Frank Zappa "One Shot Deal"

A couple years ago, I acquired a complete discography of Frank Zappa's works and some bootleg concert recordings. For those unaware, this turned out to be roughly 10 gigs of music. Then, in 2008, they apparently found 9 more songs that had never been released from across Frank Zappa's career. They put it in a box, called it "One Shot Deal" and promptly began selling it for $16.

The thing about this CD that differentiates it from all of the Zappa albums that are not compilations is the fact that most Zappa albums tell some sort of story or have a common style. This one contains songs from throughout his career. As an album alone, it is terrible because there is little to no cohesion between the songs.

Browsing through the songs, my eye was immediately caught by track 8 - Australian Yellow Snow. This excited me because there is a song on his album "Apostrophe (')" called Don't Eat the Yellow Snow which I enjoy a large amount. Except the Australian version is 10 minutes longer. The cause for the extra 10 minutes turns out to be a delightful guitar solo in the middle.

As for the rest of the album, I was a little less than impressed. All the other songs except for track 7 were completely instrumental. Not that this is a bad thing, but the thing that makes Zappa different from other experimental jam bands is the pagentry that goes on during the songs and the themes carried through the album.

In terms of rating this album, it is easily one of the worst Zappa albums. But, this still make it better than the majority of music being played on radios and produced. If you are a big fan of Zappa and are looking for something you have not heard by him, this album falls in that category. For those unsure and curious about Zappa, this album is not for you. I'd recommend Strictly Commercial for you. Then, if you are still curious, give it a shot.

6.5/10

Stand Out Tracks: "Australian Yellow Snow"

W. Gieser

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This album came to my attention through the esteemed Mr. Gieser (above). While I like the album as a record of the late great Zappa, there are really only a couple of songs that i would put on my iPod (those will come later). It is interesting that the people who put this album together, presumably his family, included a song that illustrates a musical technique that Zappa himself INVENTED called "xenochrony".

This technique requires a studio due to the process involved: a specific musical lead (say, a guitar solo) is extracted from one song and placed entirely out of context into a completely different song. Like musical chairs, but with music instead of people.

the problem with its placement in this album, is that it has no place; all of the cuts are live, so it sounds like he cant play, which could be a testament to his memorizational skills, if he were playing live. This is ironic given that the placement is out of context, the name of the technique means out of context, everything is out of context, which sounds like Dweezil's sense of humor to me rather than Frank's.

Either way, this is a good record of Zappa's live performances of rare songs, some never even having been recorded in a studio, however it doesnt quite do justice to his discography or the way he changed throughout his career. Like the guy above said, if you buy Strictly Commercial and like it, then try this one out.

5.5/10

Stand Out Tracks: "Bathtub Man", "The Illinois Enema Bandit", "Australian Yellow Snow"

Total Rating: 6/10

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