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24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Twisted, blistering sonic poetry, July 26, 1998
This review is from: Bongo Fury (Audio CD)
This live Zappa album, featuring the added talents of avant-garde/psychedelic jazz/beat poet guru Captain Beefheart, is indescribably excellent. Zappa's band lay a lush bluesy backdrop to his and the Captain's abstract lyricism, and the performances as a whole are absolutely gorgeous. "Carolina Hardcore Ecstasy" will sweep you off your feet, while one of my faves "Poofter Froth Wyoming Plans Ahead" will have you in fits of laughter and amazement over the ingenious rhyming and intonation of the Captain. This joint effort is a mammoth merging of Zappa's raging musical hormones with Beefhearts outerworldly illogic, culminating in THE perfect encore - "Muffin Man", which has to be heard to believed. Who else but Zappa would stop in the middle of a song's prologue, claiming to have gotten a phrase wrong, and try it again, with the results sounding as professional as ever? This is the kind of offbeat stuff that makes die-hard Zappa maniac-pe! rsons like myself treasure the antics contained within Bongo Fury ever more. Highly recommended.
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16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Maybe the best of both . . ., November 10, 2005
This review is from: Bongo Fury (Audio CD)
I bought this recording back when "Bongo Fury" was first released. I eventually wore out the vinyl. Then I bought a cassette version, which I also wore out before the mid-90s. The CD should last longer. Zappa and Beefheart seem to bring out the best in each other. The performance captured here is better than anything I've heard from Zappa (except for maybe " Freak Out!" and " Shut Up 'n Play Yer Guitar"). And it's up there with the best of Beefheart's records, though I admit to being a big fan of the Captain's later work such as " Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller)" and " Ice Cream for Crow." Although this live performance was a sort of "celebration" of America's bicentennial, it still holds up...things really haven't changed all that much. This is great in-your-face stuff. There are no losers on this CD, with "Sam With The Showing Scalp Flat Top" and "Poofter's Froth Wyoming Plans Ahead" being my favorites. Get it and see what all the excitement is about!
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18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"... so THIS was a drive-in restaurant in Hollywood, so ..", April 20, 2001
This review is from: Bongo Fury (Audio CD)
Due to a dispute between Beefheart's label (Virgin) and Zappa's, this album was never released in the UK as an LP, so we had to buy it as an expensive import. Fortunately Zappa cleared up the problem when he bought the rights to all his recordings in preparation for CD re-mastering. It is a strangely operatic masterpiece -- the horns, the poetic ramblings by Beefheart, the multiple taunting voices and the narrative structure of live songs such as 'Debra Kadabra' and 'Caroline Hard-core Ecstasy' give the album the qualities of a modern-day opera. Much of Zappa's own comments are directed at the prevailing commercialism of the time -- for the forthcoming 1976 bicentennial celebrations -- which would seem trivial today. On the first few listens, the stand-out track, musically, is the 'Muffin Man', a straightforward rock tune with a great solo. But flip back a couple of tracks and you soon discover that the brilliancy on the album is 'Advance Romance', where another of Zappa's discoveries, Denny Whalley, provides a fantastic slide guitar solo. I've enjoyed this more than any other Zappa album in the 25 years I've known it, although I might be persuaded to admit that 'Hot Rats' is the greater masterpiece.
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