] Act I
The opera begins with the Central Scrutinizer's introduction. He explains that his job is to enforce laws which will be passed in the future—including the coming total illegalization of music. The Scrutinizer offers a "special presentation to show what can happen to you if you choose a career in music," introducing the opera's protagonist, Joe, who used to be a "nice boy" and cut his neighbors' grass. When he discovered rock music, he would spend all his time playing loud music in his garage, where the neighbors would often call the cops on him. A "friendly counselor" at the police department tells Joe he should "stick closer to church-oriented social activities." Joe finds a new girlfriend named Mary, with whom he would "hold hands and think pure thoughts." However, Mary, a Roman Catholic girl, abandons Joe in order to get a pass to see a band called "Toad-O" with whom she goes on the road—having sex with the band's roadies. Eventually, they abandon her in Miami when she is too tired to do anything.
Mary enters a wet t-shirt contest to try to make enough money to get back home. Joe hears of her exploits, becomes depressed, falls in with a fast crowd, and has sex with a girl who works at the Jack-In-The-Box named Lucille, who gives him an "unpronounceable disease", although he claims it came from a toilet seat.
Act II
Joe turns to religion for help, and "pays a lot of money" to "L. Ron Hoover" at the First Church of Appliantology (a parody of The Church of Scientology). There, Hoover identifies Joe as a "latent appliance fetishist". When Joe asks if he should "come out of the closet" he is instead instructed to "go into the closet" to achieve "sexual gratification through the use of machines". In the next song, we learn "The Closet" is the name of a club where humans can copulate with appliances. Joe locates a machine he likes, named Sy Borg, and they return to Sy's apartment. There Joe and Sy have a "groovy orgy" with Sy's roommate, a "modified Gay-Bob doll."
Joe ends up destroying Sy, (whom the Central Scrutinizer calls a "XQJ-37 Nuclear-Powered Pansexual Roto-Plooker"😉 with a golden shower. Joe is thrown into a special prison after being unable to pay for the damage (having given up all his money to the Church of Appliantology). The prison is painted all green on the inside and filled with criminals from the music buisness. While in jail, Joe is repeatedly gang raped ("plooked"😉 by former musicians and record executives when they're not snorting lines of detergent. This gang is led by a shockingly endowed former promotional agent of a major record company, known as "Bald-Headed John: King of the Plookers".
Act III
When Joe is released from prison, music has become illegal. He loses his sanity, and begins imagining all the guitar notes he cannot play and a journalist documenting his thoughts. Eventually, he comes to terms with the fact that music is gone, and gets a job at the Utility Muffin Research Kitchen, frosting muffins. The Central Scrutinizer then goes on to say that if Joe's story wasn't enough to convince the listener that music was evil, he decides to sing the last song in his regular voice. He then shuts off his contraption and his real voice is Frank Zappa's, implying that Zappa's punishment for creating music is to assume the job of the Central Scrutinizer.
"Everything in the universe is . . . is . . . is made of one element, which is a note, a single note. Atoms are really vibrations, you know, which are extensions of THE BIG NOTE, everything's one note. Everything, even the ponies. The note, however, is the ultimate power, but see, the pigs don't know that, the ponies don't know that. Right? "