Frank Zappa - Uncle Meat [Video]

Although it took some 20 years to finalize (due, in part, to financial constraints), Frank Zappa eventually edited hundreds of hours of footage into the 100-minute Uncle Meat [video] (1987). Rather than premiering the movie with a customary cinematic run in theaters, he offered the finished product to home video consumers via his Barfko-Swill merchandising department. As anyone familiar with Zappa's work might expect, although the film is about the Mothers Of Invention (Moi), it is in no way a traditional documentary. That said, one of the primary elements is the October 25, 1968 concert at Royal Festival Hall in London -- the audio portion of which can be found on the highly recommended Ahead Of Their Time (1993) release. The staged antics were a precursor to themes that would reappear in 200 Motels (1971), essentially Zappa's observations that most of the Moi had quit at least once in order to seek fame, fortune and groupies -- all the while not realizing that it was Zappa -- rather than the Moi members -- who was actually the visionary pulling the strings. There is also a sub-plot dealing with Don Preston (keyboards) in the role of Uncle Meat -- a moniker that was originally cast upon Ezra Mohawk -- during her short-lived tenure as a Mother. In the Royal Festival show, Preston's character morphs into a monster on-stage A passing comment to Zappa by the project's editor Phyllis Altenhaus that she was sexually aroused when Preston made his transformation, sets up an entirely different plot involving hamburgers in the shower, using a rubber chicken as a ruler and other seeming non sequiturs. Keen-eyed viewers should look out for cameos from the Moi, Linda Rondstadt, Rodney Bingenheimer, award-winning cinematographer Haskell Wexler and a young and extremely attractive Meredith Monk, the renowned visual artist. The two-CD soundtrack contains most of the dialogue and music from the film. Performances of note include The "Uncle Meat Variations," in the opening sequence, vintage Moi home movies augmenting "Dog Breath, In the Year of the Plague," "Mr. Green Genes," "Holiday in Berlin Full-Blown," "Mother People," and of course the infamous "Tengo Na Minchia Tanta" which is a co-composition by Zappa and a sleazy Italian journalist named Massimo Bassoli. ~ Lindsay Planer, All Music Guide