Post a controversial music opinion

Lol Jan is a blast! He just is prone to making sweeping statements while showing off Lovely Music rarities in the late night. (In this case we were listening Eliane Radigue)

I count "Ballad of a Thin Man" as 1) typically (of '65/66) brilliant; 2) historically important; 3) my least favourite song on Highway 61. Just don't like the way it sounds, and can't remember a time when I ever did.

― clemenza

when i was a kid my mom had a copy of a record with "ballad of a thin man" on it. i don't think it was _highway 61_, i think it was a comp, but i don't know what comp it was. anyway, i thought most of the songs were boring, "the times they are a-changin'" or some shit and then there's a harmonica solo. i liked "ballad of a thin man" more. he's singing about a one-eyed midget, it reminded me of jim morrison and the weird circus shit he was singing about on "strange days" (another record my mom had). and his voice just sounded _hilarious_.

this was when i was too young for shit like symbolism and i didn't quite get the savage mockery in his voice, even though my mom had taught me _all_ about what savage mockery sounded like at that point. not too fond of savage mockery, honestly. unlike, say, frank zappa, or hell, even phil ochs in songs like "love me, i'm a liberal", dylan's actually funny, and god, if anybody deserves dylan's contempt it's the kind of liberals dylan sings about. as for all the songs being slow... to me, it makes everything he does sound that much more menacing. which it is, he is.

the thing is in contrast to someone like, again, zappa, i'd say that dylan in this period is genuinely a misanthrope, or something like one. "just like a woman" is... i mean it's cruel because it takes something that's true and it twists it to where it's just devastating, and after he twists it it's not _entirely_ true but it _seems_ true. i've known people who can do shit like that. honestly, sometimes _i_ can do that. i learned it through example, at great length.

idk. what can one do when one's as fucking _angry_ as bob dylan and is old enough to realize that writing "masters of war" doesn't actually hurt the people he's singing about? like the bob mcnamaras of the world don't even _realize_ that he's singing about them. i guess you can write "ballad of a thin man".

i'm probably overthinking things, again. the levee broke a while back. what am i doing? watching the river flow.

Zappa wasn't genuinely a misanthrope?

checks with thread title tbf

huh, i like that post rushomancy, it's sorta the opposite of how i've perceived dylan and zappa. post is causing me to think again about my feelings that dylan is a profoundly angry idealist weaponizing his observations, while zappa is more like "you're all useless, you'll never get it."

"thin man" is classic if only for garth hudson's freakouts on some of those bootlegs

> didn't quite get the savage mockery in his voice

Great observations. I haven't ever been able to recover the mockery everyone reports hearing contemporaneously in Dylan. Maybe because he's just too nuanced in his delivery to only provide one interpretation, or everyone who was influenced by the mockery imitated it in a hamfisted and obvious manner that makes mid-60s Dylan more ambiguous in retrospect.

I have a hard time piecing together how Zappa's misanthropy felt joyous and silly to me as a teen. There was "Gabba gabba, we accept you, we accept you, one of us" buoyancy that subsequent cultural shifts have deflated. See also Jethro Tull.

i'll take tull over zappa any day

Outside of who is which, maybe i need a T/S which is more effective misanthropy versus extreme cynicism

Zappa wasn't genuinely a misanthrope?

― The First Time Ever I Saw Gervais (Tom D.)

not in the sense of "not a misogynist, but a misanthrope". there's something egalitarian about misanthropy. something like "god's song (that's why i love mankind)" by randy newman, now that's what i call misanthropy! god hates us all. that kind of thing. zappa's hatred just isn't egalitarian. he hates women more than he hates men. that he also hates men doesn't excuse that.

dylan, to me, when he does songs attacking women (and yeah, he does it ambiguously... the ambiguity is what makes it really savage. "oh, you thought my saying that you break just like a little girl was a putdown? says more about you than it does about me". well, when he keeps doing that sort of thing over and over again it starts saying something about him, you know? he's angry, he's hurt, he's betrayed, i mean, these things are where misanthropy comes from. show him someone who's not a parasite and he'll say a prayer for them.

I've never thought of Dylan as angry at all tbh. Has always seemed completely in control of himself to me.

Obviously we agree to differ on both points!

Zappa seemed to revel in lowbrow culture a lot, in fact I think he genuinely liked some of those things and the people who made them, I think it was more his dislike of anyone who thought they were doing anything good or deep. maybe one of those "all culture is lowbrow culture" sort of things, except for his music of course

I've never thought of Dylan as angry at all tbh. Has always seemed completely in control of himself to me.

― The First Time Ever I Saw Gervais (Tom D.)

that's a lot of my formative experience with anger... controlled, cold rage. precise. when i'm at my angriest that's how i get. always has been. knowing exactly the things to say, knowing exactly how to hit people at their most vulnerable spots, and saying those things. it's _targeted_, specific to its recipient. zappa's anger is more of a... petulant frenzy.

Zappa’s misanthropy — and tbf his misogyny — was predicated on a kind of “you’re in on the joke, unlike all these rubes” clubbiness, and I think to enjoy a lot of his stuff you need to maintain a sense that you’re better than the rubes (and that it’s not infra dig to stick it to ‘em). In the earliest days, there was also a sense that he could turn the knife on you too, so a bit of unease. I hung out with people like that a lot in my teen years — just a circle of relentless cruelty and whiplash wit, and everyone was always dancing around to be the one calling the target if not swinging the knife. It was exhausting. Zappa, also, is exhausting.

A lot of the same applies to classic-period Dylan, IMO, so why isn’t Dylan exhausting? — the opposite, in fact. Cuz there’s more to Dylan’s world than relentless mockery? Because he’s got soul? I dunno tbh

I don’t think Dylan had many songs with the vibe you described, though(?) Like Kate said, his put-down songs were pretty… “targeted.”

I think we're talking about a specific part of Dylan too, whereas Zappa really didn't have any other mode

it's not like Zappa has the equivalent of "If Not For You" or "Tangled Up in Blue" or "Mr. Tambourine Man" or "Girl From the North Country" etc etc etc....Zappa pretty much only had one mode

Fwiw, I’ll cop to “Thin Man” never having been a particular fave of mine from that Dylan era…

as someone who loathes both Zappa and Dylan, i would rather listen to the latter than the former any day of the week. Zappa is intolerable petulant bullshit. and i say that as a jazz and noise fan.

It’s because half the time a Dylan song has multiple targets and one them is Dylan.

Re: why Dylan’s screeds are more tolerable

yeah zappa has a big "there's nothing wrong with ME" complex

Dylan, crucially, is not afraid to be sincere

why isn’t Dylan exhausting?

he is very exhausting imo

This is more of a controversial ILM opinion, but I'm really sick of posters who think I want to read Christgau's opinion on literally anything. Post Christgau quotes in the Christgau thread. We don't need to hear it otherwise.

Budo proves Groucho’s First Axiom. The club ain’t having it either. C-

You appear to be using my old username sans the 'Brigadier'

xpost lol!

Zappa’s misanthropy — and tbf his misogyny — was predicated on a kind of “you’re in on the joke, unlike all these rubes” clubbiness, and I think to enjoy a lot of his stuff you need to maintain a sense that you’re better than the rubes (and that it’s not infra dig to stick it to ‘em). In the earliest days, there was also a sense that he could turn the knife on you too, so a bit of unease. I hung out with people like that a lot in my teen years — just a circle of relentless cruelty and whiplash wit, and everyone was always dancing around to be the one calling the target if not swinging the knife. It was exhausting. Zappa, also, is exhausting.

― lethbridge-pfunkboy (hardcore dilettante)

idk, i associate the sort of people who can turn on a dime and eviscerate you more with queer people than folks like zappa. in his earlier years, he _did_ have that sort of energy. after he got pushed off the stage in '71, my sense is that he became more isolated and bitter.

i get the impression that i've had that sort of unpredictability at times. hypervigilance. the feeling that i'm being threatened or attacked even when i'm not. maybe zappa excepted himself. i think the nihilism in his work is that... my sense is he believed everything was bullshit, _including_ himself. if he were to be genuinely vulnerable, well, that would just prove it.

listening to zappa's stage banter from 60s recordings is interesting. he sneers, he's snide, but it all has a different edge to it. i recall seeing an early interview clip where he says something like "something has to be done before america scarfs up the world and shits on it". that kind of idealism just seems so un-zappa-like. i was listening to that concert from miami i was talking about... he suggests an enema to an audience member, but it hits really differently than "the illinois enema bandit". the audience member is male and, i'm gonna say it, a lot of his audience back in the '60s were loud, obnoxious idiots. sometimes he would actually try to _engage_ them - a forerunner perhaps to his later appearance on talkshows. like he really did believe in talking to people. sometimes he'd let audience members onto the stage where they'd sing badly. his attempts at "participation" were often forced but he did try to bring audience members into the show. he talks about an incident at the garrick theater in his autobio, bringing some gis up onto stage where he asked them to show the audience what they'd do to a vietnamese baby (using a slur i won't repeat), demonstrate on these dolls, and they ripped the dolls to bits and he went and passed them around the audience.

it's easy to project back that easy cynicism to his earlier days. you can definitely see a through-line. his genuine idealism was... i feel like it was closer to the surface on those days. he made fun of people who wore long hair as a political statement... i do love flo and eddie's joke about david crosby, "he almost cut his hair but then he didn't". he also had crosby on stage during that era. he had john and yoko on stage during that era. and he made fun of longhairs but he wore long hair throughout the 70s, and that _was_ significant in the 60s. he talked about how the cops would hassle longhairs, the amount of shit all of them would get for having long hair. he wasn't above that. the cops didn't treat him any different. and they went on and call them girls, he went on joe pyne's show and joe pyne, who would never fucking shut up about his wooden leg, called zappa a girl, and zappa shot right back "well, i guess you're a table". and then they all went on an album cover wearing dresses, oh, so we're girls, huh? you think we're girls? honestly it reminds me a little bit of the way riot grrls would wear those same kinds of clothes on stage, this is what you think of us? this is how you see us?

and also his doing that was shitty and gross transphobia. there's both things present.

he wasn't an exception, that's the thing, and that was forcefully brought home to him in '71. oh sure he didn't get involved in politics, he didn't play altamont, didn't get the shit beat out of him by hell's angels, didn't have to listen to jerry's self-serving bullshit. he fucked groupies and did a bunch of songs about fucking groupies, even more than king crimson did, and one of his idiot fans went and burned down the concert hall where he was playing and destroyed all his equipment and thank god nobody died, and then his next concert, a week later, some other idiot fan pushed him off the stage because he thought zappa was "making eyes at his girlfriend", and then his whole band quit, and he spent nine months in a cast and got a bodyguard.

was he a nililist, in those days? maybe, but he also set up a record imprint to record people he wanted people to hear, a counternarrative to the hippie ethos. his old high school buddy captain beefheart, alice cooper, judy henske and jerry yester. he gave the groupies a voice, put out a record by them. he found larry "wild man" fischer out there singing songs on the streets, said this guy can put together some tunes, gave him a contract and recorded and released a double album by him. which was fine until fischer threatened his infant daughter with a knife. i can see how shit like that could make a person close up a little bit, you know?

One of the Zappa books describes a foreign tour, probably in continental Europe in 1969 or 70, where the audiences expected him to "lead them" and be some sort of political guru. Riots may have resulted. A woman in his entourage describes how this disillusioned him of what remained of his political idealism. I'm pretty sure this was all before his assault.

...though his injury and convalescence obviously confirmed that defensiveness.

Listening to the 500 Songs podcast about him earlier this year, found out he was firing people from his band for taking psychedelics, in 1967!

he found larry "wild man" fischer out there singing songs on the streets, said this guy can put together some tunes, gave him a contract and recorded and released a double album by him

Beefheart said Zappa was just exploiting the guy and marketing him as a freak, and objected to Zappa calling his label "Bizarre" Records. To be honest, apart from one or two songs which had proper arrangements (not by Zappa though) Zappa didn't exactly put much effort into the Wild Man Fischer album.

One of the Zappa books describes a foreign tour, probably in continental Europe in 1969 or 70, where the audiences expected him to "lead them" and be some sort of political guru. Riots may have resulted. A woman in his entourage describes how this disillusioned him of what remained of his political idealism. I'm pretty sure this was all before his assault.

Yes, I've read that too, I'm sure she said it freaked him out (and even scared him) more than disillusioned him per se iirc.

Yes.

Beefheart said Zappa was just exploiting the guy and marketing him as a freak, and objected to Zappa calling his label "Bizarre" Records. To be honest, apart from one or two songs which had proper arrangements (not by Zappa though) Zappa didn't exactly put much effort into the Wild Man Fischer album.

― How old Cary Grant? (Tom D.)

He definitely did have a kind of "field recording" approach to some of the artists he recorded, like Fischer, the GTOs, and Beefheart (as well as to a lot of his _own_ recordings). Maybe that's just him being lazy, but look. I have a long history of severe mental illness. I'm not gonna sell short the amount of spoons it takes to spend hours in the studio with a guy who has as many problems as Fischer did. He also had the guy up on stage performing his songs live at Mothers concerts.

Were the arrangements on "Merry-Go-Round" and "Circle" not by Zappa? They sure as hell _sound_ like his work.

-

One of the Zappa books describes a foreign tour, probably in continental Europe in 1969 or 70, where the audiences expected him to "lead them" and be some sort of political guru. Riots may have resulted. A woman in his entourage describes how this disillusioned him of what remained of his political idealism. I'm pretty sure this was all before his assault.

― Halfway there but for you

Fall '68. The lyrics to "Holiday in Berlin" (sung live by the Flo & Eddie band) talk about the incident.

I was talking with friends just this morning about the Abbie Hoffman incident at Woodstock '69 - Abbie Hoffman tried to start a revolution, Pete Townshend responded with "Fuck off my fucking stage!" and smacked him in the face. Hoffman wrote "Woodstock Nation" (which I haven't read) something like a week after anyway. When you're hardly an idealist to begin with...

Listening to the 500 Songs podcast about him earlier this year, found out he was firing people from his band for taking psychedelics, in 1967!

― the world is your octopus (Camaraderie at Arms Length)

Would that be Ray Collins? I mean, it's interesting who he fired and who he didn't fire. For decades Roy Estrada was in and out of jail for child molestation. Zappa didn't seem to have a problem with that.

In this case at least I'll give Zappa credit for being openly hypocritical. He did do drugs and would admit to it, that drug being nicotine.

Nah, with guys like Zappa, who will talk a lot of shit basically all the time, what interests me is what they _don't_ talk about. What didn't Zappa talk about? Cheating on his wife. He'd go on the Howard Stern show and talk about anything and everything with him, but when Stern asked him if he cheated on his wife, he shut that topic of discussion down, firmly.

He did, of course, cheat on his wife. This doesn't require supposition. Dutch TV came to his house in 1970 and filmed him for a documentary. He talks about sleeping with groupies and catching venereal diseases from them. He doesn't after that. He just writes bitter, resentful songs portraying groupies, and eventually _all women_, in unflattering terms. He goes on tour and plays the big rock star fucking groupies while his wife's left at home raising their kids. Even when he's at home he's never around. He's locked away in his home studio obsessing about music. Fucking terrible father. And raised Catholic? Raised with guilt and shame? You can shit-talk religion all you want, but that stuff doesn't just disappear.

Nah. I don't think he was any different from any of those other guys. I don't know that he thought he was any different, either. God, "Honey Don't You Want A Man Like Me", that's him trying to write a "dirty" song. That's one of the most fucking depressing songs about heterosexual relationships I've ever heard, and to me... to me, someone who writes a song like that is informed by lived experience.

One of the Zappa books describes a foreign tour, probably in continental Europe in 1969 or 70, where the audiences expected him to "lead them" and be some sort of political guru. Riots may have resulted. A woman in his entourage describes how this disillusioned him of what remained of his political idealism. I'm pretty sure this was all before his assault.

― Halfway there but for you, Friday, November 24, 2023 2:20 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

there was a good article about the Moody Blues crowds around the Lost Chord era which was kind of like this. people looked at them as though they were some sort of gods willing to lead them on a spiritual journey and the members of the band were like....uhhh we're just some dudes. seemed to freak 'em all out, especially since people would apparently just randomly follow them around and you never quite knew what their intentions were.

I'll say, I have tried my best to get into Zappa, watched the documentary which was on TV last year (think it's a famous one?)
All the time the music just struck me as "yes, this is clever music which will make people feel smart to be into it" but never anything that grabbed me at all - until right at the end he was making improvised jazz with a group of jazz musicians and finally I could hear "yes, this is someone creating something they care about"

there was a good article about the Moody Blues crowds around the Lost Chord era which was kind of like this. people looked at them as though they were some sort of gods willing to lead them on a spiritual journey and the members of the band were like....uhhh we're just some dudes. seemed to freak 'em all out, especially since people would apparently just randomly follow them around and you never quite knew what their intentions were.

― frogbs

stories i've heard is that the italian crowds were the ones you had to really watch out for, all kinds of political intrigue. of course the infamous "peter green incident" happened in germany, so really, the impression i get is that you could run into that situation damn near anywhere on the continent. i mean, shit, look at the reason aphrodite's child were a french band... they were fleeing the greek military junta (by the way does anyone know of people who did a worse job of military rule than that greek junta?) trying to get to england, which of course where all the happening stuff was... and they just happened to be passing through france in june of '68...

so the hell with it. they lived in france.

Beefheart: Classic

Zappa: Dud

stories i've heard is that the italian crowds were the ones you had to really watch out for

An Italian-Canadian friend was unimpressed by this tendency; said the Italian crowds rioted for anyone, "even Burton Cummings".

They were still rioting long after everyone else stopped rioting too!

Cosmic Dancer sucks

the song???? that's insane. it's so beautiful.

i was dancing when i was twelve too buddy whaddya want a medal

what's it like to be a loon?

If loving that song is wrong, then I don't want to be right.

i was dancing when i was twelve too buddy whaddya want a medal

Yes, but when Lou Reed was eleven his parents said the answer was to become a dancer, can you say the same?

Mine is a specifically ILX heresy: I don't care for Mitch Mitchell's playing in the JHE as much as everyone else does, I find it too busy and unsubtle very often. I think I even (looks around nervously) prefer Ginger Baker's playing, and would have liked to hear what he could have done with Jimi... But I admit, I am not knowledgeable about drumming technique and style, this is just a (maybe uninformed) listener's opinion.

I was about to jump on Tracer and realized what thread this is. Fair play.