Posted on 02/15/2019 7:35:49 PM PST by DoodleBob
The Bizarre World of Frank Zappa tour, which will pair a hologram of the late iconic musician with a band featuring some of his former collaborators, has announced the initial North American dates of the outing, which will kick off on April 19 at The Capitol Theatre in Port Chester, NY.
The tour, whose East Coast stint will also feature stops in Boston, Albany, Baltimore and more, will offer a performance based on the audio from a batch of performances Zappa played at a Los Angeles rehearsal space in 1974. Included in the touring band will be guitarists Ray White and Mike Keneally, bassist Scott Thunes, multi-instrumentalist Robert Martin, percussionist Ed Mann and drummer Joe “Vaultmeister” Travers, the Zappa vault archivist.
(Excerpt) Read more at jambands.com ...
Watch out where the huskies go, and don't you eat that yellow snow!
I think Frank was just about to start becoming involved in politics when prostrate cancer took him.
I recall his testimony with the Tipper Gore, Obscenity Label hearings.
If Frank did leave his tiny bubble of musicians and yes-men, and if he had to work with others, eventually he would have seen the value in both sides. This is what happened to Sonny Bono. As it was, Frank never really had to tolerate conservatives, or even acknowledge them except as a foil to his Hedonistic persona. Back then, it was fashionable to show a disdain towards anything conservative. Sort of like today.
I saw him perform live several times. Always a great show.
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I agree, that Frank may have wised up had he lived to see that Republicans (well, at least the good ones) weren't all evil televangelists. In fact I believe he'd view today's Dems as poorly as he viewed Republicans in 1983.
I remember the Crossfire shows he was on.
It was actually the “liberal” Tom Braden, that argued with Zappa, and the “Conservative” Robert Novak seemed to get along much better with Frank.
I’ll always appreciate what Frank meant to people behind the Iron Curtain, especially in the former Czechoslovakia, where Vaclav Havel was a big fan, and the most popular “underground” band was called, “The Plastic People of the Universe”, which took their name from the Mothers’ “Plastic People”.
There is a statue of Frank in Vilnius Lithuania.
He always claimed that he didn’t do acid. Many found that hard to believe because of his bizarre lyrics and compelling music. It’s possible. I have met some people who you’d swear were high as a kite, or wound up on speed, but no, that was simply their nature. Some people approach life with a great intensity.
Many of us have that bristling intensity trained out of us while trying to pass tests in school or while trying to keep a job. I’m guilty of that. Over-civilized. Some folks never lose that ‘Zippety-Do-Dah!’ excitement about certain areas of their lives. I try to stay open minded and able to learn from those people, not always keep life simpler by avoiding or ignoring them.
Zappa was a national treasure but seemed to be more popular overseas and, as you note, where people yearned to be free. He truly detested hippies (the lyrics to Who Needs the Peace Corps? are priceless), drugs, mocked statism with Joe’s Garage...if Gail had promoted his legacy better, Frank could be a bigger monster in the US.
Frank was brilliant but a bit out of touch. I have spoken to Mike Keneally (who backed FZ in 1988) and he said Frank liked the idea of covering Stairway to Heaven (which he did that tour) but FZ wanted to improvise the solo...he had no idea that Page’s guitar solo was legendary. In the end Mike convinced him it’d be better if the horn section did a note-for-note cover of the solo, and Frank went with it. That was Frank...a lover of Varese and Stravinsky but no clue that people would scream bloody murder if the guitar solo to Stairway was replaced with some improv.
Will Yoko be there to sing along with hologram Frank and hologram John?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3gbg9ovYk8
I was fascinated by those guys. I had heard the name but didn’t know what they were until someone gave me the album Weasels Tore My Flesh. Then I was hooked. I couldn’t get enough. I was never in the right part of the country to see Frank Zappa live.
Zappa’s cover of “Tied to the Whipping Post” is one of my favorites.
Weasels Ripped My Flesh
Great album with songs like “My Guitar Wants To Kill Your Mama”.
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