Frank Zappa

Crap
Total votes: 18 (55%)
Not Crap
Total votes: 15 (45%)
Total votes: 33

Re: Frank: Zappa

31
Anthony Flack wrote: 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.
Ah thanks, it's perhaps even sadder then. Why would Universal want to buy something that doesn't make money though? Whatever, I shouldn't ask questions I don't want answers to.

We should mention to his credit that he did not fuck up Trout Mask Replica.
Anthony Flack wrote: 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.


While I think everybody can agree that Zappa was naturally talented, I don't see how he even approximates "greatest 20th Century composer" status that his fans pin on him. The composed stuff sounds like dime a dozen throwaway funky music library things or the soundtrack to a 70s cop B-movie,
I picked this at random, never heard of it. Plenty of jazzy grooves, world music polyrythyms, fuzz guitar, cool effects, great musicianship, and not even one dick joke :


The rock stuff stuff is the same dumb riffs that every other band was using. Listen to Willie the Pimp, admittedly a highlight,...every instrument, even the vocal is literally playing the same 3 note riff until they just give up and solo and jam without direction. I don't don't dislike riffs or blues based 70's rock wankery, but, how is this "genius", or pushing anything forward? Oh right, the dick jokes.

Re: Frank: Zappa

34
Zappa never did much for me when I initially came across the music and for a while I was pretty dismissive of just about all of it. As I got older though my position softened some and I found myself more & more curious about various phases. At this point I can get down with just about everything up to about One Size Fits All. It is often sexist, cruel, myopic, blinkered worldview, and there are plenty of times I would just as soon not listen to anything than have to hear Zappa but there are times when it does scratch a very specific itch.

I wouldn't call him a genius, but he certainly had a fanatical devotion to a very specific vision of creating art that he perused came hell or high water that honestly I find admirable and inspiring despite the misery it obviously caused himself, his family, etc.

There are also aspects of the music, the deeply insular nerdiness, in-joke absurdity, arrogance, that is both familiar and strangely comforting to me in a way that I wouldn't expect to translate to anyone else. Everything after Bongo Fury smacks of painful "try hard-ism" that's often exactly as awful as the detractors would have you believe, and while I'm sure there are worthwhile moments spread through out I haven't had much interest in hunting them down.

I thought the Winter doc was pretty ok as far as those things go. Not crap.

Re: Frank: Zappa

40
Anthony Flack wrote: Mon Mar 13, 2023 9:54 pm 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.
On that...

According to him, the "Back In The Day..." deal with Rykodisc was for twenty million dollars. So, it's all of that pitched into the fireplace and another six million on top of that.

As for ZPZ... The deal was apparently pay a licensing fee to start with/Trust gets one hundred percent of all "Merch...." sales/Dweezil took the money from the shows once you set aside "Merch..." sales.

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest