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Shut Up 'n Play Yer Guitar by Frank Zappa (1981)

A Random CD Review from the Stutzman Memorial Library

Shut Up ‘n Play Yer Guitar by Frank Zappa (1981)

Well, now, the Excel spreadsheet lobbed up a bit of a softball with this one. I feel pretty qualified to discuss Zappa’s music. Little known fact: I almost did some serious Zappa music scholarship in my last couple years of college. I couldn’t get any research money, though. (It was kinda tough to convince the board of science and business profs why it was necessary work. I didn’t really blame them, though. I really just wanted to get my hands on some Zappa Cds and scores.) So, I tossed the idea out the window.

So, this is a box set of three separate albums called Shut Up ‘n Play Yer Guitar, Shut Up n’ Play Yer Guitar Some More, and Return of the Son of Shut Up ‘n Play Yer Guitar. As you can imagine, it’s a lot of guitar solos culled from live concerts. But here’s the catch: a lot of these performances never “happened.” How’s that, you say?

Well, Zappa had this idea for a compositional technique he called xenochrony, or “foreign time.” The idea was to take the live solo guitar tracks from one performance and juxtapose them with the rhythm tracks from a completely different performance of a different song. It’s certainly an avant-garde methodology, but I must admit, it’s all a little bit lost on me.

Here’s why: Zappa’s soloing is weird enough by itself, even over the “right” accompaniment. I’ve read plenty of interviews in which he talked about guitar soloing and how his goal was to stay far away from the standard practices in rock soloing- pentatonic box shapes, tossed-off blues-based licks, and simple eighth-note and sixteenth-note rhythms. And of course, one listen to any of the tracks in this box and it’s obvious that he pulled that unconventional style off in spades.

It’s seemingly uncontrolled madness, truly improvisational insanity. He fires off blast after blast of stream-of-consciousness, scalar runs in arrhythmic time. Sometimes playing off a theme. He’s a total original on that pick-it fence. But dare I say it? A little of this soloing goes a long way for me. The tracks on these discs can very easily blend into one giant, noodling song for me. It starts to all sound the same after awhile. I would equate it to listening to someone reading Faulkner at high speeds.

I’m a guitar player. I can certainly appreciate the things he’s doing on these albums. Just the man’s electric guitar tone alone is unique, but I’m really more of a fan of how Zappa organized sound into tight arrangements, unnatural-yet-controlled rhythmic gymnastics, and crazy harmonic progressions. And of course the freedom of improvisation like this would be a very cool feeling. But unlike his agonized-over studio compositions, there is a certain deconstruction at work in the music on these discs, usually meandering solos over static harmonies, (which is how he preferred to solo live, apart from the xenochronous ideas.) My favorite track isn’t a solo at all, but an improvised modal duet with him on bazouki and Jean-Luc Ponty on baritone violin.

So, I wind up with the tired old argument: technique vs. “musicality,” as if the two are mutually exclusive. To tell you the truth, I stopped being blown away by guitar soloing a long time ago. The me of my junior high years would have probably loved guitar playing served up on a silver platter like this. And it’s not like this is Yngwie Malmsteen neo-classical, “technique-for-it’s-own-sake”-type stuff that was just dying out during my junior high days. I don’t want to create that impression of this music. These sounds are utterly unique. “Challenging” would be a good word for this.

But this is not the FZ music that really thrilled and thrills my soul. (Probably not my “soul.” More like my “head.”)

posted by Mike @ 3:45 PM