Frank Zappa: The Torture Never Stops

With all the sprucing up and revamping of past catalogs that is going on today, endless new glossy ways to watch and hear, one can only imaging the amount of re-mastering that the late great Frank Zappa would be doing on his vast history of releases.  The man was constantly tinkering with his music, refiguring it for new formats (CDs at the time) overdubbing; processing and pushing the limits of his technology which makes the new DVD release The Torture Never Stops so surprising in its simplicity.   

The meat and potatoes is a seamless representation of Zappa’s 1981 Halloween concert from the Palladium in NYC, pieces of which aired on MTV back in the day. ‘81 was a massive year for Zappa, he had a lot to write about with Ronald Reagan taking office and the flair of TV Evangelism.  Zappa increased his stinging lyrical output with 2 double albums, a mostly live Tinseltown Rebellion and a studio, You Are What You Is in the year.  Most of the songs performed on the DVD come from those releases; this is a very well preserved and represented era in Zappa’s career.  The dig at televised religion is captured especially beautifully here on the flowing suite of “The Meek Shall Inherit Nothing”>”Dumb All Over”>”Heavenly Bank Account”.

On The Torture Never Stops it is quite impressive seeing Zappa play maestro conducting his band then strapping on his axe and running through some ultra complex songs.  He is clearly the star in his ugly pink jumpsuit yet the musicianship of the supporters (like most of his ensembles) is staggering.  Ed Mann and Tommy Mars trade weird licks and runs while Bobby Martin sings the blues (“Bamboozled By Love”), plays piano and blows a sax.  Ray White’s voice acts as the backbone of some fun tracks and Stevie Vai has the leopard print and stunt guitar in full effect especially on this classic version of “Stevie’s Spanking”.  I don’t think the adolescent looking Chad Wackerman ever stops playing the drums for the full two hour show starting with the insane “Black Napkins”. 

The first song also contains the worst thing about this DVD though, the horrific seizure inducing editing that pops up time to time.  Thankfully for the bulk of the concert it is not there but when it arrives it makes the performance almost unwatchable. 

For those who don’t know Zappa this DVD would be a good introduction to his zany world, and surprisingly longtime fans will love it as well.  The sound is Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo and the visuals are crisp but far from HD.  The spectrum of playing is wide and glorious; from blues to country to instrumental fusion complexity in the span of five minutes, this is what Zappa brought to music and The Torture Never Stops remains a testament to the man and his band.    

     

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