Rush vs Yes vs Zappa

they have that already it's called a piano

it occurs to me that perhaps a lot of zappa fans are happily willing or easily able to separate performance from composition, and relate primarily to zappa as a composer and in an intellectual sense. i find it difficult to do that. when i listen to music, i'm in it for immediate sensual and emotional rewards; the intellectual appreciation of construction comes later and means less.

since it was brought up itt, "peaches en regalia" is a perfect illustration of this. the cello performance/arrangement that dan peterson posted is gorgeous. the sound of the instrument itself is a big part of that. the timbre and tone alone are immediately appealing. the performance is accomplished but not flashy, and it makes visceral, musical "sense" of the relationship between the instrument's natural sound palette and the piece's progress.

the zappa performance on hot rats, however, is just ghastly. horrible sounds thrown together with no seeming attention to timbral/tonal relation, all glopped over with useless ornamentation, and performed with a grating sort of would-be-fluid stiffness. the underlying composition is quite lovely, as it turns out, but zappa doesn't give you much reason to stick around and figure that out.

god, i really wish i could go back and edit my posts. "relate primarily to zappa as a composer" wtf?

i suppose it's also possible that some people simply don't care that much about conventionally "pleasant" sounds & arrangements, or (and i shudder to think) actually prefer the grotesque candyland chaos zappa serves up. it's certainly colorful, and i can see how it might appeal to those with a pronounced fondness for other sorts of action-packed musical zaniness: john zorn, mr bungle, les claypool, residents, etc.

the rabbit hole of chops dudes this thread has taken me down is a place I always, always love gong. Thank you, thread, for getting me to the point of watching 10-minute Steve Lukather videos from 1994.

i want to say that i dislike zappa's embittered sarcasm, but i'm not sure why i should find it so off-putting when i often enjoy something quite similar in scuzzball punk rockers like mark arm and tom hazelmeyer.

Something interesting: Songs About Fucking is arguably as or more sexist/tasteless/unpleasant as some of Zappa's shit. Yet several people have praised it on the 1987 thread and no one has complained about it, whereas not even the biggest fans here have shown much willingness to get behind stuff like "Illinois Enema Bandit", "Titties and Beer", "Sy Borg", "Bobby Brown", etc. I don't love that Big Black album but I do like it. Ditto with a lot of hip-hop. So I think it really is an aesthetic issue in Zappa's case, not a moral one: the obnoxious lyrics on the offending songs are foregrounded so heavily and sit there, sometimes with less to appreciate musically otherwise, and also just that, unlike e.g. ODB lyrics, they're so weak as comedy, with little wit or comic timing. (I guess this is similar to something I already said upthread but I was considering it again with these comparisons.)

actually prefer the grotesque candyland chaos zappa serves up. it's certainly colorful, and i can see how it might appeal to those with a pronounced fondness for other sorts of action-packed musical zaniness: john zorn, mr bungle, les claypool, residents, etc.

I haven't listened to the cello version yet but yes, this is a big part of the appeal of Zappa's instrumental music. "Grotesque candyland chaos" is a great description btw!

I could do without the more squacky moments in "Peaches", but as a whole that arrangement kills

Putting my last two ideas together, I guess one reason Zappa is frustrating is that the music itself can be delightfully humorous, his lyrics and delivery much less so.

zaniness

^

I guess one reason Zappa is frustrating is that the music itself can be delightfully humorous, his lyrics and delivery much less so.

I don't know if I really want to drag the unholy Seth MacFarlane into this, but Zappa's catalogue as a whole is kind of like laughing your ass off at a really funny and clever joke on Family Guy that hits on every level, then getting pissed that the rest of the show settles for so much less.

Something interesting: Songs About Fucking is arguably as or more sexist/tasteless/unpleasant as some of Zappa's shit. Yet several people have praised it on the 1987 thread and no one has complained about it, whereas not even the biggest fans here have shown much willingness to get behind stuff like "Illinois Enema Bandit", "Titties and Beer", "Sy Borg", "Bobby Brown", etc. I don't love that Big Black album but I do like it. Ditto with a lot of hip-hop. So I think it really is an aesthetic issue in Zappa's case, not a moral one: the obnoxious lyrics on the offending songs are foregrounded so heavily and sit there, sometimes with less to appreciate musically otherwise, and also just that, unlike e.g. ODB lyrics, they're so weak as comedy, with little wit or comic timing. (I guess this is similar to something I already said upthread but I was considering it again with these comparisons.)

fwiw one reason I've always been lukewarm on Big Black is the casual sexism trying to hide behind a general-misanthropy mask (I think Albini grew out of that & consider Shellac a much better band). Re: hip-hop, generally speaking with hip-hop I think you either make your peace with sexism to enjoy the music or you check out; I've mainly done the latter, which is exactly what I do with pretty much all vocal Zappa: I tune out right around "Apostrophe" and only come back for the instrumentals ("Watermelon in Easter Hay" is so unbelievable...what the hell is it doing in the same corpus as "Catholic Girls"?)

The problem with vocal Zappa is that like 95% of his vocal melodies are exactly the same as the melody of the song; even his *good* vocal stuff wouldn't lose much if the they were removed altogether.

i suppose it's also possible that some people simply don't care that much about conventionally "pleasant" sounds & arrangements, or (and i shudder to think) actually prefer the grotesque candyland chaos zappa serves up. it's certainly colorful, and i can see how it might appeal to those with a pronounced fondness for other sorts of action-packed musical zaniness: john zorn, mr bungle, les claypool, residents, etc.

Yeah I love early Zappa for the sonics and arrangements (as well as the melodies), and particularly the cheesy, plastic, TV show theme quality of some of his stuff. I don't like any of those other artists you mentioned though. I don't normally go for zany but in Zappa's best stuff there's a darkness that undercuts the zaniness.

BTW, I had no idea until last night that both Roy Estrada and Napoleon Murphy Brock were convicted sex offenders!

well, that complicates the moral-vs-aesthetic thing a little

Something interesting: Songs About Fucking is arguably as or more sexist/tasteless/unpleasant as some of Zappa's shit. Yet several people have praised it on the 1987 thread and no one has complained about it, whereas not even the biggest fans here have shown much willingness to get behind stuff like "Illinois Enema Bandit", "Titties and Beer", "Sy Borg", "Bobby Brown", etc.

this doesn't address the moral component of that argument, but negativity in punk rock sort of "works" on a musical level because punk rock, like a lot of heavy metal, is driven by a kind of violent ecstasy. i was listening to "anarchy in the UK" the other day, and forgive me if this is an obvious point, but it occurred to me that the song has absolutely no political dimension. when johnny rotten sings about wanting to be anarchy, he's talking about the feeling of screaming into an amplified microphone with a band exploding into ecstatic, mile-a-minute chaos around you. what he's really saying is, "i want to be this sound, this moment." it's the same feeling iggy pop addresses in "raw power".

that situation, the situation of the punk singer, turns venom into a positive musical virtue. when the violence of the subject matter matches and conjures a violence in the vocal performance, it enables a transcendent release that turns mere violence into an ecstatic sort of joy. that can't really happen in zappa's musical universe. his venom can't find any kind of emotionally expressive release, so it just sits there festering.

oh man the Greasy Love Songs reissue just came in the mail (Cruising With Ruben & the Jets + extras) - utterly gorgeous package, really A+ production job. Little wallet-size card of what looks to be Zappa's high school graduation photo, bright mylar panels, big booklet with liner notes by Cheech Marin.

Totally bitching piece of product and it sounds SO GOOD.

Ruben has three dogs: Benny, Baby and Martha.

"Bobby Brown" is pretty funny. It is satire. Including a rape joke is not the best idea but the song is a comment on the sort of person that would think a rape joke is funny, how little respect this person has for anybody other than himself. Even as he ascends into sexual deviance and is being used and abuse his thoughts are "Oh God oh God I'm so fantastic". Completely self-obsessed. The shiny teeth and fast car are status symbols to him as much as who he effed and how cool and cutting edge his sexual life is. It's about a villain who is getting his due but not even realizing it because he's so obsessed with his own greatness. The irony in the lyrics is mimicked by the simple, catchy, confident melody and late 70's soft-rock pr0n arrangement.

Bobby Brown is Daniel Tosh.

I think we all get that, Adam. I think it's cheap and heavy-handed, like Sublime's "Date Rape" but even more ott.

yeah, and equating homosexuality and kink with deviance and being a "sexual spastic" is p fucking lame. i mean, sure, it's a supposed to be a satire of a self-obsessed type, but the hinge of zappa's "satire" = "lol, u r a gay fag."

OTM

Also pretty disturbing that the bg vocalist on that album is a convicted rapist

Wait, is that true about Napoleon Brock Murphy? (I see it on Roy Estrada's Wiki, which is pretty creepy.)

Whoa: http://mugshots.com/US-Counties/California/Santa-Clara-County-CA/Napoleon-Murphy-Brock.4542761.html

yeah, I don't see a date on Brock's conviction although the mugshot looks fairly recent right? But Estrada has 3 convictions for child sexual assault dating back to '77!

yeah Estrada was a real piece of work evidently

25 years without parole. I had not heard about Estrada; saw him not too many years ago with The Grandmothers.

Ugh, didn't know that about Estrada. Yick. That poor kid.

I'm really upset to hear about these guys. It's a real shock, especially NMB, who comes across as a fairly likable person. Ugh. This is going to ruin a lot of my favorite songs.

This gives me mixed feelings about zappa himself. On the one hand I always thought he was an asshole for dumping the original mothers, but maybe he had good reasons after all. But on the other hand maybe it wasn't a coincidence that he attracted certain types of people. And given his later lyrics and everything I wonder how much he was complicit in that sort of thing. I always kind of liked the creepy "freak scene" dark side of the Mothers but for some reason I didn't suspect that it actually got THAT creepy.

It certainly puts the lyrics to "Magdalena" in an even more uncomfortable light.

Jesus, I didn't know that song!

Listening to this, with a bit of a beer buzz going, I'm struck by one of the things that makes me uncomfortable about Zappa, that I'm realizing after this discussion. He was clearly a very intelligent man who was very serious about the craft of his music, to the point of obsessiveness. It doesn't make sense that he'd just ad-lib some dumb shit for shock value like the Day-Glo Abortions or someone. When that shit is in there, it seems like it had to mean something to him or something.

It's weird because I've always chosen to listen to zappa's satirical anti-hippy lyrics in a naive way and just take them at face value. Like Absolutely Free is a genuinely great psychedelic song IMO. I don't care if he meant it as a joke or not. But the same seems to be true with some of the creepy sexual lyrics. Was the supposed satire just a cover for him to sing about what genuinely interested him? A lot of his lyrics are full of contradictions, and are clearly ironic in one line and then seemingly genuine in another. I've always thought he seemed like an incredibly insecure dude who tried to mask his insecurities with all of the "jokes."

I'd suppose it is largely context. Big Black goes there it's kind of a horror or true crime movie, you expect it to be there. I suppose Illinois Enema Bandit seems somehow sleazier as it is being played for laughs out of a mid tempo blues that wouldn't sound out of bounds musically on a Doobie Brothers record. And maybe it is that cultural divide where people could just dig the music and not really realize what it is somewhat about is why Bobby Brown was a chart hit in parts of Europe.

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so basically X is going to win any 'X v rush v yes' poll

countdown to some very angry prog fans

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/6/6e/XLosAngeles.jpg/220px-XLosAngeles.jpg

I'd vote for X in an "X vs Rush vs Yes" poll, even though I quite like Rush. Doe & Cervenka are tops in my book.

was going to move to northern michigan and name my Yes cover band Starship Yooper

late lol @ "Starship Yooper", that song will never be the same to me again

anyway just wanted to chime in and say I listened to "Magdalena" and EWWWWWWWWWWWWWwwwwwwwww, I kind of agree that there's a part of Zappa that must have internalized this stuff to some degree. "Brown Shoes" mostly gets a pass because of what a classic it is but lately that one's made me really uncomfortable too.

Interesting how this poll came back in exactly reverse order of awesomeness.

yes is always the most awesome band in any list of awesome bands