The Mothers of Invention - Uncle Meat

[JKL2000]

I've never heard this album, but sort of surprisingly Pound for a Brown (On the Bus) came on Sirius XM Deep Tracks the other day and I liked it, so now I'm interested in this album. But I'm a little worried about the 40 minutes of audio from the film that was ADDED to the album in 1982 I think, and interlaced in with the other tracks. Does this ruin the album at all? A lot of reviews seem to say give it a chance. Was it Zappa who added the material to the album? What a strange thing to do.

[Mister Triscuits]

It doesn't "ruin" the album if you don't listen to it. Which I heartily recommend not doing. Yes, it was Zappa himself who added the crap, as a way of promoting the video release of the Uncle Meat movie. The added tracks consist of endless, repetitive dialog from the movie, plus one annoying, out-of-place song that dates from the '80s.

The "penalty tracks" are easily avoided, as they all appear on the second disc. Just listen to all of the first disc and "King Kong" from the second. That's the original album. The only problem is that the soundtrack garbage segues into "King Kong," so the very opening of the track is slightly spoiled. That's just a momentary glitch, though.

[Phlakaton]

Give the film stuff a go once - has some good bits here and there - but I've only ever listened to it once through since 1990 or so. The rest is always a great listen for me.

[JJ88]

Some of their best stuff on this IMHO- 'King Kong' alone makes this essential, but 'Six Types Of Industrial Pollution', the two 'Dog Breath' tracks and 'Mr Green Genes' are also classic. I never bothered with any of the last remasters, so I don't know if they also include the 'penalty tracks'. I didn't even listen to those once.

[Dave (in MA)]

The "penalty tracks" are easily avoided

That's affz terminology; were/are you a participant?

[Mister Triscuits]

I never bothered with any of the last remasters, so I don't know if they also include the 'penalty tracks'.

Yes, all CD editions include them.

[Udi Koomran]

Don't worry get the album its a milestone

[Digital_Man]

It's very good. One of the first true prog albums that is a bit in the jazzy direction though maybe not as "fusiony" as Hot Rats. I only listened to the second disc once also and plan on doing again at least one more time. I also recommend "hot rats" and possibly "Burnt weeny sandwich" (which I only heard once). All three were recorded in 67-69 and all were pioneering prog fusion/fusion albums imo.

[Blah_Blah_Woof_Woof]

I love the period that includes Uncle Meat, Burnt Weeny Sandwich and Hot Rats- It's some of my favorite stuff. Of course, you can't beat the first three Mothers albums- They're classic. I was lucky to see the Grand Wazoo and Waka Jawaka material done live- That's definitely worth having. I have more Zappa albums than most other artists- He really was a genius.

[GuitarGeek]

The thing that really stinks is if you cut out the penalty tracks, the entire album fits on one CD. Maybe that wasn't true back in 87, but nowadays, I don't see why they can't just 86 the BS, since just about no one actually likes them. That's why they're called "penalty tracks", because you're basically paying extra just for a bunch of stupid stuff.

The other thing I don't like about the album is that King Kong is indexed as something like six different tracks. Yeah, I know the original album had it listed as such (probably for publishing reasons, as we know other bands, including the Grateful Dead, King Crimson, and I think also Yes and Genesis, gave all those ridiculous "movement" titles to their long tracks for that reason). And I suppose if you're listening to the CD in the privacy of your own home, it ain't that much of a big deal.

But if you're trying to play the track on, let's if you're pretending to be a third rate Wolfman Jack and choose to play the track on a low rent podcast, it's a crap shoot to get the entire thing to play smoothly when it's indexed that way. You could load the individual tracks into Audacity and merge them together, but that can potentially introduce other aggravations (I've had trouble getting some merges to work without a "pop" where the original track transition occurred).

As for the segue, I think it's possible to eliminate, again using Audacity. As I recall, when you queue up King Kong Itself (or however the first "movement" is identified on the album), you get about a half a second of noise from the previous track, then King Kong begins. I believe you might be able to edit out that bit of noise without interfering with the original King Kong track.

At any rate, this is a classic album, and should be owned by everyone. High quantity of great instrumental music, with virtually no sophomoric, snooty "social commentary".

[Lieto]

IMO, the best album of the original mothers, and a full-blown masterpiece. A top 10 FZ album for me. IT really gives full scope of everything the mother's did, and the production is astounding, especially since it was 1969. There's a section that sounds like trumpets in Dog Breath (I think), but its actually something like 40 clarinets with effects. Such awesome detail! Frank is the best. I do skip the Uncle Meat excepts, but I love Tengo Ma Mincha Tanta, even though its really the 82 band. Uncle MEat Variations might be the best composition ever

[zombywoof]

Well, instead of blabbering on about how much I love this album, I'll shamelessly self promote:

http://zombywoofblog.wordpress.com/2...e-meat-review/

[Hobo Chang Ba]

Give the film stuff a go once - has some good bits here and there - but I've only ever listened to it once through since 1990 or so. The rest is always a great listen for me.

Agree.

Though, I do kinda like the first part. (It helps that it's only like 4 minutes as opposed to the 30min of the second part. At that length it acts almost as a little interlude before the end...but very easily skippable if all I want is the music.)

[polmico]

My favorite Zappa album.

[profusion]

One of the most important Zappa albums, in my opinion.

Like almost everyone else, I hate the "penalty tracks" that Frank tacked onto the CD version.

My understanding of why they're still on the most recent CD edition is this:

Frank's catalog was finally reissued because the rights to the masters reverted to the Zappa family a couple years ago. Where Frank's original CD versions didn't deviate significantly from the old LPs, the original LP masters were used to remaster the albums rather than Frank's 1980s digital masters with all the added reverb etc. However, in most of the cases where Frank added or revised a lot of material for release on CD, the family used the '80s digital masters for the reissues of those albums. The thinking was that these revisions represented Frank's final thoughts on the albums and "the way he really wanted them to be."

There are exceptions: Freak Out, We're Only In It For the Money, Lumpy Gravy and Cruising With Ruben And The Jets were released using the same crappy digital '80s masters as before, because the Zappa family had already released special boxed-set versions of those that contained the original LP mixes/masters (and I assume want to keep selling them). For whatever reason, Weasels Ripped My Flesh reverted to the old LP master, even though Frank revised at least one of the pieces to add a couple minutes to it. Frank had completely remixed Hot Rats for CD release (sounds way different) and significantly extended one of the pieces, however the new CD version reverts to the LP mix. The two Hot Rats feel like completely different albums.

Since Frank added all that crap to the end of Uncle Meat, I guess the family didn't want to revert to the LP master that could fit on a single CD. Apparently, there is an Uncle Meat boxed set coming that will have the LP mix/master plus a whole bunch more stuff. It will undoubtedly be a worthwhile purchase.

[FrippWire]

Uncle Meat is an absolute must in the Zappa canon. Like others have recommended, skip the "bonus material" and stick with the original album tracks. You will enjoy it immensely. You will also hear the bits that went on to influence many other bands adored by PE'ers.

[unclemeat]

Apparently, there is an Uncle Meat boxed set coming that will have the LP mix/master plus a whole bunch more stuff.

The original mix has recently been re-released on LP.
http://www.amazon.com/Uncle-Meat-Fra...rds=uncle+meat

[flytomars]

I made myself a single CD version, and its my favorite FZ album...
Anyway, as a punishment for not having this essential album up till now, I think you should listen to the penalty tracks for 5 times in a row

[walt]

Great music.

[Auslander]

Fantastic album - one of the best.

[Steve F.]

"This was the album that introduced me to 'funny music' and literally changed my life and is why I am at the computer writing descriptions of music to you and releasing records by other 'funny music' artists over 40 years later. I distinctly remember being handed this album by a trusted friend in 10th grade with the admonition to be sure to listen to this album this evening, which I duly did without enthusiasm...until the 1st notes came out. Immediately, it was like a door opened up to a technicolor-filled world (cue that scene in The Wizard of Oz, especially apropos considering the sped-up munchkin vocals that are all over this album), and I also distinctly remembering the feeling that this was the music I had waited my entire (15 year old) life to hear, but didn't know actually existed. I didn't go a day for at least 4 years without listening to at least one side of this double lp set. The sophistication of the music, performances and studio techniques were an absolutely amazing accomplishment for an album that was recorded in fall 1967/winter 1968. Now you can buy it in great sound with little reproductions of the original booklet, as well as an added 45' of the worst garbage you would ever hope to *not* have to hear, taken from the film soundtrack of the same name and which no one can possibly stand to listen to more than once. Uncle Steve says, play all of CD 1 and then JUST the King Kong part of CD 2, which gives you the music of the original album minus the garbage, and hopefully your life will change as well."

[Udi Koomran]

Listen to Uncle Steve

[JJ88]

I've never understood how this album got a release on Transatlantic Records in the UK, it's the only Frank Zappa album that ever did. Not only that, almost every other release on the label at that time was folk related, Pentangle and its members for instance had all their releases on there.

[Reid]

IMO, the best album of the original mothers, and a full-blown masterpiece. A top 10 FZ album for me. IT really gives full scope of everything the mother's did, and the production is astounding, especially since it was 1969. There's a section that sounds like trumpets in Dog Breath (I think), but its actually something like 40 clarinets with effects. Such awesome detail! Frank is the best. I do skip the Uncle Meat excepts, but I love Tengo Ma Mincha Tanta, even though its really the 82 band. Uncle MEat Variations might be the best composition ever

I couldn't have said it better! But I don't love ...Tanta. But FZ did have a fascination with nose pickers, and other annoying types.

[profusion]

I've never understood how this album got a release on Transatlantic Records in the UK, it's the only Frank Zappa album that ever did. Not only that, almost every other release on the label at that time was folk related, Pentangle and its members for instance had all their releases on there.

In the US, I believe Uncle Meat was the first album released on Frank's Bizarre Records label, which was a Warner Bros. imprint. Perhaps he hadn't secured a proper deal for Bizarre in the UK.