| The Adventures Of Greggery Peccary |
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The piece required an expansive amount of personnel to record, as Zappa was delving heavily into orchestral arrangement at the time that he began the ''Läther'' sessions, and despite the context of ''Studio'' tan being a rock and roll album, the long interludes of avante-garde classical arrangement that are prevalent in the track made for a much more sophisticated sound than "Billy the Mountain." Nonetheless, Zappa's use of absurdist humor and political commentary remains prevalent in this piece. STORY Greggery Peccary is a small Peccary , whose name is obviously a pun off of Gregory Peck , and not so obviously a reference to Pope Gregory XIII , creator of the modern calendar. Greggery lives amongst the peccary population, which ranges from Texas to Paraguay and sometimes as far west as Catalina . Peccaries are notable for having a white collar pattern on their fur, but Greggary is part of a "bold new breed" of peccary that also has a wide tie below his collar, distinguishing it as a particularly exceptional swine. Greggery owns a red Volkswagen and works in the part of the town where the government buildings are kept at a corporation known as "Big Swifty and Associates, Trend-mongers." As the name suggests, their line of work involves conceiving and promoting the many trends and fads within the world using whatever means science has to offer. Greggery is popular amongst the air-headed lady Stenographers at his company, who are impressed by Greggery and taken by his suave and particular cunning as an employee. Together they sing a song advertising the company's many time-wasting products, thus inspiring Greggery to return to his "ultra-avant, laminated, simulated, replica-mahogany desk" so that he may concieve a new trend, some "THING" to identify with. Guided by heavenly voices, he invents the Calender . The calender, upon release, immediately causes chaos, as people suddenly can keep track of time and plan ahead, thus making life aggrivatingly mechanical, and also allowing people to discover how old they were. A group of hunchmen, just a few of the "very hip young people" of the world, attack Greggery on the way home from his office one night, enraged at the prospect of birthdays and being aware of their own aging. Greggery is chased by them in his car, and narrowly escapes into a cave in a conveniently placed and nearby mountain. The hunchmen (and hunch-women) decide to abandon the chase for a "love-in" and a party ensues amongst them. Greggery is safe from them, but suddenly discovers that he has parked within no ordinary cave, but the mouth of Billy the Mountain. Billy hacks up boulders and greates brown clouds as he laughs, suddenly procuring Greggery's interest. Greggery, unaware that he was parked within Billy the Mountain or that Billy had coughed up the clouds, ponders "who is making those new brown clouds," and makes a phone call to find a " Philostopher " for an explanation of the presence of the brown clouds. He is sent to a man named Quentin Robert DeNameland, supposedly "the greatest living philostopher known to mankind," who hosts a group assembly. DeNameland's authenticity as a philostopher is questionable, as he merely proclaims that "time is of affliction" and that "the eons are closing" before soliciting for payment for attendance to his assembly. The adventure closes with Greggery still pondering the presence of the brown clouds, given DeNameland's lack of answers. MUSICAL THEMES Unlike many of Zappa's previous lyrical compositions, Greggery Peccary relies very minimally on repetition and more or less flows with a somewhat humorous but altogether heavy orchestral arrangement. Many segments of lyrics are interrupted at great lengths with musical interlude, and the piece is much more of a demonstration of Zappa's mastery of composition than songwriting, which thus identifies it amongst the ''Läther'' canon. There are a few key "songs" however within the piece as a whole. Greggery Peccary has a miniature jingle that accompanies his introduction and returns the piece from a long orchestral interlude amongst other appearances. The "Big Swifty's" song during the steno pool sequence is a bizarre yet sophisticated jazz piece which stands on its own. Greggery Peccary's pondering of the new brown clouds appears twice, the latter time as a finale to the whole piece, and in concept, the ''Läther'' album. Billy the Mountain and Ethel's presence in the story are hinted at early on during Greggery's escape by both their identities as a mountain and tree with eyeballs on it, but also with a brief instrumental quote of the line "Billy was a mountain, Ethel was a tree growing off of his shoulder" as Greggery drives within the cave. Another possible reference to "Billy the Mountain" may be in the bizarre and somewhat atonal assembly of the calender, which oddly resembles the passage of time in the former piece. A key moment occurs during the love-in, in which Zappa overlays several instrumental pop music "songs" with clever segues, explaining that the young people were listening to several different radios at once, all tuned to entirely different channels. EXTERNAL LINKS |
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