Frank Zappa: Classic or Dud?

On the other hand, stuff released in the late seventies and through the eighties was often fairly puzzling. Musically speaking, it was incredibly well-played, and the lyrics had a bitter sting to them that you couldn't help but admire a good chunk of the time. By this time, though, he got into a really nasty groove that went past obvious satire to the point where you weren't quite sure that he wasn't being serious anymore: how many times can you release an album filled to the gills with songs about big breasts, blow jobs, drugs, and various other degeneracies until any claims to satire are dismissed? In a lot of ways it became a one-note dirty joke, and while it remained clever it became redundant and increasingly transparent. Moments of brilliance were still there: Ship Arriving Too Late to Save a Drowning Witch was actually quite solid if you jettisoned the novelty hit single. The Yellow Shark proved that the man knew how to compose music (though Jazz From Hell had already proved that, it was a bit on the sterile side). More than anything, this became a period where Zappa was more notable just for the sheer amount of product he cranked out. That's not enough to change my vote, though. Still classic.

If you bother to learn how to write music, write a big, run-on sentence like Zappa did so you can just sit back and hire super-professional musicians to play it later, as a challenge to their virtuosity and a feather in all of your caps! And then mix and match your paragraphs, so you never have to start a new book (since it's such a mess to begin with) and have people call your entire body of work a brilliant intertwined "concept"!

Music that is composeurish is rather dull, unless it is actually goodlike Mozart, Vivaldi or Beethoven, when the orchestration is so good, you don't notice the minutia unless you concentrate and are then blown away on a whole different level. Zappa falls way short of that. Everything is "hey, listen to this little weird thing" *insert cowbell rattle followed by kazoo*. (This reminds me of Metallica, by the way; I can hear the metronome ticking in the background. That's bad music! Is that supposed to be emotion? Hmmm...)

I prefer the Grateful Dead to most Zappa, with the exception of "Apostrophe" & "Sheik Yerbouti". Some others that are okay, but by no means what the fans make it out to be, are "The Best Band You Never Heard In Your Life", "Yellow Shark", "Joe's Garage" and "You Are What You Is". I also have "Live At The Ritz" (or something?) that I never listen to. It is some of the most boring shit I own, except for the one track "I Am The Slime" which I don't have on any other recording... Which album has "Zombie Woof"? That'sa good one, actually.

Anyway, I think what I'm trying to say is that it's a lot harder to make a cohesive song that has some emotion rather than filling a music sheet with black dots and having Steve Vai and Anton Figg play it for you while you play composer genius. The main guy from Jethro Tull is like that, too, but I think he actually has a reason to be, since it's not 1/2 just free improvisation and studio overdubs.

Of course, if you are a fan of his music, you'll be ridiculously offended by the notion that he's nota super genius, even if you have no musical knowledge or skill yourself as a source to draw upon for judgement, and tell me to piss off or something for daring to compare my unfamous non-music-reading sensibilities to the god of avant garde. He definitely gets tons of points for being first. Who knows if I would be able to lay on a couch, imagining constantly changing music patterns if he hadn't shown me how (or did he)? I do it all the time, but it drives me nuts because songs that wander off into insanity are boring. Playing simple and well is difficult. I think Zappa released too much of too little value (except to those fanatics of course). But, I still think he's a classic for the good stuff he did put out and for trying to do something interesting (even if not really very funny at all, just weird and kinda perverted) with music.

hey, nobody's mentioned 'hot rats' yet, perhaps his greatest album?

Oh, check out his autobiography. It's got some good laughs. Spoo!

Interestingly I don't really feel qualified to respond to this thread any more, despite owning a load of Zappa. I haven't listened to any of it in more than a year.

I think my favorites used to be Apostrophe'/Overnite Sensation (esp. "Montana" - "I think I'll raise me up some DENNIL FLOSS"), the guitar box (esp. the track with the bouzouki), parts of Joe's Garage (mostly for the guitar sound, cf. 'Watermelon in Easter Hay', and because I get an enormous kick out of hearing the Ceeeeentral Scrooooaaaatinizer), One Size Fits All, much of Zoot Allures and Lather (I get an infantile kick out of the Stravinsky namedrop on "Titties 'n' Beer", but that's just a perk).

- following the awesome tribute night to zappa and beefheart at THE CLUNY - where was the fuckin' WIRE ? - another night is planned on thursday 17th may at newcastle arts centre - featuring ex- zappa/beefheart drummer jimmy carl black and the muffin men, zoviet france, hounds of the hill and many others - zappa and beefheart classics fucked over bigstyle - like susan george in straw dogs !

Tadeusz says astute, but I've never thought FZ was over-and-above astute — just, y'know, run-of-the-mill astute. Never heard an FZ commentary that I hadn't already heard elsewhere (not nec. heard elsewhere in pop /rock, but in Letterman or Alex Cockburn, or just somewhere... ): I think the prob. is he NEVER turned his laser-eye on himself and the wackness of his dreams/fears. "Astute" somewhat excepted, all the good words TS uses are true — but (to me) so what. FZ is just too guarded, so that's how he makes me.

Anyway, my own thoughts: I tend to like Zappa's earlier stuff most (just about everything he did with the Mothers of Invention), plus a great deal of his late seventies/early eighties post-Mothers stuff. Faves would have to be Apostrophe (as someone upthread said, so gleeful), Freak Out!, Hot Rats, Joe's Garage, and Läther (because it's so over-the-top, has all of the best bits from Sheikh Yerbouti and Orchestral Favorites, and that cow on the cover with the Zappa goatee-and-beard). Guilty favorites would be Sheikh Yerbouti (great pop songs and awesome guitarwork mixed with pure wank and pointlessly stupid lyrics) and Thing Fish (mainly because it brings together everything that was good and was bad about Zappa). Largely agree that he tapered off towards the end, when he was releasing albums largely because he could (and because he'd gotten that damn Synclavier doing music by himself, without anyone or anything to keep him or his sketchier ideas in check).

As for the astuteness -- I guess some of that's from my having read a lot of his interviews as well as his autobiography. His lyrics are a grab-bag of the funny, the astute, the obscene and the flat-out stupid ... even he admitted that a lot of his lyrics and plots (esp. Joe's Garage) were stupid.

'Hot Rats' is good though, and is it 'Suzy Cream Cheese' (?). Actually, Zap ain't so bad. I mean the guy did twiddle the knobs on 'Troutmask' right? It's just he's so fucking odd; but for the sake of being odd, you know. Whereas with Loonheart, you know that he is genuinely fucking out there, Zappa is always trying so damn hard.

With this is mind: Dud.

So... Nobody here has a sense of humor unless they're STONED??

All of you hate fun and sweet sweet guitar solos. REVIVE!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssjVez9UA4w

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ew3Dq82Q1bQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCG4Caw7IIc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_i_HVBD9ks

Alternate '73 version of Montana with better video quality but lower sound. KILLER solo.

ahhhhh thanks

whoa i just clicked on that "last zappa interview" video--really sad

fuckin ian underwood!

I haven't brought myself to watch that yet, but there are 5 sections of the Zappa bio from BBC on there too, which I highly recommend.

That video of "You are what you is" made the 8 year old me extremely nauseous when it originally aired.

I just read about this morning--no recollection of it playing any festivals here, and I can't find a listing on IMDB.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7figLnhYZ44

”both” is the answer to the this thread

haha, otm

So much material that there are extremes of both.

Full catalogue to be reissued by Universal this year, apparently including some new mastering jobs. (By Joe Travers? No details given.)

My first question is whether Gail and the ZFT retains the right to keep on mining the extensive vaults and putting stuff out themselves.

hmmm, i seem to recall that the mixes of a lot of those 90s reissues had been futzed w/ by Zappa? wonder if these are the "original" mixes or whatever.

RIP Rykodisc.

I hope they're the "unfutzed" versions.

I dunno - the original version of "We're Only In It For the Money" is pretty horrible, really

sonically, I mean

Would like somebody to explain me the difference between remixing and remastering in the context of this news. When FZ did the CD releases of Ruben and the Jets and WOIIFTM with new bass & drum tracks, it's safe to say he did new mixes. There are fairly radical differences in LP and CD mixes of Hot Rats. But I imagine that most of the CD catalogue consisted of digital transfer of the original vinyl masters, right, without much fiddling around?

You have it right, Remastering is tracking down the best possible format of the final mixes of an album (in Zappa's case probably 1/2 or 1/4 inch analog tape reels and adding equalisation and/or compression & limiting to get the best overall sound and dynamics onto whichever format the recording is going to end up on. Of course the potential abuse of the process is a big issue in the digital age.

Remixing is loading the original unmixed master tapes onto whatever the relevant playback machine would be and repeating the process of mixing the album from scratch.

The regular cds of Freak Out have a bunch of digital echo Frank added in the 80s. The reissue entitled MOFO has the og mix.

I remember reading that he apparently dicked about with recordings other than Hot Rats and WOIIFTM too, that's where the UMRK Approved master tag came in.

I dunno - the original version of "We're Only In It For the Money" is pretty horrible, really

the version on cd with added slap bass is a whole new level of awful though

hmmm, i seem to recall that the mixes of a lot of those 90s reissues had been futzed w/ by Zappa? wonder if these are the "original" mixes or whatever.

"futzed" is putting it mildly.

Reissues

In 1984, Zappa prepared a remix of Cruising with Ruben & the Jets for its compact disc reissue and the vinyl box set The Old Masters I. The remix featured new rhythm tracks recorded by bassist Arthur Barrow and drummer Chad Wackerman, much as the 1984 remix of We're Only in It for the Money had featured. Zappa stated "The master tapes for Ruben and the Jets were in better shape, but since I liked the results on We're Only in it For the Money, I decided to do it on Ruben too. But those are the only two albums on which the original performances were replaced. I thought the important thing was the material itself."[2]

After the remixing was announced, a $13 million lawsuit was filed against Zappa by Jimmy Carl Black, Bunk Gardner and Don Preston, who were later joined by Ray Collins, Art Tripp and Motorhead Sherwood, increasing the claim to $16.4 million, stating that they had received no royalties from Zappa since 1969.[2]

In 2009, the original mix of the album was released as part of a compilation entitled Greasy Love Songs.[6]

zappa was so nuts about that sort of thing, it seems. i remember reading something about the creation of "shut and play your guitar" (i think) where he would put guitar solos from, say, 1974 into a recording from 1981.

He would lift guitar tracks from live recordings and drop them into studio based stuff, he did a whole track by layering elements from different recordings, Tink Runs Amok? He called it Xenochrony iirc.

XENOCHRONY! Exciting. Bands that never were.

"Rubber Shirt," from Sheik Yerbouti:

SPECIAL NOTE: The bass part is extracted from
a four track master of a performance from Goteborg,
Sweden 1974 which I had Patrick O"Hearn overdub on
a medium tempo guitar solo track in 4/4. The noted
chosen were more or less specified during the overdub
session, and so it was not completely an improvised
"bass solo." A year and a half later, the bass track was
peeled off the Swedish master and transferred to one
track of another studio 24 track master for a slow song
in 11/4. The result of this experimental re-synchronization
(the same technique was used on the Zoot Allures
album in "Friendly Little Finger") is the piece you are
listening to. All of the sensitive, interesting interplay
between the bass and drums never actually happened ...
also note, the guitar solo section of the song "Yo' Mama"
on side four was done the same way.

One of my favorite Sheik Yerbouti tracks.

I was just to talking to a big Zappaphile firend of mine, and he mentioned that some of the other "futzing" was undoing vintage edit jobs done to fit lp time constraints. He cited these two (and was only partially wrong):

Wiki on Hot Rats:

In 1987 Zappa remixed Hot Rats for re-issue on Compact Disc. "Willie the Pimp" is edited differently during the introduction and guitar solo. "The Gumbo Variations" has 4 minutes of additional material including an introduction and guitar and saxophone solo sections which were cut from the vinyl LP version. Piano and flute which were buried the LP mix of "Little Umbrellas" are prominent on the CD. Other differences include significant changes to the overall ambiance and dynamic range. The original mix was reissued in 2009 as a limited edition audiophile LP by Classic Records.

Wiki on Weasels...:

The CD version of the album features different versions of "Didja Get Any Onya?" and "Prelude to the Afternoon of a Sexually Aroused Gas Mask", which featured music edited out of the LP versions. Some of this extra music was used (in a different studio recording) as the backing track for "The Blimp" on the Captain Beefheart album Trout Mask Replica, produced by Frank Zappa.

the version on cd with added slap bass is a whole new level of awful though

― zappi

I was trying to youtube some songs off it a few years back, and the only versions that came up were from this, which I hadn't been aware of before, and I was seriously appalled. Especially since the original WOIIFTM is one of my all-time faves.

What he did to "Ruben & the Jets" was criminal

But it was his music, I suppose he could do what he liked with it

I was happy when the Family Trust rectified the Reuben redux last year.

But it was his music, I suppose he could do what he liked with it

― Tom D (Tom D.)

the crimes of george lucas ('90s on)

I was happy when the Family Trust rectified the Reuben redux last year.

They did? I must have missed this!

They released it as Greasy Love Songs.

http://www.zappa.com/fz/discography/2010greasylovesongs.html

The version of WOIIFTM that I first heard was the one with the new bass and drums, so for a long time I thought that was the original version. When I finally heard the real original I was quite shocked at the difference. I still hear the altered one as being the "right" one even though I know that's not right.

I used to think there were things to like about the 1984 mix, but...naaah. I don't think I've ever heard the original vinyl. I'd like to check it out sometime if there's a digital rip floating around somewhere, and compare it to the 1993 remix/remaster.

one thing I like about the 1984 version is that it restored some pieces from the original recording that had been censored out by the record company

I wish there was a version of the original mixed with those excised bits added back in

original mix

Isn't that just that "don't come in me in me" is backwards on the original, forwards on the remix? I can't recall other instances.

There's also a verse in Mother People with the line "Shut your fucking mouth about the length of my hair" that's also backwards on the original.

Ah, yeah. Listening to Absolutely Free at the moment. Man, "Duke Of Prunes" marries such a beautiful melody to some of the most bizarre lyrics...

Its been about five years, maybe time again for me to dip my toes into Zappa. My last few attempts have been pretty unsuccessful, I seem to admire him more than I actually like his work.

So many eras, so many styles, so much sorting the chaff to find the wheat. I used to listen to him a lot more than I do now, but every once in a while I'll just browse youtube and find something cool.

Maybe thats a good way to go about it. I used to work with a dude that owned everything he ever did, wish I still did so I could just borrow a random stack.

FZ the composer rewards deep and repeated listening, FZ the lyricist and misanthrope doesn't (with a couple of rare exceptions). This album, FZ played on Baroque instruments by Ensemble Ambrosius, is really good:

http://open.spotify.com/album/40I3p7zHU7waQwZABZoiPr

i've come around to zappa a bit, but it seems like everytime i'm hearing some truly amazing superhuman music in comes some "funny" fake doo-wop or a dude with a mexican accent saying thing

Zappa in a nutshell

i've come around to zappa a bit, but it seems like everytime i'm hearing some truly amazing superhuman music in comes some "funny" fake doo-wop or a dude with a mexican accent saying thing

Yeah, I've got a soft spot for that kind of puerile genre-bending.

When it comes to FZ, sometimes the smarm can charm, but it will just as often harm.

Sometimes both in the same song.

Listening to this for the very first time, and grinning like an idiot. The side of Roxy and Elsewhere containing "Echidna" is one of my favorites, and this nails it beautifully. Thanks, WmC!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpalPoMZegw

Agreed with most of the above - Uncle Meat is such a frustrating album for exactly this reason. You can hear so much brilliance on there, but its also the point where he feels the need to ruin every beautiful thing he ever wrote with goofy vocals or terrible instrumentation or boring snippets of dialogue - I dig dudes that try to challenge their audience, but I feel like FZ just did it for its own sake. "Dog Breath" would be such an amazing composition if they just did it somewhat straight!!

xpost

My pleasure! That Ambrosius album is just gorgeous, but some days I think Music by Frank Zappa by the Omnibus Wind Ensemble is even better. Too bad it's not on Spotify, but here is a short playlist of four of the pieces -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkgEFFBj6mc&feature=BFa&list=PL4F6D5A18F6CE6BAA

Inca Roads/Uncle Meat/No. 7/Black Page #2

Uncle Meat is a perfect album, imo, incl the lyrics and vocals.

Yep, I love Uncle Meat to death. Sprawling, yeah, but wonderful. I just watched this for the first time; I don't know anything about the Token Of His Extreme DVD.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PewnFHIHzM

Uncle Meat is definitely one of my favorites too, don't really see how it's ruined

I think my favorite FZ, in terms of writing, performance & production is Inca Roads

I think my main problem with Zappa is that his jokes aren't funny

What about the snorks?

Lots of them were up until about 74.

xpost

dunno what compelled Zappa to rip off the Smurfs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuCq0aZiPT0

"Ruben Sano was 19 when he quit the group to work on his car" = funny

Lots of them were up until about 74.

Bingo, though I did like some of the bizarre robo-sex scenes in Joe's Garage for their pure bizarreness

my drummer's impression of FZ in the studio for this track: "Come on, Roy - sing that way we all hate":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hjU2GCKx4g

Man, that clip cracks me up. Grinning from ear to ear.

Lots of them were up until about 74.

― I wish to incorporate disco into my small business (chap),

OTM. I think the mid-70s turning point was the break with Herb Cohen and the beginning of Endless Grief with Warner Bros., which pushed him the rest of the way into total humanity-hatred. (The first push being his "obscenity" bust at Studio Z.) His lyrics never carried much fond regard from the beginning, but they really seemed to start being etched in acid from about '76-77. I wonder what kind of person he would have turned out as if not for those two events.

Getting knocked offstage/seriously injured in Montreaux couldn't've helped either

Did he ever voice an opinion re:"Smoke On The Water"?

Early Zappa: Freak Out!, Absolutely Free, We're Only In It For the Money and Lumpy Gravy are still my favorites. Love that OG Mothers band. First time I ever heard "Absolutely Free" I was 100% in love, tho I never found anything else by FZ that equaled it for me. I think "Brown Shoes Don't Make It" is his peak, and "Duke of Prunes" and the accompanying suite/psych freak-out/Stravinsky quotes is probably the best thing he's ever done. I worshiped this stuff in high school.

Late 60's/Early 70's Zappa: Feels like most of this is culled from live performances, live experiments, etc. You can probably just watch "200 Motels" and get the gist of what he was going for with this. Love that movie, and some of the songs are really wonderful, ironic 70's stoner rock jams. Flo & Eddie are great additions to the band!

70's Zappa: More live stuff, studio experiments. Lots of great stuff, most of it depending on how much you enjoy comedy fusion jazz. First time I ever heard "Sheik Yerbouti" I really hated it, but every time after that I totally loved it. Probably for this reason I haven't really delved into too much else from this era. The Terry Bozzio stuff on that album owns.

80's Zappa: Don't know anything past "You Are What You Is", which has some great 80's-relevant social commentary. Anti-right wing, anti-war, anti-Mud Club, anti-religious right, etc.

Alas, my heart lies with the 60's stuff.

Does anyone else love Apostrophe?

I LOVE Apostrophe.

My heart lies with the post- Flo and Eddie/ pre- disillusionment years. Say, 72-77.

I'm kind of cool to Apostrophe. It's ok, but way down my personal ranking of his albums. (I should actually do that ranking sometime.)

Getting knocked offstage/seriously injured in Montreaux couldn't've helped either

― Race Against Rockism (Myonga Vön Bontee), Thursday, June 14, 2012 3:05 PM

This was in London, a week after Montreux, but yeah -- destruction of all the band's gear and nearly being killed by a drunk within a few days had to be another horrible low point.

Jesus, I knew about the gear/casino fire thing, but hadn't heard about the accident. I'd be pretty pissed off at my "fans" after those two incidents too!

only album i love beyond 60s Mothers stuff is Apostrophe, this is almost entirely down to hearing it as a kid tho via neighbours parents

The version of WOIIFTM that I first heard was the one with the new bass and drums, so for a long time I thought that was the original version. When I finally heard the real original I was quite shocked at the difference. I still hear the altered one as being the "right" one even though I know that's not right.

I finally tracked down the 80's version of this album and it's blowing my mind; WOIIFTM is still one of my absolute favorite albums ever and it has been for like a decade, so hearing a completely new version of it is nearly surreal (seems like more than just the bass and drums was remixed). I'm not sure if I really like it, though I'll admit the production on the original was pretty terrible.

I poked around on YouTube a little last night and really fell for "Montana".

Awesome article on Zappa here, mostly about "Watermelon in Easter Hay":

http://www.furious.com/perfect/zappainstrumentals.html

I think it really reflects what I meant when I say he "ruins" his own work, but he puts it a lot less harshly. Still, very interesting (and long!)

I finally tracked down the 80's version of this album and it's blowing my mind; WOIIFTM is still one of my absolute favorite albums ever and it has been for like a decade, so hearing a completely new version of it is nearly surreal (seems like more than just the bass and drums was remixed). I'm not sure if I really like it, though I'll admit the production on the original was pretty terrible.

― frogbs, Friday, June 15, 2012 2:10 PM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I've heard both, and there are bits that I prefer on both versions. Like on the '80s version, there were things that were edited out of the '60s version that I like: like the "I get to work with the Velvet Underground, who are just as shitty a group as Frank Zappa's group" part and the 'missing' verse to 'Mother People' ("shut your fuckin' mouth about the length of our hair" etc.)

There's that bit on 'Harry, You're A Beast' at the end where it goes "don't come in me, in me, don't come in me, in me" that's uncensored on the later version, but I actually think it worked better with all that baskmasking and tape-editing when he censored it for the original version... not for any prudish reasons, just that I think the effect is really fucking neat! (Especially on headphones)!

I have to think the Studio Z experience was a huge marker on the way Zappa's career went after that point. I'd figure the fact that the local cops pretty much just set him up and destroyed his studio business probably set him on the path he went.

That doesn't happen and he stayed in the studio business, things perhaps would have went very different. Frank Zappa might have ended up with a career path like say David Axelrod or maybe some kind of low rent Jerry Goldsmith, getting more into production and sound track work.

It was his "as God is my witness, I'll never go hungry again" moment.

I actually wouldn't be totally surprised if Gail included streaming rights in the Universal deal! I could see arguments both ways, for including and for withholding. Actually the smart way to do it would be to allow Spotify/streaming for each album one year after its CD release.

Awesome article on Zappa here, mostly about "Watermelon in Easter Hay":

http://www.furious.com/perfect/zappainstrumentals.html

I think it really reflects what I meant when I say he "ruins" his own work, but he puts it a lot less harshly. Still, very interesting (and long!)

Yeah, enjoyed reading that, thanks frogbs. I'm a fairly casual Zappa fan but I totally agree with the guy's conclusion about picking and choosing from the back catalogue. With that in mind I really hope it all ends up on iTunes eventually - 'Watermelon in Easter Hay' is one of my favourite songs of all time but I've zero interest in hearing the rest of Joe's Garage.

I used to read a bunch of those personal review sites and it was always funny how the authors would start out super excited about reviewing Zappa and would just pour out all this emotion on how great he was, then once they hit Sheik Yerbouti or so it just seemed like all the life was sucked out of them. Here's an excerpt that I liked:

Frank Zappa was a guy who simply couldn't shut up. He was like a kid who'd just gotten a tape recorder and spent every second of every day putting down anything that popped into his head, thinking it was hilariously genius and needed not only to be preserved on magnetic tape forever, but also played back to friends, relatives, milkmen, random passers-by, and anyone else within earshot. The guy who was forever recording his farts, or trying to create an electric guitar out of an old transistor radio, a roll of aluminum foil, and sbout fifteen gallons of solder, or singing showtunes in some Looney Tunes voice and cracking up like he'd just given a wedgie to the Pope or something. You know, not the class clown, but the dude not even the freaks and weirdos could understand. It was exactly this childish inability to color within the lines and self-edit that both sealed Frank Zappa's commercial failure and formed an unbreakable bond with a certain group of insane fanatics who hung on his every note. The man attracts and repulses with equally irresistible force - The man's a master guitar player who often spends too much time talking to actually play. He writes extraordinarily complex music that often just comes across like a poorly organized in-joke. He's never met a musical form he didn't try to master, from free-jazz to doo wop to modern classical to electronic music, and he's never met a musical form he didn't then try to wad up into a little Zappa ball, filtered through his perverse sensibilities and stripped of most of what made it distinct in the first place. He's diverse stylistically, but a whole lot of his stuff sounds EXACTLY THE SAME AS ITSELF.

Frank Zappa's commercial failure

Stopped reading at this phrase. If chart hits is this reviewer's main metric, then fuck him for that. If it's not, then he doesn't really know much about FZ, so fuck him for that. FZ was financially secure enough to build his own state of the art studio and release pretty much whatever he felt like, so

maybe you should have kept reading if you really wanted to know why the guy has his problems with Zappa? not sure how you arrived at that conclusion

The only conclusion I reached was "fuck this guy" for either not understanding or for misrepresenting what commercial success or failure means in re: FZ. I didn't address whatever critical problems he has the work, and have no beef with that.

...problems he has WITH the work...

Yeah, commercial failure. If only he had a hit record he coulda been a success. Instead he self-released like over 50 LPs. What a loser.

well, it's a 50-page long article. certianly "commercial failure" isn't really intended as a criticism; he's just mentioning the consequences of not self-editing at all. that's just a small part of the overall point here which is that Zappa was a brilliant man who thought he was even more brilliant than he actually was, and the work (especially post-1971) suffers as a result

Well, I finally bought one.

I got a copy of "Freak Out", a UK 'original pressing of the double LP' (as opposed to the real original which was a single LP, I know..)

Anyway, first track, it's Northern Soul! Wasn't expecting that.

freak out is great

Not sure if "Northern Soul" is accurate.

You don't think it has something of the "Going to a go-go" about it? (The Sharonettes version)

Did you just say that the original version of Freak Out was a single lp? or are you talking about a UK release of it?

It's famous for being about the first rock double lp, among other things.
Came within 5 weeks of Blonde On Blonde apparently.

Yeah, the first release of "Freak Out" in the UK was a single LP.

Yeah, I guess I guess the "Mister America" parts are kind of a "Going to a Go Go" groove.

I guess I guess!

Nine Types of Industrial Pollution isn't bad AT ALL - it strikes an annoyingly polite tone that often put me off him but I love the crashing percussion part it starts off on (the percussions on this is varied and actually provides weighty counter to the guitar) and keeps me interested with these mutant cocktail jazz excursions that hang together ok and builds to an intense prickling..

I'll check a few more links and see what else i can find.

Zappadan starts Tuesday

Is anyone else on the Zappa trust mailing list? They sent out an email letting people know they could be distributors of an official live pre-Roxy & Elsewhere show. It was the Zappa version of Amway. Incredibly weird.

I sat down an made a road trip CDR kind of centered around the more rockin' early Zappa/Mothers. Got up to 1971 when I ran out of space.

Hungry Freaks, Daddy
I'm Not Satisfied
Trouble Every Day
Invocation and Ritual Dance of the Young Pumpkin
Why Don'tcha Do Me Right?
Who Needs the Peace Corps?
King Kong VI
Peaches en Regalia
Willy the Pimp
My Guitar Wants to Kill Your Mama
The Orange County Lumber Truck
Transylvania Boogie
Road Ladies
Tell Me You Love Me
Chunga's Revenge
Willie the Pimp (Fillmore East '71 version)

200 Motels live. Anyone go?

I'll try and listen to a few bits later...doubt the music will be any good. Profanity is rarely shocking to me so I'm thinking lame lame lame. An event-less event, and the track record for surrealist films that aren't made by Bunuel can't be much good.

Thanks for the link -- listening to it now. For some reason I thought the BBC's iPlayer wouldn't work for a U.S. IP address, but this plays fine.

Why don't you think the music will be any good? The occasional dirty words aren't relevant.

mentioned here.

(xxp) Me!

It was hugely fun, one of the best shows i've seen in a good while.

There is a really killer instrumental guitar record within "Lather". I haven't tried editing it down into a play list, but there is some great guitar playing on some of the instrumental tracks like Filthy Habits, The Ocean is the Ultimate Solution and Leather Goods.

RDNZL, Sleep Dirt and Filthy Habits have my three favorite studio guitar solos by him. He preferred soloing in concert iirc, but he seemed to be exploring the instrument in the studio a little more during the mid 70s, including a fretless guitar that he said had an interesting tone but was a bugger to keep in tune.

Anyone pick up Roxy By Proxy yet? I really want to but the Trust overcharges for everything.

Well, I "Picked it up" hem hem, but I haven't heard much of his oveure so hey hey..

Would have been 74 today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gh5gCb1th90

Finished Neil Slaven's FZ biography yesterday – very disappointing. He aggregated just about everything published about the guy, but did absolutely no new interviews with any principal characters from FZ's life. I wonder if Gail's strong-arm tactics were at play. A lot of these people are getting old and dying -- if there's a proper bio of the man to be written, somebody better hurry up.

I think I've mentioned this on some other threads, but I've recently seen a couple really good Zappa documentaries by Tom O'Dell that are worth checking out.

From Straight to Bizarre - a very detailed look at Zappa's labels
http://www.amazon.com/Frank-Zappa-Straight-Bizarre-Unavailable/dp/B00B68PK4G/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1421091642&sr=8-1&keywords=frank+zappa+bizarre

or on youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fX_bnR1SZRM&index=1&list=PL8flSFeCsFvL4TVFypWCptZ6mASDufeI2

Freak Jazz, Movie Madness and Another Mothers - covers the Flo & Eddie years
http://www.amazon.com/Frank-Zappa-Madness-Another-Mothers/dp/B00MA15AIO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1421091592&sr=8-1&keywords=frank+zappa+1969-1973

Was impressed with how in depth these both were and the interesting interviews with former Mothers and other FZ collaborators they managed to get.

more like wank crappa

amirite

http://dangerousminds.net/comments/1967_frank_zappa_linda_ronstadt_radio

Alex Winter is making a documentary: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/frank-zappa-documentary-by-alex-winter-starts-production-20150724

I'm equal parts dubious and hopeful.

...and UMG and the Zappa Family Trust say "hey, let's do this all over again" — http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/frank-zappas-family-plans-massive-new-release-schedule-20150729

A few things to be happy about...
The Roxy Movie
The LA Philharmonic performance of 200 Motels
Ahmet taking over day to day management of the ZFT from Gail

If the Roxy Movie finally comes out I'll be happy. They've been talking about putting it out for seemingly decades now.

RIP Gail Zappa

RIP Gail – you were the best thing that ever happened to Frank, but maybe just a wee bit overprotective of him after his death.

Shame, RIP Gail.

RIP Gail – you were the best thing that ever happened to Frank, but maybe just a wee bit overprotective of him after his death.

I don't know - I think a lot of artists would like to know that someone would be so fierce a guardian of their work after they're gone.

I'm sure they would! That's the main reason my feelings about Gail are so conflicted. No fan of an artist is owed a warts-and-all look into that artist's psyche to try to figure out what made them tick. We'd love to have it, but we don't deserve it just by virtue of our interest. I don't even know if, without Gail's dogged protectiveness, we would have gotten that look at FZ by now, or if Alex Winter's film will give us any insight we don't already have.

I admire the hell out of her while acknowledging my frustration.

feeling your take on that, WmC

hay at least she released Bat Chain Puller!

RIP.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/09/business/media/frank-zappas-house-can-be-yours-for-9-million.html?_r=0

Damn my bad Powerball luck.

Interview with Alex Winter about the doc he's making

http://audio.californiareport.org/archive/R201604291630/a

Schism:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/30/business/media/whats-in-a-name-just-ask-frank-zappas-feuding-heirs.html

jeez, what a miserable bunch

The zapples don't fall far from the tree.

If you'd told me 2 of the kids would be on the inside running the trust and 2 on the outs, peeved, I would have had the groups switched.

Easy to tell who Gail's favourites were.

oh man I bet Frank would've loved to see this

he would've sued all of them

Yeah, even when Gail was alive it sounds like she was just doing Dweezil a favor, and he still had to pay a shitload of licensing. I dunno, I think if you name your kid Dweezil you pretty much owe him whatever he wants.

If you'd told me 2 of the kids would be on the inside running the trust and 2 on the outs, peeved, I would have had the groups switched.

― kills 1.8 percent of household germs (WilliamC), Saturday, April 30, 2016 10:34 AM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah no kidding...the split between Dweezil & Ahmet is weirdly depressing to me

Frank is still outsmarting his public from beyond the grave.

There's a Zappacast (available on iTunes) called "remebering Gail Zappa" that discusses what happened before this became public. The good news is that there´s a new release announced for May (Road Tapes 3, a recording from 1970 Flo&Eddie band before they became "Vaudeville"(.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/611vGp3jKDL.jpg

Can someone photoshop this into the shape of a broken heart?

can anyone succinctly explain the gail problem? can't mess with the podcast now and am having trouble finding a straight account of the relevant events since 1993 …she was overzealous in protecting the FZ legacy? if anyone knows of a comprehensive account as such, would be grateful.

All I know is that apparently she had been giving Dweezil, her own son, special dispensation to tour Frank's music, and even then he had to pay. Or as reported in Rolling Stone:

Gail Zappa had previously allowed Dweezil to use the Zappa Plays Zappa in exchange for an "exorbitant fee."

Also notes:

In the wake of matriarch and longtime estate executrix Gail Zappa's death in October, son Ahmet Zappa was tasked with handling the day-to-day operations of his father's estate with help from youngest daughter Diva Zappa. Dweezil and Moon Unit Zappa are not trustees, but remain equal beneficiaries of their father's estate with their other two siblings.

So for whatever reason, Dweezil and Moon Unit make money from Zappa but are not trustees, and the other two are, and all four - or both pairs - are at odds.

Also, other long time tribute bands like project/object and the grandmothers were pretty much put out business by the Zappa family.

http://zappacast.podomatic.com/

I think a great way to keep Frank Zappa's legacy alive to to stop people from playing his music live (since he never gave a shot about live performance, anyway) and to put all your efforts into reissuing the back catalog for the 30th time.

since he never gave a shot about live performance, anyway

A shit or a shot? Either way, I'm not sure that's true.

It was an autocorrected joke. Zappa repeatedly more or less dismissed his records as snapshots, and promoted live music as where it was at. So it's ironic that his estate is so stuffy about letting people play his music. It would be like the Dead limiting live performances.

Yeah there's definitely something very sad about it. I've seen ZPZ and they are definitely not a cash-in, they clearly try very hard to get things right and I always thought Dweezil was doing his old man proud.

can anyone succinctly explain the gail problem? can't mess with the podcast now and am having trouble finding a straight account of the relevant events since 1993 …she was overzealous in protecting the FZ legacy? if anyone knows of a comprehensive account as such, would be grateful.

Gail ran the whole ZFT until Ahmet took over. Gail supported ZPZ but at one point Dweezil and her fell out with each other. Frank told Gail to sell the back catalog, but she decided not to and protect the whole image of FZ and everything that came with it. This is discussed extensively in the podcast about Gail (again).

I put my hopes on Alex Winter. He understands that the vault needs to be catalogued and conserved. Joe Travers can´t do everything by himself.

Ahmet's side of things in the wake of the NYT story:

https://www.facebook.com/notes/ahmet-zappa/an-open-letter-to-my-brother/10153667213097309

That $1 a year thing sounds fishy. If it sounds too good to be true ...

My guess is that yeah, it is $1 a year, but that a big percentage of tour profit gets rolled back in to the trust. So Dweezil can play Zappa for $1, but he may indeed be losing hundreds of thousands in profits going back to the trust. Which does sound a little greedy on Dweezil's part, but I guess the only way to know would be to see the breakdown of his costs.

My take: I saw these two bros a couple of times together, playing their own material. It was brilliant and a lot of fun. Saw the ZPZ tour and thought it was pretty boring. Dweezil and Frank have totally different guitar styles and I'd rather see Dweezil shredding his ultra-heavy Spinal Tap stylings than hammering out Baby Snakes etc for three hours. They should wise up and forget about the $$$, which I doubt they need.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cv3sAFe1FCM

yeah, basically the idea is that the profits from any performance using Zappa's name and songs gets shared with the family, which would make sense if they were all going out there and doing this, but it's really only Dweezil, so I can see why it pisses him off.

i kinda don't get this story. the $1 thing seems entirely reasonable. it is common with legal proceedings, titles, contracts, etc. to involve such a fee. if you buy a used car you may pay this fee to buy the title.

it makes sense that they would want all the money to stay in the family. it is Frank's songs after all. i assume Frank set that up?

so it sounds like Dweezil just doesn't want to share the money w his family? or could it be more complex than that, maybe a legal attempt to restructure the family estate?

yeah, basically the idea is that the profits from any performance using Zappa's name and songs gets shared with the family, which would make sense if they were all going out there and doing this, but it's really only Dweezil, so I can see why it pisses him off.

― Check Yr Scrobbles (Moodles), Wednesday, May 4, 2016 7:24 PM (24 minutes ago)

OTM. He's doing the heavy lifting and taking on a lot of touring expenses and the other 3 kids get to sit back and be handed free money.

adminning the business end of things even on a rinky-dink operation ilke the joan crawford loves chachi band is a goddamn 8 hour a day job minimum and nobody comes up to the biz end ppl at the end of their shift and says "you kicked ass today." adminning the zappa operations is, I am 100% sure, a fucking lot of work and a shitload less glamorous than touring.

OTM. He's doing the heavy lifting and taking on a lot of touring expenses and the other 3 kids get to sit back and be handed free money.

― contains less than 2 percent of the following (WilliamC), Wednesday, May 4, 2016 8:52 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

only if he plays THESE SPECIFIC SONGS. he has the option to play his own music and keep all the money.

he has the option to play his own music and keep all the money.

All the money from the eight people interested in hearing "Blonde Hair, Brown Nose" and "Bang Your Groove Thang"?

And there it is.

yeah I feel Ahmet is being a little disingenuous bringing up the $1/year thing (like an infomercial..."less than a cup of coffee! hell, I'll pay it myself!") but having ZPZ touring is beneficial to everyone so part of me doubts they're trying to put the screws to him or anything

i finally get why Ariel Pink is compared to Zappa all the time:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMdhWRO4-dQ

what a horrible song

Think of all the hard work so many people are doing to preserve the legacy of songs like that!

I'm all choked up about it.

Dweezil was doing that song with the Zappa Plays Zappa thing a few years back.

is comedy r&b really so bad

Haven't heard that one. What album's it on?

^^^ Joe's Garage

Jerk's Garbage morelike.

Try sitting thru all 3 sides of that, one of Frank's better albums, so Zappa fans tell me.

All Zappa fans?

(Jerk's Garbage is a good take, except for "Watermelon in Easter Hay" and "Outside Now")

The first album has a few funny songs (if you're 14, like I was when I first heard it); the second album is completely forgettable (at any rate, I've forgotten what it sounds like); the third album has a nice instrumental at the end.

Ha, I kind of like "Catholic Girls", despite the lyrical sentiments.

I still think "Stick it Out" and "Sy Borg" are pretty funny, just in a "what the fuck is going on?" kinda way

Apparently Frank thought so too, which is why we got Thing-Fish, THREE MORE ALBUMS full of this stuff. And yet somehow, not funny in the slightest.

I only used to listen to Joe's Garage years ago because it is one of only a couple of Zappa albums with Vinnie Colaiuta. But it's awful music. Frank was pretty much the worst part of any Zappa album. Worst singer, worst player, worst person responsible for the silly voices, dumb parody, stupid satire - and his songs ARE stupid, too. That's the must frustrating aspect of Zappa. For a guy so smart, he was so dumb. And he was a dick about it, too. "Oh, you think that's dumb? You just don't get it." "Oh, you think that's smart? Well, you're stupid, because it's just a dumb song."

I think "Watermelon in Easter Hay" is one of the best things he ever did. It wouldn't occur to me to listen to that whole album, though.

For a guy so smart, he was so dumb. And he was a dick about it, too. "Oh, you think that's dumb? You just don't get it." "Oh, you think that's smart? Well, you're stupid, because it's just a dumb song."

Yep that's Frank in a nutshell right there. I'm always astounded by stuff like "Billy the Mountain", which features so many different sections and riffs and little bits that have to be syncopated perfectly to work, and yet the whole thing is so stupid and irritating, he's like a guy who spent five years learning to fart Beethoven's 9th.

I'd enjoy more of it as cartoon music music on par with Raymond Scott if he weren't so snide. I also have a low threshold for widdly guitar in the Zappa/McLaughlin mold.

Well, to start with, John McLaughlin is a much better guitarist than Zappa; I don't know any guitarist who thinks very highly of Zappa the musician, let alone improvisational musician, and there's a reason he hired so many "stunt guitarists." But anyway, what I was saying was that Zappa is the worst aspect of pretty much all Zappa. If everything stayed the same but he was gone it'd probably be a tolerable listen.

Not sure the stunt guitarists and various vocalists do too much to improve matters.

Anyway I guess Dweezil's side is coming so things are probably about to get worse

Kinda feel bad that Frank's legacy being dragged through this but then I remember how he treated the original MOI and did that horrible We're Only in it For the Money remaster with the sole purpose of cutting them out of their share, so yeah, guess this runs in the family

I've tried with Zappa, many times, but in the end I've had to admit it just sounds like a very, very musically advanced student comedy revue.

he's like a guy who spent five years learning to fart Beethoven's 9th.

Yep

... hold on there, I've never heard that given as the reason for the WOIIFTM re-recordings.

Frank never admitted to it but I think that was definitely the reason. This FAQ kinda explains it:

http://lukpac.org/~handmade/patio/misc/why.html

Basically - FZ claimed the original tapes were too damaged and the bass and drums needed to be re-recorded, but a number of People Who Were There claim this is not actually true.

(I guess denying royalties was not the 'sole purpose' - but definitely a big factor his decision, given how stingy he was with those guys)

I heard the damaged tapes story, also that he thought the playing basically sucked.

Any shortcomings in the original recordings were entirely down to Zappa himself though, he produced and mixed the original albums, pretty ineptly imo.

I heard the damaged tapes story, also that he thought the playing basically sucked.

Feel like I always spam the Zappa threads with this cherce nugget but do you guys know the story about FZ and Weird Al's bass player?

Nobody taking the bait, huh? Okay... no, I don't know the story!

http://www.globalbass.com/archives/dec2001/stephen_jay.htm

Some of his instrumentals still do it for me. I have a soft spot for Moggio (from the otherwise very weak Man From Utopia album), which I think is an astounding composition. The counterpointing bass is incredible, and it's all written out.

TS: 'Catholic Girls' vs. 'Jewish Princess'

McLaughlin is on another level than Zappa, plus their viewpoints are so different, highly spiritual questing vs LA cynic

thank you so much for posting that interview James. worlds collide - im intrigued!

fun fact: Mahavishnu Orchestra was FZ's opening band during the early days of the Roxy band. Apparently there was a pretty big rivalry between the guitarists and two bands. Plus the various drummers and percussionists in FZ's band were all blown away by Billy Cobham.

Christ talk about some serious playing being thrown down that's quite a bill

ponty (who was in the mothers at that point) wound up going to the mahavishnu orchestra a year or so later. and yeah, this was spring '73, when the original mahavishnu orchestra was at their peak... they'd shred faces for 70 minutes, and then zappa would come on and start with the shitty blues of "cosmik debris". that said the rest of the mothers' set was solid material- stuff like rdnzl and the instrumental version of "inca roads", and even if the band wasn't nearly as tight as mahavishnu at that point they were no slouches.

Not only that but isn't "Cosmik Debris" a dig at the kind of spiritual guru stuff John McLaughlin et al were involved with?

Frank is an amazing guitar player and almost every guitarist I know thinks so. His soloing is very emotive. Guitar solos suck, but somehow Frank's don't.

I just heard a Detroit 76 show where the bass player for Mahavishnu joins them on stage with Flo and Eddie and the drummer from Grand Funk!!!

would listen to that show

btw yeah this developing "guitarists don't think zappa was a good one" strain in this thread is lolworthily wrong & bullshit

Here u go its a great show!

https://youtu.be/lWYgrreRRbw

btw yeah this developing "guitarists don't think zappa was a good one" strain in this thread is lolworthily wrong & bullshit

I think it was just one person who said this? FZ was hit and miss imo. Some of his solos just seem to go nowhere to me but when he nailed it (e.g. "Watermelon"), he fucking nailed it. I don't think he was near McLaughlin's league as a player but hardly anyone is.

I think 'Watermelon' is the only song on that record where the solo wasn't pasted in from another source. FZ was going through his xenochrony phase by that time.

He was a great soloist, somehow hit a sweet spot of thinking + feeling in his solo construction. Not the best in the world at playing complicated written parts, which is why he hired stunt guitarists. In retrospect it's slightly surprising that he occasionally hired guitarists because of their feel for the blues (Lowell George, Ray White), you'd think this fan of Gatemouth Brown and Johnny Guitar Watson would be all over that himself, but I guess as the main guy on stage he wanted to free himself up for other stuff. I wish he'd done more comping when other band members had solo space in jazzier pieces — he does a little bit in Roxy the Movie, and he sounds great comping on "King Kong" on Uncle Meat.

Do we think Belew counts as a stunt guitarist?

Going by Baby Snakes and Sheik Yerbouti, I'd say 80% Dynamic Male Vocalist, 15% Comedy Vocals and 5% Stunt Guitar. He didn't and still doesn't read music, so he had to bring other stuff to the band.

So he made the cut as a vocalist, interesting choice under the circumstances.

I don't know if that's the official word, I just base that on how he mostly seems to be used in that film and that album.

Ha, I did listen to the whole Joe's Garage, inspired by this thread. Enjoyed it well enough, mostly in the background. I'm pretty sure I've done that before, actually, so I don't know what I meant up there.

Wonder who would win out in a Zappa sidemen/women poll.

I didn't poll everyone, but I did do drummer and bassist polls.

Favorite Frank Zappa drummer
Favorite Frank Zappa bassist

Jim Black finishing 2nd in drummers is insane, but whaddayagonnado.

Oh yeah, I remember that, voted Thunes

Ftr I think Zappa is a great guitarist but not as good as McLaughlin

Actually listening to The Grand Wazoo and MO' Birds of Fire this afternoon and getting retroactivley heated abt Phisheads that act like they are so next level, it's such baby music

I feel the same way about Birds of Fire as some people feel about Horses, I've tried but it don't impress me much (same is true of The Grand Wazoo* and lots of other Zappa)

*poetic!

I am the one who said Frank Zappa is not a great guitarist. Obviously the guy is more than competent. He is hyper competent enough to play his own compositions. My observation I guess is that for a guy with chops, and obvious incredible compositional chops, and great Ambitions and pretensions, I dont think his guitar playing is really totally free to go to places never heard before. If I was going to compare and contrast him with another great guitar player in a band I don't like, I would bring up Jerry Garcia, who was a really interesting guitarist and could do really interesting things in a musical environment I did not enjoy.

I dont think his guitar playing is really totally free to go to places never heard before

Interesting point. I read only one interview with Zappa where a journalist told him in his face that he was repeating himself all the time as a guitarist and that it wasn´t that "sophisticated" what he was doing (or whatever the term was, I don´t remember exactly). And Zappa didn´t deny any of this. He just said "well, it's my turn to enjoy myself". And he was in the position to do that, paying people to accompany him to play endless solos.

Zappa admitted he was the least talented musician of his band. His skills varied from tour to tour too (at least he had the guts to try out different guitar sounds from tour to tour). He did some great work with Vinnie Colaiuta on the "Shup Up.." albums (as far as polyrhythms go). Just the ongoing crazy interaction between the two.

Zappa seemed to have a love/hate relationship with jazz - he needed jazz players with chops to play his music but he couldn´t play jazz himself as a guitarist. He looks down on jazz chord progressions and standards in his autobiography but at the same time loved Wes Montgomery records. No one ever asked Zappa why he didn´t learn to play jazz guitar or raise the bar as a guitar player - he was smart enough to understand the theory behind it. Sometimes I feel that records as "Grand Wazoo", "Hot Rats" and "Sleep Dirt" were made by another person than Zappa (or at least another side of the man - looking beyond the things he was known for, such as the lyrics). Some people argue he loved to sell himself as an outcast rather than someone belonging to a scene, trend or genre - and build a following this way.

It´s interesting to look at Zappa and "roads not taken", such as the Hot Rats band. His answer to such failed instrumental projects for larger audiences were dumb lyrics and vocally-oriented music (as a way of revenge, it seems). He also didn´t believe there was a market for his Synclavier music because there were no lyrics.

Birds Of Fire is amazing but I like Inner Mounting Flame better. Is Phish anything like that? I've still never heard them.

My favorite Mahavishnu album is the live one, Between Nothingness and Eternity. If you buy the remastered box set with all the albums by the first lineup, it's been expanded to a double disc with about an hour of extra material - including versions of a bunch of tracks that showed up on The Lost Trident Sessions - and it's killer.

he was smart enough to understand the theory behind it.
There's a whole lot of shedding going in between "understanding the theory" and actually being any good at it.

OTM

Is Phish anything like that? I've still never heard them.

No

Nah man Phish is like Spin Doctors with 80s King Crimson chops

That's a really great way of describing some of the worst music on Earth.

What are Spin Doctors like?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsdy_rct6uo

80s King Crimson chops

Wait, did Phish ever approach this? (And I like "You Enjoy Myself" fwiw.)

Assuming he was joking

Oh lol. I forgot how much I enjoyed "Two Princes".

FP^

Spin Doctors = the American Reef
Zappa = the American Bonzos, with added mega-chops

http://www.dweezilzappaworld.com/posts/1982286-response-to-my-brother-s-open-letter

Families, eh? Nightmare.

Thinking Prince may have had it right with no family or will.

So, was this obsessive controlling thing Gail had (and Ahmet has inherited) some twisted way of getting back at Frank for his serial infidelity?

Now renamed the "Dweezil Zappa plays whatever the fuck he wants" tour

featuring robby krieger

http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-ca-ms-frank-zappa-legacy/

Ahmet's "I'm just doing what Mom wanted" stuff smells the most disingenuous, but what do I know.

Speaking on the phone from London after a trip to Stonehenge for summer solstice, Diva says that the last year has been difficult on so many levels and that she and Ahmet are doing the best they can with a difficult situation.

Spoken like a person with the keys to the bank vault.

you can hear Dweezil talk about Gail on Marc Maron. it really sounds like she was completely cuckoo, at one point responding to his request to list ZPZ tour dates on the website with "I'm not just some groupie your father fucked!" seems like (as many people have suspected) Gail was a little resentful towards ol' Frank

can't think of any way of better honor frank's legacy that manipulative acrimonious fighting over money tbh

Saw the documentary last night. For a casual fan like me (the kind Zappa ridicules early in the film: the first three Mothers LPs a touchstone since high school--even before I had them, I'd read Lillian Roxon's entry on them again and again--count "Trouble Every Day" as one of the most amazing songs ever, close to no interest after that), very worthwhile. Similar to the De Palma documentary: no one interviewed other than Zappa himself (I doubt if anyone other than Dylan was ever subjected to sillier questions--a Toronto VJ, Jeanne Beker, who used to get flak from everyone here, actually comes across really well). Things like "Bobby Brown" and "Dinah-Moe Humm"...I don't know, where's the line that separates even fans from fans who find those particular songs smart and funny? I did like how, when asked in what appeared to be his last interview if he ever regretted certain songs, he immediately said "No." My friend and I wondered if it would even be possible to be Frank Zappa today and not be chased out of town yesterday.

The Steve Allen and What's My Line clips, which have undoubtedly turned up elsewhere, are great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTj-xNcvfzI

i have this strong suspicion that frank zappa today would be fucking milo yiannopoulos.

That's the guy Alfred posted about a few days ago...You might be right. I'd like to think there'd be room somewhere for a smarter version today.

nah - FZ had a lot of reprehensible opinions/takes but they were pretty secondary to most of what he did. I don't think he conceived of his work as a platform for his opinions, though he also thought it was a fine forum for his opinions, if you can dig that distinction - but his skill set, anyway, included writing interesting and good music (ymmv of course). but the music came first, I think. these milo types are mainly in it to get attention/make people mad, I don't think that's really true of zappa.

I remember reading years and years ago that Frank Zappa and Ronald Reagan were, at the time, the only two recipients of test letters sent with only a photograph of themselves on the envelope in lieu of an address.

Just to clarify my own post, I mean smarter than Yiannopoulos, not smarter than Zappa.

Because the latter would be scientifically impossible!

That's what puzzles me about Zappa: that someone so intelligent about so many things would (presumably) think that something like "Bobby Brown" (put aside the nasty stuff) had important things to say that a smart high school student hadn't already moved past. (As music, I guess that particular song actually is interesting--modern-day doo-wop big in Scandinavia...)

http://variety.com/2016/dirt/news/lady-gaga-buys-frank-zappa-house-hollywood-1201865296/

Nice that they sold it to another Italian.

The doc is interesting. It was mentioned up thread but in regards to Frank's dismissal of the fans who primarily revere his earlier works, it is probably because there's a sincerity to these albums that was rarely seen later. The moment where a female voice chimes in "flower power sucks" on "We're Only In It For The Money" still gives me chills because very few artists back then commented on the superficiality of these movements. I'm still a fan of his later work like "Over-Nite Senasation" and "Hot Rats" but I struggle to see the sincerity in some of it. Perhaps that's the point, Zappa is rarely sincere and a contrarian, but there's glimpses of it in earlier work like "Uncle Meat" and "Freak Out" where his empathy and avant-garde tendencies shine through. The earlier work makes me think he's worth defending, much harder to do with his later stuff.

The strange thing about Zappa is that his juvenalia is his least juvenile work.

I may have posted this upthread but Zappa is truly the ultimate love / hate proposition for me, and I realize I'm not alone here. Saying "I wish all of his albums were instrumental" is almost a cliche at this point (see: Shut Up & Play Your Guitar, etc) but I am firmly in this camp. I love the hell out of Hot Rats, (most of) Apostrophe, (half of) Roxy, and parts of others, but always wish I liked his albums more than I do. I like the early albums fine but they veer more toward novelty to me (I'm including everything up to Reuben here), like above-average wacky psych pop, but not really the sort of thing I reach for.

That said, I expect I will have a "Zappa phase" at some point in my life. There's just so much good shit mixed in with so much dumb scatological nonsense.

A "Non-Wacky Zappa S&D" would be most welcome

I came here to chime in on that same note!

I’d always loathed Frank Zappa based on his persona and the Dr. Demento style songs that he seems to be best known for (?). I didn’t even know Zappa made any non-“novelty” music until Blessed Relief came up on a Spotify playlist. I like it, but I don’t know if I’m supposed to be taking it at face value, or reading it as some kind of veiled dig at Chuck Mangione and smooth jazz in general.

Are the first couple records a good place to start? I too just can't stand the persona and what I've heard but the Mothers of Invention records are liked by so many people

the first couple of records tend to get more liked because one gets the sense from them that zappa hadn't entirely given up on humanity at that point (though he was getting there) and have some moments of sincere and unaffected emotion (see, for instance, the bridge of "what's the ugliest part of your body"). but it's not as if that album is a wacky-free zone by any means.

anyway there's another thread for non-wacky zappa but i don't remember where it is right now.

First album is ok, the songs don't really fall in the novelty category. 2nd album has a terrific first side but also has the yucky "Brown Shoes Don't Make It," a tender ode to being tired of one's wife and fantasizing about fucking a 13-year-old girl instead. Of the original Mothers-era records, I recommend going in this order:

1. Uncle Meat
2. We're Only In It for the Money
3. Burnt Weeny Sandwich
4. Weasels Ripped My Flesh
5. Ahead of Their Time (released 1993, recorded Oct. 1968; half chamber music and not the worst comedy, half Mothers performance)
6. Cruising with Ruben and the Jets
7. Lumpy Gravy
8. Freak Out!
9. Absolutely Free

If you like the more abstract parts of the first 2, bump Lumpy Gravy higher.

2nd album has a terrific first side but also has the yucky "Brown Shoes Don't Make It,"

LOL, I can't stand the first side and think "Brown Shoes" is one of the best things he ever did.

I think "Brown Shoes" is a great sound collage, and the pedophilia is allegedly the dream of some City Hall worker, not Frank himself, but knowing where Roy Estrada ended up makes this one tough to listen to for me.

Non-Wacky Zappa POX, S&D, etc

xp -- ditto

the first couple of records tend to get more liked because one gets the sense from them that zappa hadn't entirely given up on humanity at that point

Well, or just people liking the sound of the band at that point and the songwriting.

I'm well into sixties rock and roll and happen to think that Freak Out is a document of one of the most dynamic and brilliant sounding bands around.

must admit that i never got that impression from "go cry on somebody else's shoulder" but to each their own

That's clearly one of the songs most reliant on '50s tropes (while a lot of the album is not), but still a nice tune with really good vocals.

Not to hijack this thread. But just read the lyrics to "Brown Shoes Don't Make It" ... supposedly it was about a fashion faux pas of LBJ's and the "dirty old men who run our country." But even still, these lyrics stuck out:

A world of secret hungers
Perverting the men who make your laws
Every desire is hidden away
In drawer, in a desk
By a Naughahyde chair
On a rug where they walk and drool
Past the girls in the office

You 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, teenage queen
Is rocking and rolling and acting obscene

Baby! Baby!
Baby! Baby!

And he loves it, he loves it, it curls up his toes
She bites 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

Do it again and do it some more
That does it, by golly, it'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

If she were my daughter I'd...
(What would you do, Daddy?)
If she were my daughter I'd...
(What would you do, Daddy?)
If she were my daughter I'd...
(What would you do, Daddy?)

Smother my daughter in chocolate syrup
And strap her on again, oh baby
Smother that girl in chocolate syrup
And strap her on again

She's a Teenage Baby and she turns me on
I'd like to make her do a nasty on the White House lawn
Going to smother that daughter in chocolate syrup
And boogie till the cows come home

I also found this on the Absolutely Free site:

I recently began a pen-pal thing with a woman who went to school a couple of years behind Frank, Don, Motorhead and others. Hers is a pretty interesting perspective I thought I would share. As she has not given permission for me to give out her address, I've snipped the headers. (her text follows)

It was rumored that the song "She's only 13 and she knows how to nasty" was written about a girl a year younger than me called Patty Keenen who was a dead ringer for Bridget Bardot and looked old enough to buy beer for the boys..Alas poor Patty is no longer with us. And the song "Brown shoes dont make it" was the was it was in our school..brown shoes just weren't cool.

http://www.arf.ru/Notes/Afree/bshoes.html

In the wake of what we now know about the 60s free love scene in rock (hello Kim Fowley), lyrics like these make me super uncomfortable. They don't feel like satire -- or just satire anyway. They're just a bit too enthusiastic and detailed.

Maybe it's just looking at things like this without the benefit of contemporaneous eyes. Zappa really did have a distinctive voice musically that I still enjoy from time to time. But between his reported *love* of groupies, pretty much everything he wrote about women and the aggressive tone to his lyrics in general, I have a hard time with pretty much any of his vocal stuff, much less songs that veer into social commentary.

Hot Rats is honestly so so good, I looked this thread up to say. esp. Green Genes > Little Umbrellas, what a lovely stretch of music, so distinct, off in its own world

(I think the general nastiness of Zappa's outlook on the world as understood through his lyrics is something we've covered on this thread, and I concur that there's some deeply ugly shit in there)

Deeply love Hot Rats

I tend to cut off around '74 when he was still doing the Gamelan sounding stuff and hadn't gone totally into the really creepy scatological stuff . Also don't pay much attention to the '71 stuff.

BUt Mothers were pretty great in the 60s and the instrumental stuff around Gran Wazoo/Waka Jawaka is pretty good too.

the Boy Wonder sessions w Burt Ward are awesome. i love "Teenage Bill of Rights".

i love "jazz fart."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03F4nmPow9M

Freak Out! up to Uncle Meat = Classic.
Hot Rats = Classic.
Burnt Weeny Sandwich up to Just Another Band from L.A. = Some fans like this period, but it's not for me.
Waka/Jawaka and The Grand Wazoo = Excellent for fans of Frank the "composer"
Over-Nite Sensation and Apostrophe (') = Classic musically, but the rot starts to set in lyrically during this period IMO.

From 1975 to 1981, I enjoy the occasional track but find the albums quite patchy (particularly the albums that resulted from Lather being split up into various releases) and find the lyrics hit new levels of puerile in places, particularly on Sheik Yerbouti and Joe's Garage, then around 1983 I fall off entirely.

Just heard some instrumental Synclavier track and it sucked. Night School? something like that.

Yeah, from Jazz from Hell. for the longest time famous mostly for being the only instrumental album with a Parental Advisory sticker on it.

I don't like much of the synclavier stuff -- I don't know whether FZ had a limited timbral palette available to him or chose those crappy sounds, but often there were interesting compositions buried in there. Here is a terrific version of "Night School" played by humans (Ensemble Ambrosius) --

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbXl_zSArpo

while i'm kind of glad he died when he did because he was enough of a misanthropic asshole at 52, i do wonder if his compositions might not have started sounding better if he had the chance to abandon the synclavier. or if he just would've started doing crappy midi. who knows.

i was listening to this tune that circulates as a frank zappa synclavier outtake called lakshi's delight. it doesn't sound anything like zappa, but it really highlights for me zappa's deficiencies as a composer. whoever wrote this piece has a better grasp of compositional technique than zappa, who was proud of only having one semester of formal training, did. listen e.g. to the baroque ending flourish, which isn't something zappa could ever have done. whoever composed this piece is also better able to integrate non-western musical technique than zappa ever could. worth comparing to a piece like "navanax", which is just a 100 second flurry of dissonant notes in improbable time signatures. i'm sure it's compositionally very sophisticated, but is it good?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66PxJWforEM

Jazz From Hell isn't great, but I think there's lots of solid tracks on Civilization Phase III

Pretty much agree with Turrican. However, I would add weasels ripped my flesh as well

also missing from his list: One Size Fits All and Roxy and Elsewhere, both classic IMO

Ooh good ones Moodles. Yeah cosign

"andy" is such a great song. he could do some great todd rundgren-style prog when the fancy struck him.

ts: "andy" vs. "zen archer"

also missing from his list: One Size Fits All and Roxy and Elsewhere, both classic IMO

― Moodles, Sunday, September 17, 2017 1:05 AM (six hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Ah yeah, One Size Fits All is great. His last truly great one, IMO.

Dunno, after Hot Rats it just ain't for me. Shame because half of what comes before is pretty classic

That "Lakshi's Delight" is really nice.

For me Sheik Yerbouti is where things went so irredeemably wrong that I basically gave up on any future releases.

that was the first Zappa I ever bought. it's pretty amazing to hear so much about what a genius Zappa is and how he's unparalleled as a composer etc. etc. and then actually buy one of his albums and have it contain a song like "Broken Hearts Are For Assholes". made me laugh at least. not sure how much of the album I could stomach now. though I'm pretty sure "Flakes" is still a great tune.

Also City of Tiny Lites and several others, it's pretty well split between great and terrible tracks.

Dylan impression on Flakes worth price of admission alone

biggest problem with sheik yerbouti is that he cut as much adrian belew from the songs as he could when belew left to tour with bowie. belew was the star of that band, and there's _lots_ of badass playing from him that was left on the cutting room floor because of personal animosity.

In the interest of fairness, I just relistened to "Flakes" and "Tiny Lights" for the first time in many years. I think you guys want something different from a Zappa record than I do.

"Yo Mamma" is the only song I remember liking; hot guitar solo, but even that one has really cheesy synths.

none of it sounds like 60s MOI, if that's what you mean

I love both the idea and execution behind "Rubber Shirt," I love the bit of Sinister Footwear that wound up in "Wild Love," I like the guitar jams and "City of Tiny Lites" and the Dylan impersonation a lot, and most of the album is forgettable or outright gross. SY was my 1st FZ album (bought in '79 when it came out) followed a few weeks later by Uncle Meat -- it was interesting connecting the dots between the two.

I guess I'm alone in hating the Mothers albums.

lol I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who hate any given Zappa album

I dig jazz from hell, it sure ain't for everyone

eat that question doc is worth a look

zappa was my number 1 since adolescence. I've been obsessed most of my life, but the recent barrage of docs/interview footage combined with some amount of getting older and the evolution of our collective societal notions has really soured me on him as a man and consequently put me off of a lot of his music. the guy had absolutely no respect for women to the point where he was downright abusive. his political satire does actually get fucking racist at times. id much rather listen to later beefheart record now a days. that dude humbled out. zappa didnt.

i kind of moved on myself. i became less impressed with him as a composer once i actually started listening to other modern composers. and goddamn there is no excuse whatsoever for "the illinois enema bandit". what a vile hunk of misogynist trash. he's got some good stuff, but his awful stuff is _really_ bad.

kurt OTM

Zappa was absolutely against censorship and being censored by the state but he was always off the money post We're Only in it for Money because that was the last time he was in touch with anyone

zappa was out of touch, Carlos had the market on progressive synth music covered in the 80s and he was doing some corny ass shit

biggest problem with sheik yerbouti is that he cut as much adrian belew from the songs as he could when belew left to tour with bowie. belew was the star of that band, and there's _lots_ of badass playing from him that was left on the cutting room floor because of personal animosity.

The posthumous release "Hammersmith Odeon" has 3 cd´s from that tour. Unfortunately without a version of "Wild Love". I liked the Capitol version of "Lumpy Gravy" (without the vocal parts and heavy razorblade editing) better than the official release. The Capitol version is on disc 1 of "Lumpy Money".

So I read Belew did the liner notes of a yet-to-be-released box of Zappa tour recordings, I think from '77.

Writing for orchestras, somehow I tend to see Zappa as a more melodic version of Boulez. "Yellow Shark" is a late masterpiece. I like it better than his Synclavier-music.

This is intriguing. Don't think I've ever heard Belew fully unleashed with Zappa.

jesus this kicks so much ass

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBbH6EsNBAQ

Some epic keyboard grooves from Tommy Mars on this one

ok Zappa is a very strange choice for this

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/frank-zappa-hologram-to-perform-with-steve-vai-others-w504727

why is he a strange choice? the zappa cult has pretty much proven it will eat up anything plus guitar mag dorks are the biggest marks in music (throwing vai into the equation)

plus holo zappa can't throw them dirty looks when they fuck up

Zappa's shows tended to be improv and banter heavy. like what are they gonna do here.

collect the dough put it in the bank

how much is this really gonna make, after the cost of putting together the hologram (that's still quite expensive isn't it?) and paying all these musicians?

I'm sure the ticket prices will be nuts. This is such a fuck-you from Ahmet to Dweezil, it makes me sad.

not to mention that Frank himself would've absolutely hated this idea

frogbs it's almost touching the way you feel that somehow this fiasco must've been given some good thought or that ahmet gives a fuck if it's any good or not

my folks saw dweezil recently, they said it was a great show

I had a deep listen to Over-Nite Sensation, Apostrophe (') and One Size Fits All last night for the first time in a long while, and I really love how those records sound, just so warm. Every time I hear 'Inca Roads' I'm impressed that Zappa managed to get a bunch of musicians to play it - some of the passages/changes in that track are total wtf.

Belew on the hologram shows: holy shit, too much drama, count me out

here are my final thoughts on the entire Zappa affair: respectfully count me out.
I will not be playing Zappa music in the foreseeable future in any situation.
this whole thing is far too caustic and divisive.
I will say I have always admired Dweezil for playing his father's music and playing it so damn perfectly. I remember time spent with young Moon and how much I really liked her. recently I met Diva for the first time (she works on Billy Bob Thornton's tour) and she was very nice to me. though I have yet to meet Ahmet in person, he too has been nice to me. earlier this year he asked me to write liner notes for the upcoming Zappa Halloween box set and he treated me respectfully.
I do know one thing: Frank loved his family.
I have many positive creative things to do. I hope you all will enjoy them. none of them will have anything to do with the current Zappa universe, but I will always revere and love Frank.

https://www.facebook.com/AdrianBelew/posts/10150895474944995

Hey brimstead, I saw Dweezil years back - basically 3-4 hours of guitar solos, for better or worst. One thing I wonder regarding Zappa is how much he used tape manipulation in later material vs. his earlier records (from "Freak Out" through "Uncle Meat"). It seems the earlier records were rife with edits/jump cuts and his later material he used editing to graft his guitar solos onto random songs, but it's less obvious? Some of the documentaries go over this to some extent..

I think on the earlier records, the editing was meant to sound bizarre, even if the editing was brought on by having to censor the record (see the finely crafted edits on the '60s 'Harry, You're a Beast') - by the time he got to the late '70s, I think he became more concerned with smashing stuff from different sources together but trying to make it sound like it wasn't the case. I guess there was also an element of "let's see what interesting polythythms can happen", too...

*polyrhythms

yeah Turrican that sounds about right

It's hard to say what the ultimate example of his "xenochronous" approach is, though. Probably something from Sheik Yerbouti or Joe's Garage, I'd say. I think almost all of the guitar solos on the latter are shoehorned in from unrelated tracks.

rubber shirt

Yeah, that's the one I was mainly thinking of!

I'm wondering if the dislocated nature of Trout Mask Replica influenced Zappa's "xenochronous" approach.

never listened to joe's garage before

this is complete horseshit

its a grower man

Frank Zappa's JOE'S GARAGE: Classic or Dud?

catholic girls and crew slut are so bad jesus christ frank

Zappa's late '70s band were a great bunch of musicians, but his lyrics had gotten so puerile by that point.

ok fembot in a wet t-shirt might be worse, i'm out

I'm pretty sure that later on in the album he manages to outdo even that.

Zappa's attempts to parody his audience/or musical trends of the time (like new wave) were so misguided and bitter. Kind of guy who vouched for freedom of speech so he could say anything ignorant he wanted, but never truly gave you the idea if he MEANT it. Plus his audience loved it in the later part of his career, and he became the thing he was "sneering at" - a hateful bigot

For all I know I first came to it via ILX, but iirc this Ian Penman Wire essay resonated with a lot of anti-Zappa people:

http://e-limbo.org/articulo.php/Art/1259

ums, wait til you get to "Stick It Out"

For all I know I first came to it via ILX, but iirc this Ian Penman Wire essay resonated with a lot of anti-Zappa people:

http://e-limbo.org/articulo.php/Art/1259

― Josh in Chicago

for everyone who is worshipped as a god, there will inevitably be a richard dawkins, someone whose mouth-frothing opposition actually makes the object of his ire seem likable by comparison.

ums, wait til you get to "Stick It Out"

― frogbs

seriously, "the illinois enema bandit". absolute nadir of his catalogue, probably worse than "thing-fish" (a three-record musical which can most generously be described as "staggeringly ill-conceived").

that's not to say that "joe's garage" isn't utterly terrible, but he's done _so much worse_.

that essay ain't completely without merit though. "Jack-off of all trades" is a pretty good line. this part pretty much sums up what I find so frustrating about the guy:

He had long hair but sneered at longhairs; he made a long and lucrative career out of endless guitar solos but sneered at other rock musicians; he constantly bumped his little tugboatful of 'compositions' up against the prows of the classical establishment, but he lambasted that, too. In stuff like "The Torture Never Stops" and "Dancing Fool" he got some of his biggest audiences by exploiting the very idea of exploitation he was supposedly upbraiding. He sneered at people who took drugs; he sneered at their parents who didn't. Most of all, he sneered at women; girls trying to get by in a world of hateful, mastery-obsessed fools like himself. He sneered at anything which represented the mess and fun and confusion of life. He sneered, in short, at anything/everything that wasn't Frank Zappa.

obviously worth mentioning that a lot of his early work really was groundbreaking and subversive. I don't like stuff like "Billy the Mountain" all that much but I appreciate that they're still having fun at that point. I think a lot of the obnoxiousness, hypocrisy, and even misogyny could have been more easily forgiven if his stuff was actually funny. There's just so little cleverness in his work after 1969.

Who was it that smugly said "if you don't like it that's okay because you weren't supposed to" in the Zappa classic albums episode?

if you were stuck on the proverbial desert island, which disc(s) would you rather have ‹ one solitary song by Brian Wilson or the entire Zappa back catalogue?

Man, talk about your punch-in-the-face vs. kick-in-the-nuts dilemmas...

I've talked a bit about Zappa with my guitar teacher, who can play anything and whose rotating artist cover band has done a Zappa night once or twice. He's dug in deep before as prep work but still doesn't really rate Zappa as a guitarist or a composer, and despite liking bits and pieces of his catalog hypothesizes that Zappa's persona stems from a frustration with not being instrumentally adept or inventive enough as whatever kind of artist (classical, jazz, rock, whatever) he envisions himself as. That's why he defaults silly or sarcastic or snide, as a defense mechanism - "jack-off of all trades" indeed. It's really easy to be a bomb thrower accusing other artists of mediocrity when you can hire virtuosos to disguise or camouflage your own vampy mediocrity. Similarly, it's really easy to pretend to be a virtuoso by writing crazy charts then hiring the best people to play them, but he's no Carl Stalling.

I've got to admit, my very limited Zappa listening originated back when I would play drums, and I'd pick up something like "Joe's Garage" specifically because Vinnie Colaiuta was on it. I'm not sure I ever listened to the stuff as 'songs,' as such, just a vectors for the playing. But very quickly I gravitated more toward straight fusion or jazz or other stuff with better playing, because it was in service of better compositions and wasn't hampered by some dude(s) ironically singing about VD or something.

its a grower man

No, he's right, it's horseshit.

Good post, JiC.

if coming up with a good zing was a rare or valuable gift, if that one zing wasn't buried in an ocean of overheated rhetoric, i might rate "jack-off of all trades" more.

that quoted paragraph... it's not wrong, but it also comes off as a paraphrasing of zappa's own "i'm not satisfied" from '66:

"I'm not satisfied
Everything I've tried
I don't like the way
Life has been abusing me"

well carve _that_ on his tombstone.

penman's piece also comes off as, well, an extended sneer. zappa had the temperament, though not the literacy, to make a pretty good rock critic.

as an aside, i think the whole "mediocre guitar player" thing is overstated. yeah, he did more than his share of mediocre vamping. yeah, compared to some of his "sidemen", like belew, he was a hack. but this "zappa as second-rate guitar player" narrative requires one to overlook that he played a lot of really good shit. "cookin' turnips", "400 days of the year", "willie the pimp" (god do you know how many _bad_ versions of "willie the pimp" there are? the "hot rats" version isn't one of them), "the ocean is the ultimate solution"... his big problem is that he never paid enough attention to tone, and as a result many of his solos blend together into one long weedly-weedly-wee. but he could play very well, usually when pushed out of his comfort zone (the issue being, really, that zappa went to great lengths to keep that sort of thing from happening). that impromptu acoustic duet he did with shuggie otis on the johnny otis show in 1970 - zappa holds his own extremely well there. or playing with pink floyd in 1969 - one wouldn't necessarily think that zappa would sound that good playing "interstellar overdrive", but he fits in pretty damn fantastically.

rushomancy otm. guy is not a fuckin' guitar god but he can play, his tone is ridiculous and he's doing it just going direct, and he generally doesn't overplay. he likes to overplay when the crowd's into it but as a guy coming at playing electric from a blues reference and trying to shoehorn that into aspirationally "difficult" music in a rock context, he's prety fuckin' good.

everybody else otm about how poorly all his shtick has aged. as a kid, I thought he was fucking hilarious, and I feel embarrassed to have been as open as I was to his smugness/condescension/general grossness. I do remember his SNL appearance ("dancin' fool" & something about the meek not inheriting the earth) as the point where I went - you know - I think I'm not into this shit now, was it always bad like this?

There's no doubt at all the guy is a more than competent musician. That's not my point. My point is that he's a snob and a musical elitist, but he himself is pretty generic, really highlighted by hiring folks like Belew or Via or whomever to show off in his place. Like, you can't make a big to-do about complexity and sophistication and virtuosity and then stink out ploddingly generic blues licks. It's like the bits of pieces I've heard from Phish. Like, I get it, dude, but you're no Jerry Garcia. (Ironically, Phish-dude is very Zappa-esque in his playing.)

ehhh, you kind of lose me when you posit jerry garcia as offering some alternative to "ploddingly generic licks".

anyway, steely dan are just as smug and elitist. they're just more _literate_ about it.

Sorry, was in rush. Not a Dead fan myself, but Garcia had personality.

Steely Dan was smart. Zappa was smart, too, but wasted much of that on being dumb.

Sorry, was in rush. Not a Dead fan myself, but Garcia had personality.

― Josh in Chicago

so does zappa! it just happens that his personality is repellent. :) zappa's guitar playing is pretty easily recognizable - like garcia, his playing has certain obvious limitations. either you accept the limitations and enjoy the music in spite of them, or you don't.

Steely Dan was smart. Zappa was smart, too, but wasted much of that on being dumb.

― Josh in Chicago

no offense meant, but is that statement supposed to mean something?

rushomancy you squander yr capital when you harsh on garcia, whose playing is wonderful

you know ppl make such a big deal about how snarky Steely Dan are but I find so much of their much so touching, so impossibly sad, I don't know how you could listen to Rose Darling or Dr. Wu or Rikki or any number of their songs and not feel the real heart behind the sardonic persona they put out in interviews. maybe they didn't want to deal with it themselves but I don't really put them in the same league as Zappa at all. they have songs that people love.

Yeah. SD made an effort to be musically and lyrically ambitious. They aspired to jazz sophistication in a rock context, with subversively weird words. But they had the chops and knowledge and literacy to pull it off. Zappa often took imo an easier, broader route, by playing it.dumb.

re: Dead, they did not posit themselves as sophisticated perfectionists. In fact, exactly the opposite! They were all about imperfections. If anything, Zappa as player showed him playing it safe. Modest noodling while the real pros stuck to the fly shit on paper charts.

xpost Sorry, improvising slowly on phone.

the Dan's cynicism is not rooted in contempt - they just have very dark senses of humor. but yeah as ums notes there's a profound sadness that runs through SD's stuff, a wistfulness, a sweetness. Zappa only gets wistful, at all, in the Ruben & the Jets music - and then makes sure the lyrics don't run along the same track

^ He's afraid to let his defenses down and reveal himself a fraud, imo. Or at least less than he makes himself out to be.

Contempt is the key word encapsulating Zappa.

apologies, i try not to say assholish shit like that. anyway the thing that makes zappa, or hicks, or any of the heroes of young white men who believe themselves to be oppressed, particularly tiresome in this day and age is his wholesale adoption of the paranoid style, the constant litany about how everybody is trying to screw him over. he has other bad qualities, but in the present moment this looks like his worst. it's not a quality the dan gave the impression of having much of. this, more than his supposed "contempt", is his most toxic quality- his barely disguised self-pity.

but i think most dan-loving, zappa-hating critics are all about the _literacy_. zappa didn't like books, didn't read books, and made no bones about it. saying zappa was lacking in "chops" or "knowledge", i just don't see that there's the evidence to back it up. there's lots he didn't know, but saying that his songwriting was amateurish compared to steely dan... no, i don't see the evidence for that.

i also don't think zappa was a "playing it safe" soloist. to me "playing it safe" is doing the gilmour thing of writing a solo and playing it every night. zappa's solos were genuinely improvised, and this is why he played so many generic blues licks, why it's so uneven, because of that risk-taking. he stacked the deck in his favor by hiring crack rhythm sections (having a great drummer makes one a better guitar player).

i agree that garcia's playing is wonderful... sometimes.

xp

^ He's afraid to let his defenses down and reveal himself a fraud, imo. Or at least less than he makes himself out to be.

I think the issue's more personal, I don't think Zappa's a "fraud" - I think he's kinda fucked up, for lack of a better way to put it. he's constructed a sort of rationalist shell around himself for whatever reason, and it requires constant shoring-up -- over the course of his life, the maintenance of the shell takes precedence over more & more. I sorta get where a guy interested in music as a process might spend a fair bit of time thinking "look...the role of the emotions in all this has been vastly overstated" but in Zappa's case this position seems to stem from a general unwillingness to concede that *feeling things* is a worthwhile pursuit. and it's fair to hang this on him from a survey of his work, too. he did have some good affirmative values, per his family: of taking care of them, of being present. those aren't small things. but my impression of him -- and I say this as a fan of his good stuff; I think there's a fair bit of it, personally -- is that of a guy who would have preferred to quash any tenderness inside of himself, or to relegate it to occasional 32-bar outbursts during instrumental passages played onstage.

great post Joan. Zappa will always be classic to me for the "flower power sucks" line in "Absolutely Free". "Mom & Dad" also was a nice empathetic track. But these are outliers in his career it seems...

xpost I don't think anyone's being assholey here, actually, especially considering the subject. Zappa love is a bit of an enigma to me, in part because he was so prolific that even many of his fans have huge hunks of his catalog they may despise. He's full of contradictions - beloved for things people hate in other acts, hated for things loved in other acts, that sort of thing. In the end, if his output was mostly instrumental I bet his music would have aged better, vampy or mediocre or not. It's the words that sink the S.S. Zappa.

Speaking of Steely Dan, I could totally imagine "The Fez" as a Zappa song and being sung in his smug speak-sing voice and hating it.

I don't know much about Zappa's upbringing. What were his parents like? Having just read that most recent Van Halen book and learning, at least in a cursory sense, about Mommy and Daddy Van Halen, I've got sins of the father on the mind.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9P2V0_p6vE

it's interesting how much of a conflict Zappa's love of the avant garde (Varese) was his initial impetus, but he approached it with seriousness and got laughs. Not sure how intentional the laughs were, but in some ways Zappa cheapened experimental music, he seems like someone who was very much in conflict with his desires.

sorry that was poorly worded

Do you mean that the way the host treated his ideas like a joke might have had some kind of formative impact, in that FZ might have become self-conscious or reserved about being earnest about experimental music?

Don't think necessarily that the host affected Frank's drive for experimental music going forward, just that Frank always had this unusual pull between serious music/jokes and I wonder where the contradictions began. Frank genuinely loved the avant-garde but I wonder what the audiences response made him feel - and whether it flared up his contempt of them. It's difficult to tell whether Frank expected audiences to get the experimental impulses, but I doubt he cared - he seemed to have a thing of being above others intellectually.

Kind of interesting to compare it to this Cage TV appearance from three years earlier. Obv Cage is more generous/instructive (and openly 'welcomes laughter') but I feel like this is also facilitated by a much more respectful attitude from the host, even though he also finds the ideas strange. I wonder how Cage would have handled the Steve Allen show.

great post Sund4r. I feel like Zappa set himself up to be misunderstood - it was a self fulfilling prophecy, it's hard to imagine a world in which he was uniformly accepted.

anyways that Cage youtube is great evidence that it took time for people to accept more ambiguous ways of expression (the laughter)

these videos are insane

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTdTvK_d9lQ

anyways that Cage youtube is great evidence that it took time for people to accept more ambiguous ways of expression (the laughter)

... and here's John Cale on the same show.

It is just a rock n' roll myth that Zappa spent some of his last years crying while listening to doowop records?

Him and Lou Reed used to get together and have all day blubbing sessions.

in some ways Zappa cheapened experimental music

lol sure

statements like this make me extra glad we had a Zappa

I don't know much about Zappa's upbringing. What were his parents like? Having just read that most recent Van Halen book and learning, at least in a cursory sense, about Mommy and Daddy Van Halen, I've got sins of the father on the mind.

― Josh in Chicago

there's one picture of him with his parents, taken by life magazine circa 1970. beyond that zappa didn't have much to say about his parents.

if we're going to play armchair psychoanalysis - a pretty strong temptation with zappa - i'd point to the incident in '64 or '65 where he was entrapped by some asshole cop and thrown in jail for ten days on "obscenity" charges, in the process losing his recording studio. i can't imagine something like that _not_ leaving a major mark on one's psyche, and it's hard for me not to view his subsequent strong advocacy of "offensive" speech in that light.

in some ways Zappa cheapened experimental music

― Week of Wonders (Ross)

hey now, experimental jazz was already free!

Ha, yeah, tbf, I don't even really know what it would mean to 'cheapen' experimental music.

(Also, a lot of people still have trouble accepting it!)

not to be that guy, but which things exactly are being called "experimental" here? cage's definition is something like: composition or creation deploying indeterminacy to reach endpoints that couldn't be predicted in detail from the outset -- and one-offs aside, i'm not sure anything zappa routinely does really falls into this category, he was always an intensely controlling* composer, albeit one at an unusual number of different levels (if that make sense)

(obviously fz's audience interraction games produced material that does -- all live performance has elements of unpredictability -- but as soon as he's in a studio quilting elements of it into concrète collages the "experimental" dimension is stripped straight back out)

*cage was also highly controlling in person but very much in service of the genuinely unpredicted

no idea what i was talking about there with that statement, my apologies.

mark, for what it's worth varese rejected the notion that his music was "experimental", saying something like "I experiment before writing my music!"

Unless I'm in an academic setting, I tend to assume that no one is using Cage's definition and "experimental" just means "avant-garde" or "unconventional".

^ yeah

ah ok, fair enough -- it was more a question than a gotcha: on one hand (very proofing-editor voice) it seems a pity to blur away a usefully precise word; on the other, literally nothing is more boring than arguing abt definitions

i actually quite like the idea of compare-contrasting cage's affable demeanour as composerly major domo with zappa's -- as a device in line with or at odds with the larger project -- but that's partly bcz i think their projects only line up to a small degree, and this quasi-similarity is a handy way to pin down the nature of the overlap and the difference

those Nightmatch videos are something else. 10 years ago I would've proclaimed Zappa a hero for knocking down a church lady like that, especially one with such an encyclopedic knowledge of dirty Prince lyrics, what's going on in HER mind, har har har??? but that's a dumb opinion. Zappa comes off as affable and well-spoken but he's grandstanding about an argument that isn't actually happening. mentions too many times that he isn't a fan of the music in question, like we care what you think about Prince. at one point reads a supposedly "humorous" disclaimer off the back of one of his albums to dead silence. occasionally says something profound. he's right about a lot of things but the isn't the question less about censorship and more about Parental Advisory stickers? parents *should* know what their kids are listening to or watching. so what.

In some ways Zappa cheapened experimental music

― Week of Wonders (Ross)

I suppose you could make the argument that Zappa cheapened experimental music by associating it with dumb puerile misogyny, deliberately or otherwise. Not that I think he did.

great discussion, one that made me resolve to get through Joe's Garage and let me tell you it is hilarious to read very interesting debate about Zappa's in relation to Cage and the definition of experimental music while listening to "Why Does it Hurt When I Pee" doing some bullshit x rated cod Kansas song

yeah i revoke that statement - i mean i LOVE early appearances of the Mothers on TV shows, just pure madness. Also Uncle Meat/Lumpy Gravy rule. I find his Serious artist vs. audience shtick pretty interesting overall, where it comes from etc

I could totally imagine "The Fez" as a Zappa song and being sung in his smug speak-sing voice and hating it.

Oh great, now I can hear this too. Way to ruin my morning.

Lumpy Gravy is shite, whereas I quite like Why Does It Hurt When I Pee.

Cage hostile to improvisation, and always felt that Zappa was in some way too. I enjoy his jazz fusiony recs like Grand Wazoo - no singing! - but even the solos on them seem more like composition than spontaneous expression.

Waka/Jawaka and Grand Wazoo aren't necessarily my favorites to listen to on a regular basis but they are probably the most *impressive* thing he did, there are moments on those that are genuinely jaw dropping to me, just this hyper complex anal retentive modern classical/fusion jams (but not really jams at all). like i do get that thing you get from some prog or math rock where it's like "how did humans do this?"

so I don't know exactly why you would need five full shows from the Baby Snakes concerts, they seem to have roughly the same set lists from show to show, but I do find the costume and add ins for this box set to be pretty funny.

http://www.zappa.com/news/halloween-77-box-set-celebrates-historic-concert-runs-40th-anniversary-october-20

Those albums bored the tits off me, tbh.(xp)

yeah i dunno maybe zappa just sucks

honestly, he feels much less benign these days, because I really do feel like his whole worldview is pretty foundational to the whole angry nerd/Reddit atheist/gamergate/shitlord mindset that led to the alt right

More by accident than intent but there's a thread there. Though if anything, as a couple of friends have noted, the line of descent to libertarian techbro might be even clearer.

^this. I dislike Zappa for the toxic self pity, but more than that, I dislike 20's me for thinking this stuff was good.

I've always thought Zappa was mostly worthless so I guess I dislike 30s me for looking a bit like him

Oddly enough, last year I did kick down for the first/only time for anything Zappa related, namely that documentary they're doing with all the archives. Honestly I was most interested in it precisely because I'm interested in any archival project in general, given my library work. I figure that might be all I need.

That said, my girlfriend has long had a framed poster of this photo in the kitchen -- namely due to the oven mitt:

http://www.afka.net/images/Articles/1984-16.gif

More by accident than intent but there's a thread there. Though if anything, as a couple of friends have noted, the line of descent to libertarian techbro might be even clearer.

― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, September 26, 2017 10:40 AM (five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah what else? Obviously Bill Hicks, Dennis Miller (so then maybe Chevy Chase on Weekend Update as a precursor?), Dennis Leary...

oh well, I'll have plenty of time to ponder this while listening to "Sy Borg" which feels as though it will go on for the remainder of my life on Earth answering the unasked musical question "What if Spyro Gyra did a dirty sci fi comedy reggae album?"

though i guess zappa is expanding his range from misogyny to include homophobia on this one

though i guess zappa is expanding his range from misogyny to include homophobia on this one

Ah, you've never heard "Bobby Brown," I see.

I'm not sure if I've even ever made it all the way through all of Joe's Garage but "Watermelon in Easter Hay" makes up for a hell of a lot, both in terms of dumb shit on that album AND in terms of mediocre guitar solos.

(Those early 70s big band albums are so great imo!)

Wasn't there a big essay about that tune (at Perfect Sound Forever?) to the point you're making, no doubt linked upthread somewhere.

Actually couldn't find link here though: http://www.furious.com/perfect/zappainstrumentals.html

though=so

Thus, if you have enjoyed, endured, or fast-forwarded your way through, say, "Stick It Out," "Sy Borg," "Dong Work for Yuda," and "Keep It Greasey" (sic), you encounter one of the most extraordinary pieces of music that Zappa ever concocted: "Watermelon in Easter Hay."

xp sorry

shakedown OTM regarding Zappa's views leading to alt-right ideologies

Really?

Honestly, with respect, that feels to me a little bit like Amanda Marcotte's Sgt Pepper -> Disco Demolition argument.

"more by accident than intent" as ned said

For reference:
http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/any-other-zappa-fan-besides-me-thinks-watermelon-in-easter-hay-is-overrated-as-a-fz-guitar-solo.372130/

He was an obnoxious white dude and they're obnoxious white dudes but I really don't see an ideological foundation there. Alt-right guys wouldn't be so bad if they were just about snarky memes.

Him and Lou Reed used to get together and have all day blubbing sessions.

― The Doug Walters of Crime (Tom D.), Tuesday, September 26, 2017 7:00 AM

Okay, "Watermelon in Easter Hay" is sufficiently similar to "Maggot Brain' for me to enjoy it. "Play like BIg Mother died," as Xgau might say.

i don't know drawing a line of descent from zappa through the internet has to cope with the spectre of a zappa who didn't die at age 52 of prostate cancer spending a decade suing everybody on the internet for STEALING HIS MUSIC (you know he would have, the guy would have loathed the internet from the second he realized it was costing him money)

'Watermelon in Easter Hay' is good or, to render that sentence in its fuller, more prevalent form, "But 'Watermelon in Easter Hay' is good".

I wonder whose current jerk behaviour is going to be credited as part of the foundation for a future movement?

Honestly, with respect, that feels to me a little bit like Amanda Marcotte's Sgt Pepper -> Disco Demolition argument.

u miss knows that I don't mean this as a personal dig but I feel like our reasoning process is in this very unhealthy place where we go "this shitty thing from the past [here, Zappa's various pathologies] resembles at several points this shitty thing we all hate now [reddit techbro libertarianism] = it's the father of it, therefore, it's an INFLUENCE, it's ACTUALLY THE SAME THING"

just as far as how ideas work/grow/form I don't think this is a good way of thinking about things. losing battle in 2017 I know, we're very much about linear descent now, but I think it's mainly a lie

My hot take: "Watermelon" is overrated and the rest of Joe's Garage (despite some real clunkers) is underrated.

Okay, enough Zappa-negging for the moment. The guy could write an interesting melody, and I really enjoyed this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtGqx8lT6J8

finally got threw this, what a fuckin slog, entirely pointless and shitty the whole way through

My hot take: "Watermelon" is overrated and the rest of Joe's Garage (despite some real clunkers) is underrated.

― Moodles, Wednesday, September 27, 2017 8:52 AM (fourteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it's overrated in the way you might overrated a rubber ducky floating in a toilet full of diarrhea and vomit

Honestly, with respect, that feels to me a little bit like Amanda Marcotte's Sgt Pepper -> Disco Demolition argument.
u miss knows that I don't mean this as a personal dig but I feel like our reasoning process is in this very unhealthy place where we go "this shitty thing from the past [here, Zappa's various pathologies] resembles at several points this shitty thing we all hate now [reddit techbro libertarianism] = it's the father of it, therefore, it's an INFLUENCE, it's ACTUALLY THE SAME THING"

just as far as how ideas work/grow/form I don't think this is a good way of thinking about things. losing battle in 2017 I know, we're very much about linear descent now, but I think it's mainly a lie

― she carries a torch. two torches, actually (Joan Crawford Loves Chachi), Wednesday, September 27, 2017 8:44 AM (twenty-three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i mean i guess i don't know how well i articulated, and i don't believe there are these clean cause>effect relationships, but I do strongly believe that Zappa was a big figure in creating a kind of mean, sneering nerd culture that as we've now seen somehow feels itself outcast and superior to while at the same time essential reinforcing and participating in the worst aspects of the dominant culture

like pink floyd

yeah the thing is - I feel you - but it's also interesting that e.g. as brimstead points out, pink floyd fans / beatles fans / the david crosbys of the world, these guys also flex a fair bit of the "I'm one of the people who GETS it" thing - Zappa's own strain is aspirationally academic but the rot at the root rises into all sorts of areas of human endeavor imo. there's frank zappas & reddit tech-bros in every field, it's just that the most damaging/dominant one right now seems like some sort of special realization: because it's current. but it's really just more pharisees imo

I do love that Zappa, who had no actual appetite for dialogue, is such a reliable lodestone for conversation

also from the box set thing

From October 28-31, 1977, Zappa and his band played six historic shows at the 3,000 capacity Palladium.

this was music that promoters saw fit to book for six shows in a 3k cap room & they sold it, too

wild times

And a couple of years later the Clash had a 17 night residency at a New York casino.

Thanks to you nerds I went down the rabbit hole of "Keep It Greasy." As a song it, well, sucks, but as a track held up as the hardest Zappa song to play ... maybe! I learned that the album version is the only take they ever did at that level of complexity, and every time it was played after that it had to be simplified at least a little bit, and that was even with Vinnie playing drums. I get the feeling Zappa often wrote weird shit just to watch his awesome drummers play.

Too bad the song does suck, though. One should never conflate complexity with quality, that's how you end up with, yeah, Steve Vai, and Dream Theatre. Who at least don't sing misogynistic songs about sex and bodily functions, as far as I know.

One should never conflate complexity with quality

A music teacher of mine always made sure we understood the difference between complex and complicated. I always found Zappa's music to be complicated, but not particularly (or even the least bit, for the most part) complex.

(see also: Andre Previn's famous quote, “You know, Stan Kenton can stand in front of 1,000 fiddles and 1,000 brass and make a dramatic gesture and every studio arranger can nod his head and say, ‘Oh, yes, that’s done like this.’ But Duke merely lifts his little finger, three horns make a sound and I don’t know what it is!”)

Steve Vai's music is awesome for jogging & working out to fuiud

That's fair (both xpost and, probably, Vai as functional soundtrack).

Only David Lee Roth, a man of greater vision than Zappa, understood how to use Vai properly: as a gonzo gimmicky musical equivalent of the Tasmanian Devil meets Bugs Bunny

like pink floyd

― brimstead, Wednesday, September 27, 2017 9:16 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

heh i guess late period Roger Waters is warning to those of us to say "I wish Zappa wouldn't try to be funny" to be careful what we wish for

xpost And Laswell, who knows the place of a Sci-Fi stunt guitarist. Belew obviously is often used in that role as well, but he can sing and write too.

I always preferred Satriani, who had a way with melody even if it was often used in service of what sounded like car commercial music.

Surfing With the Alien is great

Warren Dimartini of Ratt is a really underrated shredder

He was an obnoxious white dude and they're obnoxious white dudes but I really don't see an ideological foundation there.

it's for another thread, but in "Kill All Normies" Angela Nagel makes a convincing case that countercultural ideas of (especially) the 60s were associated with leftism by accident and that a lot of them are now being used to great effect by alt-right, for instance in the valuation of provocation as a mode of expression - this parts aligns nicely with Zappa

He was an obnoxious white dude and they're obnoxious white dudes but I really don't see an ideological foundation there.

all the asshole jerks he wrote about was the music industry he had to contend with across his career. there was a lot of abusive entertainment industry stuff going on in the 70s, so he swung his critical eye from broader politics to these character studies of the horrible people he had to work with. this was really happening in his sphere of work. he could have ignored it, he could have commercialized it (doing a Led Zep with more protestant palatable entendres like "Squeeze my lemon"). he chose to write about it instead.

its an annoying myth that he was just an amoral troll. he found this stuff despicable and was pointing it out to people. of course he could be aesthetically grotesque and offensive and that largely gets in the way, it is fine if it triggers or turns you off to not listen. but in general i don't think his targets were really the little guy.

he had a really great ear for collaborators and it led to a lot of cool stuff. Terry Bozzio singing on the punk pastiche "I'm So Cute" is one of the best Zappa moments.

finally got threw this, what a fuckin slog, entirely pointless and shitty the whole way through

I feel you, I did the same thing a few years back and came to the same conclusions. The triple album is nicely packaged though.

its an annoying myth that he was just an amoral troll. he found this stuff despicable and was pointing it out to people. of course he could be aesthetically grotesque and offensive and that largely gets in the way, it is fine if it triggers or turns you off to not listen. but in general i don't think his targets were really the little guy.

― AdamVania (Adam Bruneau), Wednesday, September 27, 2017 11:07 AM (nineteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

joe's garage is so unrelentingly condescending, ugly and dehumanizing towards women and groupies honestly i don't how you say this with a straight faced. at least KISS or some band like that offered a theoretical good time and glamour not Zappa's "$50" and being mocked by a bunch of nerdy dicks in terrible sweaters

yep zappa was mean-spirited towards plenty of "little guys"... those who earn his ire for being "stupid" or whatever. i don't think it's on this thread but there was a big discussion somewhere here about this aspect of his lyrics.

every time I check in on this guy to see if he's worth the effort (like when I listened to Watermelon in Easter Hay just now) the answer is an unequivocal "nope". Zappa's appeal is so narrow and riddled with so many caveats.

yeah i havent heard Joe's Garage in full. Catholic Girls is hilarious tho.

the rock idiom was a sexist milieu in the 70s. and as much as he exploited women and groupies they also featured heavily on his work, contributing stories, having a say. compare this to 80s hair metal or 70s stadium rockers. this is the historical context in which he was working.

lol at holding up Kiss as a good example.

they also featured heavily on his work, contributing stories, having a say.

not sure what you're referring to here. The GTOs?

compare this to 80s hair metal or 70s stadium rockers

you mean like Heart?

lol at holding up Kiss as a good example.

― AdamVania (Adam Bruneau), Wednesday, September 27, 2017 12:01 PM (two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i'm not holding them up as a good example, i was holding them up as a bad example and then contesting that lyrically zappa's misogyny is even more ugly to me

GTO's record is pretty awesome, i highly recommend it, and Zappa helped produce that. also look for the books by Cynthia Plaster Caster and Pamela De Barres. Zappa helped introduce his audience to a lot of rock scene women that otherwise would have been forgotten and left to the Kim Fowley's of the world.

anyway after a few years of warming to zappa i'm back around to shakey's this shit ain't worth it like i was before

*goes back to trying to be a deadhead for the 100th time*

i'm not holding them up as a good example, i was holding them up as a bad example and then contesting that lyrically zappa's misogyny is even more ugly to me

― Universal LULU Nation (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, September 27, 2017 1:05 PM (two seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

so in the 70s rock arena there are rock bands exploiting groupies and women. the members of Kiss famously did this while presenting a kind of radio-friendly sheen over it. Zappa and his pals were in action (not words) way less gross than people like this, and this is where those ugly lyrics come in. is it better to exploit while singing "Rock and roll all night, kids!" on a lunch box or to call that shit out even if radio djs think u are gross?

Guitarist from Ratt never played with Zappa right? Cuz I remember not long after Zappa dying it turns out the Ratt guy was a huge fan and knew all the licks.

GTO's record is pretty awesome, i highly recommend it, and Zappa helped produce that. also look for the books by Cynthia Plaster Caster and Pamela De Barres. Zappa helped introduce his audience to a lot of rock scene women that otherwise would have been forgotten and left to the Kim Fowley's of the world.

Kim Fowley was a friend of his, of course.

Zappa and his pals were in action (not words) way less gross than people like this, and this is where those ugly lyrics come in.

Who says they were less gross? Didn't Zappa claim he was chronicling the behaviour of musicians in his band? Admittedly his employees and not his pals.

did he even have any pals

Kim Fowley?

I think the last actual pal he had was Vliet back in the Lancaster days, eating leftover pineapple buns from Glen Vliet's delivery truck and listening to blues records.

Only David Lee Roth, a man of greater vision than Zappa, understood how to use Vai properly: as a gonzo gimmicky musical equivalent of the Tasmanian Devil meets Bugs Bunny

― Universal LULU Nation (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, September 27, 2017 11:47 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

So so OTM.

One should never conflate complexity with quality, that's how you end up with, yeah, Steve Vai, and Dream Theatre. Who at least don't sing misogynistic songs about sex and bodily functions, as far as I know.

― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, September 27, 2017 2:51 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Steve Vai did have one song called 'Fuck Yourself' ...

the whole We're Only In It For the Money '86 debacle put me off Zappa for a good while. not just because of the terrible aesthetic choices, but also because it felt like the whole thing was just a way to screw his ex-bandmates who were still receiving royalties from the original. he wasn't really honest about the reasons for doing it which threw a wrench into the one thing I'd always admired him for, that he was unabashedly genuine.

zappa let the groupies star in 200 motels! which is awesome.

also zappa is responsible for the formation of missing persons and they are like the best band of all time

xposts:

I'll always prefer the original, but there's some things on that '86 version that I wish were in the original... the Velvet Underground diss and the restored missing verse on 'Mother People' ...

Uhh Josh....