Frank Zappa: Classic or Dud?

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....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTDjhEp0BvM

Yeah, well, here's Vinnie killing it while barking like a seal for Frank's amusement:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKpERTw8DsE

Missing Persons was like a Zappa dream come true: former Playboy bunny fronting virtuosos playing paired down new wave for money.

Anyway, speaking of Vinnie and Vai, any excuse for this story:

"I was just enamored with Vinnie. Back in the Frank days, his whole approach, when I heard Vinnie play, his phrasing - it satisfied something in my heart. It was easy to get certain rhythmic gratification from straight up-and-down-type players. Playing grooves, alternate grooves here and there. But Vinnie just came in and threw a wrench into the works. The guy is an alien. He was able to touch buttons with his sense of polyrhythms that no one has ever done. Frank's band was the perfect soundboard for that. I started transcribing his playing for The Frank Zappa Book. I mean, there's five to six different notations for the hi-hat!" (laughs)

"I'll tell you a really great Vinnie story. He's one of the most amazing sight-readers that ever existed on the instrument. One day we were in a Frank rehearsal, this was early '80s, and Frank brought in this piece of music called "Mo 'N Herb's Vacation." Just unbelievably complex. All the drums were written out, just like "The Black Page" except even more complex. There were these runs of like 17 over 3 and every drumhead is notated differently. And there were a whole bunch of people there, I think Bozzio was there."

"Vinnie had this piece of music on the stand to his right. To his left he had another music stand with a plate of sushi on it, okay? Now the tempo of the piece was very slow, like "The Black Page." And then the first riff came in, [mimics bizarre Zappa-esque drum rhythm patterns] with all these choking of cymbals, and hi-hat, ruffs, spinning of rototoms and all this crazy stuff. And I saw Vinnie reading this thing. Now, Vinnie has this habit of pushing his glasses up with the middle finger of his right hand. Well I saw him look at this one bar of music, it was the last bar of music on the page. He started to play it as he was turning the page with one hand, and then once the page was turned he continued playing the riff with his right hand, as he reached over with his left hand, grabbed a piece of sushi and put it in his mouth, continued the riff with his left hand and feet, pushed his glasses up, and then played the remaining part of the bar."

"It was the sickest thing I have ever seen. Frank threw his music up in the air. Bozzio turned around and walked away. I just started laughing."

Zappa and his pals were in action (not words) way less gross than people like this

Roy Estrada was convicted of sexual assault on a child in October, 1977. He got out in '83 and went right back into Zappa's band. He was convicted of lewd acts with a child in '94. In 2012 he pled again to continuous sexual assault on a child and he's no longer eligible for parole, he'll die in prison. So, maybe you consider gross old Gene Simmons sleeping with consenting adults worse than a guy who literally raped children his entire life, to whose ~conviction and sentence on the charges~ Zappa turned a blind eye, but I gotta disagree there, Roy Estrada is way more gross than anybody in Kiss, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Bachman-Turner Overdrive, or Three Dog Night.

Zappa in "The Illinois Enema Bandit," a song about a rapist who administered enemas to his victims. It's toward the end of the song. He wrote and tracked and sang this is while Estrada was serving time for sexually assaulting a child:

"Wait a minute. This is for Roy Estrada, wherever he is. Wanna, wanna enema, e-nemaaaa. Wanna, wanna enema, e-nemaaaaa."

Napoleon Murphy Brock was convicted of statutory stuff too :/

and just so we're clear, Estrada was charged and Zappa let him come out on tour anyway so he'd be able to make some money before he went to trial. This was '75; they'd written but not recorded "The Illinois Enema Bandit." A Steve Hoffman poster who saw the tour writes:

For "Illinois Enema Bandit", also a new song to the audience, Frank had Roy Estrada dressed up like the bandit, with more clothes and props added as the lyrics went on. By the end, he had a winter mask hat over his head, so that just his eyes and mouth were visible, and he had a hot water bottle with a long tube dangling from his body.

I defend Zappa's musical sense - I think working out Varesian ideas/moods in rock is interesting, and it makes for some music I really enjoy. I listen to Shut Up And Play Yr Guitar with real pleasure, pace upper mississippi's misgivings. But scaring up legal fees for one's pedophile friend by having that friend act out the part of a rapist onstage is pretty beyond the pale.

Wow, I knew about Estrada's convictions but I didn't know any of that other stuff. I'd also suggest checking out the lyrics to the song Jumbo Go Away for an example of his attitude towards a member of his band giving a groupie a black eye.

That's a member of his band, not a member of Kiss.

Jesus Christ I'd never seen that one, how fucking awful

yikes @ all this

xp

oh wow I'd never seen the lyrics to "Jumbo Go Away" before. Jesus.

https://www.jambase.com/article/steve-vai-issues-statement-frank-zappa-hologram-tour Vai on FakeFrank tour

Pretty sure Steve Vai is actually and has always been a hologram.

Roy Estrada was convicted of sexual assault on a child in October, 1977. He got out in '83 and went right back into Zappa's band. He was convicted of lewd acts with a child in '94. In 2012 he pled again to continuous sexual assault on a child and he's no longer eligible for parole, he'll die in prison. So, maybe you consider gross old Gene Simmons sleeping with consenting adults worse than a guy who literally raped children his entire life, to whose ~conviction and sentence on the charges~ Zappa turned a blind eye, but I gotta disagree there, Roy Estrada is way more gross than anybody in Kiss, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Bachman-Turner Overdrive, or Three Dog Night.

― she carries a torch. two torches, actually (Joan Crawford Loves Chachi)

i guess this would carry more weight with me if it weren't factually incorrect? i don't know what zappa knew or didn't know about roy estrada's sexual abuse, but estrada was first convicted of child sexual abuse in 1994, by which point zappa was dead. estrada was in the original mothers and then again in the '75-'76 band. he guested at a couple shows in fall of '77.

This indicates he was originally registered as a sex offender in 1977
http://www.homefacts.com/offender-detail/TX04897800/Roy-Ralph-Estrada.html

Public records: https://records.txdps.state.tx.us/SexOffender/PublicSite/Application/Search/Individual.aspx?IND_IDN=11654081

This indicates he was originally registered as a sex offender in 1977
http://www.homefacts.com/offender-detail/TX04897800/Roy-Ralph-Estrada.html

― Οὖτις

ok, now there's some evidence. if he's convicted of child sexual abuse in colorado and three days later is playing with zappa, and zappa was cognizant of what was going on with roy (which is eminently _possible_, though i don't know at this moment of any evidence to that effect), yeah, that would make zappa the joe paterno of rock, fuck that guy a million ways from sunday. i'm a little shocked and horrified (though i guess not surprised) that estrada was convicted of child sexual abuse and was apparently gallivanting around the country as a free man the rest of the year (he played with zappa not just at halloween, but at new year's). the only correction i would make is that estrada did _not_ "go right back into zappa's band" in '83, or as far as i know ever perform with zappa again after '77.

I'm not sure why that doesnt show up in wiki or other mefia reports from his '94 conviction, maybe he managed to get it expunged or something. The '77 conviction does turn up in search results at other zappa-related sites.

he performed and is credited on both Ship Arriving Too Late to Save a Drowning Witch and Man From Utopia

both early 80s