Joe's Garage
Joe's Garage is a three-part rock opera released by American musician Frank Zappa in September and November 1979. Originally released as two separate albums on Zappa Records, the project was later remastered and reissued as a triple album box set, Joe's Garage Acts I, II & III, in 1987. The story is told by a character identified as the "Central Scrutinizer" narrating the story of Joe, an average adolescent male, from Canoga Park, Los Angeles, who forms a garage rock band, has unsatisfying relationships with women, gives all of his money to a government-assisted and insincere religion, explores sexual activities with appliances, and is imprisoned. After being released from prison into a dystopian society in which music itself has been criminalized, he lapses into insanity.
The album encompasses a large spectrum of musical styles, while its lyrics often feature satirical or humorous commentary on American society and politics. It addresses themes of individualism, free will, censorship, the music industry and human sexuality, while criticizing government and religion, and satirizing Catholicism and Scientology. Joe's Garage is noted for its use of xenochrony, a recording technique that takes musical material and overdubs them onto different, unrelated material. All solos on the album are xenochronous except for "Crew Slut" and "Watermelon in Easter Hay", a signature song that Zappa described as the best song on the album, and according to his son Dweezil, the best guitar solo his father ever played.
Joe’s Garage initially received mixed to positive reviews, with critics praising its innovative and original music, but criticizing the scatological, sexual and profane nature of the lyrics. Since its original release, the album has been reappraised as one of Zappa's best works.
Background
After being released from his contractual obligations with Warner Bros. Records, Frank Zappa formed Zappa Records, a label distributed at that time by Phonogram Inc. He released the successful double album Sheik Yerbouti, and began working on a series of songs for a follow-up album. The songs "Joe's Garage" and "Catholic Girls" were recorded with the intention that Zappa would release each as a single. Throughout the development of Joe's Garage, Zappa's band recorded lengthy jams which Zappa later formed into the album. The album also continued the development of xenochrony, a technique Zappa also featured on One Size Fits All, in which aspects of older live recordings were utilized to create new compositions by overdubbing them onto studio recordings, or alternatively, selecting a previously recorded solo and allowing drummer Vinnie Colaiuta to improvise a new drum performance, interacting with the previously recorded piece.Midway through recording the new album, Zappa decided that the songs connected coherently and wrote a story, changing the new album into a rock opera. Joe's Garage was the final album Zappa recorded at a commercial studio. Zappa's own studio, the Utility Muffin Research Kitchen, built as an addition to Zappa's home, and completed in late 1979, was used to record and mix all of his subsequent releases.
Style and influences
Lyrical and story themes
The lyrical themes of Joe's Garage involve individualism, sexuality, and the danger of large government. The album is narrated by a government employee identifying himself as The Central Scrutinizer, who delivers a cautionary tale about Joe, a typical adolescent male who forms a band as the government prepares to criminalize music. The Central Scrutinizer explains that music leads to a "slippery slope" of drug use, disease, unusual sexual practices, prison, and eventually, insanity. According to Scott Schinder and Andy Schwartz, Zappa's narrative of censorship reflected the censorship of music during the Iranian Revolution of 1979, where rock music was made illegal.The title track is noted as having an autobiographical aspect, as the character of Larry sings that the band plays the same song repeatedly because "it sounded good to me". In real life, Zappa said he wrote and played music for himself, his sole intended audience. The song also takes lyrical inspiration from bands playing in bars like The Mothers of Invention once had, and shady record deals Zappa had experienced in the past. In "Joe's Garage", Joe finds that the music industry is "not everything it is cracked up to be". The song refers to a number of music fads, including new wave, heavy metal, disco and glitter rock, and is critical of the music industry of the late 1970s.
"Catholic Girls" is critical of the Catholic Church, and satirizes "the hypocrisy of the myth of the good Catholic girl." While Zappa was in favor of the sexual revolution, he regarded himself as a pioneer in publicly discussing honesty about sexual intercourse, stating
"American sexual attitudes are controlled as a necessary tool of business and government in order to perpetuate themselves. Unless people begin to see through that, to see past it to what sex is really all about, they're always going to have the same neurotic attitudes. It's very neatly packaged. It all works hand-in-hand with the churches and political leaders at the point where elections are coming up."This view inspired the lyrical content of "Crew Slut", in which Mary, Joe's girlfriend, falls into the groupie lifestyle, going on to participate in a wet T-shirt contest in the following track, "Fembot in a Wet T-Shirt".
"Why Does It Hurt When I Pee?" was written in the summer of 1978. Zappa's road manager, Phil Kaufman, alleged, that the song was written after Kaufman had asked that very question; within the context of the album's storyline, it is sung by Joe after he receives a sexually transmitted disease from Lucille, "a girl, who works at the Jack in the Box". The Central Scrutinizer continues to express the hypothesis that "girls, music, disease, heartbreak all go together." Halfway through the album's libretto, Zappa expressed the belief that governments believe that people are inherently criminals, and continue to invent laws, which gives states the legal grounds to arrest people, leading to the fictional criminalization of music which occurs towards the end of the album's storyline.
"A Token of My Extreme" satirizes Scientology and L. Ron Hubbard, as well as new age beliefs and the sexual revolution. It describes an insincere religion, which co-operates with a "malevolent totalitarian regime." "Stick It Out" contains lyrical references to Zappa's songs "What Kind Of Girl", "Bwana Dik", "Sofa No. 2", and "Dancin' Fool". "Dong Work For Yuda" was written as a tribute to Zappa's bodyguard, John Smothers, and features Terry Bozzio imitating Smothers' dialect and speech. "Keep It Greasy" is a lyrical tribute to anal sex. Following Joe's imprisonment and release, the libretto describes a dystopian future, accompanied musically by long guitar solos, which Joe imagines in his head. The penultimate song, "Packard Goose", criticizes rock journalism, and features a philosophical monolog delivered by an apparition of the character Mary, who had been absent since the first act. In the epilogue song "A Little Green Rosetta," Joe gives up music, returns to sanity, hocks his imaginary guitar and gets "a good job" at the Utility Muffin Research Kitchen Facility. The Central Scrutinizer sings the last song on the album in his "regular voice", and joins in a long musical number with most of the other people that worked with Zappa around 1979.
Plot
Act I
At the beginning of the album, we are introduced to "The Central Scrutinizer", the album's narrator, who brings us a "special presentation" on music's bad influences on man. We are introduced to Joe, the main character in the presentation. Joe used to be the lead singer in a garage band, which eventually broke up. Joe continues playing his music until a neighbor calls the police, who tell Joe to "stick closer to church-oriented social activities." Joe starts going to the Catholic Youth Organization at the Catholic Church, held by Father Riley, and falls in love with a girl named Mary.One day, Mary skips the church club and goes to the Armory. She becomes a groupie for a band called Toad-O. Eventually, Mary, unable to keep up with the band's laundry, is dumped in Miami. With no money to get home, she signs up for the local Wet T-Shirt Contest at the Brasserie, hosted by Father Riley . Mary wins first place in the contest and wins fifty bucks, enough money to go home. However, Warren, a former member of Joe's Garage Band, finds out about Mary's "naughty exploits" and sends a letter to Joe telling him about it. Joe, heartbroken, "falls in with a fast crowd" and gets seduced by Lucille, a girl who works at the Jack in the Box, and has sex with her, only to catch gonorrhea. Discouraged, he sings about Lucille and his feelings for her.
Act II
Joe is in "a quandary, being devoured by the swirling cesspool of his own steaming desires" and seeks redemption; he decides to "pay a lot of money" to the First Church of Appliantology, owned by L. Ron Hoover, an amount of fifty bucks. He learns from Hoover that he is a "Latent Appliance Fetishist", learns German, dresses like a housewife and goes to a club called the "Closet", filled with sexual appliances. Joe meets Sy Borg, a "Model XQJ-37 Nuclear Powered Pansexual Roto-Plooker", who looks like a "Cross between an Industrial Vacuum Cleaner and a Chrome-Plated Piggy Bank with marital aids stuck all over it", and falls in love with him. They go back to Sy's apartment and have sex, only for Joe to accidentally kill him when a "golden shower" causes his master circuit to short out.Having given all his money to Hoover, Joe cannot pay to fix Sy and is arrested and sent to a special prison filled with people arrested due to music, who spend all day "snorting detergent and plooking each other". At the prison, he meets Bald-Headed John, "King of the Plookers". Joe is eventually "plooked" by the executives at the prison. Having "a long time to go before paid debt to society", he decides to be "sullen and withdrawn" and sits around dreaming up imaginary guitar notes, until he is released from prison.