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.

I like a lot of the Flo and Eddie stuff, but this seems like scraps from all already well mined era. I doubt that there's a tin of stuff left in the vault that's really new or essential. It's been picked over very thoroughly for the last 30+ years.

"Red Tubular Lighter" is so great

I'm listening to a vinyl copy of We're Only In It For the Money...I've actually never heard the original version before, I had the 90's Ryko CD. I never knew the 'censored version' meant they just clipped entire sections out. I thought the record skipped a few times but apparently that's how it actually is. I almost understand FZ's desire to re-record this now, it sounds kinda bad. whoever remastered this in the 90s did a really good job.

This guy did an outstanding job of restoring an 'uncensored version' using the best available materials. The bulk of it came from MFSL's reissue - it wasn't an ideal reissue as it uses the exact same digital master created for Rykodisc's '90s CD, but that was still a rock solid transfer of the original analog master tape and MFSL's mastering is a slight improvement that doesn't do anything wrong.

Magnolia Presents: ZAPPA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4F0rT0F6OQ

Directed by Alex Winter
Produced by Alex Winter, Glen Zipper, Ahmet Zappa, John Frizzell, Devorah DeVries, and Jade Allen
Executive Producers Robert Halmi and Jim Reeve of Great Point Media

With unfettered access to the Zappa family trust and all archival footage, ZAPPA explores the private life behind the mammoth musical career that never shied away from the political turbulence of its time. Alex Winter’s assembly features appearances by Frank’s widow Gail Zappa and several of Frank’s musical collaborators including Mike Keneally, Ian Underwood, Steve Vai, Pamela Des Barres, Bunk Gardner, David Harrington, Scott Thunes, Ruth Underwood, Ray White and others.

129 Minutes

Magnolia Pictures will release ZAPPA everywhere November 27th, 2020
Special one-night-only theatrical event on Monday, November 23rd, 2020

Sorry everyone, I'm gonna go see this

I kinda want to see this too. Alex Winter is a pretty good director. just worried it's gonna be too rapturous about him as I'd imagine the Zappa family trust wants it to be

Wondering if Dweezil had any input on this or if he's just out in the cold completely.

Dweezil & Moon I don't think were involved at all, Moon didn't have anything positive to say about Winter: "He wouldn’t have been my first choice. He might not have been my 100th choice.”

But I am pretty curious to see it

I'm curious about it too. If it's like $5 on Amazon Prime, or if it pops up on Netflix or Hulu, I'll probably watch.

I'd rather see a good Zappa doc than listen to anything by Zappa, tbh. He's an interesting, important figure, second almost to the Dead in how the *idea* of the music is in some ways ultimately more important than the music itself.

Thought this might be a biopic for a mad second, no such luck

Same, Josh! I'd absolutely see a biopic about one-of-my least-favourite musicians, for real

I did listen to Uncle Meat on a whim last night and... I still do love it

I listened to Apostrophe recently, which I used to love, and found it mostly grating and tiring to be honest.

Not too many artists I'll say this about, but Zappa was waaaay too sober.

i hate judging a doc by its trailer but that whole bit at the end with zappa running for prez....

dude was politically abhorrent

Zappa was waaaay too sober.

― octobeard, Wednesday, October 28, 2020 5:32 PM (four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah but hot rats sounds amazing stoned

this is well worth watching

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt5645352/

dude was politically abhorrent

Eh, would take him over a lot of Presidents.

......... fair

Looking forward to this. It was supposed to premiere at SxSW this year -- I wonder if Winter has done any late tweezing to it in the last six months.

I mean, he was pro-decriminalization, anti-censorship, anti-nuke, anti-military interventionism, anti-apartheid, pro-civil rights. Was v wrong about abolishing income tax, though.xp

So there have been many archival releases in the last 20 years that I've barely delved into. Any thoughts on which are the best ones?

Wazoo (a live album by one of his jazziest bands) was good. There's some worthwhile stuff on the big Hot Rats box, too.

Road Tapes Venue #2, Greasy Love Songs, Wazoo, Roxy Performances

Whatever your favorite era/band, there will be some road tapes; Wazoo, the Hot Rats Sessions, the Roxy Performances top my list.

Some of those archival releases also feature the original LP mixes of certain records that Zappa remixed for their original CD issues, such as Freak Out, Ruben & the Jets and Uncle Meat.

Who else but a genius of Frank’s Zappitude would concoct a modern day cowboy song about a dental floss ranch?

I just saw that the new FZ documentary will be available as one of WFMU's on-demand films starting the 27th.

Zappa's nephew, Stanley, is a jazz saxophonist. I reviewed one of his albums for Stereogum, and he follows me on Twitter.

The Alex Winter doc is really good filmmaking, y'all. It's not a complete hagiography -- Zappa's singleminded focus coming through as callous assholism is remarked on several times. Gail's unhappiness with FZ groupie indulgence is made plain, though not by Gail. Winter highlights the pathos of "Valley Girl"'s origin. He leaves out FZ's wide ranging xenophobia except for a throwaway comment by Kenneally. But he (Winter) gets Conceptual Continuity as Zappa presented it and assembles the film in the same way, with images and music cues from all eras peppered throughout, especially in the first and last 30 minutes. Really well edited, and it admirably doesn't rely too hard on talking head interviews, which makes them more effective when they are used. Ruth Underwood and Steve Vai are especially good.

Don't watch if you have any antipathy to FZ at all, but worth renting otherwise.

I dunno if I'm just dense, however, it is *fucking* me off that I can't seem to be able to rent this from the UK.

I'm watching this through Alamo Drafthouse tonight

is it possible to have *no* antipathy for Zappa?
looking forward to this

true, true, I have plenty

Curious to know whether this will be available to stream in Europe.

This was a fairly good documentary, the band member interviews and new footage were the strongest elements. My biggest complaint was that it focused too much on Frank Zappa the personality at the expense of the music.

This was a fairly good documentary, the band member interviews and new footage were the strongest elements. My biggest complaint was that it focused too much on Frank Zappa the personality at the expense of the music.

Is there a Zappa documentary you'd like to see that focuses on some other topic?

Zappa fans not renowned for their sense of humour.

Don't get me wrong, it was incredibly hilarious and insightful. Thank you for your service. But yeah, I'd definitely say that a key to enjoying this film is having a desire to see a Zappa doc in the first place.

Like talking to a brick wall.

Why are you even wasting your time?

I have no idea what you're talking about.

moodles' joke was funnier than tom's tbh

i mean tom's is probably the one i would make

but i suck

Mine's wasn't even a joke, I actually misread the original post and initially thought that's what it said! Which I thought was funny.

Oh hey

as a former smoker, the shot of an ailing Zappa, ravaged by the cancer that he would have avoided if he did not bizarrely carry on for decades as if cigarettes were not deleterious, or at least not as deleterious as every other drug that he excoriated in public for decades, feebly attempt to handle a lit cig as an attendant administered medication, was truly pathetic…I'l have more to say later about the doc…as per another active thread, Zappa and Albini are very very frustrating…