Joe’s Garage: A Token of His Extreme

by John Crumley

In studying an author or his works one can often point to a singular piece of work in order to define an artist; or possibly to analyze a given work that has become personal and meaningful to the one conducting the study itself. In choosing to examine Frank Zappa’s seminal recorded work, Joe’s Garage, this author would have to admit that the incredible production would fall into both the former and later categorizes.

Joe’s Garage weaves a tale of a very dark and grim future time in our American experience, furiously painted on an aural canvas shot through with the abstract, the comical, the frightening, and the absurd. If one takes the nineteen tracks that make up this masterpiece of musical theatre, one can glean from it many things: music that winds its way through various genres ranging from punk, to rock, to experimental jazz, to reggae; sublime musicianship that showcases the incredible talent that Zappa gathered to bring life to his creation; lyrics that can confuse with their complexity, bring about a chuckle or guffaw with their prankish punditry, offend with their blunt and straightforward honesty, or frighten with their darker vision. But if one takes the work as a whole, the entire concept offers the most nourishing food for thought on the reeking mess of bureaucratic manipulation that surrounds our desire to make sure our rights as citizens of this republic remain as rights – and are not relegated to the lesser roll of cherished but half-forgotten memories of the “golden years”, “good old days”, or “how things used to be”.

One can gather from some of his work (including some of the lyrical commentary he had made in Joe’s Garage) that Zappa might have felt apart from people as a whole; that he was not particular to being part of the American culture. In fact the contrary was true. Although he was a private man he was quite at home in the musical community he was a part of, often working with various well known artists (the likes of John Lennon, Eric Clapton, Sting) and kicking off more than a few careers (namely Steve Vai and Alice Cooper). And the fact that he was a performing artist plainly showed that he had an innate need to not only create but share his creations as well.

He did find himself scornful of most of the ideals and attitudes that were common in his continental environment. But he was also a societal sponge, soaking up various bits and pieces of Americana and inserting them in his various artistic endeavors. He simply avoided using these things in a way that people would expect. His father (Francis Zappa) had often talked about a great history of the world that he had wanted to write, from the perspective of personas not in power and without wealth… with Sicily as the hub of historical existence. His rational for this was that the history that had already been written and passed down was created for the amusement of the ruling classes; since the lower classes throughout history could not read, their rulers did not care about what happened to them.

Even though Francis never got around to writing this history, you can see that Zappa took the concept of his father’s thought to heart. His characters are at times “good guys” or “bad guys”, but their always just “some guys”…your average Joe surrounded by
a certain surrealism brought on by unforeseen circumstance or their own personal undoing.

Zappa’s body of work is often overlooked and dismissed as offensive, shock-music, inaccessible, or lyrically nonsensical. But the best way to determine if this is indeed true of Joe’s Garage is to actually study the work itself.

First we shall take a look at the narrator of our journey, known as The Central Scrutinizer. The scrutinizer is not a person…or at least not human in the traditional sense.


He is the product of the society which has allowed him to become real; a society that had left its own proverbial head buried deeply in the sand for way too long. In the liner notes of the album, Zappa describes him thusly:
Sometimes when you're not looking he just sneaks up on you. He looks like a cheap sort of flying saucer about five feet across with a snout-like megaphone apparatus in the front with two big eyes mounted like Appletons with miniature motorized frowning chrome eyebrows over them. Along the side of his disc-like body are several sets of stupid-looking headers and exhaust hoses which apparently propel him and punctuate his dialogue with horrible smelling smoke rings. In the middle of his head we can see an airport wind sock and constantly twirling anemometer. The bottom of him has a landing light and three spoked wheels. In spite of all this, it is obvious that the way he really gets around is by being dangled from place to place by a union guy with a dark green shirt up in the roof who is eating a sandwich (pieces of which drop off every once in a while and lodge themselves near the hole where they put the oil in that makes the cheap smoke).


The vile creature, his whispering, scratchy voice dripping with self assurance and oozing righteousness hovers into view and introduces himself and his purpose to the story:
This is the CENTRAL SCRUTINIZER...it is my responsibility to enforce all the laws that haven't been passed yet. It is also my responsibility to alert each and every one of you to the potential consequences of various ordinary everyday activities you might be performing which could eventually lead to *The Death Penalty* (or affect your parents' credit rating). Our criminal institutions are full of little creeps like you who do wrong things...and many of them were driven to these crimes by a horrible force called MUSIC! Our studies have shown that this horrible force is so dangerous to society at large that laws are being drawn up at this very moment to stop it forever! Cruel and inhuman punishments are being carefully described in tiny paragraphs so they won't conflict with the Constitution (which, itself, is being modified in order to accommodate THE FUTURE). I bring you now a special presentation to show what can happen to you if you choose a career in MUSIC...The WHITE ZONE is for loading and unloading only...if you have to load or unload, go to the WHITE ZONE... you'll love it...it's a way of life...Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha...Hi, it's me, I'm back. This is the CENTRAL SCRUTINIZER...The WHITE ZONE is for loading and unloading only...If yah gotta load, or if yah gotta unload, go to the WHITE ZONE. You'll love it...it's a way of life. That's right, you'll love it, it's a way of life, that's right, you'll love it, it's a way of life, you'll love it. This, is, the CENTRAL SCRUTINIZER! The Scrutinizer seems to be an amalgam of all the negative characteristics that Zappa has perceived in our own various departments of law enforcement…seemingly heavy handed, smarmy, and always, always, all too willing to help you (the average citizen under the thumb of his protection) make up your mind about the laws (including the ones that haven’t been passed yet) that you have to follow and he has to enforce.

Now Zappa introduces the “hero” of our tale; a simple man with extravagant dreams – a man named Joe. In the first verse, Zappa describes the environment in which we find him:
It wasn't very large
There was just enough room to cram the drums
In the corner over by the Dodge
It was a fifty-four
With a mashed up door
And a cheesy little amp
With a sign on the front said "Fender Champ"
And a second hand guitar
It was a Stratocaster with a whammy bar


In a very breezy tone, Zappa manages to paint us a picture of the rehearsal space that the band practices in, a typical area that brings to mind the vision of what our common tongue would call a “garage-band”. The lyrics continue on to tell the tale of an all too typical band, in an all too typical garage, with all too typical parents who grow annoyed with the cacophony of sound and scream, “Turn it down!” into the garage. Much in the way of a typical group of young musicians, they ignore the pleas of Joe’s parents. Unfortunately, the neighbors are becoming upset at the racket that the band is causing, prompting a call to the local law enforcement agency. As the police are busy surrounding the garage, Joe muses:
Well the years was rollin' by, yeah
Heavy Metal 'n' Glitter Rock
Had caught the public eye, yeah
Snotty boys with lipstick on
Was really flyin' high, yeah
'N' then they got that Disco thing
'N' New Wave came along
'N' all of a sudden I thought the time
Had come for that old song
We used to play in "Joe's Garage"
And if I am not wrong
You will soon be dancin' to...
Central Scrutinizer:
The WHITE ZONE is for loading and
unloading only. If you
gotta load or unload,
go to the WHITE
ZONE. You'll love it...

Joe’s musing about the future is obviously Zappa’s lament about the state of the music industry. He had released quite a few songs about (what he thought of as) the sad state of the commercial music industry. This verse is simply another reiteration of that sentiment. But in the last part of the verse, we see Zappa’s fear of governmental control over the arts as he quips that we’ll soon be dancing to the mantra of the Central Scrutinizer that we had originally been privy too in the first track, “The Central Scrutinizer”. This might be a reference to the problems in Iran that he knew about during the time that he was working on this album, and a reflection of how their government banned all music soon after the Shah was deposed.
The Scrutinizer returns yet again in the track, as he explains what happens to Joe when the authorities finally arrive:
Central Scrutinizer:
This is the CENTRAL SCRUTINIZER...
That was Joe's first confrontation with The Law.
Naturally, we were easy on him.
One of our friendly counselors gave him
A do-nut...and told him to
Stick closer to church-oriented social activities.

Again, we see Zappa’s paranoia about governmental control. Joe was sent to a councilor for playing music, not for any sort of serious crime or wrongdoing; in addition, he was prompted to “stick closer to church oriented activities”. This line shows Zappa’s frustration with the cultural norms that we find ourselves constrained by (rock music bad, church good), as well as the mixing of church and state that he was so adamantly against.



(NOTE: continued in part 2)

Joe takes the councilor up on his kindly offer, and meets a girl at a church social named Mary. Things seem to be going well until one night Mary finds herself backstage (and then later traveling on the tour bus) with a band called “Toad-oh”, performing unspeakable sexual acts with both the band members and road crew. Finding himself forcefully turned away from music, and becoming disillusioned with relationships after Mary broke his heart, Joe turns to religion to ease the pain of his soul:
Arriving at L. Ron Hoover's modernistic office / cathedral / warehouse /
condominium complex, Joe is greeted by a pre-recorded message and a dramatically
illuminated image on a wall-sized TV screen...
L. Ron Hoover:Welcome to the
First Church of Appliantology! The WHITE ZONE is for loading and unloading only!

Again we hear the mantra of the Scrutinizer, this time being recited by the ghostly video-image of L. Ron Hoover, leader of the Church of Appliantology. This intro to the track, “A Token of My Extreme” cements the direct collusion between religion and ruling in Zappa’s created world. This is also a commentary on real concerns about religion and politics mixing. Zappa obviously saw the seed of the problems we are now facing (namely, the recent inability to separate the notion of Conservatism and the fanaticism of Fundamentalist Christianity).


As Joe relates his feelings of the grief within his soul, Hoover makes a grandiose pronouncement: Joe is a latent appliance fetishist ( as explained by Hoover, “a latent appliance fetishist is a person who refuses to admit to his or herself that sexual gratification can only be achieved through the use of machines”). Now all Joe has to do to find nirvana in this life is to find himself a nice appliance to have relations with…after learning how to speak German to entice a “really good” one to accede to Joe’s advances.


The directive given to Joe, at first glance, is apparently no more than some sort of deviant joke that Zappa threw in simply to shock the listener with pure absurdity. But, upon deper reflection, Zappa seems to be making commentary on religion itself. Religions are infamous for making incredible claims that are (almost) never proved out by science or the rational and reality of logic. Along with these articles of faith, are some outrageous claims on how to attain spiritual enlightenment or some form of ascension. Zappa, in his description of religion in this track, alludes to the notion that no matter how “out-there” the words of a man on a pulpit wearing a nice suit might be, that there will be those who will follow these directives without question. Additionally, the bigger the spiritual hole in a person (in the case of this tale, everything Joe has cared for has been whisked away from him) the more apt they are to seek out solace for their soul…but caring little for the specifics of where that assistance is coming from or what it is requiring one to do.


So Joe and his newfound date Sy Borg (a hunk of gadgetry that looks like it's a cross between an industrial vacuum cleaner and a chrome piggy bank with marital aids stuck all over its body), whom Joe seduced with his recent fluency in German, end up back at Sy Borg’s apartment for a night of (in the words of Zappa) “plooking”. Unfortunately, Joe “plooks” the machine much too roughly, causing the overtaxed gadget to break down.
Central Scrutinizer:This is the CENTRAL SCRUTINIZER... You have just destroyed
one model XQJ-37 Nuclear Powered Pan- Sexual Roto-Plooker And you're gonna have
to pay for it! So give up, you haven't got a chance.
Joe:But I...I, I, I, I,
I...I can't payI gave all my moneyTo some kinda groovyreligious guy...Two songs
ago...
Central Scrutinizer:Come on out son...Between the two of usWe'll find
a way toWork it out


Zappa uses an interesting lyrical quirk in the above passage. After the Robot is reduced to a gaggle of moist, sparking, and whirring circuits and do-dads, the Central Scrutinizer shows up to pronounce Joe’s guilt. But when asked to pay for the damage to the robot, Joe is unable to pay up due to the fact that he had given his money to L. Ron Hoover “two songs ago”. This series of lyrics denotes not only how inventive Zappa is in the use of his lyrics to paint a mental picture or to pass on a message, but also the way he uses words to create a sense of continuity throughout the entire album. Zappa makes the story seem more alive and vital and less rehearsed and linear.

Unfortunately for Joe, his cry of poverty only gets him carted off to a rather dismal location. Explains the Central Scrutinizer:


Central Scrutinizer:Hello there...this is the CENTRAL SCRUTINIZER... Joe was
sent to a special prison where they keep all the other criminals from the music
business...you know...the ones who get caught...it's a horrible place, painted
all green on the inside, where musicians and former executives take turns
snorting detergent and plooking each other...
Joe is soon forced into a life of being “plooked” unmercifully by the denizens of the prison, a population comprised of deviant musicians and industry executives. His existence, behind the green walls of the prison that has become his world, is about as grim and cheerless as an existence can be. Joe puts forth a valiant effort to rebel against the world he now finds himself in…but, alas, the struggle is strictly internal.
Joe: (somewhat exhausted)These executiveshave plooked thefuck out of me. And
there's still a longtime to go before I've paid my debt to society. And all I ever
really wanted to do was play the guitar 'n bend the string
like Reent-toont-teent-toont-teenooneenoonee
I've got it

I'll be sullen and withdrawn

I'll dwindle off intothe twilight realmof my own secret thoughts. I'll lay
on my back here 'til dawn, In a semi-catatonic state
And dream ofguitar
notesThat would irritatean executivekinda guy...
And sure enough JOE dreams
up a few of those guitar notes that every executive despises...those low
ones...every exec knows it's only the records with the high squeally ones that
get to be hits...


Up until this point in the critique, I have not endeavored much to describe the music that accompanies the lyrics of Joe’s odyssey; but the music in the next segment warrants description.


The band is playing a slow two-note blues-like dirge; a pocket groove that never drags, but instead pulls the listener down into its swirling miasma of orchestrated despair. Then Zappa plays the imaginary guitar-solo that is audible only within the confines of Joe’s mind. What Zappa plays is not overly complex, but the way it is played conjures up images that would simply never exist if the guitar were in the hands of a lesser instrumentalist. It aches with pain of heart, flares with the anger of disillusionment, swells with the remnant of subdued pride, chills with the lack of hope, and cries with the end of potential. But somewhere within all of this, in between the actual notes played, one can still grasp a strand of hope. Not a hope of a physical release from bondage, nor for the optimistic expectation of any return to normalcy; instead, it is the simple dream that some part of Joe which lies within the deepest recesses of his very nature, his very being, might actually survive after all that he has been through.

As the imaginary guitar-solo comes to an end, Joe (with the tattered shards of a spiteful bitterness worn on his demeanor like a foul and sullied cloak) continues his thoughts:
Well, I guess thatone did the trick, If they only couldaheard it half-a-dozen of
'em woulda strangled while they was suckin'on each others' dicks. But that was only
a bunch of imaginary notes I played. Just a little extra somethin' to keep me
goin' from day to day . That's okay, I'll be gettin' outta here pretty soon. Then I
won't have to live in this ugly fuckin' room. Can't wait to see, I can't wait to
see what it's like On the outside now...


Eventually, Joe finishes out the rest of his prison sentence and he finds himself once again in the outside world. But, as he wanders the streets he finds out that Music has been made totally illegal. Unable to do the thing he loves the most, he now makes up imaginary guitar-solos to the beat of the loading-zone mantra of the Central Scrutinizer, which echoes hollowly through the streets he now wanders.


Joe is now constrained within the malevolent grip of the “system”. And, as the old adage goes, “You can’t fight City Hall”, so Joe has apparently resigned himself to trying to follow the rules that have been laid out before him. But he still retains the soul of a revolutionary, illustrated by the imaginary guitar notes the he weaves around the loading-zone announcements.


The liner notes of the album continue the narrative:
JOE wanders through the world which by then has been totally epoxied over,
carefully organized, with everyone reporting daily to his or her appointed place
in a line somewhere in front of a window somewhere in a building somewhere in
order to collect his or her welfare check, which, when cashed, made it possible
for the young ones to continue the payments for the obsolete and irreparable
appliances their parents had purchased on the installment plan years ago,
providing as security the future incomes of their children. The rest of these
checks were used by the young recipients to buy fun things of their own on
credit, most of which broke down or failed within moments of purchase and seemed
to be stacking up everywhere.


This bleak vision of a possible future seems to be the focal point for the ideals presented within the album itself. It seems that Zappa is sharing with us the grave concerns he had in 1979 about too much government control in our lives; and the fear that we will become a consumer based society with no soul – creating nothing, dreaming nothing, simply existing to keep the economy going, and to continuously funnel money (and with it, power) into the hands and coffers of those who would be emperors upon our world.


The Central Scrutinizer watches Joe as he, “…stumbles over mounds of dead consumer goods formed into abstract statues dedicated to the Quality of American Craftsmanship, dreaming his stupid little guitar notes”. Then, the Scrutinizer says:
Central Scrutinizer:

This is the CENTRAL SCRUTINIZER... Yes...he used to be a nice boy...He used to
cut the grass...But now his mind is totally destroyed by music. He's so crazy
now he even believes that people are writing articles and reviews about his
imaginary guitar notes…


The Scrutinizer watches Joe, dwells on who Joe had once (should have) been, and comes to a definitive conclusion about why Joe ended up in this sorry state. It was not the government, the girl, the religion, the prison or the rape that occurred there, nor the state of the country that Joe has recently become a part of once again. It was all because of the music.


Zappa is making a very powerful statement with these ideals that he is presenting. He seems to be saying that we, as a culture, are apparently able to blame the things that we consider subversive or counter-culture (Zappa uses music as the example, but various forms of expression that have come under attack in our country – writing, dance, painting and sculpture, speech, and journalism – can all be used to illustrate the point Zappa was apparently trying to make) for all that goes wrong in our society. But we seemingly, for the most part, reserve little scorn for others who betray our trust as long as they have a haircut, wear a nice suit, and talk to (at) us from a pulpit or dais.


As the album comes to its finale, the Scrutinizer leaves us with this thought:
This is the CENTRAL SCRUTINIZER...As you can see, MUSIC can get you pretty fucked up...Take a tip from Joe, do like he did, hock your imaginary guitar and get a good job...Joe did, and he's a happy guy now, on the day shift at the Utility Muffin Research Kitchen, arrogantly twisting the sterile canvas snoot of a fully-charged icing anointment utensil. And every time a nice little muffin comes by on the belt, he poots forth...


This final thought reaffirms the notion that is was the music that ruined Joe’s life. But now that he has conformed to societies expectations of a good, productive citizen, he has found happiness. We know from the strength of Joe’s internal fortitude that he likely retains the burning flame of individuality, although it is now hidden from view and kept far away from the prying eyes of governmental scrutiny. But is this truly a better end for poor, beleaguered Joe? Would it not have been better for him to stick to his guns and fight for what he believed in (and possibly die, or be forever “plooked”, in the trying), than to relegate his existence to a thick, opaque shell that hides the truth of his being? Is Zappa trying to let us know that it’s all right to wear the coat of subservience and predictability, as long as we keep the though of our dignity alive inside of us? Or, perhaps, he’s showing us that to not fight for your beliefs and rights is akin to a spiritual suicide? Or maybe, he just wants us to know that Joe is no different from the rest of us – a troubled man in troubled time; and, in the end, no more or less than human? Then again, aren’t we all?