What are you Listening to Right Now? Febus XIV

rushfan4 wrote: I must admit I am not really much of a fan of Zappa.  I own a handful of his albums but can't say that before I started through his entire studio discography that I liked much of his work.  His humor clashes with mine so that is kind of a negative for me.  That being said I am enjoying much of his work this first time through; especially the instrumental albums.

btw Zappa was completely opposed to any kind of drugs, really except cigarettes and every now and then a bit of pot  he was infact most outspoken about this too.

Kati wrote: btw Zappa was completely opposed to any kind of drugs, really except cigarettes and every now and then a bit of pot  he was infact most outspoken about this too.

Kati wrote: btw Zappa was completely opposed to any kind of drugs, really except cigarettes and every now and then a bit of pot  he was infact most outspoken about this too.

Yep, and he was also very outspoken about freedom of speech issues and the censoring of music. 

I was a devoted Zappa fan for over 20 years, but a few years ago I just kinda... "fell out of love" with him.  One thing that eventually bugged me was that although he was honest and an acute observer of "social anthropology", he virtually never shared anything about himself in his music.  He was happy to put everyone on the chopping block but himself.  One could argue that his body of instrumental music and guitar solos was sufficient as a key into his soul, but... yeah, perhaps.  Most  of all though, was the way his wife and son handle his "legacy" after his death.  Those two and their followers have adopted a fundamentalist stance when dealing with the Zappa body of work, trying to prevent anyone from enjoying the music on any terms other than what the artist intended.  How?  Try playing in a Zappa cover band and watch the legal team spring into action.

But enough of that... I still love quite a lot of his albums from time to time, and am listening to

FRANK ZAPPA/MOTHERS - "Freak Out" (1966)

as I write this.


Edited by HolyMoly - November 24 2014 at 14:52

HolyMoly wrote: I was a devoted Zappa fan for over 20 years, but a few years ago I just kinda... "fell out of love" with him.  One thing that eventually bugged me was that although he was honest and an acute observer of "social anthropology", he virtually never shared anything about himself in his music.  He was happy to put everyone on the chopping block but himself.  One could argue that his body of instrumental music and guitar solos was sufficient as a key into his soul, but... yeah, perhaps.  Most  of all though, was the way his wife and son handle his "legacy" after his death.  Those two and their followers have adopted a fundamentalist stance when dealing with the Zappa body of work, trying to prevent anyone from enjoying the music on any terms other than what the artist intended.  How?  Try playing in a Zappa cover band and watch the legal team spring into action. But enough of that... I still love quite a lot of his albums from time to time, and am listening to FRANK ZAPPA/MOTHERS - "Freak Out" (1966) as I write this.

I readily agree with you Steve, as Zappa was not the place to go for introspection. His music was always outward looking to a fault.

I'm coming back around too, to be honest.  There's a place for Zappa in every collection.  But for many years I was an obsessive fanboy and listened to his stuff almost daily.  I just burned out on it and started craving the introspection again.  But there's room for both in my life now.

Now:

GODSPEED YOU BLACK EMPEROR - "Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend!" (2012)

True.  I spent too long with my yang alone.


Edited by HolyMoly - November 24 2014 at 15:17