Applied Zappigraphy

[snyprrr]

All great posts!

ah...Bobby Brown, Apostrophe, Peaches en Regalia, Fillmore '71, Shut Up and Play Yer Guitar...the Residents

Velvet Underground/John Cale/Brian Eno/Warhol

George Crumb- Black Angels

David Munrow

free jazz exploration @ 1971

Manson

Death of Stravinsky
Death of DSCH
death of god

Lachenmann, Sciarrino, Xenakis, Glokobar

electronic vs. ancient

scratch orchestra

Lief Segerstam's 6th quartet

Visconti

Vanilla Fudge

Blow Up

William Shatner's "Transformed Man"

classical musicians looked like hippies!!! the fros!!!

I believe that a confluence of all things occured @ '67-'73, centering on 1971, as supernatural forces were unleashed on battlefield earth...all only HINTED at in Crumb's Black Angels, but evident in all things...politics, war, art...black sabbath...but seriously, tell me you don't have any guilty pleasures!!!!!

Joe's Garage!

[mahler10th]

My 2¢ is that I can't be bothered with him. 
He annoys me like a large bat at scratching my toes while I'm trying to sleep on the summit of a mountain surrounded by bald Eagle chicks at midnight.  There.  I bet he didn't write anything about THAT kind of experience.
Sorry.  Must be something in the coffee.

[snyprrr]

boulez learning from zappa
zappa learning from boulez

i hope Billy Corgin doesn't write a symphony

[karlhenning]

Well, he was quite wrong about that (and other things he said).

Yet, there are worthwhile points you are missing, if you simply dismiss this as quite wrong.

[Josquin des Prez]

Well, he was quite wrong about that (and other things he said).

He was wrong about everything. Like many during that time, he was just unconsciously parroting all the bullshit shoved down American youths by the Frankfurt school's variety of Bolshevik subversives. He wasted a life time pursuing an ideal that was designed to destroy him. 

[Josquin des Prez]

There's a cute film with Zappa, in which he's still very young and he's playing with a, I mean on a bicycle - this perfectly reflects the '60s' way of making music.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8e3I0iagWXU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCCGeHz06U4&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5qmtYuUEGk&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnpTe6-s_H8&feature=related

The '60s' way of making music indeed. It's good to see people still had the sense to laugh at this crap. Too bad that is no longer the case.

[jowcol]

BTW, John, Weasels Ripped My Flesh, Hot Rats & Burnt Weenie Sandwich are all among my favorite albums. I'm humming "WPLJ" even now . . . .

I know I'm in danger of wandering off topic, but if you like the violin on these albums, the "New Violin Summit II" Album is a must! A little more information here:  http://mps-love.blogspot.com/2008/06/15335-various-artists-new-violin-summit.html  Also Sugarcane's later 70s albums were quite good.  (Cup Full of Dreams, and particularly Keyzop and Flashin Time


Getting Back to Weasels Ripped My Flesh -- you have to love the title "Prelude to the Afternoon of a Sexually Aroused Gas Mask" and "My Gutar Wants to kill your mama".  I read one interview where he bemoaned the fact that he got requests for the "Eric Dolphy Memorial Barbeque" from people who didn't know who Dolphy was.

Gotta get back to looking for my zircon-encrusted tweezers....

[Dundonnell]

I have stood in front of(though not worshipped before) the bust of Frank Zappa erected on a pedestal in Vilnius of all places

http://www.balticsworldwide.com/news/features/zappa.htm

[snyprrr]

What about Captain Beefheart?

[drogulus]

     I just got Hot Rats. Yeow! It sounds great. Wikipedia is wrong to credit Chunga's Revenge as the first album with Dunbar. He's the drummer on Peaches en Regalia without a shadow of a doubt. He has the most recognizable kick drum I've ever heard.

     

[drogulus]

     Good music doesn't respect categories, and Frank Zappa is the best illustration I can think of for this. Much of his music is formally uncategorizable unless you think electric guitar means rock and saxophone means jazz. So Zappa practices a brand of high level fusion, which even includes "fusion" as a component.

     And he was a great guitar player.

[karlhenning]

TTT

[Dr. Dread]

The second page of this thread, my browser, she no likes... 

[Joe Barron]

Is something wrong with my browser? I don't see this poll the rest of you are referring to.

[Dr. Dread]

Is something wrong with my browser? I don't see this poll the rest of you are referring to.

Me neither.

[Joe Barron]

I knew I ought to be grateful to Zappa for his going head-to-head with the worst vulgarities in American popular culture and satirizing them with a flair worthy of Panurge. But I struggled to stay involved when I listened to his music, whether it was his canonical early Mothers of Invention songs, his Synclavier compositions, or the "avant-garde" instrumental works of his late Yellow Shark compositions. Too often the butt of his humor turned out to be something I didn't much care about—bad pop music, Los Angeles car culture, or adolescent complexes of not being popular. What one of his fans acknowledged as an "aggressive defensiveness concerning 'high art'" sounded right to me. Zappa's vein of wary, almost paranoid suspicion of cultural elitism runs very deep in the American psyche and often for good reason. But what he ridiculed as bogus pomp was also something he deeply desired to possess, a cachet in the world of serious art music, although strictly on his own terms. Curiously, despite their composer's huge name recognition and popularity, Zappa's "classical" works have yet to be taken up as part of the regular repertoire. They are difficult and require much rehearsal time. But so are the works of Ives, Carter, Ligeti, and Ades, and conductors—at least some conductors—will accept the challenge of those composers. There seems to be a quality issue with Zappa's serious music that cannot be gotten around.

Adams sounds like a real dick. There is  quality issue with his music that cannot be gotten around.

[karlhenning]

Is something wrong with my browser? I don't see this poll the rest of you are referring to.

Nothing wrong with your browser;  the poll was dropped.  Poor design 

[Joe Barron]

Nothing wrong with your browser;  the poll was dropped.  Poor design 

So then what, exactly, is this thread about?

[drogulus]

The Mark Volman/Howard Kaylan band leaves me with mixed feelings (speaking purely musically, I mean).

    They were good at the rock band stuff, but not his more ambitious numbers. Zappa himself, incidentally, was a stone cold rocker as a player, and I wouldn't assume that his rock proclivities were a matter of satirizing. Musically it's a big part of the package, and I like that he never really felt obliged to choose from among his tendencies.

[karlhenning]

Zappa himself, incidentally, was a stone cold rocker as a player, and I wouldn't assume that his rock proclivities were a matter of satirizing. Musically it's a big part of the package, and I like that he never really felt obliged to choose from among his tendencies.

He could "dig in" to the blues, without going on auto-pilot.  I could listen to his solo work on various versions of "The Torture Never Stops" or "Advance Romance" (e.g.) practically endlessly.

Hey Karl, what are your favorite Zappa albums?

Uncle Meat
Weasels Ripped My Flesh
Burnt Weeny Sandwich
Hot Rats
One Size Fits All
Waka/Jawaka
Grand Wazoo
The Best Band You Never Heard in Your Life
Make a Jazz Noise Here

And, really, the entire You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore series

Ought to have added Weasels Ripped My Flesh.