I’m 41, a musician and a lover of music, especially rock and it’s variants from the 60s to the 80s. I’m kindof surprised myself I haven’t heard Frank Zappa before.
It was on a SNL I’d taped, and he did 3 numbers. one of them he had Don Pardo reading some long text on, and another he had John Belushi yelling and playing bad saxaphone on. Which is way cool, except it wasn’t. It was one of those things where I could tell there was a whole lot of talent there and it was definitely unique, but I didn’t get it. No melody, no cool lyrics, no beat to dance to. It was like bad jazz on acid.
I like Steve Vai, and I could see the obvious Zappa influence.
Is all Zappa stuff like this? I mean he had a big following and was touted as genius; is he just over my head?
It sounds like a cop out but you just can’t judge him from three songs. He was an incredibly diverse musician. I’m not saying that you have to like him , much of his music is at best an acquired taste but you haven’t even scratched the surface. On top of his own talent, he always surrounded himself with fantastic musicians. I think Steve Vai started playing in the band when he was 18.
I was moderately into Zappa until I saw him live. Then it was Holy Fucking Shit.
At the time I lived and breathed drumming, and he always had the best drummers on the planet and wrote the most amazing things for them to do.
I think his most accessable stuff is from the early-mid 70’s: Overnight Sensation, One Size Fits All, Roxy and Elsewhere (Live). I was into that as well as his late 70’s early 80’s output: Bongo Fury; Zoot Allures; Joe’s Garage; You are What You Is (the tour I saw when I had my Zappa revelation).
As for his ‘genius’ - to me it was mainly illustrated by the fact that he wrote just about every note and every lyric of every one of his albums, spanning or spoofing every musical genre, for nearly 3 decades. And he played absolutely blistering guitar solos on most of them. Just an astonishing amount of high quality output. He was an unstoppable musical force.
I also recommend Strictly Commercial for a more accessible introduction to Zappa, who I found impenetrable at first, before I became a huge fan.
However, even better than that… listen to any of the You Can’t Do That On Stage Anymore double-CD live albums, which will blow you away. If those can’t convince you of the man’s greatness, nothing will. He was a virtuoso and one of the only true GENIUSES of late-20th Century music, and he only surrounded himself with the finest musicians. I can only imagine the experience of seeing him live, but those albums really help.
MACK,
I have a buddy Chuck who owns a “cool, independent record store” and I swung by there one day but he wasn’t there, it was just his Flunky. I was cruising the aisles when I came up with both volumes of Bozzio/Wackerman “Alternative Duets” naturally I jumped and bought them, I talked to Chuck about a week later and he told me “I knew no one was going to buy those but they were so cool that I had decided to keep them, when I saw that they were gone I knew it was you”. FZ always had incredible Musicians and Terry/Chad were 2 of the best (Chad was a kid when he got the gig with F.Z.!).
Try Freak Out!, his debut from 1966. Searing blues based rock outs, freak-out psychedelia, and hilarious doo-wop sendups all jostle each other for an inch or two of vinyl on this startling debut!
OK seriously, it’s a fun album. I had a hard time with the joke songs until I listened to them and appreciated how…carefully they are produced. No really…the instrumental arrangements are superb. Only, the longer, more freakish numbers, It Can’t Happen Here and Help, I’m A Rock are weak in places, but still have some good moments.
Chad was my idol. He was this geeky-looking little guy who made it look so easy.
He’s the only drummer I saw with Zappa (I saw Zappa 4 times). I wish I could have seen Vinnie Colaiuta play with Zappa (my consolation was seeing him do a clinic in Denver).
I first learned of Bozzio when he took over for Bill Bruford in UK. I saw them at the Palladium in NY in '79 or '80. I really liked his playing on Bongo Fury and especially Zoot Allures.
I remember seeing that SNL when it first aired. I thought Zappa seemed like a neat guy, but I had no idea who he was (I was like 10). That was the one where there’s a running joke about constantly saying that he doesn’t do drugs.
Growing up the only song of his I ever got to hear was the only one my local AOR station ever played, namely Joe’s Garage, which I thought was a decent song. Because of this I always thought of Frank Zappa as kind of a more talented Weird Al. That he was a comedy-musician, but I don’t think that’s quite right…
So Steve Vai started out in his band? Vai never really impressed me. He was talented, but I could never think of him as anything other than an Eddie Van Halen clone hired by David Lee Roth.
Hmmm. I knew that Vai had played with him, but I didn’t know Bozzio did. I also like Bozzio a lot, in fact I was listening to Jeff Beck’s Guitar SHop earlier.
A friend loaned me We’re Only In It For The Money; I’ll check it out tomorrow. Appreciate the album recommendations; I’m listening to this one first really only because it was immediately available.
Didn’t Chester Thompson also graduate from the Zappa school?
Anyway my recommendation would be FZ and the Mothers ‘Live at the Filmore East’ because the playing is amazing and the show is outrageously funny.
I think Zappa’s like Everest - there’s such a body of work it’s hard to know how/where to start. But worth it.
That SNL performance was when he introduced “Dancing Fool,” one of his attempts to have a hit. Watch it again. “Dancing Fool” is a disco dancing song that is impossible to dance to. Really – the rhythm constantly changes so that either you were off the beat, or you’d have to jerk around in such a way that you’d look like a . . . well, a fool.
To me, that is a sure sign of his sheer brilliance.
Now that you mention it, Apostrophe is a great place to start off. Ruth Underwood, the incredible percussionist, is in the lineup playing marimba mostly. The first half of the album (Yellow Snow, Nanook Rubs It, St. Alphonzo’s Pancake Breakfast, Father O’Blivion) is amazing.
Zappa wrote ‘The Black Page #1’ specifically for Bozzio.
Others:
Chester Thompson (previously mentioned)
Captain Beefheart
George Duke
Aynsley Dunbar (John Mayall, Jeff Beck, Starship, Whitesnake)
The Turtles (Happy Together) sang for him in the early 70’s. But that’s kind of porno rock ("My dick is Harley! You kick it to start!).
John Guerin (Joni Michell’s Court and Spark)
Jean-Luc Ponty
Adrian Belew (King Crimson)
Lowell George (Little Feat)
Jim Gordon (Derek and the Dominos)
Bruce & Tom Fowler
Don Preston
basically the cream of '70s LA studio musicians.
Speaking of Bozzio and Wackerman I Saw this while googling.
In Zappa’s book he talks about what a trooper Steve Vai was. Vai had some kind of stomach virus and would puke into a bucket just offstage, run out and play, puke, play, etc.
Wow, I’ve met Chester Thompson. It was at a NAM convention, and not only did I meet him, but I saw him join in a spontaneous 5 minute jam session with Brian Setzer if you can believe it. Very nice guy (and Brian too). Still have both of their autographs around somewhere. He was playing with Phil Collins back then.
Well, I’ve listened to We’re only in it for the money, and I’m no closer to enjoying Mr. Zappa. I liked the “Hi boys and girls. I’m so-and-so, and I’m the indian of the group”, but that was about it. I could see why songs were supposed to be funny, but it wasn’t my humor. Mojo Nixon, now that’s funny. Weird Al, now that’s funny. “I’m going to San Francisco and be a hippie and be a manager for a band and join love ins”, well, it just wasn’t my thing.
I’m thinking this is just one of those different strokes things.
I forgot to mention about Freak Out! that one of the great things about it is all the copious info that comes with it (except lyrics, naturally). A mix of serious deposition and jokes, it really is an artifact of the Southern California music scene from the late 50s to the mid 60s when it was made, if only for the LONG list of people who Zappa says have “materially influenced our music” and asks the reader not to hold it against them.
Zappa wanted to produce the Doors, but they didn’t even have a contract yet so it didn’t matter.
Well take one last stab, ditch the humour and try one of his all ( or rather mostly ) instrumental albums like Hot Rats, Burnt Weeny Sandwhich, or The Grand Wazoo. Frankly that’s what I tend to prefer ( and I wasintroduced to them by a big jazz buff ), though I really like most of his stuff. His earliest albums like Freak Out!, *Absolutely Free, or We’re Only in it for the Money do little for me as well.
He also did some later period instrumental albums, but I’m blanking on the titles - Sleep Dirt perhaps? Or maybe Studio Tan? I haven’t listened to my Zappa in awhile.
Bill H., I notice you didn’t mention anything about Zappa’s third number on SNL; what did you think of that one?
That number was Peaches En Regalia (one of my favorites) from his jazzy album Hot Rats. I see Tamerlane just mentioned this album, so I’ll second it. Hot Rats is mostly instrumental, so if Zappa’s sense of humor isn’t your style, maybe this will be. Some of his more melodic stuff is on this one, such as Son Of Mr. Green Genes and Little Umbrellas, so you might give this one a shot.
Definitely not Studio Tan, which is four weird songs (with lyrics); mostly offbeat humor like the Frankie and Annette-style beach party parody “Lemme Take You To the Beach” and the 20+ minute cartoony epic “The Adventures of Gregory Peccary.”