Frank Zappa, "Our Man in Nirvana" (FOO-EEE, 1992)

Among the many things that annoyed Frank Zappa was the fact that scumbags could sneak tape recorders into his concerts, make copies of his shows and sell them as bootlegs.

A few years before his death, he came up with a way to capitalize on that type of underhanded activity. Through a custom Rhino Records label called FOO-EEE, Frank released two sets of recordings ("Beat the Boots," Volumes 1 & 2) that had been sold illegally, using the bootleggers' cover art and undoctored reordings - which he admitted that he never bothered to hear for himself.

The result is a widely varied collection as far as sound quality,as might be expected. But to Zappa fans, that's not the point. What's interesting is the opportunity to listen to what he was performing at various points in his career, from 1967 through 1981.

One of my favorites is from Volume 2, a disc titled "Our Man in Nirvana," recorded at the Mothers of Invention's concert of the University of California at Fullerton in November 1968. The recording sounds as if the microphone was buried under someone's sweater, and at various points you can hear the tape grinding to a halt.

But making up for the sonic shortcomings are the performances, particularly the two elongated pieces that take up the majority of the 70-plus-minute CD: "The String Quartet" and "King Kong." Both feature one of history's great guitarists trading off licks with his crack horn section in the band's pioneering efforts to straddle the thin line between rock and jazz.

Unfortunately, this incarnation of the Mothers of Invention lasted only until the following summer, when the fiscal follies of straddling the thin line between rock and jazz became eminently apparent to Mr. Zappa.

Fortunately, documents such as these survive to show what the band was capable of doing.

PS: Although the first volume of "Beat the Boots" still is available as individual discs, the second never was, and went out of print not too long after its release. So tracking down a copy of "Our Man in Nirvana" might be quite a feat.