Frank Zappa: Classic or Dud?

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

So the documentary was supposed to go live to various Kickstarter backers today as a digital download. If you read down for today's comments, you'll notice that things...aren't.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/alexwinter/frank-zappa/comments

Central Scrutinizer whispers *I told you so*

The doc was really good!

Ugh, even a well received doc ends up being a shitshow for Zappa fans. Seems like nothing comes easy for Zappa's legacy.

Well, he completely rejected the idea of even having a legacy or being remembered at all, so it's cool.

I like that the documentary didn’t outright but still clearly state “this guy is an asshole.”

I was wondering if people who dislike Zappa's sexual attitude feel the same way about the Fugs? I just read all of the Fugs threads on here, and no-one commented on that specifically. Zappa's stance on sex is probably both more mean-spirited and impersonal.

His stance on everything is more mean spirited than the Fugs. There is Fugs' stuff that makes me cringe, though there was more to them than being ageing beats with neanderthal sexual politics glomming onto hippiedom and hippie chicks. Also Zappa carried on doing it beyond the 60s and, if anything, ratcheted it up in the 70s and 80s.

was reminded of "Jumbo Go Away" the other day and every time I hear it it's even more disgusting and mean-spirited than I remembered. even when I was in my teenage edgelord phase I thought it was way too much.

its funny how people wanna speak of this guy as if he's some kind of George Carlin level thinker. outside of like one song on We're Only In It For the Money I can't think of a single time I've ever considered him profound. even his views on censorship are dumb, if he ever appeared on TV with anyone who wasn't a comically easy target I feel like he'd get torn apart

The documentary is on BBC4 tonight at 9pm.

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.

It was nice seeing him let his guard down for once with The Yellow Shark but pretty sad too. Overall, this documentary didn't do anything to make me more interested in his music, or in the man, and I didn't learn anything from it but, despite that, it passed the time pleasantly enough.

Was going to say much the same, he still seems pompous & insufferable but reminded me of some pompous & insufferable friends, so warmed to him a little. Conducting that orchestral group at the end is the nearest I've come to liking his music.

This is third-hand info (someone posted it on FB) but apparently Dave Hickey once quoted Sterling Morrison about Zappa: "It must be so difficult to always be fifteen minutes ahead of your time."

Watched the Zappa doc and it was striking how almost no pieces were singled out by anybody for almost all of it, apart from Steve Vai (who was quite interesting on the music, even if what I was hearing was really unconvincing). The piece itself (whose name I forget) sounded like creakily 'composed improv' (had some similar shapes for a couple of seconds).

I am really interested as to why classical groups like Ensemble Moderne (these are good fucking groups here) gave him the time of day (I am struggling with anybody liking this guy's music) but even if they are more arrogant about their music classical types are also hungry for visibility and I guess a 60s rocker who was looked up to could've been a marriage of convenience. Maybe giving a bigger role to percussion (the percussionist of the Zappa group didn't give me anything I could think about though) was also a factor. His interest in Varese was a hook that lasted for a min there..

Overall the humour is very much of a time and type. I am thinking if you are into both Python and prog rock you might like it. I was struck by how much school-level theatre there is in the guy's music.

The most annoying thing was the claim that his label was the first independent. ESP-Disk? Sun Ra distributing his own (really great) music? Sure there are earlier examples I don't know about. Also the pronouncements were often bogus. Sorta fascinating he was able to have any kind of career. Imagine if Ed Wood got people to throw a bit of money at you, and that he got long-term interest and was respected.

I am really interested as to why classical groups like Ensemble Moderne (these are good fucking groups here) gave him the time of day

Presumably they are into both Python and prog rock (like any sensible person).

(xp) It did have Ruth Underwood rhapsodizing about "Oh No", a piece that Zappa fans (and Ruth) seem to think is extraordinarily beautiful for some reason.

I am really not sensible, sorry xp

I get why Ruth loves Zappa. As she said it made a massive contrast to what she was given to play in orchestras at the time, except there are a ton of contemporary classical pieces for solo percussion. Maybe she had no visibility of that in the 60s.

Even so, Zappa offered something different from both options.

idk I don't find it hard at all to see why people like his music - some of his 60s pieces like "Oh No", "Orange County Lumber Truck", "Absolutely Free", "Peaches en Regalia" definitely stretched the idea of what could be done in a few minutes. whether this stuff is actually "extraordinarily beautiful" or just an incredible academic exercise is up to the listener, I guess. I think he paved the way for music like Cardiacs, Magma, and Ruins which I do find really gorgeous. perhaps in ways that Zappa himself couldn't touch, because the guy kept getting in his own way. probably should be said that for all the ink spilled about how avant-garde and revolutionary that first Faust LP is, there's really not much on there that Zappa wasn't doing a few years prior. Faust themselves would probably admit that.

"Sorta fascinating he was able to have any kind of career." - I mean had he not come up in the 60's, sure. a lotta weird counter-culture shit was incredibly successful back then. nowadays idk what kind of following a guy like that would have.

one of the observable shifts in contemporary classical performance between the 60s and say the 90s is a general arrival of new potential dimensions of rhythmic rigour (somewhat ported in from jazz and rock by musicians adept at both but able also to read sheet music extremely well etc): anyway this is something i can imagine e.g. ensemble modern finding exciting about the demands zappa consciously made of them, which many of the composers they otherwise worked with weren't all that interested in or didn't have an ear for

high-end orchestral musicians today are just way more on it rhythmically than was mostly the case 50 years ago, and it wd probably have been fun to feel yr in sync with some specific vanguard for that (not that i much like zappa's own way with polyrhythm myself -- i remember hermeto pascoal being played a zappa piece in the wire's invisible jukebox and not identifying it but being quite scornful abt its arid stick-up-the-butt quality lol)

I don't think Magma has anything to do with Zappa tbh. As for Faust, Werner Diermaier's nickname is Zappi after all! He's one of those artists who is not as good as the people he directly inspired. Basically.

"Sorta fascinating he was able to have any kind of career." - I mean had he not come up in the 60's, sure. a lotta weird counter-culture shit was incredibly successful back then. nowadays idk what kind of following a guy like that would have.

I forget whether it's actually in the documentary, but there's a good clip of Zappa speaking astutely about how the old-school record business, the one that was run by mobbed-up goons, was better for artists because the label guys knew they didn't know shit about what people wanted, so they'd just throw everything at the wall and see what stuck. Later, when A&R guys and label heads started to think they knew something about what would sell, the boundaries of what was acceptable (i.e. what would get signed and promoted) narrowed significantly.

Yeah, I've heard him say that before, it's a good point.

Eventually all the record companies had a 'house hippy'.

Pretty much what happened in the post-Nirvana madness years, e.g. the Melvins signing to Atlantic.

nowadays idk what kind of following a guy like that would have.

The same following Devin Townsend has I guess.

I don't think Magma has anything to do with Zappa tbh

The first album has some heavy Zappa influences, less so after that though.

Ok I've never given Magma a proper go. Gonna try and maybe go on to some of these pieces frogbs is listing.

a good place to answer alphie's good question wd have been if boulez himself ever wrote abt any of zappa's music -- he wd have studied and analysed the pieces he conducted, and he's always insightful when he does explore the music he chooses to conduct… however based on (this slightly half-baked webpage of analysis of and lol guesswork about The Perfect Stranger, he never did so: Boulez is "best known as conductor of the modern classics from Wagner onwards. Secondly he was the driving force behind the Paris IRCAM institute for exploring modern music, to which the Ensemble Intercontemporain belonged. Thirdly he is a composer himself. Zappa for instance was well familiar with Boulez' composition "Le marteau sans maître" (photo downloaded, source unknown). He and Zappa would meet more often, but till his death he preferred not to comment on the quality of Zappa's music. The tensions during the recording sessions apparently had taken their toll."

ugh not sure what happened there, anyway it's here: http://www.zappa-analysis.com/the-perfect-stranger.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcRzyZOL_no
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https://preview.redd.it/jchswnba0yu61.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=36a07b8e17da2a72370d10c32e5e04b70ae083d8

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I don't think Magma has anything to do with Zappa tbh.

ha ha what

How much Magma have you listened to?

Magma's pre-MDK work always reminds me of Zappa. Or at least what he could have made if he didn't fuck around as much. idk if Vander was influenced by him, or if he was even fond of him at all. Maybe not. Tim Smith obviously was - there's a section in "Fiery Gun Hand" that I've heard referred to several times as the "Zappa bit", it doesn't quote him but it's that fast-paced squack-squack-squack go-all-over-the-scale-now-play-it-backwards thing that nobody else does.

Ultimately that's why I find Zappa fascinating. He is a universe onto himself. Him and his body of work aren't really like anything else out there. Obviously a lot of that is because he was so frustrating. He made more bad music than good. Maybe a lot more. He was smart & profound but chose to be sexist and gross most of the time. He was funny, but only when he wasn't trying to be. He had this weird obsession with challenging his audience to the point where you almost suspected he hated his fans. But it's one of those catalogues you can really get lost in - dude went through so many phases in 25 years, he had so many crazy lineups, and even the shitty albums had moments of brilliance in them. There are a lot of not-particularly-well-regarded parts of his catalogue that might be considered classic under a different name (Jazz From Hell??) If I throw on a Zappa album I at least know I won't get bored.

How much Magma have you listened to?

A lot more than you probably. Anyway you've consistently proven yourself to be a prize chump on here for years so who cares what you think.

Anyway, I don't really hear it personally but if others do, fair enough. It's more down to lack of interest in Zappa than lack of knowledge of Magma though.

Mark that's a good link will explore after I stop laughing at this:

"The European continental world of modern music during the previous century used to be full of intellectualism and leftism. It only survived on government subsidies. Flirting with communism was fashionable among European intellectuals during the seventies. Today this tendency is gone, with a remnant occurring in 2001, when Karl-Heinz Stockhausen was videotaped calling the September 11th attack a masterpiece of art."

"Magma's pre-MDK work always reminds me of Zappa. Or at least what he could have made if he didn't fuck around as much."

I had a listen to 'Wurdah Itah', and I don't know enough whether there's Zappa or not but it's a lot more focused. They have an actual sound they are moulding. Something Zappa has often been frightened of. From the little I've heard 'fucking about' is what he likes most.

That and bullying his musicians. The bit on the Synclavier was hilarious, like he really wanted total control but you can't bully a machine. Which is why I don't think he made much electronic music.

At least when Beefheart bullied his musicians they can point (with lots of distance) to the results.

have you read ben w's book?

On Zappa? No, never got round to getting a copy.

I've read it. He got to play Zappa some Derek Bailey, so I'm sure it was worth it!

This probably bridges the gap between Magma and Zappa nicely.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1W3Tnz1wNFM

From the little I've heard 'fucking about' is what he likes most.

Enh, there's a bit of truth to this in a live situation with his skits and such, but the vast majority of his stuff was tightly composed and arranged, and the arrangements varied based on his band at the time. (Whether songs about dental floss and penguins in bondage constitute fucking about is a matter of personal taste, but the arrangements are tight.)

Instrumentally, check out a piece like "Echidna's Arf" and how it varied from 1973 to 1974.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TVVIUV2QZ4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JB3lUn0gyjQ