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.

there's a lot of good stuff on joe's garage, it's really the lyrics/story that sink the thing

like i think i would love the robot sex track if anything else were happening over the top of it

I have to admit to liking the lyric "Fuck me, you ugly son of a bitch"

Relistened to Uncle Meat the other day - man, there is so much stuff going on in "Dog Breath". Great production all over (although I oculd do w/o the King Kong stuff).

Zappa is just dated.

― “Big” Don Abernathy, Sunday, January 3, 2021 1:29 PM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

so is Bitches Brew. So what?

I didn’t mean that datedness was an inherently bad thing. But also Zappa often thought of himself as a cultural commentator wrt his lyrics so there’s obviously gonna be content issues and a POV people find alienating there.

if only people still made poo poo and pee pee

Loool!

Bitches Brew doesn't have some dickhead doing silly comedy voices over the top of it so dated or not it's a lot more listenable

the datedness of Zappa I think has a lot to do with the expectation that listeners approach his music as if he's saying something more profound than whatever he's parodying or pastiching was supposed to have been saying, something that exposes those things in some way- and not only that but he's saying something more profound than he seems to be saying on his own terms when he's being (apparently) wilfully gross/annoying/reactionary- and that it's self evident that this is how his work deserves to be appreciated, if at all. he was always going to be a minority taste but whatever combination of factors created that kind of cult around him doesn't really exist anymore for a lot of complicated reasons

Idk if I see datedness as the issue. Christgau was p much making the same criticisms that are being made on this thread in the early 70s: https://www.robertchristgau.com/get_artist.php?name=Frank+Zappa. And lots of people still listen to Zappa - he has 1.1M monthly listeners on Spotify, more than King Crimson, a little under Primus, about 10x what Mahavishnu have, almost 3x Captain Beefheart's.

*Mahavishnu Orchestra

tbh I mostly dislike Zappa bc he's not PC enough, everything else is secondary. claims about datedness in that respect are probably wishful thinking. how many supporters does Trump still have?

jfc why primus though

Actually, this works better than the other Christgau link: https://www.robertchristgau.com/get_artist2.php?id=4155

Zappa isn't "dated," per se, any more than anything else is. It's just dumb. If any of his his "some dickhead doing silly comedy voices over the top of it" shtick was actually smart or funny it wouldn't matter. You put that "some dickhead doing silly comedy voices over the top of it" on literally any music of the era, from the Beatles to the Band to, sure, "Bitches Brew," it would be just as bad. At least Les Claypool sort of mutters his bullshit low enough that you can often ignore it. If Zappa's bullshit weren't so foregrounded you could maybe ignore it, too, and then all the nerds would be, like, "if you listen closely you can hear Zappa subverting the sophisticated paradigm of modern composition by orchestrating pitched belches and fart sounds." But Zappa, being contemptuous of any and all things except his own abilities, has no use for subtlety.

was surprised to come across this randomly the other day, The Sonics covering Zappa in 1967

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thHAy4jmtdU

I played through a lot of the playlist upthread of the better instrumental-ish material, and I can now conclude that I just don't like FZ. Can't knock the talent involved in making it, but his compositional style just gets on my nerves and I think other people took some of his ideas to more interesting places (Faust, Henry Cow etc). However, huge thanks to whoever it was that put the playlist together so I could reach this conclusion without trawling through 75 albums of penis jokes to get to the relevant tracks.

(xp) Great find!

trawling through 75 albums of penis jokes to get to the relevant tracks.

You are such a square, you just don't get it, maaaaaaaan.

I did eventually finish the doc. The only time you see him happy is when he's being hailed a hero in Czechoslovakia (Prague Rock!) and later when he's dying and doing iirc The Yellow Shark. The remainder of what I missed was him complaining about the record industry, how no one gets him, and how his free speech views got him blacklisted from ... what, 75 more albums of penis jokes?

that was my playlist matt and i'm glad it helped!

i do not really think about zappa's compositional style i just really love jazz fusion

well i guess he forces me to think about it during the mathier sections of roxy

Probably spoken of upthread somewhere but what are the key recordings of his orchestral music? I'm willing to give it a try!

London Symphony Orchestra
The Yellow Shark
200 Motels

I like Orchestral Favorites, or did when I listened to more Zappa. It's a smaller chamber orchestra meets rock band configuration, so there's bits of synth and electric violin. Contains a version of "Duke of Prunes" and several themes from 200 Motels.

lmao nailed it

Heidecker Does Zappa (from Office Hours After Hours 12/3) @timheidecker @douggpound @VicBergerIV @OfficeHrsLive pic.twitter.com/wY1rJg6v3Z

— Dan Cupps (@DanielCupps) February 1, 2021

hahaha

can't hold a candle to this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJPK35hChAk

Which iirc really pissed Frank off, which just proves that like most bullies he can dish it out but can't take it

That’s amazing, thanks

damn that's a bit too on the nose

have we done this one already?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwFf9vGRqcs

so the problem with that one is it's actually too fun to be a real Zappa tune

Gives me an excuse to post this yet again: http://www.globalbass.com/archives/dec2001/stephen_jay.htm

this is making my morning...though I guess Weird Al (not surprisingly) was a huge Zappa fan and it was more of a loving tribute

[11]. Do you have anybody’s autograph?

WAY: I’m not a big autograph collector, but when I was working in the mailroom in the early ’80s back at Westwood One, Dr. Demento would have special guests coming in every night. And one time, Frank Zappa came in, and he’s one of my all-time heroes. So I brought up my tattered copy of Freak Out!, which I probably bought for 99 cents at a used record store. And it kind of blew my mind, because he was like, “Oh, you’re the ‘Another One Rides The Bus’ guy! My son Dweezil likes that song. Can I get an autograph for him?” Dweezil was like 13 years old at the time, but I couldn’t even believe that Frank Zappa knew who I was, let alone asking for my autograph, so that was a huge deal for me. And that Freak Out! album, since, has gotten severely water damaged so I can’t even bear to throw it away. So for the rest of my life, I will hold on to this slimy, moldy piece of cardboard with Frank Zappa’s name on it.

AVC: Have you met Dweezil since?

WAY: Dweezil actually played on a song of mine called, “Genius In France,” which is my homage to Frank Zappa. I figured if Dweezil played on it that would give it a little more credibility. He was amazing; he did this amazing guitar solo at the top of the song, so it was a thrill to work with Dweezil on that.

Jim Cox that is pretty brutal, amazing

I'm most impressed by how well he was able to nail a very particular Zappa guitar tone! I'm a Zappa fan but I could have been legitimately fooled by that bit into thinking it was the man himself

I don't think I've laughed harder at anything in months than that Jim Cox song, it's so perfect. Thanks for posting.

this is making my morning...though I guess Weird Al (not surprisingly) was a huge Zappa fan and it was more of a loving tribute

well yeah, I can't imagine Weird Al ever doing a mean-spirited parody of anything

listened to the Jim Cox one 3x now, it really does perfectly capture how obnoxious pretty much everything he did after 1969 is

Even the Jim Cox one seems detailed and accurate enough to be loving imo. The Heidecker is kind of funny because it comes off like he just made some shit up on the spot and got the general gist of it.

there are some forbidden V-I progressions just after 6:30 in that Weird Al tune

The Heidecker is kind of funny because it comes off like he just made some shit up on the spot and got the general gist of it.

― to party with our demons (Sund4r), Wednesday, February 3, 2021 11:17 AM (four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

he does have a gift for it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfG8nEhNMhk

Cox nails Flo & Eddie's whiny spoken word, the Central Scrutinizer whispers, the insane tempo change when the lyric mentions "ballet," the doo-wop parody... So much attention to detail. I think my favorite part is the George Duke-like "ooma-gooma-ohh-yeahhhh" about two minutes in.

In case you missed some of the lyrics:
https://www.united-mutations.com/c/jim_cox.htm

Iirc, one of Weird Al's longtime band members was a huge Zappa guy. The bassist? Yes, the bassist, Stephen Jay:

One night back in Tampa, Frank Zappa and Steve Vai happened to walk in and heard a band I was playing with at a big disco club called Robiconti’s. After our show, Frank told me it was the best sounding band he’d ever heard! A few weeks later, he called me and said he needed a bass player and asked me to come to L.A. I didn’t get the gig, but it got me and my family out to L.A. and for that I am eternally grateful. My audition with Frank turned out to be a “Black Page” sightreading.

lol already posted! Sorry

That's the nice version of that story.

okay, that cox song is a hoot

I am listening to "The Yellow Shark" for the first time and it is... totally enjoyable

As far as later stuff goes, Civilization Phase 3 is also very good.

It's next on my playlist, I heard the same thing

I still don't like the "zany" but compositionally I think this is frankly rather zappa