Frank Zappa: Classic or Dud?

I guess in the end working for Zappa was probably pretty self-selecting. Does Trader Joe's only employ friendly people, or do only friendly people apply for jobs at Trader Joe's?

― Josh in Chicago

see, i don't see it that way, if you're working at a job that encourages and supports you in being friendly, you're going to become more friendly!

True, in the abstract, but like also attracts like. Training or no, I doubt there's anyone working at Sephora that isn't into beauty products.

reminds me of when I applied to Burger King at 16 and there was a section on the application that said "Why do you want to work at Burger King?" I had no idea what to write so I just put "I like Whopper"

(it was just a formality anyway, I had a friend who knew the manager so it was one of those "as long as you're here on time" sorta deals)

If I liked Whopper, Burger King would definitely have been the right place for me.

if you're working at a job that encourages and supports you in being friendly, you're going to become more friendly!

This is why Adrian Belew smiles and laughs so much after working with Zappa and Fripp

True, in the abstract, but like also attracts like. Training or no, I doubt there's anyone working at Sephora that isn't into beauty products.

― Josh in Chicago

i'm not sure liking beauty products is a personality trait!

(it was just a formality anyway, I had a friend who knew the manager so it was one of those "as long as you're here on time" sorta deals)

― frogbs

god dammit you lucked out, i had to pass this job interview

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jR5F762gq2Y

i didn't object to the interview process itself, i'm just not into cho aniki bod. well, i've learned. when my department gets outsourced i'm going to apply at femboy burger king.

This is why Adrian Belew smiles and laughs so much after working with Zappa and Fripp

― Halfway there but for you

well, you know what they say, like attracts like :)

Help I'm a Rock the vocalizations get grating but damn Can must have loved this song

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Monday, December 11, 2023 1:55 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

I think Faust were the folks who were really inspired by that early Mothers stuff, their fingerprints are all over those 70s albums

Indeed. I definitely read an interview (probably with Holger Czukay) where the (early) Mothers were mentioned as one of the inspirations for Can. I doubt they had much interest in his later work.

Often you'd find the Mothers and the Velvets being grouped together as being inspirational acts - ironically enough.

if you listen to the tape of the velvets from the '69 hilltop festival, the taper is talking about frank zappa towards the beginning. not sure what he's saying about zappa, tho.

As I'm sure at least I have brought up before, the idea of Zappa, just like the idea of the Dead or the Band, to an extent, transcended the music. I think back to David Bowie's Pin-Ups, when he covered a couple of early Springsteen songs. I think that was something similar, at least in his case. He liked the idea of Springsteen, even if he almost immediately realized he probably had nothing in common with the guy.

The VU, imo, had a lot more of a direct influence on acts, at least to my ears.

I was thinking in terms of influence on underground music in Europe, that's where the Mothers and the Velvets were often grouped together. The most obvious example is the Plastic People of the Universe but Faust is another fairly obvious one.

the mothers performed at the essener song-tage festival in 1968, a major international festival ended up being definitional for krautrock as the quasi-politicised local variant of underground rock: line-up incuded (alongside several topical global youth-culture names) amon düül, brötzmann, floh de cologne, guru guru, xhol caravan and tangerine dream (plus sevewral others not yet performing within their better-known group names

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internationale_Essener_Songtage#Künstler

give or take my usual irritation that the uselessness of the word influence, almost all the top- and second-tier names in KR make obeisance of some sort to frank as inspiration, even if it's p hard to hear a similarity (i can't really hear one in faust tbrr): i think more as an "i ienver knew you could do that!"-type revelation at the festival, where the "that" would actually end up being their own thing and not very like zappa's at all

viz both czukay and irmin schmidt do this, even though can's modus operandi as improviser-composers was group-form in a way that zappa's never was, even with the mothers (tbf schmidt also told sasha frere jones a couple of years back that e.g. jaki leibezeit didn't share this taste (https://substack.sashafrerejones.com/p/irmin-schmidt) (happily confirming my prejudice that zappa's rhythm sense is the narrowest aspect of his skillbase lol)

zappa had also been waylaid and barracked by the political wing of the radical commune-movement after a show at the sportpalast -- including a mildly destructive stage-invasion -- which may or may not have been provoked by some disobliging things he had said about germans (they demanded he be more political). he was very pissed off (lol) but i slightly suspect this fracas was also inspirational to those KR groups that overlapped with the radical commune-movement, bcz they too were a bit fed up of being hectored about content by non-musicians? iirc amon düül split in two right after the essen song days fest, over these kinds of issues. so here the "influence" was more like finding permission to say no (not that can for example needed te permission exactly, but they were determined to pursue a sound which was formally and structurally radical, undistracted by -- as they saw it -- mere shallow verbal radicalism etc)

sportpalast = berlin sportpalast (also 1968)

Good stuff.

the typos are my hommage to european free jazz

ienver is a keeper

that's really interesting, thanks mark s

almost all the top- and second-tier names in KR make obeisance of some sort to frank as inspiration, even if it's p hard to hear a similarity (i can't really hear one in faust tbrr)

The first Faust album is practically Zappa cosplay at points! They even had a member who called himself "Zappi"!

hey now

No offence

yes my screen name comes from Faust's drummer, as I was listening to "I've Got My Car And My TV" while on the signup page.
that song is very Zappa in retrospect.

^^ yes that song in particular seems to have a big Zappa/Mothers influence. not just in the wacky carnival-like clavier bit but also the vocals, Zappa loved to make people sing weird and stilted melodies like that

I think their spirit of experimentation is also very similar, lotta cut-up stuff and plug-this-into-that sorta messing around

keep in mind this only applies to his stuff up to like, Uncle Meat. maybe Burnt Weeny Sandwich and Weasels too but those I think were mostly recorded before Hot Rats. after that he got a lot more jazzy which Faust couldn't really keep up with. and of course the later hard rock Zappa stuff is a totally different beast

The guitar playing on that track is totally Zappa.

... plus the album ends with a kind of boozy nod to "America Drinks and Goes Home".

The debut's "Miss Fortune" has that wah-wah organ that seems to be playing the chords toZappa touchstone "Louie Louie"

It helps a bit in Zappa appreciation if English is not your native language.

Very probably except it was the early, less lyrically problematic, stuff that was most influential.

Right, fair enough.

"Bobby Brown" was huge in Europe somehow, #1 in Sweden and Norway Top 10 elsewhere.

Very probably except it was the early, less lyrically problematic, stuff that was most influential.

In "Brown Shoes Don't Make It," from the 2nd Mothers album, a character fantasizes about fucking his 13-year-old daughter.

that's true but Brown Shoes is pretty fascinating outside of that, or at least it must've been if you were hearing it in 1968. correct me if I'm wrong but had anyone done a long cut-up pop song like that before? what I have a hard time understanding is them getting into later Zappa, maybe not like the Sheik Yerbouti/Joe's Garage albums as a whole (which still have a lot of fascinating stuff on them), but Bobby Brown being big overseas, yeah that's pretty weird. makes me wonder if there are non-English speakers who are into like, the Bloodhound Gang

Scandinavian sense of humour at work? Somewhere along the lines of the German sense of humour perhaps.

The Who's "A Quick One While He's Away" and "Brown Shoes" were both recorded (roughly) contemporaneously, 2nd half of 1966. A Quick One beat Absolutely Free to release by about 5 months.

and it's even a good song to boot

I think its funny that the Chunga's Revenge cover has become one of those iconic photos of Zappa, even though he never yells like that. Hell he barely even raises his voice. Can you imagine what Zappa screaming like that must sound like? probably like Weird Al or something

pretty sure he is yawning

mods can you please delete that post

his not mine

he's right, though, definitely yawning

He had a premonition of his next 20 years of guitar solos

Yawn Work For Duda

lol halfway

thinking of giving Uncle Meat a try soon on the recommendation of a friend

its a good first Zappa album if that's what you mean

people like to recommend We're Only In It For the Money & Hot Rats but the former vastly overstates how clever he is and how many short catchy tunes he writes and the latter is remarkably tight jazz fusion with no attempts at being funny at all which vastly overstates his ability to shut the fuck up

Uncle Meat kinda has it all though, it's the yin and yang of Zappa from one minute to the next

I can't remember, does he sing on "Uncle Meat"? That's one of the biggest problems with Zappa, his own vocals.

if yes: good first and last zappa album
if no: same

i think he sings some, those weird pitched up vocals he did back then, but also a lot of the vocals are ray collins

Interesting thing about Zappa and singing was like many he struggled to be able to sing and play guitar at the same time. He was never that good at it and usually would not play when he sang as I understood.

Uncle Meat was one I thought was annoying on Cd as there is all that other stuff he added. The original album sequence only came out in the last edition, which I have never heard. The King Kong segment is really good, that is one of his better pieces of music. There is a really good video of the original band playing that one on the tube.

He only sings a few lines here and there (and there aren't that many songs), but you do get to hear him have an argument with Jimmy Carl Black. The reissue features several minutes of him arguing with New York City cops investigating a noise complaint.