I married him”, she once said to me “I didn’t realise it also involved marrying Frank Zappa”. They otherwise seem very happy.

        • I own no Zappa as far as I know. I did once buy Hot rats but sold it when I cleared out my CDs a few years ago.

          That track was my idea of great jazz.

          Did he do much stuff like that?

          If so I will go and investigate further.

          • FZ was never a jazzer, although his 1972-1974 band featured a real hot lineup with George Duke, Ruth Underwood, etc. You’d probably enjoy “Roxy And Elsewhere”, Uncle.

            • Zappa disliked jazz because it involved too much improvisation for his liking. He respected jazz musicians, however. He considered himself first and foremost a composer and everything of his was fairly tightly composed. He was an utter control freak. No “jamming” allowed in his band.

      • Thanks for the tips. I like Black Napkins off Zoot Allures. Grand Wazoo doesn’t do it for me so much. I don’t know, what it is. Not enough rock, too much jazz? Watermelons In Easter Hay also thumbs up. There are such gems dotter here and there that I’ve identified, amongst the whacky not for me thanks landfill.

  16. There’s music of interest to be found on all Zappa works, including “The Man From Utopia” and “Thing Fish”. Then again, he didn’t exactly make it easy for you. Hawkfall’s OP nails it: there may be 100 Zappa albums you want to buy before this one. So true. Parts of it make me shudder but it still gets a run out every, say, 2 years.

    One’s toleration of Thing Fish depends a lot on one’s acceptance of the crooner Ike Willis (low in my case) and the fact he sings the part in negro patois (or whatever you can call it). Fatima’s right though: there are parts to admire.

    BTW Francesco Zappa was a distinct artist who only shared a surname with FZ, which, presumably, amused the latter.

    • Not so much an artist as an Italian composer, 1717-1803, who spent most of his life in the Hague. You could say they shared a Christian name as well. When I used to play the album I assumed it was just FZ larking about.

      • Loved Hot Rats but he passed me by after that until I got to Sheikh Yerbouti – I think there was a video of City of tiny lights that turned me onto that album. I then bought a compilation which is much more accessible than Joe’s Garage which is the reason he passed me by. Tosh but ooaa.

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