8. The Mothers Of InventionUncle Meat
That’s a very influential album for me. I like the previous ones and I sort of like the two that came after, then I totally stopped. It happens when you follow an artist as they’re recording, you’re taken into it and then either you drift off or they drift off.
I don’t think you’re not alone in having that feeling about Zappa, that you could go so far but no further.
Well I have it with almost everything I listen to. I mean one thing that happened with Zappa is that he started playing with better musicians, technically better, but not as good musically for me because it was a bit slicker – you know studio, fusion musicians so it lost something. Because on this album what I love is the combination of rock beats, pretty simple, banging, and complex structures on top, stuff that he found inspiration for in Stravinsky, Varèse, and he really taught himself to write stuff like that. It’s quite an achievement and he managed to do it in a really fresh way. As it happens many records that came out in ‘69 are important to me, but is it because I was 19, or is it because it was a turning point when lots of things happened.
