Friday Night Zappa
(Rudy Rucker is a guestblogger. His latest novel, Hylozoic, describes a postsingular world in which everything is alive.)
Sooo...it's Friday night again.
How about a playlist of thirty or so videos by Frank Zappa!
We miss you, Frank.
the latest
latest episodes
He could be a total prick and condescending to his own audiences, his music could veer from ridiculously juvenile to ridiculously cerebral, and he was pointlessly self-righteous about his cigarette smoking, but damn if I don't miss him too.
The quandary of the genius asshole: There's a lot of reasons not to like him, but he's so good that you do anyway.
Yeah, I miss him too!
I like his ideas about music more than I like his actual music most of the time. He's still way ahead of the curve. His chapter on music in his autobiography is great. He was blissfully unaware of his own ego, but what can you do? He's fantastic and he knew that he was.
I don't think Frank was egotistical, just unapologetic.
It's incumbent on any true Zappa fan to visit Vilnius, Lithuania and pay respect to his statue:
http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=zappa&w=11868335%40N00
Those are the pictures I took during my trip. In general Lithuania is freaking beautiful and everyone should visit, but the Zappa thing is truly unique.
how unfulfilled was the guy leading into that clip?....always liked Zappa, even if he loved Zappa more. One part great music, one part Zappa love-fest....either way good times.
"He could be a total prick and condescending to his own audiences"
Yeah If you were being a douche
in the audience, disturbing a show or something…
He WAS thrown off the stage and wheelchair-bound, in England in the 70's-
Might of made him a bit cautious.
ieee: Bald headed John the huge body guard in samurai robes
Can;t say I liked ALL of his works, but a majority of them got me Off.
What worked for me was all the people, artists, music, etc, that he turned me on to.
Oh' an…
Yeah, I miss him too!
I just posted the link to that Black Napkins in Untitled 2 yesterday. =D Glad to see FZ get in the spotlight again here. I love it all. FZ we hardly knew ye.
Happy Friday!
Frank had very little tolerance for stupid questions which he seemed to get asked by everyone who interviewed him, and he would task them on it which I always found appealing. The rare interviewer who would ask intelligent questions would bring out his good side.
The PMRC period was annoying, because Frank was genuinely angry about the whole mess, and had a hard time injecting his normal humor into the debate. These people were attacking his livelihood and he was fighting for his ability to keep doing what he liked to do. It affected his work, not necessarily in a good way I feel.
Every rock star who says Fuck onstage today owes Frank a huge debt.
I repeat my periodic request to Gail to release ALL the tapes, regardless of quality. Please. Before they rot in whatever warehouse they're stored in and we lose them all forever.
If you get the chance, check out his son Dweezil in the Zappa Plays Zappa tour - it's the closest thing you'll get to Frank these days. A couple of years ago, Dweezil and his band played with Napoleon Murphy Brock, Terry Bozio and Steve Vai, and it was spectacular. Lately, I think he's been playing with Ray White, which ain't so shabby either.
thank you
My MP3 player (which I take everywhere I go) has 2 Gig of FZ on it at all times, from comedic to orchestral. Whenever I'm in a bad mood or feeling down, Frank always picks me up.
But I personally don't think any of his kids have half the talent Frank had in his little finger. A lot of people can play his music, but Frank not only could compose these amazing works, he could improvise on the fly better than any one I ever saw perform.
An hour later, and I'm still sitting here enjoying these... Amazing (straight) versions of "Whippin' Post" and (gasp!) "Stairway to Heaven"! :)
God bless you, Rudy Rucker. That 1973 footage is awesome. If any of you are clicking through these, be sure to stop there. Also on "Jesus Thinks You're a Jerk," which is just as relevant today as it was then, if not more. Only the names have changed.
By the way, Rudy, when I first saw the teaser for your latest novel, I immediately thought of Don Preston telling us that his sock was music.
Oh Annie! Oh Annie! Oh AN-U-SOL!
THANKS. The perfect way to end the week.
Help, I'm a rock.
"...flies all green and buzzin', in his dungeon of dispair..." was just listening to thingfish! the world lost several intelligence points when frank passed. can't wait to see dweez this summer, tho! we have an all FZ tribute band here in tampa called "Bogus Pomp", who kick ass! they did a symphony show w/ the fl. symphony orch., and they did an "extended" band with a sm., 24 pc. 'band', with napoleon murphy brock! nothing can touch the man, but im glad that his music still lives, live. wherever u r, frank, i hope u r havin fun! u r missed.
Been into Zappa for 20 years and I keep reaching new levels of appreciation. From my youth, hearing FZ on Doctor Demento, to discovering his stuff because of/behind the humor, to learning to appreciate him as a composer and performer, I always find something new, something interesting to explore. It happens suddenly sometimes, I'll hear something and then for weeks on end, I'll be listening Zappa, exploring some new aspect of his music.
It always touches me when I find that other people appreciate his stuff too, so I'm tickled that FZ gets some love from BB. I recently got into Gotan Project, and had to smile when I noticed they had covered "Chunga's Revenge". I recently saw George Clinton and P-Funk, and almost lost my shit when they vamped into "I am the Slime."
KFJC 89.7 FM is doing it's annual 24 hour Zappa marathon, starting Saturday, at midnight...
The world would be a better place if Frank were still around.
Gotta say, I read the comments with much trepidation . . . seems like there's very little Zappa love, or even tolerance, among the hipper parts of the interwebs. Which strikes me as bizarre, because he was such an anti-censorship and anti-stupidity-in-general advocate. So it's heartening to see these comments. Many thanks, Rudy, for the post.
"hipper parts"? if they don't love Frank, fuck them.
I never thought I'd be an old fart, but I am now.
One of the drawbacks is missing people you thought would always be there. Frank is one of those - I miss him practically every day. His outlook and his music always helped give me the right amount of gumption for those times when life was simply "plooking me too hard." Frank's version of Whipping Post is my all time favorite.
Among other reasons to love him - he was the best power guitarist I've ever heard (live). The whole asshole-genius thing is a nonstarter for me - I've settled on judging artists - as artists - by their work. If I ever had to share an apt w/ FZ, I'd start to be concerned about what 'kind of person' he was.
I miss him.
I guess we could gauge Frank as a person by looking at the love and respect his kids still have for him. Also the love respect of many of the musicians who worked with him, though he was a hard taskmaster.
As for the music, once you get into it, you can't listen to anything else because other music seems rote, by-the-numbers.
I would love hear his comments on American Idol!
just had to have 'one size fits all' had to be cd
I had to learn how to play music in order to develop a taste for his instrumental material.
When I hear people complaining about the juvenile quality of his lyrics, I think about the essential scorn he had for lyrics in popular music and tell 'em, "That was the point."
Dong Work For Yuda has gotten me through a few rough patches, though.
And he had some decent requirements of other people -- Do you waste time? Do you convey?
For all you Zappa fans, I have a friend that hosts a Zappa radio show. Its on the fantastic internet radio station "Radio Free Phoenix"
http://radiofreephoenix.com/specialtyshows.html
It is on Saturdays, 6PM MST
if you want to do something other than what you thought you were gonna do when you first took your clothes off, and you just happen to have some DEVICES around...
I'm still recovering from Son of a Monster Magnet
44 years later. Suzeeeeeeee?
There's no such thing as too much Zappa :)
"Dong Work For Yuda has gotten me through a few rough patches…"
Great piece that is…
I always thought it as an homage to Andre Williams Vocalizatshuns
As in Bacon Fat on Broadway CD...
Gail Zappa:
please please PLEASE open the vaults and give us/sell us the live recordings.
pretty please.
Personally I'd like Gail/the Zappa Family Trust to release the Captain Beefheart "Shiny Beast" tapes they are sitting on. There's plenty of FZ out there for us to digest, far less Van Vliet (of course how does it benefit Gail Zappa to release something without Frank on it.)
I'm thankful I got to see FZ on his last tour in 87/88 (documented on "The Best band You Never Heard In Your Life"). The show was great, mind-bogglingly great, but arguably funnier than FZ's humor were the two stoned metal-heads in front of me who were high-fiving each other for every other song (and who almost went into some kind of religious/epileptic fit when FZ played "Stairway to Heaven.")
I've got a metric assload of Zappa on the iPod as well. But I can't listen to more than two or three albums' worth at a time: no matter which ones I choose, after awhile I just start to feel snarky and bleak. The man's misanthropy is in every damnably brilliant note, even if he's not actually saying anything. It's peculiar: listen to Bach all day, feel organized in the mind and focused. Listen to Zappa all day, feel cynical, jaded, and accustomed to a wide variety of irregular time signatures. Hrm.
Az for a message to Gail an the ZFT---
Please release the Roxy 'N Elsewhere Viddys
I mean aint' it a win / win thing for You all??
Oh an thanks for the Z on B B Rudy Ru
This has made my Sunday morning!
I was at the Halloween show in 81 where he did Whipping Post. Just froze me in my tracks as I was walking back to my seat. An amazing show.
I was 13 when I was turned on to Frank by some older, more worldly, friends in upstate NY in 1973. It exposed me to a world of music that wasn't played on the radio. The album? The classic Overnite Sensation. Freaky deaky and frickin' wonderful. In a way, FZ was a great enabler for me and a *lot* of folks of my generation. Frank taught to question authority, organized religion, gurus of all sorts. To be aware that everyone has an agenda, good or bad. And that brown shoes really *don't* make it. Frank was like a rabbi, he'd talk of the realities of the world and, in his way, suggested what was and wasn't kosher. And that guitar work! There is no replacement. Many fantastic Halloweens at the Palladium in NYC. I remember one show where Joey Ramone was sitting close by in the audience. Pretty cool. The world could use a Frank or two just about now. The loss is still heartbreaking.
- Bruce in Brooklyn
On the other hand, naming his daughter "moon unit" should qualify as child abuse. That can't have been pleasent in school.