@frippster nah, he was full of it. Had some of the dumbest takes I've ever heard. Every once in a while, he said some stuff that made sense, the occasional small government argument, but his opinions of nearly everything else were all influenced by his consumption of mercury as a child.
@justinb864 depends on what part. A lot of small government guys are just anarchists. The government does pay an important role; however, currently, for the American government, at least, the government is far too large. Too many powers have been granted to it, but at least not to the extent as the slave state dictatorship of Canada.
@@lasagnasux4934 Geniune anarchist are anti-state and anti-capitalist. Libertarians larping anarchism doesn’t make them anarchist. You can’t just replace the tyranny of state with the tyranny of capital. Anarchism rejects all forms of exploitation and unjust hierarchies. But you do you.
Yes, like this fat guy who eats fast food breakfast everyday sqwaked at me last month because he assumed I use drugs. I told him junk food is the most destructive drug of all and now he won't talk to me. Truth hurts.
@@fjfurhgkaig I wonder if Zappa knew or cared about the fact that there probably were (and are) people who perform better on something. Still, it makes sense he would have a policy like that as a general practice. I respect it.
It is indeed the most inconceivable thing anyone could ever say about F.Z. Only a completely clueless person, with no musical ear whatsoever could ever utter such an ignorant remark.
True. Zappa went on to compose and arrange entire symphonies. In his head. He would complete the entire piece mentally before putting one note on paper. He was a brilliant musician. I wish I remembered the name of the documentary about him where I learned this, it was very well done and informative. If I find it I'll post the name here.
@@T-jj2dt the fact that it’s artfully crafted doesn’t automatically relegate it to “boring and soulless” , and once we’re shifting to the most subjective possible descriptors you’ve already conceded the point . “I don’t like it “, as any given person’s assessment , is accurate . To say that he was untalented, OTOH, is just factually untrue , unless you personally need to like his work for him to have been talented . That’s fine, but at that point you’re just creating your own definition of a word outside of its actual meaning
Talk about two different ends of the spectrum. One a unadulterated genius, the other a 3 chord virtuoso who's greatest work was "Rock n Roll Animal" who weren't Underground members. Let's be clear, the VU were a garage band at the right place in the right time. FZ and anyone he ever played with him were the absolute pinnacle, the zenith of musicianship, innovation, satire and mockery. Apples and oranges.
Frank Zappa and the Velvet Underground recorded "We're Only In It For The Money" and "White Light / White Heat" at the same time in different rooms. That's how Zappa got to suggest the cantaloupe sound in the Gift. "You'll get a better sound if you do it this way.", he said. According to Reed Zappa also said: "You know, I’m really surprised by how much I like your album."
Lou Reed tried a little too hard to be cool. Zappa was legit cooler than the room and his music was original and interesting, I love the muffin man live, what a great jam.
Lou Reed once said summarized his understanding of music by saying something like "One chord, that's folk music. Two chords, that's rock and roll. Three chords, that's jazz".
@@evansgate Metal Machine Music was Lou fulfilling his obligations to his record company so he could walk away from the contract and sign to a new company.
I find both bands are excellent for very different reasons. Lou reed just says stuff for a reaction and sometimes Zappa will do the same but I like both personalities despite how overly cynical they both are. I think people have a hard time liking lou in particular due to his tendency to be a contrarian and a bit arrogant but I definitely find him entertaining to say the least.
i think Lou said a lot of that stuff also b/c that's just the kind of thing one says when they're on speed. I read an interview with him from the early 70s iirc where the interviewer talked about amphetamines and methamphetamines as if they were the same thing and Lou went on a 5 minute tirade about the exact chemical formulas of all the different -phetamines while flaming the interviewer for being a pretentious dilettante :D
I remember listening to Lou Reed's "Velvet Underground" album in the early 70's as a black teen with my friends! "SWEET JANE" 💯 PS. I had Zappa's "Freak Out" album as well! 😳
I dont get this Zappa Is pretentious take. Just listen to their lyrics, and look at their their albums, It Is pretty clear they dont took themselves seriously.
Yeah but he couldn’t write a decent lyric to save his life. I get the absurd 20 minute long acid instrumentals but who can relate to that, it’s just uninteresting and pretentious. He was not capable of writing songs with the emotional and literary impact that Lou Reed did and his music doesn’t sound better either for all it’s pretence.
@@j.c7719 You haven’t heard much of Zappa then. “I ain’t gonna sing you no love song ‘bout how my heart is all soft/will not beg your indulgence/ CUZ YOU’VE HEARD IT BEFORE” Listen to Trouble Every Day, I’m The Slime, Flakes, Cosmik Debris. He didn’t have poetic pretensions and wasn’t self-indulgently introspective. He makes you think and LAUGH.
@@carspiv I have heard a lot of his stuff and to be honest, it wasn’t for me. I did enjoy ‘Trout Mask Replica’ that he produced but that’s about it. I don’t just like to think and laugh when listening to music, I like to think and feel, Lou brought that to the table in a way Zappa never did, melodically, vocally and lyrically, even instrumentally. Try ‘I Found a Reason’, ‘I’m Set Free’, ‘Street Hassle’, I like music with emotional honesty that relates to life and poetry in lyric writing, beautiful and understated instrumentation, Lou was a master of that.
I think most of the trash talk between bands was done to enliven an oftentimes boring music gossip press. Kind of like a wrestler putting down his rival?
The Mothers opened for the VU in LA in 1966 during the Velvets tenure with Warhol's Exploding Plastic Inevitable at a club called The Trip. The audience included Sonny and Cher, Ryan O'Neal, Dennis Hopper and Jim Morrison.
Huh? WTF Zappa was not a depressed person or in unhappy person, listen to his music and concerts, interviews, look at his art. Sorry but it is a very strange thing to say, makes me really doubt if even know where you are talking about. Don't know about Lou Reed.
I guess a rivalry is good for clicks but on Freak Out Zappa introduces the VU “as shitty a Group as the Mothers” which is come on obviously a compliment.
Lou Reed is very overrated. I don't understand all of the love he gets. I find his work to be largely bland and one dimensional. That's merely my opinion.
@@Derek-yp1re lou is a talentless scenester. All 5 ft 5 of him. Personally, I wished they punched on. Lou would be on the ground in 10 seconds screaming he's a jew and he knows lawyers ...
@@movieman4710yeah, Zappa said that he never been that impressed by the Beatles, he didn't went as far as Reed who said they were crap though. Because i believe Zappa could see the some validity in the Beatles music.
Even as someone who likes his music that made me cackle- some of it Does suck pretty hard. Really with how prolific he was (60+ albums) it's a matter of finding what appeals to you, he did a bit of everything.
I imagine Lou Reed had been pissed at Zappa because supposedly he believed that the Velvets' debut album was held back so that Zappa could release the "first alternative record" before them even though they finished recording and production before Zappa. If that was true, then presumably Lou Reed internalized label favoristism and took it out on Zappa
You need to watch Dweezil's take on this. Lou and Frank never made up, Lou praised the guy who severely injured Frank in the early 70s and the R&R Hall of Fame induction speech was bullshit.
Where did you see that? I'm really interested in reading what Dweezil has to say about this. I think both Reed and Zappa are great, though Frank is the better of the two
In the Mpls-St.Paul airport as a child in the ‘60’s I saw a bunch of extremely longhaired and somewhat flamboyant people nearby. Even though I was sort of a necklace wearing, longhaired hippy child, I asked my father if they were “men or women.” The next day the Mpls Star-Tribune ran a short note that The Mothers of Invention had been in town for a show. Decades later, having never heard of them, a group was leaving their seats in a St. Paul sushi restaurant (Sakura) as my party was sitting down nearby. When the waitstaff asked us if we knew who they were - we didn’t - she informed us that they were Rage Against the Machine. Everyone is just a person or a portion of a party if you don’t know “who” they are. The same goes for perceptions of talent. Tiny world of mortals.
As for the Velvets, it was their groundbreaking sound that would become so influential, opening up new doors, laying the foundations for new genres such as punk, post-punk, goth, alternative etc. But the main musical force behind their then revolutionary sound was not Lou Reed, it was Welshman John Cale. He started playing piano aged six, joined the Welsh Youth Orchestra aged 14, picking up the viola and several other Instruments, giving him a classical music background. He studied musicolgy at Goldsmith's Collage/London in the early 60's, he was awarded a Leonard Bernstein scholarship to work and study with avantgarde luminaries John Cage, Iannis Xenskis and LaMonte Young. It was John Cale who brought experimental elements and structures via the Velvets into rock music. As for musical talent, John Cale dosen't have to hide behind Frank Zappa. Cale's musical influence goes far beyond the Velvets, he produced the debuts of Iggy's Stooges, Patti Smith and The Modern Lovers, all to become milestone albums within rock'n'roll. His collaboration with Nico on her lp triology The Marble Index, Desertshore and The End were the musical blueprint for what was later to become post-punk and goth. Not only did he produce these albums, but as the arranger he composed and played all other instruments apart from Nico's harmonium. Cale is easily one of the most versatile musicians to ever walk this planet, he has covered almost every musical genre, be it rock, pop, classical, avantgarde, electronica, jazz, country or whatever. He is also known to permanently rearrange his songs and music on stage, it would simply bore him to death having to play the songs in the same manner over and over again while on tour. John Cale is easily the most underrated character within rock'n'roll, by any means a musical genius!
I cannot fathom two stronger contrarian personalities than Zappa and Reed. I can imagine them disagreeing on the color of the sky. The bottom line is that the Velvets were an art rock band and the Mothers were a progressive rock band. They both had their charms and their pretentions.
yeah the league of barely selling a 100k records per album. the league of being an obscure experimental prog rock band. the league of critiquing bands more successful than he ever was.
@@bigbrotherishere How simple-minded can you be? Is the market your God? Are Madonna and Rihanna two of the best musicians of all time because they are two of the best selling artists of all time? Frank Zappa could never have been as commercially successful as Lou Reed simply because his music is too sophisticated for the masses. Lou Reed seems like a helpless little monkey with impaired brains when compared to Frank Zappa.
@@bigbrotherishere Is the market your God? This is the problem with contemporary, especially American, culture: it is dominated by commercially astute philistines.
speaking as a person who spent the whole of 2021 obsessing over Zappa/Mothers records, there is something genuinely kind of cathartic about Lou Reed taking Frank down a peg. You do kind of get the impression from Zappa that he felt like he was “too good” for rock n’ roll, and the guy’s sort of smug personality does get kind of grating when youve binged an entire back catalogue of him. i mean i obviously dont think the guy is untalented but i do kinda understand what Lou was getting at, given his general distaste for jam bands (not that Frank would wanna be lumped in with that scene either lmao).
Actually, he smoke pot maybe half a dozen time, he was completely anti drugs. He didn't even know the deference between someone who smoked hash and a junkie. to him, anybody who smoked dope was a junkie. And that comes from his wife, and several musicians who played with him
Sometimes, you have to just say what you feel to one another and it then leads to friendship for some reason, likely b/c it broke the ice of getting personal. Weird how that works.
