Warning: I seriously geek out here.

It feels fairly odd, after reviewing mostly manga for 3 months, to review a 33-year-old concert tour. But hey, I’m a Zappa fanatic, and that’s the way we roll. I just finished listening to the available concert tapes for Frank’s Winter 1977 tour of Europe. It’s one of the least-discussed tours in the Zappa fandom, for many reasons. The setlists didn’t vary as much as the early 70s or 80s ones did. If you listen to five Winter 77 concerts, you’ll pretty much hear the same songs 5 times. There aren’t really any songs which can become anything-goes solo fests, either – the songs with solos have the same patterns. And with only five band members, including Frank, it’s one of his smallest touring band lineups.

The band was small, but each band member had his own personality. The rhythm section of Patrick O’Hearn (bass) and Terry Bozzio (drums) has never been bettered in a Zappa tour, in my opinion, and their backing is fantastic. They also provide amusing vocal interludes where they show off their humor. Ray White is on rhythm guitar and lead vocals, and seems far more comfortable in both than he did in the Fall 76 tour of North America. And Eddie Jobson, fresh out of Roxy Music, was wowing everyone with his amazing violin solos (he also played keyboards, but didn’t really solo there). And of course, the main reason to listen to any Zappa tour – Frank and his guitar.

Let’s break down your typical Winter 1977 setlist:

The Purple Lagoon – This tune appears on Zappa in New York, from 1977, as a full 16-minute version, with multiple solos. However, from 1976-1978, it also opened and closed the concerts, as a short instrumental piece. Likely this was to warm up the band with something ‘challenging’ right off the bat, and also remind folks that they were not here to merely see the band play Dinah-Moe Humm and then leave. It evolved, I suspect, out of a similar instrumental piece called “Approximate” Frank played from 1972-1974, and the ZINY album has snatches of Approximate played on top of the Purple Lagoon vamp. Frank would usually do a quick solo after the theme here, before introducing the band.

As a quick note, much of 1977 was spent with Frank arguing with Warner Brothers, his label, about the release of a 4-LP set called Lather (pronounced “Leather”) that he had put together. Lather contained live songs from the Xmas 1976 concerts, studio stuff from 1974, some orchestral music from 1975, and various odd snatches of noise. Warners refused to release it, and the songs ended up being divided up and released as 4 separate albums over the course of 3 years. These are Zappa in New York (the live Xmas stuff), Studio Tan and Sleep Dirt (the studio stuff), and Orchestra Favorites (the orchestral stuff). Lather went unreleased until 1996, when Rykodisc and the Zappa Family Trust released it as a triple-CD posthumously.

Peaches En Regalia – This is a song from 1969’s Hot Rats, and probably one of Frank’s best known songs. Performed as an instrumental, this was its first time as a ‘regular’ touring song since 1971, and Europe ate it up. The UK in particular loved it – Hot Rats was Frank’s best selling album there.

The Torture Never Stops – One of Frank’s best guitar-solo vehicles, this was played in tours from 1975-1978, then revived in 1980-81, and again in 1988. It appears on the 1976 album Zoot Allures, complete with background ‘female groan’ noises. The song itself was to a degree about the inhumanity of political prisoners, although I doubt Zappa ever considered it a political song. (Once, asked about what the song was about, he replied “It’s about torture never stopping.”) It’s also meant to show the fine edge between torture and titillation, and most of the 1976-1978 concerts featured Frank soloing behind a tape of a woman making groans and shrieks that were either pain or orgasm, take your pick. The lyrics actually are particularly evocative of the mood, painting the dungeon as a godawful place. Frank would take a long, mellow guitar solo after the first 3 verses, and the song on this tour usually averaged about 12-13 minutes total.

Big Leg Emma – This was initially released as a single in 1967, and was Frank’s attempt to get the Mothers of Invention on the radio by writing a stupid, easy teenage song. The song itself is a very ‘male’ rant about how upset he is that his girl has gained weight. It didn’t really get any radio play, as you can imagine, but is amusingly dumb. (Frank would frequently write songs from the POV of an idiotic male, and it can be hard to separate this from some of the genuine sexism that also pops up throughout his works.) It was released as a bonus on the CD release of 1967’s Absolutely Free. This version is much faster and brisker, and is an excellent contrast to the slow, methodical Torture Never Stops before it.

City of Tiny Lites – It’s hard to imagine a time when this wasn’t in Frank’s setlist, but I suppose it must have happened. This is one of his most played songs, appearing in every single tour from 1976-1988, his final one. Oddly, it originally was NOT a Frank guitar vehicle. In fact, this tour is an example of the original purpose of the song – to give a solo to rhythm guitarist Ray White, and allow him a non-vocal spotlight. Well, almost non-vocal – Ray’s solos usually featured him scat-singing along with his guitar work, giving the solo a very different feel from Frank’s. The piece, this tour, also contained a bass solo from Patrick O’Hearn, though he’s still feeling out the solo spot at this point, and would not give us the truly great stuff till the following two tours. Tiny Lites itself is obliquely about drugs, and what the world looks like to those who take them. It appears, sung by Ray’s replacement Adrian Belew, on 1979’s Sheik Yerbouti.

Pound for a Brown – Frank had two instrumental powerhouses that he played from the beginning of his career to the end. They could vary from mere guitar-solo vehicles to half-hour monsters with the entire band taking multiple solos. They could feature audience participation, or lectures from a band member, or spontaneous quotes from obscure surf music records. And they both appear on the same album, 1969’s Uncle Meat. King Kong isn’t on this tour, but Pound for a Brown is. This particular incarnation of it is fairly stripped down, containing only the head, a Frank guitar solo, and Terry Bozzio’s drum solo. Frank plays a good energetic solo, though, and Terry’s drum work always puts his solos a cut above the usual bashing. It still seems odd to hear it without all the keyboards – Eddie, playing keyboards this tour, was saving his solo spot for later on. Starting the following tour, however, Frank would gain two keyboardists, Peter Wolf (no, the other one), and Tommy Mars, who would transform this into a keyboard powerhouse.

Jones Crusher – This song didn’t hand around setlists long – it was only played from 1976-1978 – And the 1976-1977 version with Ray White on vocals was sort of a ‘proto-version’ – with weird choppy vocals and Ray using a different voice than he usually did. It’s interesting to hear, but I think that the version that was eventually put on Sheik Yerbouti in 1979 – with Adrian Belew on vocals – is better. It’s a typical song about a man who is afraid of a strong, sexually dynamic woman, claimant that she’s emasculating him – literally, in this case.

Unnamed Guitar Solo/Leather Goods – In the second half of this tour, Frank began to extend the ending to Jones Crusher, adding a 1-2 minute guitar tag. In the final week, the tag got longer and more adventurous, with Frank using his effect/delay pedal and providing some rocking fun. It reached its climax in the final show of the tour, February 17th in London, when Frank soloed for almost 7 minutes, ending with the band quoting Whole Lotta Love by Led Zeppelin. Frank used a portion of this solo in the “Duck Duck Goose” part of the Lather album – one of the few parts of the album that was not released in the 70s by Warners on another LP. Thus, it first appeared legally in 1996, with the Lather CD release. A bonus track of that same release was a longer, less edited version of the same solo, named “Leather Goods”.

My Guitar Wants To Kill Your Mama – A highly underrated song from 1970’s Weasels Ripped My Flesh, Frank played this sporadically through his touring career. At this point, it’s in a slow, bluesy version, emphasizing the faux menace in the lyrics, and with a blistering guitar interlude. The lyrics are the usual pop song “Our parents don’t approve” stuff.

Tryin’ To Grow A Chin – Another classic from Sheik Yerbouti, this was written in order to give Terry Bozzio a vocal spotlight – although really, Terry screams the lyrics rather than actually singing them. It’s a perfect song for Terry, and though it would be performed occasionally after he left the band, by Denny Walley and Scott Thunes, it was never quite the same. This is a very funny song about a teenager demanding that he grow up fast and grow hair, then bemoaning the fact that as an adult life still sucks, and screaming that he wants to die. The chorus is the bounciest, catchiest wish for death (or sex – again, they’re interchangeable here) you’ll ever hear, mostly as you know the POV is meant to be of a whining poser. Oddly, the singers always had trouble recalling the lyrics during live versions of this – Terry, Denny, and Scott always screwed up and earned Frank’s glare during shows.

Broken Hearts Are For Assholes – Probably in any fan’s top 5 for most offensive FZ songs, this was its debut tour. It was a tour staple from 1977-1978, then revived in 1980-1981. The main lyrics are supposedly about needing to lighten up and be less prude, both about sex and other things in life, but the actual content was a general trashing of gay men and women. The reason to listen to it (at last in the early tours) is that the bridge mocking men picking up other men at “The Grape” featured improvised snatches of verse by bassist Patrick O’Hearn, usually mocking the disco pick-up lines of the day, and frequently reducing the band to hysterics. A version of it from this tour can be heard on Lather, along with a version of Tryin’ to Grow a Chin. Sadly, it’s missing the other reason to listen to it this tour, which is that it quickly devolves into a parody of the Beach Boys song “Little Deuce Coupe”. Its actual chronological debut was on Sheik Yerbouti in 1979. I note that, with a chorus of “Ram it, ram it, ram it, ram it up your poop chute!”, this becomes one of the least likely Zappa songs to sing along with in public.

Dong Work For Yuda – This, although also juvenile, is one of the highlights of the entire tour. It also debuted here, and appears as an acapella close harmony masterpiece. The song has an amusing pedigree. Frank had a bodyguard, John Smothers, who stood by the stage and looked menacing from 1975-1984, and also had a tendency, when speaking, to utterly mangle the English language. Frank found John’s latest “quotes” hysterical, and wrote a song about the whole thing. It segued straight in from the Broken Hearts ‘Little Deuce Coupe’ ending, keeping the 60s harmony, though with lyrics like ‘He sucked on the end till the mustard squirt, he said “Y’all stand back cause ya might get hurt”‘, this isn’t exactly Beach Boys territory. In the outro chorus, the band sings “Sorry, John, sorry, better try it again” while Terry Bozzio, here playing John, says a few of his choice quotes. My favorite is “I jes’ loves the way them Copenhagens talks.” This would be reworked and given an instrumental backing and appear on the 1980 triple LP Joe’s Garage. I actually prefer this bare-bones version.

Manx Needs Women – This is a short, incredibly complicated piece of music that only lasts about a minute and a half. Frank enjoyed throwing these at his bands – Kung Fu from 1973 and Mo’s Vacation from 1978 are similar in feel. You can hear it on Zappa in New York.

Titties ‘n Beer – Ah, the classic story of a biker, his stacked biker babe, and a deal with the devil. This appears on Zappa in New York as well, and is just pure fun. Mocking everyone and everything, the song manages to avoid being blatantly sexist mostly by the girl telling Frank and the devil to go fuck themselves. The plot, in case you didn’t know, is that Frank and his girl are enjoying some beer and drugs in the great outdoors when the devil (played by Terry Bozzio, who did wear a devil’s mask and horns during shows) pops up and eats her, then offers her back if Frank will sell his soul. The live concerts then go into an improvised back-and-forth dialogue between Frank and the devil, and generally Frank proves to be the stronger improviser, running rings around the devil and demanding the devil take his soul. This version, in 1977, is still new and features the original 2nd verse (usually called the “Chrissie puked twice” verse) which was written for Bianca Odin to sing in the Fall 1976 tour. Frank sings it here.

Black Napkins – This was the big finale of the main set, and was a super-extended 16-20 minute version of this guitar solo piece, with long solos for both Frank on guitar and Eddie Jobson on electric violin. Eddie’s BN solos in 1976 and 1977 are much prized by collectors, and with good reasons – they’re fantastic. And more to the point, they inspired Frank to step up HIS game, as he was not about to let some 21-year-old English guy upstage him in one of his premier guitar solo vehicles. The original, culled from a Winter 1976 performance in Japan, is on Zoot Allures. So Frank would sometimes rock out, and sometimes get very quiet and contemplative – you can hear the latter on the Shut Up ‘N Play Yer Guitar album set, as Pink Napkins, and it’s from the final 2/17/77 London performance. Frank would perform this song consistently from the Fall of 1975 to the end of his touring days, but this may be the most epic tour of them all for Black Napkins.

Dinah-Moe Humm – The classic stupid sex song, probably the best known of all Zappa’s stupid sex songs, this was usually the first encore of the night. It can be heard on 1973’s Overnite Sensation album, in a menacing funk-rock version, but by now Frank had grown weary of the need to trot out the song constantly and played in it a brisk stadium-rock version, with much audience sing-along. The song itself is about a guy who’s bet $40 that he can’t make a girl come, and his ability to win the bet after indulging in Dinah’s penchant for voyeurism and spankings. As tasteless as it sounds, but money from the teen guys who’d come to concerts screaming “Dinah-Moe!” allowed Zappa to compose stuff like Sinister Footwear and other classical ballets.

Camarillo Brillo – The second of the ‘dumb song encore’ trilogy, and taken mostly at a very fast pace, this is also on Overnite Sensation. The song (which does pronounce Camarillo incorrectly, as you’d expect) is about sex. And ponchos. Starting in 1976, Frank would drag out the final verse and chorus at half-tempo, trying to give it a majestic feeling, and also making it much easier to segue directly into…

Muffin Man – Generally the last song of the night every tour, this was first heard as an instrumental in Spring 1975. Frank then overdubbed lyrics (which are about sex, but also almost completely irrelevant), and released it on 1975’s Bongo Fury album. Every concert after featured the lyrics, and a Frank guitar solo. These could be perfunctory and short on some tour, but this tour is a highlight for Muffin Man solos, featuring some extended scorchers. Especially in the final concert in London.

Overall, it’s not Frank’s best tour, lacking the setlist variety or a truly amazing solo spotlight. But Frank has some great guitar moments, and there are some well-played rarities. You could certainly do worse than a concert tape from this tour.