Non-Wacky Zappa POX, S&D, etc

It's kind of both. The lyrics are not as misanthropic as the ones FZ would write later, and musical ideas like using a phrase from Le Sacre du Printemps as a doo-wop backing vocal passage ("Fountain of Love" outro) is pretty next-level and definitely put the album in his upper rank.

the thing i like about little dots is that the long pieces have the bluesy twiddly soloing cut off into separate tracks. so if you just listen to "part 1" of the long tracks there's some really good stuff there.

I've been binging on many of these recommendations, tough taking it all in at once but there's some GREAT stuff here. Good thread!

"Weasels Ripped My Flesh" is a good album if you like the free jazz/experimental/live side of Frank Zappa. It still has some songs, but they're not too cloying overall.

I've been 'looking' for Watermelon in Easter Hay for so long I'd basically forgotten I was looking. I can't even really remember where I first heard it, but there we are. Thanks thread. Anything else in that vein? I'm very much in the 'non-arch' camp. As it were.

Did Prince ever acknowledge a debt to Watermelon?

FZ studio (not live) guitar solos.

1. Sleep Dirt
2. RDNZL
3. Watermelon in Easter Hay

― WmC, Wednesday, February 11, 2009 11:48 AM (seven years ago)

OK, I'm in deep.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSgqfsiNmsk

Not sure how I objectively feel about this as "music" (new board description?) but I was reading about how Steve Vai transcribed the original Zappa solo note-for-note, and then played along with the one Zappa had already played (which you can still hear in the right channel). Not to be outdone, the percussionist (?) then transcribed the solo and played along in unison, turning what was really just an improvised solo into a very strange piece of 'composed' music.

Again, not sure yet if I like how it sounds, but this sort of creative approach to composition (see also "xenochrony," vertical chord stacking, etc) is very intriguing to me. Starting to understand what people love about this guy.

well if you like "cruising with ruben and the jets" your zappa tolerance is higher than most people's. hell, you'd probably like the opening and closing numbers on _burnt weeny sandwich_ too!

― xiphoid beetlebum (rushomancy), Sunday, November 27, 2016 8:26 PM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

verdict after listening: I do!

But I'm a sucker for mutant, slightly askew doo-wop dating back to discovering those early Sun Ra sides

I guess I'm realizing I like some wacky Zappa after all. I think, despite the thread title, I'm more put off by the "potty mouth" stuff than the truly experimental wackiness. I just don't share FZ's sense of humor, I guess (I'm a certified prude)

I'm with ya...I like the jokey tunes on his early records fine. It's stuff like "SHE WAS A TREE!!! A TREE!! AIYYIYIYIYIYIYIYII!!!! WA WA WA!!!" - or "SHE WHIZZES ON IT!! OH NO! OH LORD!!" that grates on me

I guess I'm realizing I like some wacky Zappa after all. I think, despite the thread title, I'm more put off by the "potty mouth" stuff than the truly experimental wackiness. I just don't share FZ's sense of humor, I guess (I'm a certified prude)

― Wimmels

not liking zappa's "humor" doesn't make you a prude. most of his "jokes" are both bad and creepy. that's the whole thing, he spends all this time going "IT'S FUNNY, WHAT'S WRONG WITH BEING FUNNY?!?", except that it _isn't_. like most of these sorts, he couldn't take a joke- see his reaction to "frankie's in town", a pretty accurate piss-take of circa-1980 zappa.

Oh man. I'm no expert but most of this sounds dead-on to me. Thanks for this!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJPK35hChAk

Dude certainly nails the guitar sound at around 2:28 (which is a guitar sound I really love btw)

Lets´s see. In addition to what´s been mentioned above I´d like to add:

*Second half of "Ahead of Their Time" is (mostly) an instrumental Mothers-set from 1968.
*Disc 3 of "Lumpy Money" starts off with a 25-minute orchestral piece that´s interesting (Disc 1 has "Lumpy Gravy" without the dialogues. I prefer this version to the later version(s). Universal now distributes it and it´s cheap (for a 3 cd-set).
*QUADiophiliac (a now out-of-print DVD-A)/Wazoo/One Shot Deal all have instrumental stuff on it that´s good (all from the 1970s)
*Road Tapes 3 has some very good FZ guitar work. It´s a concert from 1970 with Flo & Eddie but they sound nothing like they do on later albums. Lots of "Hot Rats" echos here in the solos.
* There´s a cd from the Ensemble Modern that focuses on Zappa´s instrumental music.
* The Lost Episodes has some nice instrumental stuff on it (esp. the 10+ minute version of "Sharleena" with Don Harris, a Hot Rats sessions-outtake).
* A track called "Bognor Regis" (YouTube)
* The Artisan Acetate - (some) unreleased recordingings from the 60s.
* "Joe´s Camouflage" is the title of that garage-recording of a Zappa-band that never toured. Has some unreleased songs on it.

According to Joe Travers in the latest Zappa-podcast, there are unreleased studio recordings of Zappa´s Hot Rats-band in the vault...I'd love to hear that.

Would recommend Imaginary Diseases over Little Dots. The latter does have some annoying vocal passages, and musically there's far too much bluesy twiddly soloing - albeit with horn section.

― everything, Monday, November 28, 2016 2:38 PM (four days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah, I hear this, but I really love the "Columbia, S.C." on here, and overall I like this recording. Still digesting Imaginary Diseases (I've been listening to nothing but Zappa since I started this thread), but my favorite new discovery is the Helsinki show rushomancy recommended upthread. Aside from a few silly bits (which I'm finding are more or less unavoidable in the Zappa corpus, with a few exceptions), this is what I want more of.

I've also discovered that I vastly prefer this period of the band over all the others I've heard. So fluid, funky, and fun.

Was a little disappointed in the "Village Of The Sun" from You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore, Vol 2, where it sounds like they are literally playing it at double speed. What was up with that??

apparently they played all their songs faster at that point because they had done them so many times that they just started cranking them out. I like some of the higher tempo takes on there, but it may just be because I heard that recording before Roxy