zorg wrote: Sun Mar 12, 2023 11:34 pm

numberthirty wrote: Sun Mar 12, 2023 8:18 pm

zorg wrote: Sun Mar 12, 2023 3:10 pm Post-script…after a lifetime of fighting censorship and the industry, his family sold all of his music, and even his name and likeness(!) to Universal.

It is worth noting that what is there in red in not exactly a true statement.

Pray tell, I’m genuinely interested if there is a story here.

Whether it's his direct family or not, it's a shit ton of music for anyone to manage independently. Can't blame anyone for wanting to pass that off onto a major.

It's worth noting, re: his fights for independence and anti-censorship (good qualities in general) come with a heaping dose of libertarianism.

Freak Out, We're Only In It For The Money, Burnt Weenie Sandwich, Absolutely Free are wild records. Veering from music concrete to sound collage to some truly unique psychedelia. Lots of melody, lots of thoughtfulness and hopefulness and humanity in with the satire on those early records. Searing lead guitar. Hot Rats is one of the few guitar records that's more than just a technically excellent guitar player showing off. Cruising with Reuben and the Jets is a legit great doo wop record. I don't listen to FZ as often as I used to, but those early albums really hit the spot. They have an earnestness that his subsequent records lack. It seems like he got really tired really early on and instead of stepping back and taking care of himself, he just pushed further and harder into the music. And you can hear him pushing. It sort of becomes empty. Lots of "jokes", but it's humorless. Technical for the sake of manic technicality. Like it's a punishment.

I was excited to see the Zappa doc from a few years ago. One of the only music docs I've seen in ages. I found it thoroughly depressing. Zappa is portrayed as a joyless perfectionist who moves myopically from project to project, alienating both his family and fellow musicians along with way with no sense of happiness or accomplishment. A man who is unable to relate to people on any terms other than bandleader to (hired) musician. Incapable of making meaningful relationships. That he's compelled to create and is constantly disappointed over and over. Which, I get it, that's a very real part of the creative cycle, but it was a very harsh, unflattering portrait. And, despite his wife's pleas, he refused to abstain from sex with groupies while on the road. He told her that was just part of touring life. Everybody just gets a big shot of penicillin when he comes back home.

I still love those first few Mothers albums, etc. His take was unique; an underground composer working within the rock context to scathingly critique the mainstream coopting of "underground culture". And doing so in the guise of something that sounds like pop music but utilizes weird chords and tunings and time signatures. I also respect his inventiveness as a producer and arranger. And a seriously amazing guitar player. Not crap, but some crap.

Tom Wanderer wrote: Mon Mar 13, 2023 1:39 pm I was excited to see the Zappa doc from a few years ago. One of the only music docs I've seen in ages. I found it thoroughly depressing. Zappa is portrayed as a joyless perfectionist who moves myopically from project to project, alienating both his family and fellow musicians along with way with no sense of happiness or accomplishment. A man who is unable to relate to people on any terms other than bandleader to (hired) musician. Incapable of making meaningful relationships. That he's compelled to create and is constantly disappointed over and over. Which, I get it, that's a very real part of the creative cycle, but it was a very harsh, unflattering portrait. And, despite his wife's pleas, he refused to abstain from sex with groupies while on the road. He told her that was just part of touring life. Everybody just gets a big shot of penicillin when he comes back home.

The Hulu one? I nearly brought that up and that the exact same takeaway. Even had the same thoughts about him stepping away for a while instead of working on the umpteenth nonsensical symphony that most people won't even bother with (if it even got made).

I think prolific, maniac, tunnel vision etc. artists have a tendency to be romanticized, but this doc might help change your mind. Living a well-rounded life, letting new experiences and influences in, probably makes one a better artist and more importantly, person.

penningtron wrote: Mon Mar 13, 2023 2:23 pm The Hulu one?

The Alex Winter one. Not sure what it's on, I think I rented it.

Tom Wanderer wrote: Mon Mar 13, 2023 3:33 pm

penningtron wrote: Mon Mar 13, 2023 2:23 pm The Hulu one?

The Alex Winter one. Not sure what it's on, I think I rented it.

ah yes, it looks to be on several platforms. Figured it was the same one because I recognized the penicillin quote.

He had that way of talking in his later years, like a precociously smart person who had figured everything out to his own satisfaction too long ago and thereafter sat on his established opinions like a stack of stone tablets from Moses.

Yeah I like those early records too, I like his guitar playing and some of the things they pulled off on stage were flat-out amazing, but diminishing interest through the 70s and by the time Steve Vai was in his band, I'm out. I do think he wrote some great melodies and had a distinctive musical voice when he wasn't dicking around. I do also think he made a ton of bullshit, and lyrically I guess he put a lot of his own personality in the lyrics, which is not so great when you're a boring old crank. Joe's Garage sucks.

On Jimi Hendrix, he said that Hendrix, having no ability to read music, should have collaborated with someone who could transcribe his music to instruments other than the guitar. A typically narrow Frank Zappa way of viewing the creative possibilities available, but I feel that he himself, having no ability to not be a cunt, would have benefited from being more open to collaboration with other people who weren't cunts. It would have made his music more expansive, and I daresay more creatively rewarding for him, to step out of his own arse more often.

Also, parodied on the Muppet Show...

The quote I was looking for isn't in the clip, but Floyd promises (threatens) Kermit that everybody will hate his music, saying "if I didn't know I was a genius, even I wouldn't listen to the trash I write"

zorg wrote: Sun Mar 12, 2023 11:34 pm

numberthirty wrote: Sun Mar 12, 2023 8:18 pm

zorg wrote: Sun Mar 12, 2023 3:10 pm Post-script…after a lifetime of fighting censorship and the industry, his family sold all of his music, and even his name and likeness(!) to Universal.

It is worth noting that what is there in red in not exactly a true statement.

Pray tell, I’m genuinely interested if there is a story here.

The "You Don't Really Want To Read Through All Of This..." version -

Obviously, the guy was aware that his number was up for a bit before he passed.

Apparently, he wanted his wife not to take the whole thing over as a business once he was gone.

Once she did take it over and create the trust, there were seemingly some pretty dumb plays made. Suing to attempt to recoup what she believed to be digital issues that the trust was not being paid for and the like. If her oldest son is to be believed, the trust was actually millions of dollars in the red based on this alone.

Their mother passed a while back. From how things seem, she set the trust up so that the two younger children had a thirty percent stake each and the two older children had a twenty percent stake each. That would seem to check out based on some of the legal issues as far as the estate allowing the oldest son to use what the trust deemed "Trust..." property.

So, I get the feeling that it was most likely the kids with the larger stake in the trust making the call versus it being a "Family..." thing.

I know that Dweezil Zappa had a dispute with the trust when he went out on his "Zappa plays Zappa" tour... the trust demanding that he pay for (among other things) use of the "Zappa" name. This resulted in the tour's title being changed to the "Dweezil Zappa Plays Whatever The Fuck He Wants" tour.

Dweezil's issue being that the younger kids, as chairs of the trust or whatever they are, get paid a salary from the trust, whereas he, Dweezil, being only a beneficiary of the trust which had technically never made a profit, gets paid nothing, and he didn't want to go so far as to actually have to PAY THEM to screw him.

Crap

Appropriative crap with absolutely no understanding of what he was doing beyond a vulgar formalism.

Fuck Zappa, and all of his spoiled-rich-kid-but-I’m-actually-a-super-weird-outsider shithead fans.

Except his fans here of course. You are all awesome.