Zappa.

[SpiderChrist]

Although Peaches En Regalia and Willie The Pimp are magnificent.

[Dirty Boy]

Zappa has certainly produced an awful lot of dross, but i have no problem avoiding the smut and plasticky virtuosity of most of his post-70's work (although i do have a soft spot for You Are What You Is) and really enjoy a lot of his albums with the Mothers, the George Duke and Ruth Underwood era band  and the (mostly) instrumental Jazz stuff. Not to mention his dabblings with classical composition, some of which is extraordinary.

If i were to do a current top 5:

Absolutely Free
Burnt Weeny Sandwich
Roxy and Elsewhere
The Yellow Shark
Make A Jazz Noise Here

[Petey Pate]

I saw Zappa Plays Zappa recently and one of the highlights of their set was a cover of Johnny 'Guitar' Watson's I Want To Ta-Ta You Baby played completely straight.  It was refreshing to hear a sincere R&B song amidst all the silly lyrics and complicated arrangements.

[Shit Good Nose]

Massive Zappa fan, but always very quickly acknowledge that most of the Flo and Eddie Mothers (the absolute nadir of his career) and a good chunk of the (studio album) 80s stuff is a bit gash.  Like Prince, he's one of those few artists that chucked out some genius stuff and also polar opposite shite which is practically unlistenable (the synclavier stuff being a good example).

Your original Mothers stuff is mostly great, early Flo and Eddie (i.e. Chunga's Revenge) is good, and there are plenty of brilliant instrumental interludes in their early shows, although once you hit the likes of Billy the Mountain, the Mud Shark, the Sanzini Brothers etc, it's pretty awful stuff.  But, thank christ for that mentalist who tried to kill him at the Rainbow, cos that's when his golden period (in terms of musicality, sheer technical chops, and the legendary FZ band line ups) - the Wazoo orchestras, the Jean-Luc Ponty/Ralph Humphrey Mothers, then the Roxy group, then Terry Bozzio comes in with Eddie Jobson - all amazing stuff.  A little after which, Vinnie Colaiuta sits behind the drum kit and the popular consensus becomes that that is Zappa's best band and best period.  It's actually where it starts to go off the boil a little for me, as the silliness and gutter humour really starts to come to the fore again (it was only ever in the background in the Roxy era group), and his solos started to become less melodic and more atonal and shreddy.  But, even so, from then right until the end, as a live unit there's still plenty of decent stuff in there.  The albums certainly got progressively shitter, but the live material is still listenable.

As for Dweezil - I've got a lot of time for him both as a person and a musician.  I still regularly listen to this bit of brilliance featuring a 16 year old DZ on main lead - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uozmyRPVRHk

I've seen him in Zappa Plays Zappa mode a few times over the years (although I've not seen him/them since Joe Travers left), and it's always been a great show.  It's a shame all this bollocks with his family and the Zappa Family Trust is going on (and the whole thing really has turned into a bunch of rich kids having a public "your mum smells[cos Gail's dead - B'BOOM!]" hissy match now and, whilst I side with DZ, he's not really conducting himself any better than his brother and sister.  Having said that, Frank Zappa as a business has never been run particularly well in its entire history, regardless of who was handling it, so this is just another one in a long line of fuck ups.

So yeah - I love Frank, me.

[Dr Syntax Head]

I'm a massive Dweezil fan. This goes back to my early days playing guitar so his second album was right up my street when I was trying to be like yer Van Halens and yer Bettencourts etc. Seems like a really cool guy as well.

[itsfredtitmus]

I think I prefer Flo and Eddie to Zappa. Genius underrated pop. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PkW8I4Bv6M

[itsfredtitmus]

Bit like Stevie Moore. Bet he loved this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tg7_Id0hvic

[Dr Syntax Head]

Bit like Stevie Moore. Bet he loved this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tg7_Id0hvic

Aye that's nice

[itsfredtitmus]

Aye that's nice

Posted the wrong link there whoops

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F36Vpx4deP8

[the science eel]

Although Peaches En Regalia and Willie The Pimp are magnificent.

They really are.

[BlodwynPig]

The only really shiiiiit albums are Filmore East and Just Another Band from LA, puerile rubbish. Flo and Eddy were pathetic. Odd that they are sandwiched between Chunga's Revenge and the amazing Waka/Jawaka, Grand Wazoo double whammy.

[BlodwynPig]

I think I prefer Flo and Eddie to Zappa. Genius underrated pop. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PkW8I4Bv6M

Damn you fool!!!

"I want to play a game..."

[Absorb the anus burn]

Burnt Weeny Sandwich is oddly accessible without compromising on the weirdness.

[the science eel]

Burnt Weeny Sandwich is oddly accessible without compromising on the weirdness.

That one, and Weasels are the only post-Mothers albums I can be fucked with.

Zappa's one of those artists which people you kind of feel a musical kinship with tend to talk up, recommending all sorts of albums. So you repeatedly give the man's work the benefit of the doubt (much the same thing happens with prog artists, at least for me). And you're increasingly exasperated 'cos you think there must be something there beyond all the scatalogical/muso shit.

Anyone seen Eat That Question?  It's interesting in places but yer man comes off as an awful bore, with his po-faced half-baked ideas about culture and art and society and so forth. Adolescent, really. He was no intellectual giant.

[itsfredtitmus]

If you've ever seen any Zappa interview you know how much of a boring unfun cunt he was

[Shit Good Nose]

And an atypical rock star on the road, of course - no drugs, no booze, typically stuck in his motel room writing songs whilst the rest of his band were partying (although he almost certainly dipped into the groupie pool on a fairly regular basis) etc etc.

I think politically he was quite a smart cookie, and I still enjoy his appearance during the PMRC hearing (although, as another CaBber directed me towards a year or two ago, Dee Snider actually put in the best effort with that, despite turning up looking like a right belter), although there's no doubt he was out of touch socially with pretty much every part of society - far too straight to be a hippy, far too left-field for the general masses, and all the while living in his own cultural universe that very few other people at the time occupied.

But on stage, when he let his hair down (sometimes literally) and it wasn't all about titties and beer, or whatever some contemporary politician was up to, he was quite fun.  I still love his intro to Cheepnis on Roxy & Elsewhere.

[NoSleep]

Burnt Weeny Sandwich is oddly accessible without compromising on the weirdness.

I'd twin Burnt Weeny Sandwich with Uncle Meat; same era, same aesthetic + the magnificent King Kong.

My top Zappa albums are Freak Out!, Absolutely Free, We're Only In It For The Money, Uncle Meat & Burnt Weenie Sandwich + Mothermania: The Best Of The Mothers (1969) for being a good compilation from the first three albums and having a couple of better/unedited mixes than on the originals (but done shortly after their original release rather than decades later). I'm quite fond of the 200 Motels album, too.

Of the later stuff I quite like Roxy & Elsewhere and One Size Fits All.

[itsfredtitmus]

Like this one a lot https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uu27WzzPCEI

[the ouch cube]

I'm quite a fan of wilfully annoying music, so I do have a penchant for sticking on 'Sheik Yerbouti', 'Joe's Garage', 'You Are What You Is' and 'Them Or Us' from time to time. The man did not give a fuck, and effortlessly shows you what genuine misanthropy is like, which is I suspect one of the reasons why music critics (craven creatures who rarely have the courage of their own barely disguised misanthropy and inadequacy) dislike him.

[grassbath]

Based off the Eat That Question doc, and some other interviews, I think Zappa was a self-satisfied, misanthropic arsehole, but highly intelligent, and an iconoclast. He was the first rock musician to really critique the delusional elements of the hippie movement and philosophy. Despite looking like (and initially sounding like) your classic 'far-out' rock star, he seemed to foresee how easily the principles of the 1960s would burn out and how easily and willingly they would fall to big business, and continued to make music that was entirely his own. I also have a lot of respect for his campaigning against censorship and Reaganite moral crusaders. But there's no question he was a smug cunt of the Parker/Stone libertarian stripe, tremendously pleased with himself because his unique outlook didn't cleave to either wing of the political spectrum.

As for the music, got to echo everybody else really. Tremendously talented composer and guitarist, but I can only take so many midget doo-wop choirs and smegma jokes.

[Shit Good Nose]

I think this clip from the Roxy movie (still incomplete - booooo ZFT, boooo I say) perfectly sums up FZ's talents as a composer and bandleader, with the last 3 minutes or so being taken up by a percussion only Cheepnis, showcasing the combined mastery of Ruth Underwood (surely one of the greatest Mothers of all time), Ralph Humphrey and Chester Thompson perfectly pulling off the crazy stuff the man wrote but could not himself perform (lest we forget he was no slouch behind a kit himself).  It's absolutely insane - http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3coy4p

[Absorb the anus burn]

showcasing the combined mastery of Ruth Underwood (surely one of the greatest Mothers of all time)http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3coy4p

Yep, Ruth Underwood is really special.... Her vibes playing on 'Inca Roads' is thrilling.

[Dr Syntax Head]

That video is just far out. Thank you Nose you beauty. Fucking loving that.

[Bhazor]

Tricky bastard, yer Zapp. 200 albums and a lot of them are shite...

Ha ha, that's a funny exageration.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Zappa_discography

Ohhhhh.

[NoSleep]

If you've ever seen any Zappa interview you know how much of a boring unfun cunt he was

I've read several and know you're wrong.

Not sure where the misanthropy accusations are coming from either; his chief target was always stupidity. The glimpses you get of his life behind the scenes he seems like a decent enough guy (considering).

[manticore]

I've read several and know you're wrong.

Not sure where the misanthropy accusations are coming from either; his chief target was always stupidity. The glimpses you get of his life behind the scenes he seems like a decent enough guy (considering).

From what I've seen and read he had a very strong bullshit detector and saw through social institutions including the music industry in a way that maybe makes people uncomfortable. Musically I would prefer it if he had stuck with the bicycle, but the way he supported Beefheart, with all that entailed I find admirable.

[itsfredtitmus]

I've read several and know you're wrong.

Not sure where the misanthropy accusations are coming from either; his chief target was always stupidity. The glimpses you get of his life behind the scenes he seems like a decent enough guy (considering).

His politics were shite too

[Rocket Surgery]

A nine-minute guitar solo in an unusual time signature is unlikely to convert any non-believers, but

Watermelon In Easter Hay

[NoSleep]

His politics were shite too

What do you think of the politics of the Dead Kennedys? Zappa supported them when they were facing obscenity charges/censorship.

When Tipper Gore and her Religious Right pals sat across from their husbands and lied at the '85 Senate anti-music hearings, I couldn't believe it. No one fought back. When Frank finally took them on with his wit and fire and intelligence, it truly showed how out-of-it and spineless the rest of the commercial music industry is to this day. Everything Frank predicted about half-hearted '60s idealists in "We're Only In It for the Money" had come true.

People thought I was crazy when I said Tipper and the Washington Stepford Wives were a Trojan Horse for the religious right and were out to bust people. Within weeks, it happened to me. Frank called my house (not the other way around) offering friendship and some very valuable advice, 'Remember: You are the victim. When you fight back, do it with dignity.'

About the only silver lining from Dead Kennedys' Frankenchrist album obscenity trial was getting to meet Frank and come to his--well, let's call it a lab. Straight from the "True Cheepnis" monster movies he loved, there were loose wires and bits of equipment in the den, creeping out from under the couch. The Xerox machine was in the shower. A piece of metal collage from the Burnt Weeny Sandwich cover hung from a wall.

My generation has not produced anyone the caliber of Frank Zappa. I see no one on the horizon even interested in mastering rock, jazz, classical, studio production, and above all intelligence and humor the way Frank did. Unlike most entertainment icons, he wasn't afraid to keep growing.

https://www.facebook.com/jbiafra/posts/10154474809202338:0

[clarkgwent]

This is rather funny. "I quite like Frank Zappa" is probably the most heretical thing one can say to a Zappapologist. Their whole bit is "people either think he's a genius or don't get it":- whereas everyone I know likes "just the funny songs" or "just the early Mothers" and so forth. And there are many such on here!

I even know a guy who liked Ruben and the Jets because he thought they were a real band (his elder brother had it when he was 10 or so) and it remains his sole FZ purchase.