Freak Out!

The phrase or expression “Freak Out!” has been around for some time now but this was how I discovered it, on the handsome sleeve of The Mothers of Invention debut studio album. Although not aware of it at the time I must have been drifting in some kind of alternative universe. Released in June 1966, I was at school in Manchester learning hymns like ‘Jerusalem’; Frank Zappa, cast on the cover here in glorious infra-red, and The Mothers were in LA, flying the flag of an alternative culture going by the name of freakdom. The term hippie was also around but that tended to refer the more blissed out flower power acts further up the Californian coast in San Francisco.

Freak Out! the album (Verve) is surprisingly of its time, a cache of melodic love songs although each with something of a twist. Guitarist and songwriter Zappa wastes no time introducing himself as pop’s great satirist, the opening ‘Hungry Freaks’, Daddy taking the rise out of “Mr America of the great society” whose life is dedicated to supermarkets and “the liquor store supreme.”

Then follow a series of love songs which actually turn out to be the exact opposite, hate songs, if you will, boasting titles like ‘I Aint’ Got No Heart’ – “Why should I get stuck with you / It’s not the thing I want to do” – and ‘Go Cry On Somebody Else’s Shoulder’.  There is much in the way of harmonious doo wops delivered with a dose of tongue-in-cheekiness although many of the tunes stand up in their amusing own right.  ‘You Didn’t Try To Call Me’ and ‘You’re Probably Wondering Why I’m Here’ revolve around great melodies… but there’s more to come.

Around halfway through this one-hour set, based on the original American double-vinyl LP, we see shades of The Mothers’ and Zappa’s future outings: sonic mayhem and what could almost be pretty ditties suddenly going off-piste. ‘Trouble Every Day’ showcases Frank’s soon identifiable guitar solos although let’s also hear it for lead singer Ray Collins and the Jim Black/ Roy Estrada rhythm section.

They are all off the leash and rocking out on ‘Help I’m A Rock’ and ‘The Return Of The Son Of The Monster Magnet’ which more than hint at the freeform jazz styling and stream-of-consciousness lyrics on the near horizon. Between this album and his early death from prostate cancer Frank went on to make in excess of 60 albums in 27 years, a feat unequalled in the history of pop, rock, orchestral jazz or any other genre, come to think of it.

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