# Frank Zappa Appreciation Thread **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 9, 2004, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frank-zappa-appreciation-thread/244259 "2004-05-09T03:51:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Tentacle\_Monster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ba9def/32.png) [@Tentacle\_Monster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tentacle_Monster)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2004, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frank-zappa-appreciation-thread/244259/1 "2004-05-09T03:51:58Z")
I just got _Baby Snakes_ (watching it now) and _Does Humor Belong In Music?_ I just want to know, why hasn’t _200 Motels_ been released on DVD? Anyhoo, I’ve been a FZ fan for most of my life. I tend to like his instrumental pieces more than the vocal bits. _Peaches En Regalia_ stands out and, if I recall correctly, a local high school band tried to play it. Appreciate on! ---
**Author:** ![flickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7bcc69/32.png) [@flickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flickster)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2004, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frank-zappa-appreciation-thread/244259/2 "2004-05-09T03:55:11Z")
“Must be a penguin in bondage” arf arf basking in the pygmie twighlight ---
**Author:** ![dinahmoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/8797f3/32.png) [@dinahmoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dinahmoe)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2004, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frank-zappa-appreciation-thread/244259/3 "2004-05-09T04:13:24Z")
What can I say, the man provided me with a most excellent username. Now if I could only locate my zircon encrusted tweezers… ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2004, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frank-zappa-appreciation-thread/244259/4 "2004-05-09T04:17:49Z")
I’m not really a Zappa fan. I appreciate the complexity of much of his music, and I really appreciate the qualkity of musicianship required to make his records… but it blows my mind just how little of the music he left behind was any good. When a musician produces as huge a body of work as Zappa did, he SHOULD produce a lot more great music just by sheer dumb luck. Zappa’s output strikes me as pretty weak, on the whole. Often good for a cheap laugh, occasionally brilliant, but usually… well, pretty dull. I mean, listen to his album with the London Philharmonic! Sadly, it’s mighty tepid stuff. - That said, there’s no question that Zappa was brilliant at discovering and nurturing talent. And a stint with Zappa ALWAYS made a musician better. So for that alone, for being a superb teacher of musicians (some of whom went on to make some of my favorite albums), I owe him my thanks. ---
**Author:** ![VarlosZ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d78d45/32.png) [@VarlosZ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VarlosZ)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2004, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frank-zappa-appreciation-thread/244259/5 "2004-05-09T04:30:09Z")
\*I got a cheerleader here, wants to help with my paper Let her do all the work, and maybe later I’ll rape her Oh, God I am the American Dream. . .\* That alone is enough to make any high school kid a Zappa fan, and the song has aged well, I think; very funny, but clearly a satire, so the apparent cruelty is ok. ---
**Author:** ![unclviny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/e274bd/32.png) [@unclviny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/unclviny)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2004, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frank-zappa-appreciation-thread/244259/6 "2004-05-09T04:52:51Z")
FZ is one of my heroes, he made a living (and a pretty nice one at that) doing EXACTLY what he wanted to do, one of my favorite FZ quotes is (approximately) “so what if you think I am wrong, millions of people thought Hitler was right did that make him right?”. Unclviny ---
**Author:** ![nitroglycerine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c5a1d2/32.png) [@nitroglycerine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nitroglycerine)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2004, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frank-zappa-appreciation-thread/244259/7 "2004-05-09T05:19:19Z")
“Remember, there’s a big difference between kneeling down and bending over.” I have just about 60 zappa Lp’s including a bunch of boots, that I think about selling every once in while, but then I can never go through with it. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2004, 11:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frank-zappa-appreciation-thread/244259/8 "2004-05-09T11:37:28Z")
He is quite possibly the best musician who ever lived. ---
**Author:** ![DrMemory](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/977dab/32.png) [@DrMemory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrMemory)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2004, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frank-zappa-appreciation-thread/244259/9 "2004-05-09T12:25:43Z")
Saaay, Is that a REAL poncho, or a Sear’s Poncho??? ---
**Author:** ![Already\_in\_Use](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a9adbd/32.png) [@Already\_in\_Use](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Already_in_Use)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2004, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frank-zappa-appreciation-thread/244259/10 "2004-05-09T12:46:55Z")
I currently have three FZ posters hanging in my room. I was going to put up all four, but I was afraid visitors might think I was a little obsessed. ---
**Author:** ![Skillet38](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8797f3/32.png) [@Skillet38](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skillet38)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2004, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frank-zappa-appreciation-thread/244259/11 "2004-05-09T13:47:19Z")
I really like Thingfish. Only the die-hard Zappa fans know about it. It’s great for long drives. ---
**Author:** ![dinahmoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/8797f3/32.png) [@dinahmoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dinahmoe)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2004, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frank-zappa-appreciation-thread/244259/12 "2004-05-09T14:04:38Z")
> [@Skillet38](#): > > I really like Thingfish. Only the die-hard Zappa fans know about it. It’s great for long drives. LOVE! Thingfish. I got to meet Ike Willis a while ago, he was great:) ---
**Author:** ![gobear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8dc957/32.png) [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2004, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frank-zappa-appreciation-thread/244259/13 "2004-05-09T14:11:16Z")
Fuck me, you ugly sonuvabitch! (You ugly sonuvabitch!) ---
**Author:** ![ccwaterback](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/df705f/32.png) [@ccwaterback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ccwaterback)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2004, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frank-zappa-appreciation-thread/244259/14 "2004-05-09T14:33:56Z")
Some people crave baseball – I find this unfathomable – but I can easily understand why a person could get excited about playing a bassoon. ---
**Author:** ![Hey\_It\_s\_That\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Hey\_It\_s\_That\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hey_It_s_That_Guy)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2004, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frank-zappa-appreciation-thread/244259/15 "2004-05-09T17:46:01Z")
I’m a big Zappa fan. I love the long, cartoonish, surreal “Adventures of Gregory Peccary” off Studio Tan, and of course all the funny songs. But there was some masterful musicianship going on there, once you get past all the odd instrumentation and comical lyrics. The You Can’t Do That On Stage Anymore albums collect classic live performances, and have to be heard to be believed. One I’m particularly fond of is a super-fast medley of “Camarillo Brillo”/“He’s So Gay”/“Muffin Man” that has to be heard to be believed. ---
**Author:** ![MsRobyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/90ced4/32.png) [@MsRobyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsRobyn)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2004, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frank-zappa-appreciation-thread/244259/16 "2004-05-09T17:58:49Z")
Paging **Doktor Fluff** … Robin ---
**Author:** ![Club\_33](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/df705f/32.png) [@Club\_33](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Club_33)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2004, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frank-zappa-appreciation-thread/244259/17 "2004-05-09T18:10:48Z")
I love Zappa, especially “Sheik Yerbutti”. When I was a young musician, his music really taught me a lot about how limitless it really can be. I always found it amazing how complex the music was, yet it didn’t seem complicated because it flowed so well. Of course, it also taught me that it was perfectly ok to have a sense of humor in music. ---
**Author:** ![Small\_Clanger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc348/32.png) [@Small\_Clanger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Small_Clanger)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2004, 10:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frank-zappa-appreciation-thread/244259/18 "2004-05-10T10:40:42Z")
I mostly go back to the guitar stuff Shut up and Play Your Guitar, Son of. . . etc. Favorite “normal” album would be Sheik Yerbouti. For the most part the humour I find off-putting (am I the only person who doesn’t find Titties and Beer and Yellow Snow amusing?) but I love some of the deliberate stupidity. . . Aren-nen-nen - aren-nen-nen - aren-nen-nen - arenda Aren-nen-nen - aren-nen-nen - arenda renda ra 🙂 And Dangeous Kitchen even got my parents laughing. I forgot it had the line “who the _fuck_ wants to clean it” I hope they missed that. And he had probably the best band(s) ever assembled, Adrian Belew, Steve Vai, Terry Bozio. . . Someone told me that Bobby Brown was a hit in Germany, I guess coz they didn’t understand the words? You’d have a hard time getting it on the radio in an English speaking country 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2004, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frank-zappa-appreciation-thread/244259/19 "2004-05-10T12:32:40Z")
Love him. I think he had the tightest band in the business. It was amazing how he controlled the rich texture that was his music. A true genius. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2004, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frank-zappa-appreciation-thread/244259/20 "2004-05-10T12:39:36Z")
I was a big fan in his early days, and still find his music interesting. He was perhaps more musically advanced than anyone on the rock scene, and you’ve got to love a guy who releases a dance single (“Dancing Fool”) that’s impossible to dance to without looking like the geek in the song. “We’re Only In It for the Money” is not just find musically, but it captures 60s high school life perfectly. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frank-zappa-appreciation-thread/244259.md?page=2)