We reach the year 1984, and Frank encounters another busy release schedule. In this time frame, records like Thing Fish, Francesco Zappa, London Symphony Orchestra, and The Perfect Stranger see release, leaving the fan much to choose from. I am sad to inform you that I will not be reviewing any of these records. Why? For the life of me, I listened to them once each and cannot imagine listening to them again just for this segment. These records really test my attention span. I apologize, once again, for omitting these albums if you were looking forward to any of them. Let’s focus on Them Or Us, which in itself is a pretty enjoyable cross-section of music!
No Broadway stage plays, no festive synclavier, no orchestra, just good ol’ rock n roll. The Closer You Are is a pretty standard slice of doo-wop, albeit sung across multiple takes and spliced together to pretty comical effect. Frank takes advantage of his low register on this one. In France has a cameo appearance by one of Frank’s blues master guitar idols, Johnny Guitar Watson. This one is standard 4 bar rock n roll. Ya Hozna sees Frank reversing the track, Inca Roads. I feel like this one looks better on paper than execution. After all, there is no musicianship, just tape manipulation. Sharleena is a rehashed version of the Chunga’s Revenge track, thereby placing it on the same level as the original - I didn’t much prefer the original to begin with. A notable distinction to make is that Frank’s son Dweezil duos on guitar with his dad on this version. It’s an OK song. Sinister Footwear is the continuation of the composition first heard on You Are What You Is. This one has never grabbed me, but nevertheless is one of the highlights found on this record. Truck Driver Divorce is about…well… truck drivers who suffer divorce. The melody has Frank singing in his signature low mocking tone, satirizing the flocks of weeping truck drivers. A lengthy guitar solo follows, one that is nothing but electric!
Baby Takes Your Teeth Out is a hilarious tune, sung by Ike Willis. The song is about people who talk out of their a!ses, and Frank gesturing them to shut up. The middle section is funny, where Ike wordlessly mumbles over a synth track. Planet Of My Dreams was a leftover piece from the Hunchentoot (remember Sleep Dirt?) musical that was never finished, that Frank decided to recycle. The track stands out stylistically, but fits well within the overarching comedic feel of the album. The vocals are sung in a vaudevillian show-tune manner, harkening back to Broadway, that makes this one pretty compelling. Be In My Video is kind of similar to the first song, but this time taking aim at David Bowie’s Let’s Dance music video. That’s really all there is to say on this one. The record concludes with a standard-sounding cover version of Whipping Post - ending up kind of sounding like the Allmans. You can thank Robert Martin’s talent for that. The band had been performing this track for a decade up to this point, once a fan shouted a request to play the song at a gig in Finland.
A fairly consistent pop-rock record (an improvement over the last one) - perhaps, the last of its kind before Frank switched gears yet again. If anything, this proves that the 80s were not all that bad to Frank, as some are led to believe. Goodbye rock n roll, and bring in the Synclavier!
A