Chunga's Revenge
Chunga’s Revenge
Well my Zappathon took a derailing the last couple weeks. I’ve actualy
not been listening to much Zappa except what shuffles up. Chunga’s
Revenge is the beginning of the “Flo & Eddie” years in which Frank
had the very distinctive frontmen Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan of The
Turtles playing with him, doing “comdedy music”. This lineup is later
featured to great effect in “Live at the Fillmore East, 1971”. What Flo
& Eddie brought was a look at the current time’s music. Gone are the
doo-wop ditties. Compared to other incarnations of FZ’s band, this is
the closest it ever comes to “… & Frank Zappa” rather than the usual
“Frank Zappa & …” He’s still finding his way, combining many
different kinds of music. Sometimes it seems like he’s making us listen
to all of his different facets. It’s not til much later that he begins
to subdivide styles by album, and even so, he’s nearly always recycling
his old live guitar solos. My favorite song on this album is “Road
Ladies”, which is basically Standard Blues Song #1 with lyrics
complaining about being in a band and being on the road. Zappa’s lyrics
took a definite turn towards the racy on this album. Still hetrosexual:
he hasn’t started making gay jokes just yet. But it is only
1970: there’s a whole decade to go. I never had this one before. It’s
got some good stuff, and I’m glad that I listened to it. Of course, it’s
been almost 2 weeks since the last episode of this series, and i’ve had
my apetite whetted on some other things to come..