Frank Zappa: Classic or Dud?

"... P-Funk were basically an arty retro band, mixing 1965 James Brown revivalism with 1967 Frank Zappa stupidity." - Chuck Eddy, The Accidental Evolution of Rock 'n' Roll

I guess I don't hear that much P Funk in Fishbone

Patton feels like he was influenced by Zappa but he doesn't really come out and say it...

I hate to disappoint everyone, but this thread inspired me to get on spotify and check out the various vault releases from the past 15 years or so, and there's a lot of great stuff on there

which ones specifically

never bothered with the posthumous releases because there are just so many of them and I'm still like 20 discs short of having everything he did while he was alive, but I'm sure there are some gems in there

The Audio documentary series are great if you like the idea of extrapolated versions of Lumpy Gravy, Uncle Meat etc:

Yeah, was enjoying the uncle meat one last night

Also caught some good tracks on the Carnegie hall one and Chicago 78. You are definitely going to encounter the usual obnoxious songs on these, but there are also lots of great performances, sound quality is excellent, and there's also plenty of unusual versions of familiar songs. I've only just started digging in to these, but was pretty happy with what I heard. I do have a high tolerance for a lot of this stuff, so keep that in mind.

and there's also plenty of unusual versions of familiar songs.

that's great, this is definitely one of my favorite things that Zappa does

Listening to a cool live version of "The Grand Wazoo" from Zappa Wazoo. Pretty faithful to album version, but I've never heard any other performances of this song.

Overall, I'm just surprised that there's so much quality material still out there, especially from certain band configurations that hadn't had much exposure in the past. I had kind of assumed that the YCDTOSA series basically captured all the good stuff, and anything left would be sub-par.

"... P-Funk were basically an arty retro band, mixing 1965 James Brown revivalism with 1967 Frank Zappa stupidity." - Chuck Eddy, The Accidental Evolution of Rock 'n' Roll

iirc Chuck always went hard on this connection (esp re: "Jimmy's Got a Little Bit of Bitch in Him") but idk, Clinton has never copped to it and he's usually pretty open about his antecedents.

I think there's definitely some overlap between Parliament and Apostrophe-era Zappa. Don't know if it is a case of influences or 2 groups of talented musicians landing in a similar spot around the same time.

The 1966 mix of Freak Out is very different from what I'm used to.

I'm sure I read somewhere about Zappa wanting to work with P-Funk musicians. I hope the 1966 mix of "Freak Out" is better than the one I'm familiar with, it's always sounded pretty shit to me.

not hating on Chuck but that seems a misunderstanding of Parliament/Funkadelic's range and a vast underestimation of their talents.

Yeah i figured that was obvious

Yeah, totally, I just thought it was funny.

In 1967 Zappa wasn't even that stupid yet, for a start.

The Suzy Creamcheese thing was a little stupid.

I really like what I know from the 60s, though, to be clear!

I love the overall sound of Overnite Sensation/Apostrophe (')/One Size Fits All ... really warm and bassy.

I love Chuck's writing but he never let the facts get in the way of a good line

I love the overall sound of Overnite Sensation/Apostrophe (')/One Size Fits All ... really warm and bassy.

Still need to hear a number of those 2012 remasters. I´m not an audiophile but for someone as perfectionist as Zappa I´m surprised the cd masters were never that good (even the Ryko ones that said "Zappa approved" which was just a marketing thing). The only editions of Overnite Sensation + Apostrophe(') I know where the Zappa Records version and it didn´t sound very good. Rave reviews about the 2012 edition of 'Burnt Weeny Sandwich' too.

I only bought "Shut Up..." and "Sleep Dirt" and yes they do sound great (+ the 2012 version of "Sleep Dirt" does away with the vocals).

The Suzy Creamcheese thing was a little stupid.

― No purposes. Sounds. (Sund4r)

i'm listening to detlev glanert's "requiem for jheronimus bosch". every track starts with somebody gravely intoning "jheronimus bosch", and every time i wait for the speaker to follow up with "what's got into you?"

it never happens. probably because the piece is in dutch or something. good piece, though. kind of reminds me of the vocal bits on "200 motels".

This AV Club piece is actually pretty good. The writer starts off saying he appreciates Frank Zappa the iconoclast and smart guy, but has never clicked with the music. So he picks three albums - We're Only In It For The Money, Hot Rats, and the whole Joe's Garage trilogy - and dives in. And SPOILER he does not come away converted.

From what I can tell, most of We’re Only In It For The Money’s reputation as cutting, hippie-mocking satire seems to be tied up in a handful of songs—“Who Needs The Peace Corps?,” “Absolutely Free,” and “Flower Punk”—all of them calling out fakers dressed in beads and bells, making pilgrimages to San Francisco to “play my bongos in the dirt,” with no political opinions nor any greater aspirations than just getting stoned and becoming the road manager for a psychedelic rock band (or worse, playing in one).

...

Still, as far as comedy goes, “Peace Corps” and “Flower Punk” are basically New Yorker cartoons; any square in America could have written these same gibes about long-haired, barefoot freaks catching crabs at their love-ins. “Peace Corps” does have a pretty good line about loving everyone, even “the police as they kick the shit out of me in the street.” But mostly they’re just a taunting rundown of ’60s stereotypes that today feel as novelty-song-dated as Zappa’s similar ’80s pop screed “Valley Girl.” A lot of the “satire” seems to be just describing things.

...

But to me, today, as someone with zero investment in hearing hippies and Peter Paul And Mary taken down a peg, what I’m mostly left with is a batch of songs that largely seem designed to be irritating, a sneer directed at a culture that mostly stopped existing a year after its release. While there’s an impressive jumble of unconventional instrumentation here beneath all the dialogue snippets and backmasked squalls, with the sole exception of the silly doo-wop earworm “What’s The Ugliest Part Of Your Body?,” it almost completely eschews memorable melodies—and, you know, enjoyable songs. I just can’t imagine revisiting We’re Only In It For The Money for any sort of listening pleasure; it seems to scoff at the very idea. So... the joke is on me?

I don't think FZ needs to be defended but this guy's take on We're only in it... is wrong on all levels IMHO. One of the few (only) FZ albums with a bunch of catchy melodies. "Lonely Little Girl" for instance is a classic, music and lyric wise.

yea that's just completely wrong. no "memorable melodies", what ??? god, "Absolutely Free" still pops into my head on a weekly basis, and I haven't heard the album in years. in fact that take as a whole - liking Zappa but not his music - sounds like the absolute worst take you can have on him

yep

Had only heard bits and pieces from it before, but really digging this copy of Roxy & Elsewhere I got yesterday.

It's my favorite Zappa record. Though I'm worried the upcoming Roxy box might be too much of a good thing.

just listened to Hot Rats all the way through - i have a recentish memory of mark s telling me it's no good but MAN IT IS GOOD

peaches en regalia somewhat aside (sorry zap-hedz) it is one stonking hard jam after another. some of zappa's best solo playing. and the drums! even son of mr green genes somewhat improbably becomes amazing after a typically fussy "here comes the king" intro

the gumbo variations in particular is just magisterial and stands out as ultra-funky relative to zappa's often stiff-backed steez - i can actually imagine playing it for a dancefloor

of course there's a library music version of mr. green genes (xref: library music thread):

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

here's a high school jazz group playing excerpts from hot rats in 1969

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2Gr1KS05qs

hot rats is great. his court appearances challenging censorship are classic as well

just picked up an old vinyl copy of Absolutely Free to add to the collection as my son has been wanting to check out some of our old timey Zappa albums

yeah i heard hot rats for the first time recently and was amazed by how much i dug it.

i should have put my post here!

teaching mark s a *LESSON* response one: ZAPPA

well, now they're CONNECTED and it's all right

I heard Waka/Jawaka for the first time last week, that's another one I need to get eventually

add Grand Wazoo to that list too, if you haven't already

Hot Rats fans, seek out both mixes (1969, 1987) -- they're like 2 different albums, both great.

dont trust mark s!!

the vinyl mix is nice. i like the omission of the first three and a half minutes of the "gumbo variations" jam. the "little umbrellas" mix also has way more bass in it and is really good.

also worth finding: the radio ads by david ossman (firesign theatre) for the album. one of them actually has an unreleased frank zappa song ("passacaglia", track 6 of "the artisan acetate") in the background.

oh, and there's a great 12 minute jam on "sharleena" from the "hot rats" sessions closing out the "lost episodes" cd.

I've got the vinyl! never knew there was a difft version of gumbo variations

they're all bad not good

(xp) One feels like it lasts 10 years, the other is longer.

My gateway into moderate Zappa fandom (strictly 60's MoI tbh). The drums as noted above are great and the guitar showboating actually works (eg Willie the Pimp ios pretty badass). Also love the overlooked angular jazzy closer It Must be a Camel

classic clip

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgAF8Vu8G0w

I just had the realization that Zappa if alive today would totally go on the Joe Rogan podcast

He'd not just be a guest, he'd be a regular.

He'd have gone into an incoherent apoplectic rage when we invaded Iraq and burned himself out of any creativity or coherence he might have had left. Now, in his late 70s, he'd tell anyone calling on him to fuck off and let him die in peace.