TV dinners by the pool
I'm so glad I finished school!
Oh my! another Zappa thread!
Zappa once uttered a timeless axiom that only improves with age as I see today's mindless, spoiled, over-indulged and yet under-nurtured youth (including twenty-and thirty-somethings) with their incessant need for attention exhibited in their endless facination with themselves manifest by the one-ups-man-shipping each other by mutilating and defacing their bodies.
I paraphrase Zappa as he addressed the crowd at one of his concerts: You all think you're showing your individualism by the way you dress, but each one of you is in fact wearing a uniform.
Those are pretty much the 'essential' Zappa albums IMO.
L
I got “Freak Out” from the record club by accident. One album is doo-wop, the other disc is just way out there.
Hot Rats has some good jazzy numbers. Don’t overlook “Willie the Pimp” on the “Zapped” WB promo album, with vocals by Beefheart. Zappa wails on riff after riff through 9 minutes or so.
Overnight Sensation is great, just a little risque.
“Movin’ to Montana soon, gonna be a mental toss flycoon (Yippie Yi Yo Kai-Yay)”
Check out the old Genesis with Peter Gabriel from the 70’s (The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway), old Wishbone Ash, Gentle Giant, Blind Faith, Cream, The Nazz, Todd Rundgren, John Mayall (blues) to name a few.
Saw him in a relatively small room in 1970 with those two semi-naked falsetto singers Flo & Eddie. A display of individual musicianship. Many different things at once. He'd raise a little finger and trains would be headed one-eighty without losing velocity. Physics cannot explain.
Aplomb would be too hyperactive to describe him. "We've broken a guitar string. Talk among yourselves."
His widow said he and Bill Clinton were brothers under the skin. That Gore dressed like a policeman.
Was not afraid to cut his hair and put on a suit to testify.
One might deduce an iconoclast who believed all borders were self-imposed.
"Life is such a ball
I run the world from city hall"
Brown Shoes Don't Make It
But John Peel thought that the most best album ever was by Zappa’s friend, the great CAPTAIN BEEFHEART! Get a copy of TROUT MASK REPLICA (available quite cheap these days) and wonder where music has gone since.......but beware, not an easy listen.
I have an extensive music collection, mostly rock with jazz, classical, old r&b, and country thrown in. Anything from AC/DC to ZZ Top. I love the instrumentals.
Frank could do things on a guitar others could only dream of. I saw him once. What struck me was that when playing the guitar, he seemed to be staring off into space. Not looking at the audience, or at the instrument. Just lost in his own world.
He lived a clean lifestyle, for the most part. He abhorred drugs. And he did die young. But he had the vice of being a heavy smoker. And the cancer got him.
At St. Alfonso’s pancake breakfast
Where I stole the margarine
And whittled on the bingo cards
And blew up the latrine
I wrapped a newspaper ‘round my head
So I’d look like I was Deep
I said some Mumbo Jumbos then
An’ told him he was goin’ to sleep
I robbed his rings
An’ pocket watch
An’ everything else I found
I had that sucker hypnotized
He couldn’t even make a sound
I proceeded to tell him his future then
As long as he was hanging around,
I said
“The price of meat has just gone up
An’ yer ol’ lady has just gone down . . . “
Look here brother,
Who you jivin’ with that Cosmik Debris?
(Now is that a real poncho or is that a Sears poncho?)
Don’t you know,
You could make more money as a butcher,
This is the CENTRAL SCRUTINIZER...it is my responsibility to enforce all the laws that haven't been passed yet. It is also my responsibility to alert each and every one of you to the potential consequences of various ordinary everyday activities you might be performing which could eventually lead to The Death Penalty (or affect your parents' credit rating).
Our criminal institutions are full of little creeps like you who do wrong things... and many of them were driven to these crimes by a horrible force called MUSIC! Our studies have shown that this horrible force is so dangerous to society at large that laws are being drawn up at this very moment to stop it forever! Cruel and inhuman punishments are being carefully described in tiny paragraphs so they won't conflict with the Constitution (which, itself, is being modified in order to accommodate THE FUTURE).
I bring you now a special presentation to show what can happen to you if you choose a career in MUSIC . .
This was written in 1979!!!!!
I’m The Slime
[backing vocals Tina Turner & The Ikettes]
I am gross and perverted
I’m obsessed ‘n deranged
I have existed for years
But very little has changed
I’m the tool of the Government
And industry too
For I am destined to rule
And regulate you
I may be vile and pernicious
But you can’t look away
I make you think I’m delicious
With the stuff that I say
I’m the best you can get
Have you guessed me yet?
I’m the slime oozin’ out
From your TV set
You will obey me while I lead you
And eat the garbage that I feed you
Until the day that we don’t need you
Don’t go for help . . . no one will heed you
Your mind is totally controlled
It has been stuffed into my mold
And you will do as you are told
Until the rights to you are sold
That’s right, folks . . .
Don’t touch that dial
Well, I am the slime from your video
Oozin’ along on your livin’ room floor
I am the slime from your video
Can’t stop the slime, people, lookit me go
He used to play in the DC area all the time. I’ve seen him maybe 10 times, once in a garage setting very early in his career.
He has a movie. “300 Motels”, it is insane.
So have you found a favorite Zappa album yet?