I can remember every record album that I ever owned that subsequently went out of my possession; but one in particular stands out. I was in the Army stationed in Germany when Terry Hilsinger asked to borrow my copy of “Freak Out”. A few days later someone asked if I’d heard that Hilsinger was rotating i.e. leaving. I immediately went over to the barracks where Hilsinger resided and asked for my copy of Freak Out back. He said that he had mistakenly packed it with his other albums and had already shipped them home. However, he assured me that he would mail it to me once he got back to the States. I gave him my address and as you can guess, I’m still waiting for good old Terry to mail me the record.
All of this came to mind for a couple of reasons. 1) I saw where Brady had posted this on FB and it got me thinking about Frank and his legacy.
2) I saw where today in rock history Freak Out was released in 1966. I purchased my copy of Freak Out from the drug Store in downtown Lexington Park with money that I’d earned cutting tobacco for my Uncle Tinkie. I’d never heard of the Mothers of Invention but the Suzy Creamcheese letter on the albums’ back side intrigued me enough to plunk down some of my hard earned dollars and buy it.
To be honest, I didn’t particularly care for it too much mostly because of all the clowning around Zappa and the Mothers did both musically and lyrically. However, I did tote it off to college and later to Germany with me. I’d break it out as a mood-changer for those getting high times just to watch people’s reactions “WTF is this?” I can even recall a brother in Germany begging me “Ridgell, please don’t be putting no Frank Zappa bullshit on. My head can’t take it.” While very, very few of my listening friends ever appreciated it, obviously Terry Hilsinger did.
Here then is an alternate mix of the Freak Out album and knowing that you can’t devote an hour, nor probably endure an hour of it, check out either the first cut “Wowie Zowie” or “Trouble Every Day” (6:00 mark) and you’ll get an idea of what Zappa was doing back then.