Finally got around to renting this documentary tonight. Well worth the watch he was a fascinating character.
I’ve been wanting to explore Zappa’s music for awhile now but there’s so much of it I really don’t know where to even start.
Finally got around to renting this documentary tonight. Well worth the watch he was a fascinating character.
I’ve been wanting to explore Zappa’s music for awhile now but there’s so much of it I really don’t know where to even start.
Awesome, I’ve been waiting for this to be released. I never discovered Zappa until about 1984 but it’s been a wild ride since then!
Don’t be a naughty Eskimo. Save your money, don’t go to the show.
(Couldn’t resist.)
Looking forward to seeing this. Where do you start? Why not the beginning? Mothers of Invention – Freak Out.
Freak Out is great, but I’d also add Sheik Yerbouti, Joe’s Garage and Apostrophe-Overnite Sensation for starters and maybe even We’re Only in it for the Money-Lumpy Gravy for some freaky hippie shit. For instrumental stuff, the Shut up and Play Your Guitar album is a good compilation. A good cross section of Frank’s works from the 60’s onward, the Shut Up and Play Your Guitar albums (I think there’s 6 in the series) are great. I have about 40 Zappa albums (CD’s) so far. Saw his son Dweezil perform in Edmonton a couple years ago. Great show. If you love 5+ minute guitar solos, dirty lyrics and hard hitting social commentary, Frank Zappa is your one stop shop!
My brother bought Joe’s Garage when it was released, there was nothing even close to it at the time other than his previous music.
We wore it out.
Worthy study.
Don’t forget, “Wiesels Ripped My Flesh.” I shall be forever indebted to Frank for making me, first, despise hypocrisy, then to see it in myself. Had he not, through his music, caused me to examine and criticize myself, I might have gone on taking pleasure in giving other people pain. Many musicians have made me think. None so much as Frank. He often made my thinker really tired. Was it him that said, “ A conclusion is where you got tired of thinking? so then I would put on one of the Shut up and play your guitar series, put my mind in neutral and drift with it. Thanks Frank.
I gave my aunt,who is a concert pianist, the sheet music to black page. She just looked at me and said this is insane.
I’ve seen his movie 200 Motels. It’s about as weird as Head with the Monkees.
Joes garage would make for a good movie.
“A film by Alex Winter”. Yep, that Alex Winter.
Flakes.
I am the Slime.
The torture never stops.
Frankie saw with very clear eyes..
Cosmik Debris..kind of covers the “Helpers”
I saw Frank and the Mothers in Vancouver in about ‘79 or ‘80. The entire concert was music that he had not yet recorded. He played at about half the volume of other bands and had an amazingly clear sound system. Best rock concert I ever attended.
Start with I’m the Slime from Overnight Sensation.
Frank could see the future.
Waka Jawaka is my go-to house cleaning album.
Zappa is always perfect to get my wife out of the way.
Recommend Eat That Question, Zappa in His Own Words. Great film.
Check out SAN BERDINO You Tube….Loud !
Joes’ Garage is the best album to start with (easy to listen to), then move to his earlier Mothers albums.
Movin to Montana soon
I’m already here with lots of guns and ammo.
Don’t forget ThingFish. Head like a potato, lips like a duck. I saw 200 Motels when I was 17. To fully appreciate Zappa, you have to understand the culture at the time each album was created. The satire is biting and the social commentary incisive. My favorite phrase of all: The crux of the biscuit is the apostrophe.
I was on a team that developed an oilfield control app in the 1990’s. I authored the stock messaging abstraction. There was a message that was never supposed to occur; it was thrown only when the abstraction failed. They gave the code to a junior dev to support. Several days later, he appeared in my office with a quizzical look on his face. “The crux of the biscuit is the apostrophe?” I had a good laugh.
OOF !
Imagine cancel culture getting a peek at Thing-Fish !
Harry, the over-educated Shit-head, who was gay for business reasons !
Frank clearly saw most modern journalism when he said : “Definition of rock journalism: People who can’t write, doing interviews with people who can’t think, in order to prepare articles for people who can’t read.”
Frank’s latter-day symphonic and orchestral work is also marvellous.
I have listened to Zappa for over 50 years.
My favourites are Apostrophe, Live at the Fillmore, and Broadway the Hard Way.
The Mothers were good and iconoclastic, but his later band line ups featured some of the best musicians out there, like Ruth Underwood and Steve Vai.
The collaborations with Captain Beefheart were a treat too.
I’m a little pimp, with my hair gassed back, said the good Captain Beefheart, on the lovely Hot Rats album.
Meet you on the corner, boy, and don’t be late.
I’m a moron ‘n’ this is my wife
She’s frosting a cake
With a paper knife
All what we got here’s
American made
It’s a little bit cheesey
But it’s nicely displayed
Well we don’t get excited when it
Crumbles ‘n’ breaks
We just get on the phone
And call up some Flakes
They rush on over
‘N’ wreck it some more
‘N’ we are so dumb
They’re linin’ up at our door
Well, the toilet went crazy
Yesterday afternoon
The plumber he says
“Never flush a tampoon!”
This great information
Cost me half a week’s pay
And the toilet blew up
Later on the next day
I would suggest starting with “Just Another Band from LA”
The compilation albums I misidentified. They are the “You Can’t Do That Onstage Anymore” compilation discs (double albums). 6 sets I believe.