Frank Zappa: Over-Nite Sensation

Frank Zappa: Over-Nite Sensation

Rock tempos and mind-melting guitar solos rub shoulders with down-and-dirty lyrics on a 50-year-old album now remastered on 180g vinyl, says Steve Sutherland

There are a lot of the explanation why musicians take umbrage with their work being hosted on streaming platforms. Some bridle in opposition to the scant renumeration forthcoming. Others have taken an ethical stance, unwilling to be thought-about bedfellows with artists or podcasters who they deem to be politically undesirable. And then there are those that contemplate the very nature of streaming itself to be artistically damaging.

Killer Or Filler?
A superb instance of the latter occurred simply over a decade in the past when Pink Floyd took the EMI Group to the High Court to cease the corporate promoting the band’s tracks individually, ‘unbundled’ from their unique album setting with out permission. The Court discovered within the Floyd’s favour, ruling that the integrity of albums equivalent to The Dark Side Of The Moon, Wish You Were Here and The Wall was value preserving, and that the working orders of the tracks had been purposely chosen to create a creative entire to be loved in a sure order.

Fair sufficient. But what in regards to the different facet of the coin? Before digital allowed us to pattern earlier than we dedicated to purchase, we shelled out for LPs which we too usually found to be 80% filler and solely 20% killer. In reality, off hand I can solely suppose of some albums which are high notch from begin to end. Love’s Forever Changes, Neil Young & Crazy Horse’s Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, The Human League’s Dare, Lana Del Rey’s Norman F**king Rockwell, and… properly, that is just about it.

Then there have been the dreaded few that, when it got here proper right down to it, might solely truly boast one correctly respectable monitor. Which brings us, neatly and solely a mite inaccurately, to Over-Nite Sensation, Frank Zappa’s twelfth LP to be launched underneath the moniker of his Mothers (Of Invention). It got here out in 1973 on his new DiscReet label and the critics weren’t sort. Most rued the shortage of what they thought-about ‘critical stuff’ and Rolling Stone even went as far as to name our maestro a ‘spent pressure’. Unfortunately, for as soon as, the hacks had been nigh-on spot-on.

The album passes muster musically however lyrically Over-Nite Sensation is absolute yuck. To lower Frank a bit slack, you possibly can say he had not too long ago been via the mill. He’d simply made a self-indulgent film – 200 Motels – which obtained the pasting it so hard-earned after which took his band on tour via Europe the place, on the 4th of December 1971, he misplaced a ton of kit when somebody within the viewers on the Casino De Montreux fired a flare which set the venue on fireplace and burned it to the bottom – an occasion immortalised by the Deep Purple’ tune, ‘Smoke On The Water’.

Down But Not Out

Frank’s mob took per week off to get well, then reconvened on the Rainbow Theatre in London the place, throughout the encore, an viewers member jealous of his girlfriend’s infatuation with our hero pushed him off the stage. Frank hit the concrete-floored orchestra pit, struggling head trauma and accidents to his again, leg, and neck. Wheelchair-bound for a lot of months, he laid off his band and licked his wounds.

After this run of dangerous luck, a lesser or extra superstitious mortal would certainly have surmised that the fates had it in for him. Yet the prolific musician quickly returned to the fray, albeit considerably modified, artistically talking.

Turner Tantrum

On Over-Nite Sensation, the quasi-classical items that graced Hot Rats, and the sharp satire that skewered the hippie zeitgeist on We’re Only In It For The Money, had been gone. In their place got here a extra easy rock presentation and a few puerile material. But first the main points…

The album was recorded at Bolic Sound in Inglewood, California, a brand-new studio advanced constructed from the bottom up in an outdated furnishings retailer by Ike Turner. While it was undoubtedly state-of-the-art with its pair of 16-track quadraphonic studio rooms, it was additionally, as they used to say, a den of inequity. Turner, who was on a weird-and-wired planet all of his personal, had an orgy room, two-way mirrors and closed-circuit TV on the premises, and laid on bowls of cocaine for the premise’s opening evening. It was hardly the kind of institution that you simply’d anticipate finding Frank – a strict anti-drugs authoritarian.

One consequence of Frank utilizing Bolic is that he employed Tina Turner and The Ikettes as his backing singers to really novel impact, rushing them up, slowing them down, the works. Ike is claimed to have wandered in sooner or later to listen to The Ikettes’ contribution. He stopped in his tracks, requested, ‘What is that this sh**?’, and promptly turned on his heel. He later insisted Tina and co shouldn’t be credited on the LP.

Dirt Farmer

What is that this sh**? Good query. The album begins with ‘Camarillio Brillo’, a rough tune about getting it on with a tarot-wielding new-ager. Next is ‘I’m The Slime’, a limp exposition on the debilitating psychological impact of vegging out in entrance of the TV. ‘Dirty Love’ is simply plain gross, however not as gross as ‘Dinah-Moe Humm’, whereby filthy Frank takes on a wager from a feminist that he cannot fulfill her in mattress. It’s not good and it isn’t intelligent, however in hindsight may very well be thought-about a template for a few of Tyler The Creator or Eminem’s crasser works.

Anyway, here is the rub: whether or not Frank is draining the swamp and scraping the barrel to intentionally bait the critics or not, it is nasty. This is a crying disgrace as a result of a few of these tracks embrace a number of the most incendiary guitar solos conceivable – actual one-off, of the second, on-fire inspirational stuff. The one in ‘I’m The Slime’ is so superb you possibly can scarcely consider anybody of their proper thoughts would fade it out. It’s not as beautiful, although, because the solo on the LP’s one saving grace, ‘Montana’, which is proof optimistic that silliness and genius needn’t be mutually unique. A tune about somebody who plans to maneuver to Montana and lift dental floss, it encompasses a pygmy pony, a ridiculously uplifting cowboy yippee-aye-oh-kay-yay finale, and the guitar solo to finish all guitar solos, audaciously ferocious past perception.

If solely anything on the album had come wherever close to shut, you possibly can most likely have known as it a traditional.

Re-Release Verdict

Released to mark the fiftieth anniversary of Over-Nite Sensation, this double LP [Zappa Records ZR20044] encompasses a new 45rpm remastering, by Chris Bellman at Bernie Grundman, based mostly on the unique ¼in analogue tape. The seven tracks are break up over two 180g black vinyl platters, and a 24in poster of Dave McMacken’s cowl artwork is included. Also obtainable is a ‘Deluxe Edition’ field set that includes 4 CDs and a Blu-ray Audio disc with quadraphonic and Dolby Atmos mixes. HFN

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March 15, 2024 at 11:48PM