Frank Zappa: Classic or Dud?

Hmm, I never thought about the lack of US prog. Maybe we kind of favored the primitivists over the musical prigs. I guess the closest is, yeah, midwest butt-prog stuff like Kansas, Styx ... REO Speedwagon?

the best U.S. prog band is Cheer-Accident but they aren't really from the same era

Yeah, books usually attribute it to things like the Anglican choirboy tradition and/or the greater cultural presence of classical music in Europe.

xpost Oh, for sure once you fast forward a few decades there are good or better examples, many also from the midwest.

I think prog bands found a larger and more enduring audience in North America, though.

Kansas, absolutely. I've never listened to early Styx or Journey (which is sposed to be more fusoid), but my understanding is that they were indeed cornfed midwest —thank you JiC— BUTT PROG! I have heard early REO and that's just bog standard boogie…

Zappa's spiritual emptiness problematises the notion of him as a prog avatar

Thought that was going to be a pomenitul post.

There’s a tendency to describe proggy US acts of that era as ‘experimental rock’, or so it seems to me.

Saw that Alex Chilton was on that Downtown Beatles record. Always think of him, along with the Lou Reed, as the kind of prickly problematic artist who interacts with and sometimes baits their audience in a way that is more interesting to me than the FZ approach.

Debate Topic:

Was Frank Zappa progressive rock?

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown),

"Inca Roads" yes, "T'mershi Duween" yes, "five-Five-FIVE" yes, "Village of the Sun" no, "Jelly Roll Gum Drop" no...

Inca Roads is the closing track on Rhino's 5 CD box set Supernatural Fairy Tales: The Progressive Rock Era.

"Jelly Roll Gum Drop", that's another good Zappa song!

...the only North American artiste on the Rhino box set unless you count Peter Blegvad as part of Henry Cow/Slapp Happy.

I always thought so, yeah. Didn't even think it was controversial tbh. xp re prog

Zappa fans tend to be resistant to calling him prog, his singular talent being bigger than any genre etc.

Renaissance were from America

xpost So, basically how someone like Tony Banks probably thinks of themselves.

All five of the musicians on their debut are described as English by Wikipedia. I know the two members from the Yardbirds were.

Renaissance weren't American!

Noodly gearhead musos in the States in the 70s tended to end up playing fusion not prog, I think?

"Jelly Roll Gum Drop", that's another good Zappa song!

Yes, that's a keeper too.

Ah you’re right, Renaissance are currently in America but definitely didn’t start there

There are definitely some pretty good US prog bands but not during Zappa’s time...I agree that Rundgren was probably the closest that wasn’t a straight knock off

Renaissance, like Foghat, were one of those rare UK bands that meant a lot more in the States than their homeland, so people think they're American.
No idea what Zappa thought of Genesis/ELP etc, was it discussed upthread? I'd imagine he despised prog the same way he seemed to despise everything that wasn't written by him or Varèse.

There's some months when you're not gonna find good Zappa songs as much as other months. There's some months when you're gonna find a lot of good FZ songs, and if you average it out, you do find more than two good songs a month

(xp) Hey, he liked Johnny 'Guitar' Watson too.

A lot of the fusion bands of the '70s have their roots in jazz, though, or at least a lot of the times Miles specifically: Mahavishnu, Weather Report, Return to Forever, Lifetime, etc. They kind of bypassed rock entirely. Iirc folks like Larry Carlton claimed to have literally no knowledge of or affinity for rock music. The British prog stuff, those dudes all came from a conventional rock background, by and large, afaict, fwiw.

I remember reading somewhere that he liked the German prog trio Schicke Führs Fröhling.

I assume Zappa hated prog, if he was familiar with it at all. But to my knowledge he never outright parodied it, which is fine, because even the best prog bands often did a fine job doing that themselves!

He could never write something as amazing and on point as Karn Evil 9 if that’s what you’re getting at

He liked Brian May's guitar playing, if that's any use.

Or maybe his sound.

There's some months when you're not gonna find good Zappa songs as much as other months. There's some months when you're gonna find a lot of good FZ songs, and if you average it out, you do find more than two good songs a month

He liked Brian May's guitar playing, if that's any use.

Surprised Queen haven't gone the hologram tour route a la FZ, or maybe they did and I missed it. Once you've decided to flush your legacy down the bog there's no end to it, may as well go the whole hog.

Frank Zappa’s 30 favourite songs as played on BBC RADIO 1 in 1980:

‘I’m In The Music Business’ – Jeff Simmons
‘Straight Lines’ – New Musik
‘The Closer You Are’ – The Channels
‘Hyperprism’ – Edgard Varese
‘Jesus Just Left Chicago’ – ZZ Top
‘Golden Birdies’ – Captain Beefheart
‘I Live In A Car’ – UK Subs
‘Soul Motion’ – Don Harris
‘All Tomorrow’s Parties’ – The Velvet Underground
‘Royal March’ – Igor Stravinsky
‘Iron Man’ – Black Sabbath
‘Lucky Number’ – Lena Lovitch
‘Eureka Springs Garbage Lady’ – GTO’s
‘Killer Queen’ – Queen
‘Mannish Boy’ – Muddy Waters & Johnny Winter
‘Jerry and the Holograms’ – Jerry and the Holograms
‘Sweet Home Alabama’ – Lynyrd Skynyrd
‘Robot’ – Plastics
‘Desiree’ – The Charts
‘I Am The Walrus’ – The Beatles
‘Soldier Soldier’ – Spizz Energy
‘Heaven Is In Your Mind’ – Traffic
‘I’m Working For The Federal Bureau Of Narcotics’ – Wild Man Fischer
‘Paint It Black’ – The Rolling Stones
‘Caravan Man’ – Lew Lewis
‘Psycle Sluts’ – John Cooper Clarke
‘I Asked Her For Water And She Brought Me Gasoline’ – Howlin’ Wolf
‘Summertime Blues’ – The Flying Lizards
‘My White Bicycle’ – Tomorrow
‘Grease’ – Franki Valli

Here's the show: https://www.mixcloud.com/mrsgillespie/frank-zappa-as-dj-at-bbc-radio-1-star-special/

huh.

I didn't know he had such good taste, you'd never guess from his records.

Kind of an interesting and unexpected list

you could have given me 1 million guesses and I'm not sure UK Subs would have passed my lips

.

lol, Tom D.

I knew he'd namechecked the UK Subs before.

I'm most surprised by the Velvet Underground tbh.

First tune has a minor blues turnaround which harmonic cliche I guess was all right with him.

Feel like there was some end-of-the-line sitcom logic by which the Mothers/Velvets Verve/Tom Wilson feud ended up in some sort of diplomatic rapprochement if not an actual bro-hug.

There is that bit in "We're Only In It For the Money" where he gets the engineer on the album Gary Kellgren (supposedly, it sounds like Zappa himself to me) to say something about the Velvet Underground being as shitty as Frank Zappa's group - though it was apparently edited out of the original release.

The rivalry probably seemed less important once The Mothers left NYC

Gary Kellgren having just worked on "White Light/White Heat" I assume.

Reed inducted Frank into the Rock HOF. Very short speech in which he says something like “and I always heard he was a fan of mine too” at the end