History Music / BongoFury

* AmbiguousGender and {{Bishonen}}: "The Man With The Woman Head".

* LongTitle: "Sam With The Showing Scalp Flat Top", "Poofter's Froth Wyoming Plans Head".

* {{Corpsing}}: Zappa breaks into laughter during the intro of "Muffin Man".

* ItIsPronouncedTroPAY: Beefheart pronounces Lancashire Boulevard in "Debra Kadabra" as "Lankershim Boulevard".

For fans this was the [[FanService long anticipated collaboration between two giants of avantgarde rock]]. Expectations were high, maybe too high, because the album felt disappointing to most, despite some fan favorites like "Advance Romance" and "Muffin Man". Nevertheless this was reportedly the favorite Zappa album of [[OneOfUs Czech President Vaclav Havél]], who tried to name Zappa his Cultural Ambassador in 1990.

For fans this was the [[FanService long anticipated collaboration between two giants of avantgarde rock]]. Expectations were high, maybe too high, because the album felt disappointing to most, despite some fan favorites like "Advance Romance" and "Muffin Man". Nevertheless this was reportedly the favorite Zappa album of [[BigNameFan Czech President Vaclav Havél]], who tried to name Zappa his Cultural Ambassador in 1990.

'''Tracklist'''

'''Personnel'''

--> ''"Oh the ultimate worst is in a Mexican science fiction movie called "The Brainiac". It's one of the worst movies ever made and when the monster appears, not only is the monster cheap, he's got a rubber mask that you can see over the collar of the guy's jacket and rubber gloves that don't quite much up the sleeves of his sport coat. When the monster appears there's this trumpet lick that isn't scary. It's not even out of tune, it's just exactly the wrong thing to put there it doesn't scare you, that's the greatest example I can think of. Did you ever hear the song 'Debra Kadabra'? That's what that song is about and when you hear in the background "DA-DA-DA-DA-DAHHH", that's making fun of that stupid trumpet line that's in the movie but nobody's seen it over here so you can't appreciate the humour of the song. When he's saying "Make me grow Brainiac fingers" that's what he's referring to, because Vliet and I have both seen that movie and it's fucking stupid. Mexican monster movies are great, "The Aztec Mummy's Ghost" that's a good one too."'' The song also references Channel 13, the horror TV show "Jeepers' Creepers Theater" and Chuck Higgins' song "Pachuko Hop".

--> ''She wore a Milton Bradley crayon''

--> ''It was a Timex too.''

* MinisculeRocking: "Man with the Woman Head" isonly 1:28 long.

--> ''Is this something new having people stomp on you?''
--> ''Is this what I need to do for your pleasure?''
--> ''What is this, a quiz?''
--> ''Don't you worry what it is''
--> ''It is merely just a moment I can treasure''

--> ''Told her all he wanna do''
--> ''Was step up and say "Hi"''
--> ''Half an hour later''
--> ''She had frenched his fry''

** "Debra Kadabra" references "The Braniac", another monster movie reference in Zappa's work. The protagonist in the song adds some "Avon Cologna" (eau de cologne) to his face, which would be referenced again in "The Blue Light" from ''Tinseltown Rebellion'' (1981) as "Brut Cologne" and during several songs from ''Thing-Fish'' (1985). The "Pachuko Hop" is also referenced, which happened before in "Jelly Roll Gum Drop" from ''Music/CruisingWithRubenAndTheJets''.
** "Carolina Hard-Core Ecstasy" has the line: "there was dew out on the lawn/ in the sunrise", which brings up memories of "Uncle Remus" from ''Music/{{Apostrophe}}'' (1973) in which the little jockeys are also knocked over early in the morning "down in the dew". Zappa also had a song called "Down In The Dew", released later on "Läther" (1993). The song also mentions Carolina's shoes were "plastic leather, 14 Triple D", which references Zappa's conceptual continuity items plastic and leather again.

** A character named Potato Headed Bobby is introduced in "Advance Romance". He would later reappear in the song "San Ber'dino" from ''Music/OneSizeFitsAll'', "The Legend Of The Illinois Enema Bandit" in "Zappa In New York" and as a character in "Thing-Fish" (1985).
** Beefheart calls the 'Man With The Woman Head' "a mixture of Oriental and early vaudeville jazz poofter", which is a call back to "Poofter's Wroth Wyoming Plans Ahead".

* CapitalismIsBad: In "Poofter's Froth Wyoming Plans Head". Zappa attacks the marketing around the 200th birthday of the United States in 1976.

* RealLifeWritesThePlot:
** "Debra Kadabra" refers to Frank and Beefheart's teenage years when they would watch B-horror movies like "The Braniac" on Channel 13 where horror TV show host Bob Guy presented "Jeepers Creepers Theater".[[note]] Zappa wrote two singles for Guy in 1963, named "Dear Jeepers" and "Letter From Jeepers", where Guy read the lines as his character Jeepers. Jeepers was also mentioned as an influence in the liner notes of ''Music/FreakOut''[[/note]]. The line "Cover my entire body with Avon Cologna/ And drive me to some relative's house in East L.A. Just 'til my skin clears up." refers to a real incident. As Zappa told it:
--> ''"Don's mother, who sold Avon products door to door had all this stuff from Avon stashed at the house, which everybody used. Y'know, it was free beauty aids. Don, being neurotic, and a bit of a narcissist, was quite prone to dumping any kind of beauty aid that he could find onto his body. He made the unfortunate mistake of taking some Avon Cologne and putting it in his hair, one day, which made it start falling out. He also put some sort of Avon cream on his face which made him break out in this giant rash. [[BodyHorror His face looked like an alligator]]. He was losing [[Music/{{Absolutely Free}} a great deal of status at the high school]], and he moved out of our little desert community, Lancaster, where we went to school, and moved down to east L.A. to live with his aunt for a while (till) he got his chops back together.''" [[note]]. Quoted from an interview with Zappa in "Society Pages" No. 7, September 1991, quoted on page 221 of Mike Barnes, "Captain Beefheart", Quartet Books, Ltd., 2000. [[/note]]
** During an interview with Dutch journalist Co De Kloet, available on "The Supplement Tape" (1990) Zappa explained the origin of "Carolina Hard-Core Ecstasy"
--> ''"That was written actually for the girl who played the gong [[note]]:Lee Clement[[/note]] in (...) "Eat That Question" [[note]] A song from "The Grand Wazoo"[[/note]]. She used to work at the recording studio and she was from South Carolina. That was when I was in the wheelchair and I was working there on the "The Grand Wazoo" and "Waka/Jawaka" albums. And I needed to have a gong overdubbed. And the way we were working, I wasn't in a regular studio, it was in a mix room and in order to do an overdub, since we didn't have a studio facility was there we had to run a microphone into the toilet which had joined the mix room. So we had this girl in this little tiled toilet off to the side of this thing playing this gong. I think she never had so much fun in her life while just thrashing this gong near the fade-out of "Eat That Question". The song was based on stories she had told me."''
** "Poofter's Wroth Wyoming" was written with the then current 200th birthday of the United States in 1976 in mind.
** "Cucamonga" is a nostalgic song about Zappa's early recording studio in 1963, located in Cucamonga, California.

'''Bongo Fury''' is a 1975 live collaboration album by Music/FrankZappa, Zappa's band The Mothers of Invention and Music/CaptainBeefheart. The album was made when Beefheart's career was in the dumps. His former albums hadn't sold well and even an attempt to go commercial failed miserably, causing even Beefheart himself [[CreatorBacklash to disown himself from the material]]. On top of that he was in a position where he couldn't record or tour without causing contractual problems. So Zappa helped his old high school buddy out by taking him on tour. The result of their collaboration was the LiveAlbum ''Bongo Fury''.

'''Bongo Fury''' is a 1975 live collaboration album by Music/FrankZappa, Zappa's band The Mothers of Invention and Music/CaptainBeefheart. The album was made when Beefheart's career was in the dumps. His former albums hadn't sold well and even an attempt to go commercial failed miserably, causing even Beefheart himself [[CreatorBacklash to disown himself from the material]]. On top of that he was in a position where he couldn't record or tour without causing contractual problems. So Zappa helped his old high school buddy out by taking him on tour. The result of their collaboration was the LiveAlbum''Bongo Fury''.

* YourLittleDismissiveDiminutive: From "Poofter's Froth Wyoming Plans Ahead".

'''Bongo Fury''' is a 1975 live collaboration album by Music/FrankZappa, Zappa's band The Mothers of Invention and Music/CaptainBeefheart. The album was made when Beefheart's career was in the dumps. His former albums hadn't sold well and even an attempt to go commercial failed miserably, causing even Beefheart himself [[CreatorBacklash to disown himself from the material]]. On top of that he was in a position where he couldn't record or tour without causing contractual problems. So Zappa helped his old high school buddy out by taking him on tour. The result of their collaboration was the live album ''Bongo Fury''.

--------
!! Tracklist:
# "Debra Kadabra" - 3:54
# "Carolina Hard-Core Ecstasy" - 5:59
# "Sam with the Showing Scalp Flat Top" - 2:51
# "Poofter's Froth Wyoming Plans Ahead" - 3:03
# "200 Years Old" - 4:32
# "Cucamonga" - 2:24
# "Advance Romance" - 11:17
# "Man with the Woman Head" - 1:28
# "Muffin Man" - 5:33

* AllWomenAreLustful: "Carolina Hardcore Ecstasy" and "Advance Romance".

--> ''"When I was knee high to a grasshopper"''

* ProductPlacement: From "Carolina Hard-core Ecstasy": "She wore a Milton Bradley crayon" and from "Advance Romance": "It was a Timex too."

* TheRival: Zappa and Beefheart were childhood friends who both gained a reputation for making groundbreaking bizarre avantgarde music. It was Zappa himself who started off Beefheart's career by having him record his voice in his studio. Beefheart tried his own career, but by 1969 he felt disillusioned about the ExecutiveMeddling and lack of album sales. Zappa produced his next album ''Music/TroutMaskReplica'' and gave him total creative freedom, but the record hardly sold and Beefheart blamed Zappa for this. For years they remained bitter towards each other until Beefheart found himself broke and contractually unable to record anything. Zappa took him up for the Bongo Fury (1975) tour, until they once again had a fall-out. Only when Zappa fell terminally ill with cancer in the 1990s did the two friends reconcile.

* CrossOver: For many avantgarde rock lovers this collaboration was close to a wet dream.

* Robert "Frog" Camerena: vocals on "Debra Kadabra".

# "Carolina Hard-core Ecstasy" - 5:59

* AlbumTitleDrop: Occurs during "Sam With The Showing Flat Top".

--> ''Little doo-dads from the woods''

* UnintentionalPeriodPiece: During the intro of "Poofter's Froth Wyoming Plans Ahead" Zappa informs the audience that the song is about the "rapidly approaching 200th birthday of the United States", which happened in 1976.

For fans this was the [[FanService long anticipated collaboration between two giants of avantgarde rock]]. Expectations were high, maybe too high, because the album felt disappointing to most, despite some fan favorites like ''Advance Romance'' and ''Muffin Man''. Nevertheless this was reportedly the favorite Zappa album of [[BigNameFan Czech President Vaclav Havél]], who tried to name Zappa his Cultural Ambassador in 1990.

** "Debra Kadabra" refers to Frank and Beefheart's teenage years when they would watch B-horror movies like "The Braniac" on Channel 13 where horror TV show host Bob Guy presented "Jeepers Creepers Theater".[[note]] Zappa wrote two singles for Guy in 1963, named "Dear Jeepers" and "Letter From Jeepers", where Guy read the lines as his character Jeepers. Jeepers was also mentioned as an influence in the liner notes of ''Music/FreakOut''[[/note]]. The line "Cover my entire body with Avon Cologna/ And drive me to some relative's house in East L.A. Just 'til my skin clears up." refers to a real incident. As Zappa told it: ''"Don's mother, who sold Avon products door to door had all this stuff from Avon stashed at the house, which everybody used. Y'know, it was free beauty aids. Don, being neurotic, and a bit of a narcissist, was quite prone to dumping any kind of beauty aid that he could find onto his body. He made the unfortunate mistake of taking some Avon Cologne and putting it in his hair, one day, which made it start falling out. He also put some sort of Avon cream on his face which made him break out in this giant rash. [[BodyHorror His face looked like an alligator]]. He was losing [[Music/{{Absolutely Free}} a great deal of status at the high school]], and he moved out of our little desert community, Lancaster, where we went to school, and moved down to east L.A. to live with his aunt for a while (till) he got his chops back together.''" [[note]]. Quoted from an interview with Zappa in "Society Pages" No. 7, September 1991, quoted on page 221 of Mike Barnes, "Captain Beefheart", Quartet Books, Ltd., 2000. [[/note]]
** During an interview with Dutch journalist Co De Kloet, available on "The Supplement Tape" (1990) Zappa explained the origin of "Carolina Hard-Core Ecstasy": ''"That was written actually for the girl who played the gong [[note]]:Lee Clement[[/note]] in (...) "Eat That Question" [[note]] A song from "The Grand Wazoo"[[/note]]. She used to work at the recording studio and she was from South Carolina. That was when I was in the wheelchair and I was working there on the "The Grand Wazoo" and "Waka/Jawaka" albums. And I needed to have a gong overdubbed. And the way we were working, I wasn't in a regular studio, it was in a mix room and in order to do an overdub, since we didn't have a studio facility was there we had to run a microphone into the toilet which had joined the mix room. So we had this girl in this little tiled toilet off to the side of this thing playing this gong. I think she never had so much fun in her life while just thrashing this gong near the fade-out of "Eat That Question". The song was based on stories she had told me."''

** The line "make me grow Braniac fingers" in "Debra Kadabra" is a reference to the 1962 Mexican horror movie "El barón del terror", nicknamed "The Braniac" in the USA. Zappa even quotes the soundtrack music, as he explained in an interview: ''"Oh the ultimate worst is in a Mexican science fiction movie called "The Brainiac". It's one of the worst movies ever made and when the monster appears, not only is the monster cheap, he's got a rubber mask that you can see over the collar of the guy's jacket and rubber gloves that don't quite much up the sleeves of his sport coat. When the monster appears there's this trumpet lick that isn't scary. It's not even out of tune, it's just exactly the wrong thing to put there it doesn't scare you, that's the greatest example I can think of. Did you ever hear the song 'Debra Kadabra'? That's what that song is about and when you hear in the background "DA-DA-DA-DA-DAHHH", that's making fun of that stupid trumpet line that's in the movie but nobody's seen it over here so you can't appreciate the humour of the song. When he's saying "Make me grow Brainiac fingers" that's what he's referring to, because Vliet and I have both seen that movie and it's fucking stupid. [[SoBadItsGood Mexican monster movies are great]], "The Aztec Mummy's Ghost" that's a good one too."'' The song also references Channel 13, the horror TV show "Jeepers' Creepers Theater" and Chuck Higgins' song "Pachuko Hop".

** "Debra Kadabra" references "The Braniac", another monster movie reference in Zappa's work. The protagonist in the song adds some "Avon Cologna" (eau de cologne) to his face, which would be referenced again in "The Blue Light" from ''Tinseltown Rebellion'' (1981) as "Brut Cologne" and during several songs from ''Thing-Fish'' (1985). The "Pachuko Hop" is also referenced, which happened before in "Jelly Roll Gum Drop" from ''Music/CruisinWithRubenAndTheJets''.

** "Debra Kadabra" references "The Braniac", another monster movie reference in Zappa's work. The protagonist in the song adds some "Avon Cologna" (eau de cologne) to his face, which would be referenced again in "The Blue Light" from ''Tinseltown Rebellion'' (1981) as "Brut Cologne" and during several songs from ''Thing-Fish'' (1985).

For fans this was the [[FanService long anticipated collaboration between two giants of avantgarde rock]]. Expectations were high, maybe too high, because the album felt disappointing to most, despite some fan favorites like ''Advance Romance'' and ''Muffin Man''. Nevertheless this was reportedly the favorite Zappa album of [[BigNameFan Czech President Vaclav Havél]], who named Zappa his Cultural Ambassador in 1993.

'''Bongo Fury''' is a 1975 live collaboration album by Music/FrankZappa and Music/CaptainBeefheart. The album was made when Beefheart's career was in the dumps. His former albums hadn't sold well and even an attempt to go commercial failed miserably, causing even Beefheart himself [[CreatorBacklash to disown himself from the material]]. On top of that he was in a position where he couldn't record or tour without causing contractual problems. So Zappa helped his old high school buddy out by taking him on tour. The result of their collaboration was the live album ''Bongo Fury''.

* LifeImitatesArt: Zappa would later name his recording studio "The Utility Muffin Research Kitchen", after the song.

** "Debra Kadabra" refers to Frank and Beefheart's teenage years when they would watch B-horror movies like "The Braniac" on Channel 13 where horror TV show host Bob Guy presented "Jeepers Creepers Theater".[[note]] Zappa wrote two singles for Guy in 1963, named "Dear Jeepers" and "Letter From Jeepers", where Guy read the lines as his character Jeepers. Jeepers was also mentioned as an influence in the liner notes of ''Music/FreakOut''[[/note]]. The line "Cover my entire body with Avon Cologna/ And drive me to some relative's house in East L.A. Just 'til my skin clears up." refers to a real incident. As Zappa told it: "Don's mother, who sold Avon products door to door had all this stuff from Avon stashed at the house, which everybody used. Y'know, it was free beauty aids. Don, being neurotic, and a bit of a narcissist, was quite prone to dumping any kind of beauty aid that he could find onto his body. He made the unfortunate mistake of taking some Avon Cologne and putting it in his hair, one day, which made it start falling out. He also put some sort of Avon cream on his face which made him break out in this giant rash. His face looked like an alligator. He was losing [[Music/{{Absolutely Free}} a great deal of status at the high school]], and he moved out of our little desert community, Lancaster, where we went to school, and moved down to east L.A. to live with his aunt for a while (till) he got his chops back together." [[note]]. Quoted from an interview with Zappa in "Society Pages" No. 7, September 1991, quoted on page 221 of Mike Barnes, "Captain Beefheart", Quartet Books, Ltd., 2000. [[/note]]

** Beefheart calls the 'Man With The Woman Head' "a mixture of Oriental and early vaudeville jazz poofter", which is a callback to "Poofter's Wroth Wyoming Plans Ahead".
** "Muffin Man" refers to a man working in the utility muffin research kitchen making green rosetta's, which was referenced again during "A Little Green Rosetta" on ''Music/JoesGarage''. The chrome spoon and an untensil refers to ''chrome'' which has been part of Zappa's previous conceptual continuity.

--> ''I wish I had a pair 'o bongos! Bongo Fury!''