Joe's Garage

Joe's Garage: Acts I, II & III
Studio album by Frank Zappa
Released	September/November 1979
Recorded	March — June 1979 at Village Recorders "B", LA
Genre	Comedy rock, progressive rock
Length	1:55:14
Label	Zappa
Producer	Frank Zappa
Frank Zappa chronology
Orchestral Favorites (1979) Joe's Garage (1979) You Are What You Is (1981)
Joe's Garage Acts II & III
Album cover.

Joe's Garage is a 1979 rock opera by Frank Zappa. Zappa stated that along with Lumpy Gravy, this album was one of his proudest achievements. It was originally released as two separate albums, the first comprising Act I, and the second part as a double-album which made up Acts II & III. All three acts were later issued together as a box set, and on compact disc as a double-CD. These two albums are particularly noteworthy for their use of Zappa's xenochrony technique, in which guitar solos from older, completely unrelated recordings were extracted and overdubbed onto new songs.

The albums feature Ike Willis as the voice of "Joe", a stereotypical garage band youth who unwittingly journeys through the miasma of the music business. As well as various other characters, Zappa provides the voice of the "Central Scrutinizer"—a mechanical voice that narrates the story and haunts Joe's psyche with McCarthyistic 50s-era discouragement and "scrutiny." In his liner notes Zappa also states that the story was inspired by the 1979 Iranian Revolution, which outlawed public musical expression. The story incorporates humorous examinations of various topics, such as groupie migration, sexual repression imposed by the Catholic Church, Scientology, fetishism, struggling musicians and the censorship of music.

Story

Act I

The opera begins with the Central Scrutinizer's introduction. He is described as being some kind of disc-shaped machine positioned on spindly legs and small wheels with a wind sock and an exhaust tube that belches dark green smoke on top, wheeled around on a chain by a mysterious business man eating a sandwich on the roof of nearby buildings. He goes on to explain that his job is to enforce laws which will be passed in the forthcoming illegalization of music. The Scrutinizer offers a "special presentation to show what can happen to you if you choose a career in music," introducing the opera's protagonist, Joe.

Joe, from Canoga Park, Los Angeles used to be a "nice boy" and cut his neighbors' grass. When he discovered rock music, he would spend all his time playing loud music in his garage, where the neighbors would often call the cops on him. His garage band plays a successful gig at a "go-go bar" and is approached by a guy "from a company we can't name" who offers them a contract. However, the deal is not what it seems, and the band breaks up. As the years progress, Joe watches the various popular styles of music flitter by, and he feels that the time "had come for that old song we used to play in Joe's Garage". During one such practice, Joe is arrested when Mrs. Borg, his neighbor, calls the police on him. A "friendly counselor" at the police department gives him a donut and tells Joe he should "stick closer to church-oriented social activities."

Joe finds a new girlfriend named Mary, with whom he would "hold hands and think pure thoughts." However, Mary, a Roman Catholic girl, abandons Joe in order to get a pass to see a band called "Toad-O" with whom she goes on the road—having sex with the band's roadies. Eventually, they abandon her in Miami when she is too tired to do their laundry on a regular basis. Mary enters a wet t-shirt contest, fronted by her old pastor, to try to make enough money to get back home. She wins the competition, and Warren, Joe's old bandmate, witnesses the events and writes to Joe about her exploits. Joe becomes depressed, falls in with a fast crowd, and has sex with a girl who works at the Jack-In-The-Box named Lucille, who gives him an "unpronounceable disease", although he believes that it came from a toilet seat.

Act II

Joe turns to religion for help, and "pays a lot of money" to "L. Ron Hoover" at the First Church of Appliantology (a parody of The Church of Scientology). There, Hoover identifies Joe as a "latent appliance fetishist". When Joe asks if he should "come out of the closet" he is instead instructed to "go into the closet" to achieve "sexual gratification through the use of machines". In the next song, we learn "The Closet" is the name of a club where humans can copulate with appliances. Some of the appliances are particularly aroused by men who dress as a housewife and speak German, so Joe learns to speak German. Joe locates a machine he likes, named Sy Borg, a "cross between an industrial vacuum cleaner and a chrome piggy bank with marital aids all over it". They return to Sy's apartment where Joe and Sy have a "groovy orgy" with Sy's roommate, a "modified Gay Bob doll."

Joe ends up destroying Sy (described by the Central Scrutinizer as an "XQJ-37 Nuclear-Powered Pansexual Roto-Plooker") with a golden shower. Joe, who gave all of his money to the Church of Appliantology and is thus unable to pay for the damage, is thrown into a special prison. The prison is painted all green on the inside and filled with criminals from the music business. While in jail, Joe is repeatedly gang raped ("plooked") by former musicians and record executives when they're not snorting lines of detergent. This gang is led by a shockingly endowed former promotional agent of a major record company, known as "Bald-Headed John: King of the Plookers". During his incarceration, Joe decides to be "sullen and withdrawn", to "dwindle off into the twilight realm" of his "own secret thoughts" and spend his time in prison dreaming up guitar notes that would irritate an "executive kinda guy". He then dreams up guitar leads and solos all throughout the years of his imprisonment (an incident rumored to have been inspired by how Zappa spent his own jail imprisonment in 1965)

Act III

Many years later, Joe is released from prison and enters a world "completely epoxied over." In this new world, music has become illegal, and people live out their lives in a sort of banal indifference. However, Joe is still hooked on music and needs a fix despite the fact that there are no musicians anymore. He begins to lose his sanity, and starts imagining all the guitar notes he cannot play while imaginary journalists document his thoughts. Throughout his bout with madness, he begins to hear Mary's voice in his head giving him a cryptic anecdote: "Information is not knowledge. Knowledge is not wisdom. Wisdom is not truth. Truth is not beauty. Beauty is not love. Love is not music. Music is the best!" Eventually, he comes to terms with the fact that music is gone and heads back to his "ugly little room" and quietly dreams his last imaginary guitar solo. Afterwards, Joe gets a good job at the Utility Muffin Research Kitchen, frosting muffins and is a...HAPPY guy now. The Central Scrutinizer then goes on to say that if Joe's story wasn't enough to convince the listener that music was evil, he decides to sing the last song in his regular voice. He then shuts off his contraption and reveals that his real voice is that of Zappa.

The last song "A Little Green Rosetta" lampoons the status of Steve Gadd as one of the highest paid session drummers in popular music. Zappa jokingly claims to hire "Steve Gadd's clone" at three times union scale to play the out chorus on the song. Unlike Gadd's style, the drums sound almost completely at odds with the song itself. The actual drummer on the song is Vinnie Colaiuta. His performance is completely off the "click track" (which Zappa at one point also mixes into the recording). Eventually, the song starts to completely fall apart and the story ends.

Cast

• Central Scrutinizer, Larry, L. Ron Hoover, Father Riley & Buddy Jones – Frank Zappa
• Joe – Ike Willis
• Mary – Dale Bozzio
• Mrs. Borg – Denny Walley
• Officer Butzis – Al Malkin
• Sy Borg – Warren Cuccurullo & Ed Mann
• Bald-Headed John – Terry Bozzio
• The Utility Muffin Research Kitchen Chorus – Al Malkin, Warren Cucurullo, Dale Bozzio, Geordie Hormel, Barbara Issak & most of the people who work at Village Recorders (circa 1979).

Production

Much of the album derives from studio recordings made from April to June 1979 and other live recordings from that year which were mixed and edited using Zappa's xenochrony technique, in which elements from older, completely unrelated recordings were extracted and overdubbed onto new songs. The song "Toad-O-Line" is a guitar solo from the song "Inca Roads" recorded in Germany on March 21. A longer version of this recording appears on the album One Shot Deal, under the title "Occam's Razor". The "Keep It Greasey" solo derived from a March 31 performance of the song "City Of Tiny Lites", while "Outside Now" was partially recorded in Switzerland on April 1, and mixed with elements of the March 31 "City Of Tiny Lites" solo. The original version of the March 31 solo appeared on Guitar as "Outside Now (Original Solo)". "Packard Goose" combines two guitar solos, one from an April 1 performance of "Easy Meat" recorded in Switzerland, and the other an opening solo from the March 27th German show.

Release history

The album was originally released separately, with Act I issued as a single vinyl record in September 1979, followed by the double album Acts II & III in November. In 1987, the complete album compiling Acts I, II & III was first issued as a whole by EMI, followed by a 1995 reissue by Rykodisc. However, the 1995 cassette release of the album followed the original release formatting, with Rykodisc stating that retailers would not stock double cassette albums. In 2002, the album was distributed in its original release format on CD in Japan, packaged in "mini-LP" artwork that replicated the original Act I and Acts II & III vinyl artwork.

Reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic (Acts I, II & III)
Allmusic (Act I)
Allmusic (Acts II & III)
Rolling Stone	(favorable)

Reviewing the album for Rolling Stone, Don Shewey wrote, "If the surface of this opera is cluttered with cheap gags and musical mishmash, its soul is located in profound existential sorrow. The guitar solos that Zappa plays in Joe's imagination burn with a desolate, devastating beauty. Flaws and all, Joe's Garage is Frank Zappa's Apocalypse Now."

The collected Acts I, II & III release received 4.5 out of 5 stars from Allmusic's Steve Huey. Another writer for the website, William Ruhlmann, gave 3 out of 5 stars for the individual releases Act I and Acts II & III.

Legacy

"Stick It Out (Streck aus deinem.. )", (combined with Zappa's "What's The Ugliest Part of Your Body") has been covered by German punk rock group Die Ärzte.

The album was first produced as a play by students at The University of Michigan in 1999.

On September 26, 2008, it was premiered as a stage play at the Open Fist Theatre in Los Angeles, CA. The production featured a live band, choreography, video projection, and performances that told the story, song-by-song, from beginning to end. This adaptation marked the first time The Zappa Family Trust released the rights to Frank Zappa's music on such a scale. The play performed for fourteen sold out weeks.

Track listing

All songs written and composed by Frank Zappa . 

Act I
No.	Title	Length
1.	"The Central Scrutinizer"	3:28
2.	"Joe's Garage"	6:10
3.	"Catholic Girls"	4:26
4.	"Crew Slut"	6:31
5.	"Fembot In A Wet T-Shirt"	4:45
6.	"On the Bus"	4:19
7.	"Why Does It Hurt When I Pee?"	2:36
8.	"Lucille Has Messed My Mind Up"	1:34
9.	"Scrutinizer Postlude"
Total length:		33:49

Act II
No.	Title	Length
1.	"A Token of My Extreme"	5:30
2.	"Stick It Out"	4:34
3.	"Sy Borg"	8:56
4.	"Dong Work for Yuda"	5:03
5.	"Keep It Greasey"	8:22
6.	"Outside Now"	5:50
Total length:		38:15

Act III
No.	Title	Length
1.	"He Used to Cut the Grass"	8:35
2.	"Packard Goose"	11:34
3.	"Watermelon in Easter Hay"	9:09
4.	"A Little Green Rosetta"	8:15
Total length:		37:33

Personnel

Musicians

• Frank Zappa – Vocals, guitar
• Warren Cuccurullo – Rhythm Guitar, Vocals, Choir, Chorus, Organ, Guitar
• Denny Walley – Vocals, Slide Guitar, Guitar
• Craig Twister Steward – Harmonica
• Jeff – Sax (Tenor)
• Marginal Chagrin – Sax (Baritone)
• Patrick O'Hearn – Wind, Bass
• Peter Wolf – Keyboards
• Stumuk – Sax (Baritone), Sax (Bass)
• Tommy Mars – Keyboards
• Vinnie Colaiuta – Drums, Percussion
• Arthur Barrow – Vocals, Bass
• Ed Mann – Vocals, Percussion
• Dale Bozzio – Vocals
• Al Malkin – Vocals
• Ike Willis – Vocals
• Barbara Isaak – Choir, Chorus, Assistant
• Geordie Hormel – Choir, Chorus
• Terry Bozzio – Guest Vocals

Production staff

• Ferenc Dobronyi – Cover Design
• Steve Alsberg – Project Coordinator
• Joe Chiccarelli – Engineer, Mixing, Recording
• Norman Seeff – Photography, Cover Photo
• John Williams – Artwork
• Steve Nye – Remixing
• Mick Glossop – Remixing
• Stan Ricker – Mastering
• Jack Hunt – Mastering
• Thomas Nordegg – Assistant
• Tom Cummings – Assistant

Charts

Album - Billboard (North America)

Joe's Garage Act I

Year	Chart	Position
1979	Pop Albums	27

Joe's Garage Acts II & III

Year	Chart	Position
1979	Pop Albums	53

See also

• U 47, the U-47 microphone cited in songs "Crew Slut" and "Sy Borg"
• Dystopia
• Scientology
• Mechanophilia
• Catholic Youth Organization
• Xenochrony

External links

• Behind the Scenes -- Exclusive look at Frank Zappa's World Premiere Rock Opera - L.A. Splash