Joe's Garage  

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

Related e

Wikipedia
Wiktionary
Shop


Featured:

Joe's Garage: Acts I, II & III is a 1979 rock opera by Frank Zappa, which tells the story of what could possibly happen if music was made illegal. The album features Ike Willis as the voice of "Joe", a stereotypical garage band youth who unwittingly journeys through the miasma of the music business. Zappa provides the voice of the "Central Scrutinizer" character—a mechanical voice that narrates the story and haunts Joe's psyche with McCarthyistic 50s-era discouragement and "scrutiny." In his liner notes Zappa also states that the story was inspired by the 1979 Iranian Revolution, which outlawed public musical expression.

The album was originally issued in two parts, the first part being a single LP of Act I, and the second part being a double-LP set of Acts II & III. All three acts were later issued together as a box set, and on compact disc as a double-CD. The major themes of the story include groupie migration, mockery of Scientology, appliance fetishism, garage bands, and above all censorship of music as an artform.

Joe's Garage is particularly noteworthy for its extensive use of Zappa's xenochrony technique, in which guitar solos from older, completely unrelated recordings were extracted and overdubbed onto new songs. With the exception of "Watermelon in Easter Hay" and "Crew Slut", all Zappa's solos on the album were constructed in this way.

Contents

Story

Act I

The opera begins with the Central Scrutinizer's introduction. He has no real character, but goes on to explain that his job is to enforce laws which will be passed in the forthcoming illegalization of music. The Scrutinizer offers a "special presentation to show what can happen to you if you choose a career in music," introducing the opera's protagonist, Joe, who used to be a "nice boy" and cut his neighbors' grass. When he discovered rock music, he would spend all his time playing loud music in his garage, where the neighbors would often call the cops on him. A "friendly counselor" at the police department gives him a donut and tells Joe he should "stick closer to church-oriented social activities." Joe finds a new girlfriend named Mary, with whom he would "hold hands and think pure thoughts." However, Mary, a Roman Catholic girl, abandons Joe in order to get a pass to see a band called "Toad-O" with whom she goes on the road—having sex with the band's roadies. Eventually, they abandon her in Miami when she is too tired to do anything. Mary enters a wet t-shirt contest to try to make enough money to get back home. Joe hears of her exploits, becomes depressed, falls in with a fast crowd, and has sex with a girl who works at the Jack-In-The-Box named Lucille, who gives him an "unpronounceable disease", although he claims it came from a toilet seat.

Act II

Joe turns to religion for help, and "pays a lot of money" to "L. Ron Hoover" at the First Church of Appliantology (a parody of The Church of Scientology). There, Hoover identifies Joe as a "latent appliance fetishist". When Joe asks if he should "come out of the closet" he is instead instructed to "go into the closet" to achieve "sexual gratification through the use of machines". In the next song, we learn "The Closet" is the name of a club where humans can copulate with appliances. Joe locates a machine he likes, named Sy Borg, and they return to Sy's apartment. There Joe and Sy have a "groovy orgy" with Sy's roommate, a "modified Gay Bob doll."

Joe ends up destroying Sy (whom the Central Scrutinizer calls an "XQJ-37 Nuclear-Powered Pansexual Roto-Plooker") with a golden shower. Joe, who gave all of his money to the Church of Appliantology and is thus unable to pay for the damage, is thrown into a special prison. The prison is painted all green on the inside and filled with criminals from the music business. While in jail, Joe is repeatedly gang raped ("plooked") by former musicians and record executives when they're not snorting lines of detergent. This gang is led by a shockingly endowed former promotional agent of a major record company, known as "Bald-Headed John: King of the Plookers".

Act III

When Joe is released from prison, music has become illegal. He loses his sanity, and begins imagining all the guitar notes he cannot play while a journalist documents his thoughts. Eventually, he comes to terms with the fact that music is gone, and gets a job at the Utility Muffin Research Kitchen, frosting muffins. The Central Scrutinizer then goes on to say that if Joe's story wasn't enough to convince the listener that music was evil, he decides to sing the last song in his regular voice. He then shuts off his contraption and reveals that his real voice is that of Zappa.

The last song "A Little Green Rosetta" lampoons the status of Steve Gadd as one of the highest paid session drummers in popular music. Zappa jokingly claims to hire "Steve Gadd's clone" to play the out chorus on the song. Contrary to Gadd's trademark style, the drums sound almost completely at odds with the song itself. The actual drummer on the song is Vinnie Colaiuta. His performance is completely off the "click track" (which Zappa at one point also mixes into the recording.)

Cast

  • Central Scrutinizer, Larry, L. Ron Hoover, Father Riley & Buddy Jones – Frank Zappa
  • Joe – Ike Willis
  • Mary – Dale Bozzio
  • Mrs. Borg – Denny Walley
  • Officer Butzis – Al Malkin
  • Sy Borg – Warren Cuccurullo & Ed Mann
  • Bald-Headed John – Terry Bozzio
  • The Utility Muffin Research Kitchen Chorus – Al Malkin, Warren Cucurullo, Dale Bozzio, Geordie Hormel, Barbara Issak & most of the people who work at Village Recorders (circa 1979).

Track listing

All songs written, arranged, and conducted by Frank Zappa.

Act I

Side one

  1. "The Central Scrutinizer" – 3:28
  2. "Joe's Garage" – 6:10
  3. "Catholic Girls" – 4:26
  4. "Crew Slut" – 6:31

Side two

  1. "Fembot in a Wet T-Shirt" – 4:45
  2. "On the Bus" – 4:19
  3. "Why Does It Hurt When I Pee?" – 2:36
  4. "Lucille Has Messed My Mind Up" – 5:43
  5. "Scrutinizer Postlude" – 1:35
  • On the original vinyl release, "Fembot in a Wet T-Shirt" was titled "Wet T-Shirt Nite"; this title is still listed in the CD lyric booklet
  • On the original vinyl release, "On The Bus" was titled "Toad-O Line"; this title is still listed in the CD lyric booklet
  • On vinyl, "Lucille" and "Scrutinizer Postlude" were indexed as one track. "Scrutinizer Postlude" was only added as a title on the CD reissue; none of the other segues on the album are titled or indexed.

Act II

Side one

  1. "A Token of My Extreme" – 5:30
  2. "Stick It Out" – 4:34
  3. "Sy Borg" – 8:56

Side two

  1. "Dong Work for Yuda" – 5:03
  2. "Keep It Greasey" – 8:22
  3. "Outside Now" – 5:50

Act III

Side three

  1. "He Used to Cut the Grass" – 8:35
  2. "Packard Goose" – 11:34

Side four

  1. "Watermelon in Easter Hay" – 9:09
  2. "A Little Green Rosetta" – 8:15

Personnel

  • Frank Zappa – Vocals, guitar
  • Warren Cuccurullo – Rhythm Guitar, Vocals, Choir, Chorus, Organ, Guitar
  • Denny Walley – Vocals, Slide Guitar, Guitar
  • Craig Twister Steward – Harmonica
  • Jeff – Sax (Tenor)
  • Marginal Chagrin – Sax (Baritone)
  • Patrick O'Hearn – Wind, Bass
  • Peter Wolf – Keyboards
  • Stumuk – Sax (Baritone), Sax (Bass)
  • Tommy Mars – Keyboards
  • Vinnie Colaiuta – Drums, Percussion
  • Arthur Barrow – Vocals, Bass
  • Ed Mann – Vocals, Percussion
  • Dale Bozzio – Vocals
  • Al Malkin – Vocals
  • Ike Willis – Vocals
  • Barbara Isaak – Choir, Chorus, Assistant
  • Geordie Hormel – Choir, Chorus
  • Terry Bozzio – Guest Vocals
  • Ferenc Dobronyi – Cover Design
  • Steve Alsberg – Project Coordinator
  • Joe Chiccarelli – Engineer, Mixing, Recording
  • Norman Seeff – Photography, Cover Photo
  • John Williams – Artwork
  • Steve Nye – Remixing
  • Mick Glossop – Remixing
  • Stan Ricker – Mastering
  • Jack Hunt – Mastering
  • Thomas Nordegg – Assistant
  • Tom Cummings – Assistant




Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Joe's Garage" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.

Personal tools