Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Zappa, Frank - Alan Niester

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ALAN NIESTER

Roxy & Elsewhere is about as close to a traditional musical form as the Mothers are ever likely to come. There's bound to be lots of strangeness—long, spoken raps (preambles), Zappa's own weird form of humor, post-acid fairy tale lyrics and a lot of just plain wasted vinyl—on any double album from the Mothers. But in between there is actually lots of solid and inventive jazz-rock.

Alan Niester, "Records: 'Roxy & Elsewhere'," in Rolling Stone (by Straight Arrow Publishers, Inc. © 1975; all rights reserved; reprinted by permission), Issue 177, January 2, 1975, p. 68.

Zappa for the life of him can't seem to get the turkey shit out of his head. And the latest live double album Roxy & Elsewhere … strongly indicates that the mother of invention is not about to clean house. Take the orchestral suite consisting of Village of the Sun, Echidna's Arf (of You) and...

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1. Introduction
2. Bertram Stanleigh
3. Harvey Pekar
4. Robert A. Rosenstone
5. Ellen Sander
6. David G. Walley
7. Lester Bangs
8. Alan Heineman
9. Bill Reed
10. Lester Bangs
11. Lester Bangs
12. Jay Cocks
13. Dan Morgenstern
14. David Reitman
15. Mike Bourne
16. David Walley
17. Arthur Schmidt
18. Peter Kountz
19. Alan Niester
20. Eric Salzman
21. JOHN SWENSON and BART TESTA
22. Lester Bangs
23. Robert Duncan
24. Andy Doherty
25. Tim Schneckloth
26. David Fricke
27. Peter Reilly
28. Jon Pareles
29. Karl Dallas
30. Shel Kagan
31. Cole Springer
32. Tom Carson
33. Jon Pareles
34. Don Shewey
35. Larry Birnbaum
36. Paul Tickell
37. Copyright