Released: 1970
Tracks: Transylvania Boogie; Road Ladies; Twenty Small Cigars; The Nancy and Mary Music; Tell Me You Love Me; Would You Go All the Way?; Chunga’s Revenge; The Clap; Rudy Wants to Buy Yez a Drink; Sharleena
Best track: Twenty Small Cigars, Chunga’s or Rudy
Track to skip: The Clap
This album is kinda strange. It sounds like a bunch of unrelated songs just put together. 5 of the 10 have Flo and Eddie on vocals (not counting Nancy & Mary since they play a small role) and the rest are instrumental. I think the thing that throws the album off is The Clap, which is a small, but horribly useless and badly played percussion instrumental. Zappa did all the percussion on this one and it’s really bad. I know it’s only 1:23 long, but it really does disturb the flow of the album…not that it’s a perfectly flowing album to begin with.
Some of the songs sound like leftovers from the Hot Rats sessions (I think they are) and the rest point in the direction of the Flo and Eddie material. I guess this album is just kinda caught in between the old Mothers of Invention stuff (Burnt Weenie Sandwich & Weasels Ripped My Flesh) and the forthcoming Flo and Eddie stuff (as in, 200 Motels, Fillmore East, Just Another Band).
For the most part Zappa’s guitar playing has even advanced since Hot Rats (the last studio album before this one) a year earlier, and he picked up some musicians who could blow the pants off the old band…specifically Aynsley Dunbar and George Duke; Ian Underwood stayed with Zappa until ’73. Flo and Eddie (the singers) sound great on this and aren’t in the least bit annoying. The vocal songs they all do are great, esp. Rudy which is really, really funny. Except for The Clap, this is a pretty good album with Cigars being the best of the instrumental tracks. The only problem is that The Clap brings it down a bit. It’s essential for some of the tracks, but it’s still a transitional album.
Rating: 83
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