To this day I have no idea what \”Uncle Meat\” actually means. I remember being very upset in my pre-Zappa obsession days about this title, associating the juxtaposition of two dissimilar words as \”random\” humor (I went to high school in the early \’00s where using the \”purple monkey cheese\”-type string of unrelated words as a \”joke\”, or something, was a huge hit among pasty anime nerds, Invader Zim fans, and other like individuals in the bottomless basket of deplorables). I\’m not as upset with the name anymore, because I don\’t hold grudges like that fucker Daniel from 4th Grade that I\’m still mad at (who was shorter than me at the time, by the way), because I later realized it might just be a deliberate nonsense word combination, meant to be \”ugly on the ears\”, signifying nothing. Nevertheless, \”Uncle Meat\” as an inscrutable phrase shan\’t preclude one from the enjoyment of Uncle Meat as an album of musical notes and words. Don\’t be a petulant Grade-A Dingus.

The first double album since the debut Freak Out!, this was an ambitious project designed to coincide with an even more ambitious Uncle Meat film project. The movie never got finished, but in 1987 some documentary footage was released. I don\’t really want to dwell on the movie aspects of the Uncle Meat concept because the CD reissue contains 45 minutes of movie documentary excerpts that are just about the most frustratingly inessential Zappa material in existence (included as three tracks shoved onto Disc 2 before the King Kong suite). I don\’t remember much of it as it\’s been about 12 years and I only listened to these tracks once, but the only thing I do remember is a woman (groupie?) describing her encounters with the Mothers of Invention, sexual and otherwise. The dialogue is circuitous, uninteresting, and dumb. \”Interminable\” is too nice of a word to describe the listening experience. One phrase from the excerpts has been burned in my brain, though: \”he used a chicken to measure it\”. I\’m sure you could crack the code of what this phrase refers to out of context, but they never explicitly explain what this means in context or why it was repeated (*does a quick check*) 34 goddamn times throughout the 45 minute duration. Therefore, I\’m making an executive decision in this review to not consider this shit for my final subjective rating. This stuff wasn\’t included in the original Uncle Meat album, I see no reason to bring an album down a bunch of points because of some bonus tracks tacked on 20 years later. The album is too good to let this ruin it.

SO LET\’S MOVE ON. The ugly-ass cover art collage does a good job of preparing you for what to expect. Uncle Meat is a veritable smorgasbord of musical ideas, a nice hodge-podge of exquisite harmonious musings, a real humble jumble of elegant smatterings and (*checks thesaurus*) odic (*squints*) contemplations? It begins with 22 relatively short tracks, zipping and pinging past, stuffed to brim with all manner of style: free jazz, classical, acoustic jamming, electric jamming, percussion soloing, doo-wop, non-free jazz, avant-garde, rock, blues, spoken word. This is followed by a 7-part 18-minute free-form jazz fusion excursion known as \”King Kong\”, which was a huge concert staple at the time that didn\’t see much light in the official discography\’s future releases until the posthumous albums and bootlegs were issued. It all comes together in a nice, meaty package. HA!

So what to make of this avuncular meat? Worth noting, this album marks a large departure from past efforts. Except for Lumpy Gravy, which is stylistically similar, the rest of the catalog up to this point focuses on social commentary undercut with bluesy or catchy pop-sensible melodies. Now, there are barely any tracks that actually have lyrics or spoken word elements, and the social commentary is nearly entirely absent (I say \”nearly\”, because who knows if something is meant to be commentary or not. The dude wrote another song about vegetables). A lot of the music is also more technically challenging and experimental, with Zappa playing around a lot more with sampling and tape manipulation. Allegedly, and funnily enough, this conscious shift in musical vision lost a lot of fans at the time in 1969, even though the essence of Uncle Meat itself pretty much represents the archetypal Zappa sound that people think of when they think of Zappa\’s music. Liberal use of crazy polyrhythms, odd time signatures, pockets of frenetic staccato passages that are over and out within a measure or two, plinky mallet percussion, squealing saxophone, all present on Uncle Meat in spades. The only element missing is the more-than-occasional sprawling guitar jam, which still hasn\’t wormed its way into regular familiarity yet by this point Zappa\’s discography. Save it for Hot Rats.

With many varying styles comes the possibility of jarring lack of cohesion, but there\’s nothing here that\’s so off-the-wall that it sticks out like a sore thumb. Which is odd, because you\’d think a fanciful flute-y orchestral \”Legend of the Golden Arches\” followed by a rough recording of Zappa introducing Don Preston playing Louie Louie on the Albert Hall Pipe Organ followed by an assertive orchestral \”Dog Breath Variations\” followed by the soft-rock lullaby \”Sleeping in a Jar\” (\”The jar is under the bed!\”) followed by a clip of good ol\’ Suzy Creamcheese (first appearance on Freak Out!) talking followed by another plinky instrumental \”The Uncle Meat Variations\”, and so on, would suck! But it doesn\’t! Everything melds together nicely like a warm Carl Weathers stew. And everything is so short that, hey, even if you don\’t like it that much it\’s not sticking around for too long. WITH THREE EXCEPTIONS, and you\’re a petulant Grade-A Dingus if you don\’t like any of this stuff either:

• \”Nine Types of Industrial Pollution\” is a 6-minute pretty little acoustic guitar jam that definitely doesn\’t overstay its welcome, especially since the track is actually sped up from a normal-speed 10-minute recording (OH WAIT, THERE IS A GUITAR SOLO ON THIS RECORD. Scratch out what I said at the end of that one paragraph up there, this album does have everything!).
• \”Ian Underwood Whips It Out (Live On Stage in Copenhagen)\” begins with a narrative from Underwood himself describing his initial interest in the Mothers and first contact with Frank, then jumps to 4+ minute total saxophone freak out that\’s delicious on the ears!
• \”King Kong\”, ya turkey. I\’ve already mentioned this.