This record includes some of my favorite Zappa pieces played by a band that is anything but under-rehearsed. The production is clear and rich. Vinnie Caliauta's playing is electric and drives these big bands with power and precision. He shows us why Zappa considered him the best drummer he ever worked with (and Zappa worked with some damned fine drummers.)

I enjoy most era's and aspects of Frank's music, but I have a special appreciation for some of the live recordings from this period through the eighties. (Granted, some of them are sterile and some are down-right goofy. This is not one of those.) Let's not forget that Zappa's music is difficult and that he was a very demanding band leader. As his career progressed, he had his pick of more and better musicians who were capable of things that former band memebers just could not do.

Tinsle-Town Rebellion is a pretty solid album that hints at some of the excesses of Zappa's tours in the early 80s -- a proclivity toward podestrian reggae beats, a little heavy on broad extended synth lines, and humor overpowering attention to the music. What saves this album is the material and the band which, frankly, had chops. Vinnie Colaiuta makes this album worthwhile -- and while the effect of his textured playing doesn't create quite the same explosive combination with FZ as it did on Shut Up 'n Play Yer Guitar, his playing was incomparable, even in FZ's catalogue. Arthur Barrow on bass is another plus -- his slap technique and funk lines adds a lot of energy to some of the tracks. Steve Vai provides some stunt guitar for those who are interested in Vai (not me, certainly).

The album, somewhat awkwardly, begins with a studio track, FINE GIRL -- a rather harmless, catchy piece of misogyny. The rest of the album is live -- starting with a rousing, full performance of EASY MEAT. Some run throughs of songs from Zappa's early catalogue are pretty wasteful. There's really nothing extraordinary about them, save maybe a cute new edition of TELL ME YOU LOVE ME, and the first release of the Leather song FOR THE YOUNG SOPHISTICATE, which is a bluesy little ditty not without merit. NOW YOU SEE IT - NOW YOU DON'T is a reggae-backed grinder of a solo by FZ that meanders a bit, but comes off nicely, comparable to the lesser tracks on Shut Up. There's two tracks of stage theatrics which are funny, but a lot less musically charged than the stunts pulled by the Roxy Band (Be-Bop Tango) or even, dare I say it, the Flo'n'Eddie lineup.

The second half of this album is what makes it for me. Most of the material is original, and the two oldies are both worthwhile. THE BLUE LIGHT is one of my favorite FZ songs -- a funky monster of a track that contains some rather esoteric lyrics. TINSLETOWN REBELLION, the title track, is a venemous shot at the Punk movement with a ton of hooks that ape musical style. PICK ME, I'M CLEAN (like EASY MEAT, I think this was also, curiously, a Flo'n'Eddie number) is a lively song with a great solo. The punch-gut blues of BAMBOOZLED BY LOVE is a charm, if you can look past the rather morbid lyrics. BROWN SHOES DON'T MAKE IT and PEACHES III (Peaches En Regalia) are great closers. Two of the best songs from FZ's early career, in my opinion. This is actually my preferred version of Brown Shoes, and Peaches is always magnificient.

A pretty good album that maybe runs a little too long. Not essential, except maybe for the presence of Colaiuta, but a good one for fans of FZ and this period.

Signs of mortal weakness cannot and will not be tolerated as we spin our 'Tinseltown Rebellion' disc on the family Victrola. Frank Zappa is righteously refreshing on not only a physical, but also a deeply metaphysical level, like a curiously strrrrong mint that has been rubbed all over the left hemisphere of your brain.

Conversely, while listening to The Backstreet Boys or Nelly may cause us utter despair, invite swarms of locust, risk us being torn to pieces by savage wild dogs or even cause the premature acidulation of various dairy products that we have in our possession, (regardless of the retailer's advertised expiration date), Frank is truly an oasis in a vast desert of horrible bands like, say, Oasis.

In fact, brown shoes don't make it. Brown shoes don't make it. Quit school, why fake it. Brown shoes don't make it. TV dinner by the pool, Watch your brother grow a beard, Got another year of school, You're okay, he's too weird. Be a plumber, He's a bummer. He's a bummer every summer. Be a loyal plastic robot for a world that doesn't care. That's right. Smile at every ugly... shine on your shoes and cut your hair. Be a jerk - go to work. Be a jerk - go to work. Be a jerk - go to work. Be a jerk - go to work. Do your job, and do it right: Life's a ball! TV tonight. Do you love it, do you hate it? There it is, the way you made it. A world of secret hungers. Perverting the men who make your laws. Every desire is hidden away. In a drawer in a desk by a Naugahyde chair, on a rug where they walk and drool past the girls in the office. Hratche-plche. Hratche-plche. Hratche-plche. Hratche. We see in the back, of the City Hall mind, the dream of a girl about thirteen. Off with her clothes, and into a bed, where she tickles his fancy all night long. His wife's attending an orchid show. She squealed for a week to get him to go. But back in the bed his teen-age queen, is rocking and rolling and acting obscene. Baby baby. Baby baby. Gimme them cakes, uh! If I do, I'm gonna lose my... And he loves it, he loves it, it curls up his toes. She wipes his fat neck and it lights up his nose. But he cannot be fooled, Old City Hall Fred. She's nasty, she's nasty, she digs it in bed. That's right. Do it again, ha. And do it some more. Hey, that does it, by golly. And she's nasty for sure. Nasty nasty nasty. Nasty nasty nasty. Only thirteen, and she knows how to nasty. She's a dirty young mind, corrupted ... corroded. Well she's thirteen today, and I hear she gets loaded.

Ah, is that not a divine libretto? Truly awe inspiring and vibrato on the medulla oblongato. Eat more Zappa.

While this is probably my least favorite Zappa album it does have its moments. Give it a try, but wait until you have some of his other albums.

This is probably the Zappa album that I listen to the least (next to Freak Out). I don't even know why. It's a very good album. It's just missing... something. I think that in general it's just a step below the typical Zappa stuff. I recommend it for any hardcore fan, but any new fan is better off starting with Sheik Yerbouti or One Size Fits All. 8/10