Frank Zappa: Classic or Dud?

I guess I see what he saw in zappa

Also Boulez: jazz is ultimately 'bar music' and improvisation 'a kind of public onanism'.

wanker. sounds like adorno

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjy3rr7J_yQ
#onethread

there's a bit more of the story from inside IRCAM in georgie born's 1995 "rationalizing culture" -- if you can bear to wrestle with her decision (to ensure it's sociology and not gossip lol) to anonymise all the IRCAM staffers behind alphabetical cryptonyms: we're told there was a faction on the staff who were interested in expanding the facilities to composers and musicians who didn't fit the boulez straitjacket

born also cites an interview braxton gave to the guardian (24 june 1988), much the same time as graham lock's book, tho she doesn't name the interviewer

Who is the person that's frequently cited for describing composition as just very slow improvisation? Was that Braxton?

the doc includes clips of the SNL episode he hosted… in the sketches we see, a coneheads bit and then one riffing on his avant rock rep, he over enunciates every sentence, over emphasizes every line and overacts… instead of saying "I don't like 70s SNL (because only MY satire is worthwhile," having confirmed shortly after in the doc his dismissive attitude towards SNL) "and I'm not going to host your show," he does it but doesn't cooperate, doesn't commit to it, only sneers at the prospect of participating like any host or guest on that show has ever done, collects the nominal sum hosts receive, and does his music with his band during the music segments. He could never commit to anyone else's thing, because he had no respect for anyone in his cultural wake… or here, if he agreed to ostensibly commit to participate to another thing, he had to petulantly shit on it, as if he was 13.

It is only HIS shit that's any good. He was hostile to every single other cultural/musical development past, like, the blues and post Stravinsky 20th century western composed music. Didn't he dismiss jazz? Did he dismiss minimalism? His response to the entire post-punk milieu is that "they can't play."

B-b-but what about the tunes?

There's that one, "Watermelon in Easter Hay," supposed to be a corker.

The 'Sincerity' thread is indeed relevant, because cleary that is one of the genres or modalities that FZ does a Pisztake on to show his superiority. Or presumably does, he seems to be doing the exact opposite of 'Sincerity'. Nothing more original than simply putting a NOT sign in front of something else.

Heard that he was the most hated SNL host ever, had all those Zappa-esque requests about pumpkins, pumpkins eating peoples faces off, pumpkins everywhere!

He was quite amiable on What's My Line.

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

... if very nerdy.

https://societyofrock.com/frank-zappas-awkward-snl-episode/
Featuring a clip in which he makes fun of cue cards and disco dancers, who have “no natural rhythm.”

That was painful for me to watch, an unfunny Groucho Marx.

Putting everything in ‘Insincere’ quote marks.

I liked the piece he conducted.

I was gonna say an unfunny Weird Al

That exchange is a great example of something I hate about Zappa. "We did this song or type of music just to prove how stupid it is." OK, Frank, but if you're going to do it anyway, why not write in that mode and show how good it could be in the right hands?

maybe he's not the right hands? people talk about him the same way they talk about Aphex Twin, as though he could have pumped out a hundred tracks like "Peaches en Regalia" or "Oh No" or "Watermelon in Easter Hay" if he wanted to, but saw "giving the people what they want" as a character flaw. when I hear something like "Dancin' Fool" it's like...too interesting to be a pisstake, but he can't figure out how to reconcile the dumb parts with the cool musical bits, and he can't make the tune likeable because he's so incredibly unfunny. he was shooting for *something* great but the tune itself just hints at what it is.

And I mean going rogue on a satirical live comedy show and satirizing its scripted nature is classic. What, we're supposed to revere Lorne Michaels and disco now? xp

Sund4r please.

Guy covering up for his inability to act by speaking his cue cards in quotes doesn't strike me as Andy Kaufman level stuff, sorry. And stiff white dude making fun of disco dancing got old at some point, can't remember exactly when. He's not the greatest dancer himself, I wonder why.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDwutKpVyas

Anyway, this thread did remind me to practise my rhythm changes today.

Anyway, sorry, can't give my full attention to this thread, boring myself to tears listening to another bunch of dire dudes running around the cycle of fifths with the ii-V-I's. Been done to death.

lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zu6s9t0iFSg

Zappa did approve of Little Deuce Coupe by the Beach Boys, because it uses a V-ii-I progression, thus confounding centuries of White Music.

Lol

One thing about that SNL clip, I forgot how thin and sharply angled he was, he’s like the inspiration for Waluigi

lol, he totally looks like Waluigi

maybe he's not the right hands?

Exactly, that was my point: he's not. If you think this kind of music is so shitty, Frank, but you're going to do it anyway, then why do it "bad" on purpose, as an obnoxious joke, and not do it better, because you are clearly a next level artist? Because you can't. So why bother with this fish in a barrel bullshit?

And yeah, if he were actually funny he could be forgiven for a lot of his bullshit, but Zappa is not funny.

For what it's worth, I find there's a strong correlation between "songs where Zappa is trying to be funny, and I agree it's funny" and "songs where Zappa is trying to be funny that I enjoy as music".

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🎃 🥸

I like a lot of Zappa but if it all disappeared I'd really only miss Peaches En Regalia and Trouble Every Day

In the end, it doesn't matter whether or not Zappa has the best musicians playing "Dancin' Fool," the question is if it's any better than "Disco Duck." And the answer is no.

This is the best Zappa, when he just sits down and watches Vinnie solo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20ZUO79il6A

Unless you hate drum solos, in which case it is also bad.

B-b-but does Vinnie eat sushi during that solo?

lol I think he needs two hands for this solo. Sushi is just for the easy one-handed Zappa chart stuff.

It's not sushi, but here he is effortlessly breaking down a tricky Sting groove as he's playing it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwmCeon6aPo

I like a lot of Zappa but if it all disappeared I'd really only miss Peaches En Regalia and Trouble Every Day

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Sunday, December 20, 2020 7:46 PM (twenty-five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

would add "village of the sun" to this

Village of the Sun has quite an affectionate lyric.

And I mean going rogue on a satirical live comedy show and satirizing its scripted nature is classic.

Funny that James Redd brought up Andy Kaufman, because this is what I thought of instantly. (And I fucking hate(d) Andy Kaufman's whole thing too. "Conceptual comedy" where the concept is "you're stupid for laughing"? None for me, thanks.)

I liked Andy Kaufman, maybe because I first saw him with Dick Van Dyke and because of the Elvis thing, but yeah.

Still, Kaufman (as much as I know of him) often seemed to relish the absurdity of it, of being on stage doing anything. There's never that queasy mix of self-regard and self-loathing that creeps all through Zappa's stuff.

I feel like there's a joy to Kaufman, things like the Mighty Mouse here I come to save the day sketch

This Kauffman talk is making me wish there was a vid of Orson Welles' rhapsodizing about "Dong Work For Yuda"

"...this Holy Fool, Bald-Headed John, simultaneously above and below his persecutors..."

There's also a feeling, at his most confrontational or novel, that Kaufman *is* subversive, whereas Zappa ultimately is not.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHpme0ZeHdU
Merry Christmas!

https://dangerousminds.net/comments/the_day_andy_kaufman_mesmerized_dick_van_dyke_with_congas_and_tears

I must have seen him before Dick Van Dyke though, since I stayed up to watch the SNL premiere.