Released: 1972
Tracks: Billy the Mountain; Call Any Vegetable; Eddie, Are You Kidding?; Magdalena; Dog Breath
Best track: Billy the Mountain
Track to skip: Magdalena can be skipped on occasion
Every time I listen to Billy the Mountain, my head nearly explodes from the immense creativity of the thing. Someone composed this? How? I’m just dumbfounded at the audacity of Zappa to compose this song. Of course there are like 100 individual melodies that are excellent, the singing is great, the music is great, but it still after so many listens makes me just
laugh! There are hundreds of L.A. references contained it in, but it’s still possible to laugh even if you’ve never lived in California. Billy the Mountain is an EXCELLENT song. It’s immense. And, the moral of the whole thing is possibly the best part. Listen to it on your own and hear for yourself.
As for the other 4 tracks (side 2 of the vinyl), it’s mostly more good stuff. The version of Call Any Vegetable rocks and is possibly better than the original (from Absolutely Free). Of course, as this was Zappa’s “vaudeville” band, you’ll pretty much laugh all the way through this whole thing. The only thing that isn’t quite right is Magdalena. The music itself is funny (and good) and there are some amusing lines in it, but the subject matter is still way too creepy. I’m willing to bet most people would skip it; I frequently do. Not because it’s a bad song, but the subject matter is one of the very few cases where I feel that Zappa went too far (technically Mark Volman wrote the words).
Besides the minor weirdness of Magdalena, this is a very good album. Like most stuff the ‘71/’72 band did, this album is hilarious. This edition of the Mothers was just overflowing with Conceptual Continuity and I love it. JABFLA makes a great companion to Fillmore East and (besides Magdalena) the humor here is much less ‘offensive’ than the Fillmore album. Give it a try.
Rating: 93
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