You can appreciate the measure of an artist’s uniqueness by the size of the vacuum left by their passing. Dweezil Zappa does a grand job of flying the flag for daddy Frank’s music, but watching The Torture Never Stops is like unearthing archaeological evidence of the Herculean strides taken by a mythical, longvanished master race.
Filmed in New York’s Palladium during Halloween 1981, it’s a business-as-usual set for Zappa and his band of the day (Steve Vai, Scott Thunes, Chad Wackerman, Ray White, Ed Mann, Tommy Mars and Bobby Martin): which is to say, it’s an evening’s worth of material of fractal complexity, performed with no breaks, followed by an anything-but-slight return of similar heft. Their routine night’s work is anyone else’s superhuman feat of miraculous memory and musicianship, before we even broach the subject of Zappa’s logic-defying fecundity as a composer…
As regards the viewing experience, Torture provides a pin-sharp 80s snapshot: perhaps even too pin-sharp, given Zappa’s stupendously offensive pink romper suit (though this doesn’t prevent members of the audience handing knickers up to him). Highlights? We’re Turning Again, one in the eye of every rock nostalgist; and Dumb All Over, a slap applied to the face of God and an uppercut planted squarely on the chin of all humanity. Hurrah!
