Frank Zappa
 

Frank Zappa; discuss.

I like his music.

No no no no no no no no nonononononononononono.

No.


No. No. No. No. No.

No.

Nonononononono.

No.

I would say more, but I fear I'd be repeating myself.

im actually listening to willie the pimp right now
woooo

now let me ask you this, do you like captain beefheart????????


(p.s. wrong forum doooood)

You're an idiot. Or a Christian...oh, now I'm repeating myself.

Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes ye sy yes!

No. I'm sorry, but no. Are you assuming I don't know my onions? I do. I can be tested. As Derek Bailey once said, "nothing is crapper than Frank Zappa". It's just the worst music, really it is.

Gaargh. I feel ill just thinking about it.

Beefheart, yes.

Don't ya like a little humor Glice? :confused:

What? No... really? I can't stand Zappa. I don't like 'funny' music. I don't like 'ironic' music. Sorry, it's just the way I am. Half man half biscuit, yes. Zappa, no. Just... no. No. It's all I can bring myself to say.

i think theres a lot of great musicians who could/could have been fucking AMAZING
but they were handicapped because they wrote really funny/funky/unserious material
but they're fucking amazing artists either way

and shit, who gives a rats ass.
ween is on my top 5
and they are hardly serious at all


what am i saying?
man im going to shut up

Oh I'm sure you know your onions. Not a personal attack. I don't know who Derek Bailey is but he's wrong.

It's not humour though. It's the worst kind of parasitical pseud bollocks I can think of. Ironic kids humour. It's really, really poor. Honestly, I don't get it at all. It's just really, really bad.

I should stop posting. Sorry people, there are very few musicians who irritate me more than Zappa. Crap crap crap.

Ivor Cutlor - now, there's a man who could deliver a joke. Seek him out.

This is a discussion thread. If you want to criticise Zappa please do.

You love it reading my mind,don't you?
To that i'll add:
NONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONNONON ONONNONONONNONONONONNONONONONONNONONONONONONONONON ONONONONONONONONONONONONO .......NO!

Ah. Now this is pretty spot on. I think Zappa is, clearly, very talented. But, for me, anyone who feels the need to take the piss out of other genres is lacking in imagination of their own. See also 'ironic' ska-punk covers of pop songs. The pop songs are always better, every single time. It just seems like the kid in class who just takes the piss out of everything, and then one day everyone realises that he doesn't actually have anything to contribute, and everyone ends up hating him.

The music is entirely contingent to one appreciation of music, ie, that which is 'opposed' to so-called saccharine 'pop'. The problem is, as any classics student will tell you, any parody only serves to strengthen the greatness of the original. Insofar as you give air-time to a 'parody', you are thereby measured, after the 'joke' has disappeared, next to the (always better and broader) corpus of the parodied. There is room for humour in music, it's entirely necessary. But that humour cannot be in opposition to other things, it must be funny in and of itself in order to cast itself free from its own critique.

Again, I really should stop.

Frank Zappa committed the indignity of not even being funny at his comedy music thing.Trash,garbage,rubbish rubbish rubbish!

...

I KNEW PORKIE WAS WITH ME ON THIS! I KNEW IT! And I'm actually quite happy about it.

Please, nobody start a zAPPa Vs beefheart thread!

While humor is an incredibly important thing for certain types of music to survive,i totally think that it is wrong when it becomes the main attraction to the music itself.It works only when not the artist nor the music want to be taken seriously,yes,but the same can't be said for Zappa himself.Really,some artists you wonder why they bothered and how they survived with such a one trick pony of a half idea.To conclude:
Humor and music=fine
Comedy and music=Not fine

[quote=Saturnine]i'll get right on that.[/quote}
Somebody stop her.Now!!

True, the later chessy stuff can get on my nerves, but the early stuff through the mid seventies is really funny because it's so insane and dead on satire of all the hippies. It's not all "comedy music"...there is some really great stuff there.


I'll love everybody!
I'll the love the cops as they kick the shit out of me on the streets


All I want to know is where's the beer and when do we get paid!!



How could one not love Jimmy Carl Black???

[quote=Glice]But, for me, anyone who feels the need to take the piss out of other genres is lacking in imagination of their own.

This is bollocks. parody was only one thing he did. His music on the whole is extremely imaginative and creative. It is quite often very complex and sometimes experimental. Zappa's music has outlived the genres he was parodying. Anyway, I never really saw the humour in the parodies but in the lyrics.

My mom saw Zappa back when she was a kid.

She got to talk to him after the show too.

And I am sure he has a role in the movie Manos: The Hands Of Fate.

The Master would not approve.

I respect Captain Beefheart alot.

Exactly.

im sure thats not all that happened....;)

"hey, look over there on the wall...it's a frank frazetta of frank zappa"

[quote=Lurker]
'Experimental' is a misnomer forever. Cage was right in his dislike of the term. Bollocks is unfair. I will return to this argument if, ever, I can be arsed.

Sorry, there is no experiment in Zappa (a priori statement). Complexity, yes, and/ or perhaps. Complexity is no measure of goodness. Yngwie Malmsteen is a virtuoso guitarist - this is in no way removing the fact that his music is shit. I hear nothing but rubbish, psuedo-intellectual a-emotional bullshit from the Zappa camp. I, presumably, spout likewise at my controvert protagonist. Nonetheless, I claim no succour in my assailaints. In summary - Please less 'bollocks'. Please more intelligence. Danke.

Hard to believe some of the stuff I'm reading here....But each has their own opinion. Art will forever remain in the eyes of the beholder.

Zappa's music was just incredible. I liked up through the mid to later 70s, and to a lesser extent....the 80s.

His compositions, the multitude of players he had...and his own guitar technique and choice of notes enthralled me to no end. I won't even get into an argument here about this as he and his music are top 5 all time for me.....There is so much variety in his dozens and dozens of albums...that anyone who 'wholesale' disses him, has obviously not heard all he did.

You can hear 99 of 100 songs he did...and that 100th will be so totally different than the 99 previous...that yeah...even the harshest skeptic might find out...wow, that is a good number. People who diss bands RARELY have heard much....first off, they're turned off initially so they don't WANT to listen to anymore....and that's where the ignorance comes in. I find most don't know 1/10 of his output. To me, that's too bad. Hey...I'm the same way about bands I don't like. Do you think I've sat down to TRY to see if I like something of 'theirs' ?.....Especially some band that has over 50..nearly 100 releases ?....Hell NO.....but at least I admit that part. That yeah, I might would like one of the hundreds of tunes someone like that would've released, but I won't take the time.....I think that's what's happened to Zappa detractors...

hear, hear!

viva el zappa!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3gqee7dhcU
A fine little tidbit.

^The music doesn't really kick in until about the 2nd minute......give it a chance folks. Or don't, you know the drill.

Also,calculated and premeditated experimentation can be the grave of music itself.When experimenting works,it's very much because there's a pulsating heart at the core of those aural adventures.Frank Zappa DID NOT have a heart to start with.If he did,he managed to leave it well far from his music.

You just haven't heard enough porkmarras. One learns to understand a musician's sensitivities. It doesn't come without exposure and extensive listening......to say someone doesn't have their heart in their art....is just arrogant, really. I'm not dissing you opinion of a man's music...but the heartless comment is way off the mark....Zappa was an incredibly loving man under that tough persona..with his family and his music....

If you want...I'll list some beautiful music Zappa did...not just the Valley Girl, Dinah-Moe Humm, I don't wanna get drafted stuff.....but some seriously emotive producing instrumental music.....full of HEART !!!!

I have heard pretty much all of Zappa's stuff. I went through a phase about 15 years ago, binged on it and got really sick of the majority of it. I am with the camp that does not particularly dig "funny music," and a lot of the tones he chose to employ could be glassy and annoying, as could a lot of his band members' styles. Talent and skill are not in question, but the vast majority of his music is unlistenable to me now.
I think his modern classical compositions are fantastic, and I think Civilization Phase III is probably one of the coolest pieces of technology-assisted composition I have heard, but as to his "rock albums," I can really only hang with Freak Out, Hot Rats, parts of Uncle Meat and the section of "He Used To Cut The Grass" on Joe's Garage that starts after the skin-crawlingly annoying vocals are done with.

I did love his autobiography, and I have a lot of respect for him on many levels, but please don't make me listen to "Inca Roads" or "Jazz From Hell" ever again.

So see....with your apparently broader exposure to Zappa....you've found some great stuff....that's all I'm saying. I don't like alot of the late 70s-early 80s stuff....So I'm not a completist that likes everything he does...but all the stuff up through '77 ish I love, 'cepting some of the more absurd stuff. I DON'T like Valley Girl...or after he put down his guitar for a majority of his shows and became a 'song and dance' man.....The last time I saw Frank, he was becoming more of a showman, walking around the stage, with his microphone. The first two times, he rarely put his guitar down. That's where his biggest talent, other than compostion, lies to me. I could definately do without some of his inane lyrics. But the, at the time, contemporary comment he'd make on society....'We're only in it for the money, Absolutely Free etc.....was spot on and funny. Even his dissing of hippie culture. He was serious, but I took it as tongue and cheeky....

I'm certainly no Zappa expert,no,but my older brother has been a fan for years and even though he exposed me to loads of music that i grew to love,Zappa didn't fall into that category.I don't get him,sorry,and i don't think he could be called someone who had a crumb of style by any stretch of the imagination.

I will agree with you that he should not have put the guitar down. He was a pretty phenomenal guitarist, and I'm sure the majority of his fans were more than a little let down when they didn't get much in the way of lengthy guitar workouts from him.

Watermelon in Easter Hay!

I agree with you about Jazz From Hell......I was so disappointed with that album. It's really not that fun to listen to because it's just so insane and sounds pretty crappy.....I really liked St. Etienne though. I def. agree with against_the_grain that it gets kind of sketchy once he starts becoming the "guy walking around with the microphone Zappa." Which really sucks because most of the DVD footage on The Dub Room Special and Baby Snakes is like this. Thank God for 200 Motels.