Great Frank Zappa! Zappa immortal, his music, concerts, commentaries. He teaches us to stay commited, faithful to our work, no matter the trends. If Zappa were still alive, he would make a hell of a use of internet for the presentation of his music. Oh, how I miss the people like him today.
If you're interested in Frank Zappa, the man, as much as the composer, you might like my memoir Freak Out! My Life with Frank Zappa 1968-1971 which is my story but reveals Frank's home life not shown in other books, from getting up to going to bed, composing at the piano, rehearsing with the Mothers, visiting rock stars, freaks, family squabbles and more.
Very good interview. I like that Frank thinks at that time he would not have gotten a record contract. Thankfully for all of us he got one a lot earlier!!
His insights into industry couldn't be more true today. I think even scientifically it has been shown that popular music is converging into a more narrow set of sounds. They just keep making the same things again and again because they know it's safe and it sells.
Oh yes, live version of the song, you will probably like it: Watermelon In Easter Hay (Live, 1978) Some people need to listen it several times to get it inside and appriciate. Anyone knowing rock or jazz heard at least parts of it in other songs when artists borrow from him, some "tricks" are also very common since this song came out because they sound so "natural, obvious". I also hear tiny bit of Hendrix and so on. Great song, one of the few where Zappa expressed himself in such romantic, very beautiful way. I just got excited while listening to it... :)
You can tell he admired Frank, and both gave a totally respectful interview. It's great to see an interviewer that does the proper background research and homework.
There are others out there like him, but they're not making the same kind of music he made. Steven Wilson is a very similar character though - rejects the mainstream, does his own thing, is a world class multi-instrumentalist, invites other world class musicians to play with him, is also a great engineer in the studio etc...
Frank Zappa is alive somewhere. Frank Zappa, thank you for everything. Thank you for so much great music and philosophy. May God richly bless your soul.
Somebody out there in that audience knows what are doing, and they are getting off on it beyond his or her wildest comprehension. Still getting off on it Frank. Thanks.
@@moobrien1747 I don’t think that is very true. Kids movies back then had cursing and inappropriate shit all over the place…ever see Monster Squad? Jesus lol. It’s insane. But anyway, most people are afraid things are too Sanitized today, but I think things aren’t all that different. Just some things are a little more permissible and some things are a little less
Frank is 100% correct. Many album purchases in the 60s, 70s and 80s were based upon the Album Cover because in those days we didn't have "listening stations". As such, all we had to go on were the band name, the album title name, and the album cover art.
5:21 - such an important point and not one the angry people today would like very much. He'd make a lot of people very cross indeed with that one. Because he's right.
When I think of "heavy metal" FZ I think of the guitar and bass lick throughout Dumb All Over. It's simple and dumb (all over), a little ugly on the side, and really heavy live.
That haircut is the worst… Frank, here, visually exemplifying the antithesis of everything he railed against in the halcyon years of his infamous, iconoclastic ‘rock ‘n’ roll’ youth.
he said "pissed odd quotient", like the amount of people who would get pissed off about something, so the joke was that they acted like the curse word was Quotient instead of Pissed Off
The "pissed-off quotient," with the comedy here being that the host John Barbour suggests "quotient" is the dirty part of the phrase--"pissed off" was censored from utterance on television in those days.
@@jayburdification indeed, a testament to Frank's wit, and also to local television at the time and J. Barbour being willing to host Frank in an informal, interesting interview setting.
Bit disingenuous of him to mock the part that image plays in getting a record contract (‘I don’t wear enough zippers’). There was no one more conscious of his early image than Zappa. No one who more carefully constructed a freak/hippy look in order to attract his music to certain sections of society and by association get a contract.
FZ was not disingenuous. He may have cultivated an image but that was only because whatever he had it was arrived at naturally so the emphasis you speak of was not 'forced' but just the desire of a Mother to make his art to reflect what he was creating at the time with social commentary.
@@daevideodaevideo6918 I don’t believe he arrived at that image naturally…it was coldly calculated to attract attention to himself and his music. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that. But he created an image in order to sell his music. Therefore it’s either disingenuous or hypocritical of him to mock the role of image in selling music. If he’d remained as straight looking as he did in that film of him playing a bicycle from around 1963, you can bet no one would have heard of him now.
@@op-xv3ui This just strikes me as black and white thinking. I think Zappa natrually had "Freak-like" or even a handful of hippie-like inclinations, and decided to lean heavily into those for his image. It's not the same as someone who has zero interest in leather and zippers, wearing leather and zippers. It's an exaggeration rather than a full-on forgery.
That political era of Zappa was a joke. He seemed to be clinging on the relevancy. The best Zappa band was the original Mothers of Invention, and later the Flo & Eddie version. After that it was garbage.
Shit talk, but i agree, Frank Zappa is controversial until for himself sometimes. Some of political ideas are absolutelly useless. Him sense of be conservative is quite bizarre. Shure is: Frank Zappa would be votaded in Biden, or... Make scarrycrow falacies about Trumph
