BBC Television Tribute - Revision history

Jason.Kreitzer at 14:25, 29 November 2021

2021-11-29T14:25:59Z

Jason.Kreitzer at 15:42, 21 October 2021

2021-10-21T15:42:42Z

Jason.Kreitzer at 17:50, 19 October 2021

2021-10-19T17:50:09Z

Jason.Kreitzer at 18:17, 12 October 2021

2021-10-12T18:17:52Z

Jason.Kreitzer at 13:38, 6 October 2021

2021-10-06T13:38:54Z

Jason.Kreitzer at 14:49, 10 September 2021

2021-09-10T14:49:46Z

Jason.Kreitzer at 17:10, 8 September 2021

2021-09-08T17:10:24Z

Jason.Kreitzer at 21:45, 17 August 2021

2021-08-17T21:45:24Z

Jason.Kreitzer at 16:47, 17 July 2021

2021-07-17T16:47:02Z

Jason.Kreitzer at 02:05, 16 July 2021

2021-07-16T02:05:58Z

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 The album's acerbic style took even the Mothers' record company by surprise.
-'''FZ:''' They didn't find out until the day we went in to start recording, in fact they didn't find out until the second song. I think the first track we laid down was [[Anyway The Wind Blows]], and the second track was [[Who Are The Brain Police?]], and I could see Wilson on the phone through the control room window, calling the head office in New York saying 'Well, er you're not going to believe this ...'
+'''FZ:''' They didn't find out until the day we went in to start recording, in fact they didn't find out until the second song. I think the first track we laid down was [[Any Way The Wind Blows (The Track)|Any Way The Wind Blows]], and the second track was [[Who Are The Brain Police?]], and I could see Wilson on the phone through the control room window, calling the head office in New York saying 'Well, er you're not going to believe this ...'
 '''Matt Groening:''' The amazing thing about [[Freak Out!]] was that there was nothing quite like it in rock 'n roll at the time. It was really simultaneously crude and ugly, and incredibly sophisticated. [[The Beatles]] were funny, but there was nothing with the kind of sneer that you could feel in the music of Frank Zappa.

@@ Line 101: / Line 101: @@
 medium. The 16-track machine that we recorded that album on was practically a prototype. It was as large as that fireplace, this monstro machine.
-'''Narrator:''' [[Hot Rats]] was completely free of the dada disruptiveness that had characterised the Mothers' albums. The one vocal track, [[Willie The Pimp]], was sung by an old high school chum, [[Captain Beefheart]]. Then, just when a solo career looked likely, Zappa re-formed the Mothers, but with a different line-up, including two singers brought in from the Sixties teen group, [[The Turtles]]. For the new group he invented a new theatrical style. The old surrealism was played down in favour of increasingly bawdy slapstick humour.
+'''Narrator:''' [[Hot Rats]] was completely free of the dada disruptiveness that had characterised the Mothers' albums. The one vocal track, [[Willie The Pimp]], was sung by an old high school chum, [[Captain Beefheart]]. Then, just when a solo career looked likely, Zappa re-formed the Mothers, but with a different line-up, including two singers brought in from the Sixties teen group, [[Flo & Eddie|The Turtles]]. For the new group he invented a new theatrical style. The old surrealism was played down in favour of increasingly bawdy slapstick humour.
 [Film: [[Penis Dimension]] performance]

@@ Line 154: / Line 154: @@
 It's pretty easy to hate me for whatever you choose to hate me for, because I'm virtually unrepentant, and I just don't care. My insensitivity is pretty evenly spread around.
-[Film: [[You Are What You Is]] video]
+[Film: [[You Are What You Is (The Music Video)|You Are What You Is]] video]
 '''Narrator:''' In 1978, after winning a lawsuit against [[Warner Brothers]], Zappa was free to put out records on his own label. He then went into overdrive. In the 80s he was releasing albums every few months, including one of live guitar solos - 80 minutes' worth. Zappa now entered rock's pantheon of guitar heroes.

← Older revision		Revision as of 18:17, 12 October 2021
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−	BBC TELEVISION TRIBUTE – 1993<br> was a special episode of [[The Late Show]] on BBC 2 dedicated to Frank Zappa, broadcast on March 11, 1993. The special is a documentary, featuring archive footage and interviews with [[Biography\|Frank Zappa]], [[Matt Groening]], [[Ruth Underwood]], [[Jim "Motorhead" Sherwood]], [[Steve Vai]], [[Dweezil Zappa]] and [[Ahmet Zappa]].	+	BBC TELEVISION TRIBUTE – 1993<br> was a special episode of ''The Late Show'' on BBC 2 dedicated to Frank Zappa, broadcast on March 11, 1993. The special is a documentary, featuring archive footage and interviews with [[Biography\|Frank Zappa]], [[Matt Groening]], [[Ruth Underwood]], [[Jim "Motorhead" Sherwood]], [[Steve Vai]], [[Dweezil Zappa]] and [[Ahmet Zappa]].

	The program was repeated on July 23, 1993 and on Friday, December 17, 1993 as an "in memoriam" to Zappa's recent death on December 4, 1993.		The program was repeated on July 23, 1993 and on Friday, December 17, 1993 as an "in memoriam" to Zappa's recent death on December 4, 1993.

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 '''FZ:''' We were never that popular in [[Los Angeles]], because even compared to [[New York]], Los Angeles was a very conforming community. It just seemed to me that at that time [[San Francisco]] was more conformist, Los Angeles a little bit less, when we moved to New York there was virtually no scene at all, there was no long-haired anything there. People looked at us like we were from Venus. By the time a scene did finally erupt in New York City it was much more interesting because it had ethnic diversity, it had cultural diversity because of all the different parts of the city where there concrete artistic things going on. There were things happening that were experimental, not necessarily wonderful, but at least experimental, people trying to do something that was different.
-[Film: Garrick Theatre. Soundtrack: [[Call Any Vegetable]]]
+[Film: Garrick Theatre. Soundtrack: [[Call Any Vegetable (1966 - Los Angeles)|Call Any Vegetable]]]
 We could do anything we wanted out there. It didn't make any difference. That's what the audience was buying a ticket to experience. Two main demands of the audience: they wanted to hear some material that they could recognise, and they wanted to have some sort of live performance experience that nobody else would give them. A surprise, in other words, whether it was going to be musical, or theatrical, or something, they would like to have a surprise, and I would like to give them a surprise.

@@ Line 21: / Line 21: @@
 I was happy to outrage anybody who'd like to be outraged.
-Take the [[Kama Sutra]]. How many people died from the Kama Sutra as opposed to the Bible? Who wins?
+Take the [[Wikipedia:Kama Sutra|Kama Sutra]]. How many people died from the Kama Sutra as opposed to the Bible? Who wins?
 '''[[Matt Groening]]''' (Cartoonist '[[The Simpsons]]'): American culture has a lot of great moustaches in its history. Mark Twain had a great moustache, Charlie Chaplin, Ben Turpin ... but Zappa, he's got the best moustache in American history. Got the moustache, right, and he's got that little thing on his chin, I think it's called an imperial, that is, like, the coolest thing. That's like one of the great icons of the twentieth century.
@@ Line 189: / Line 189: @@
 [Film shows FZ in suit and tie, apparently at a large official meeting in Czechoslovakia. He speaks to camera: "We came here today to watch Communism die."]
-I've never been shy about saying what's on my mind. At this luncheon engagement with Havel, he was talking about how Dan Quayle was coming to visit them, and I expressed the opinion that I thought that it was unfortunate that a person such as President Havel should have to bear the company of somebody as stupid as Dan Quayle for even a few moments of his life. And the next thing I know, Quayle doesn't come. Instead, what's his name, [[James Baker III]] re-routes his trip to Moscow, so that he can come blasting into Prague, and literally lays down the law to the Czech government. He says you can either do business with the United States or you can do business with Zappa, what'll it be? And that was my brief but unhappy relationship with the Czech government.
+I've never been shy about saying what's on my mind. At this luncheon engagement with Havel, he was talking about how Dan Quayle was coming to visit them, and I expressed the opinion that I thought that it was unfortunate that a person such as President Havel should have to bear the company of somebody as stupid as Dan Quayle for even a few moments of his life. And the next thing I know, Quayle doesn't come. Instead, what's his name, [[Wikipedia:James Baker|James Baker III]] re-routes his trip to Moscow, so that he can come blasting into Prague, and literally lays down the law to the Czech government. He says you can either do business with the United States or you can do business with Zappa, what'll it be? And that was my brief but unhappy relationship with the Czech government.
 '''Narrator:''' Since the announcement of his illness in 1991, Zappa has concentrated on re-mastering music from his archive, but also writing new compositions outside the rock tradition. His most recent project has been to adapt some of his computer compositions for Germany's Ensemble Modern. These were performed in Frankfurt and Vienna last September.

@@ Line 66: / Line 66: @@
 So, out of necessity we became the Mothers Of Invention. Just by adding those other two words to it, we were able to keep the record company happy. But naturally, the radio stations didn't play the music anyway, because it wasn't about the name of the band, it was what we were singing about, and the way the music sounded.
-[Home movie style film of the Mothers playing and clowning. Soundtrack: [[Hungry Freaks, Daddy]]]
+[Home movie style film of the Mothers playing and clowning. Soundtrack: [[Hungry Freaks, Daddy (1966 - Los Angeles)|Hungry Freaks, Daddy]]]
 '''Narrator:''' The Mothers' debut album, [[Freak Out!]], was a new kind of collage of pop, blues and psychedelia, with intelligent lyrics. Music that used parody and black humour to engage in sharp social satire. The Mothers seemed to be at home with a commercial pop sound, and at the same time utterly contemptuous of pop.

@@ Line 62: / Line 62: @@
 '''Narrator:''' For all his fascination with wildly opposed musical styles, Zappa's rite of passage as a musician took a conventional course, playing in local bands and suffering the indignities of the cocktail lounge combo. In 1964 Zappa went to Los Angeles and met a group of musicians who were willing to try something new. This was the band who were later to become, under Zappa's tight control, the [[The Mothers|Mothers Of Invention]].
-'''FZ:''' When we finally got a record contract with [[MGM]], some pinhead there had decided that The Mothers was a bad name for a group and that radio stations would never play our record because the name was too risque. At the time, if you were a good musician, you were a motherfucker, and Mothers was short for a collection of motherfuckers. Actually, it was kind of presumptuous to name the band that, because we weren't that good musicians. By bar-band standards in the area, we were light-years ahead of our competition, but in terms of real musicianship, I suppose we were right down there in the swamp.
+'''FZ:''' When we finally got a record contract with [[MGM Records|MGM]], some pinhead there had decided that The Mothers was a bad name for a group and that radio stations would never play our record because the name was too risque. At the time, if you were a good musician, you were a motherfucker, and Mothers was short for a collection of motherfuckers. Actually, it was kind of presumptuous to name the band that, because we weren't that good musicians. By bar-band standards in the area, we were light-years ahead of our competition, but in terms of real musicianship, I suppose we were right down there in the swamp.
 So, out of necessity we became the Mothers Of Invention. Just by adding those other two words to it, we were able to keep the record company happy. But naturally, the radio stations didn't play the music anyway, because it wasn't about the name of the band, it was what we were singing about, and the way the music sounded.

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-BBC TELEVISION TRIBUTE – 1993<br> was a special episode of [[The Late Show]] on BBC 2 dedicated to Frank Zappa, broadcast on March 11, 1993. The special is a documentary, featuring archive footage and interviews with [[Frank Zappa]], [[Matt Groening]], [[Ruth Underwood]], [[Jim "Motorhead" Sherwood]], [[Steve Vai]], [[Dweezil Zappa]] and [[Ahmet Zappa]].
+BBC TELEVISION TRIBUTE – 1993<br> was a special episode of [[The Late Show]] on BBC 2 dedicated to Frank Zappa, broadcast on March 11, 1993. The special is a documentary, featuring archive footage and interviews with [[Biography|Frank Zappa]], [[Matt Groening]], [[Ruth Underwood]], [[Jim "Motorhead" Sherwood]], [[Steve Vai]], [[Dweezil Zappa]] and [[Ahmet Zappa]].
 The program was repeated on July 23, 1993 and on Friday, December 17, 1993 as an "in memoriam" to Zappa's recent death on December 4, 1993.
@@ Line 60: / Line 60: @@
 It just sounded good to me. The way I perceived the dissonance was: These chords are really mean. I like these chords. And the drums are playing loud in this music, and you can hear the drums often in this music, which was something that you could not experience with other types of classical music.
-'''Narrator:''' For all his fascination with wildly opposed musical styles, Zappa's rite of passage as a musician took a conventional course, playing in local bands and suffering the indignities of the cocktail lounge combo. In 1964 Zappa went to Los Angeles and met a group of musicians who were willing to try something new. This was the band who were later to become, under Zappa's tight control, the [[Mothers Of Invention]].
+'''Narrator:''' For all his fascination with wildly opposed musical styles, Zappa's rite of passage as a musician took a conventional course, playing in local bands and suffering the indignities of the cocktail lounge combo. In 1964 Zappa went to Los Angeles and met a group of musicians who were willing to try something new. This was the band who were later to become, under Zappa's tight control, the [[The Mothers|Mothers Of Invention]].
 '''FZ:''' When we finally got a record contract with [[MGM]], some pinhead there had decided that The Mothers was a bad name for a group and that radio stations would never play our record because the name was too risque. At the time, if you were a good musician, you were a motherfucker, and Mothers was short for a collection of motherfuckers. Actually, it was kind of presumptuous to name the band that, because we weren't that good musicians. By bar-band standards in the area, we were light-years ahead of our competition, but in terms of real musicianship, I suppose we were right down there in the swamp.

@@ Line 44: / Line 44: @@
 '''FZ:''' I know I was weird. You know the standard uniform that the rap musicians wear - the hooded parka with the hood up and sunglasses on - that's what I used to wear to school every day. I had a little goatee and a little moustache, and I used to take my guitar with me to school - it was not electric - and spent my time between classes plunking around on that.
-'''[[Motorhead Sherwood]]''' (Saxophonist, Mothers of Invention 1964-69): When I knew Frank in school, he was two years ahead of me in high school. Lancaster was just a barren town, it seems like all the misfits from Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties were sent up there to get out of everybody else's face. There wasn't really anything to do there. You spent most of your time just wandering around through the desert, trying to occupy yourself with anything. That's probably why most people got into music or drinking all the time. On weekends that's about all there was to do. One boring town, believe me.
+'''[[Jim "Motorhead" Sherwood|Motorhead Sherwood]]''' (Saxophonist, Mothers of Invention 1964-69): When I knew Frank in school, he was two years ahead of me in high school. Lancaster was just a barren town, it seems like all the misfits from Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties were sent up there to get out of everybody else's face. There wasn't really anything to do there. You spent most of your time just wandering around through the desert, trying to occupy yourself with anything. That's probably why most people got into music or drinking all the time. On weekends that's about all there was to do. One boring town, believe me.
 '''FZ:''' I hadn't been raised in an environment where there was a lot of music in the house. This couple that owned the chili place, Opal and Chester, agreed to ask the man who serviced the jukebox to put in some of the song titles that I liked, because I promised that I would dutifully keep pumping quarters into this thing so I could listen to them. So I had the ability to eat good chili and listen to "[[Three Hours Past Midnight]]" by [[Johnny "Guitar" Watson]], for most of my junior and senior years.
@@ Line 94: / Line 94: @@
 '''Narrator:''' But having established the Mothers as one of the most formidable and original bands of the 60s, now with a huge following in Europe as well as the United States, Zappa played a characteristic hand. After five years and seven albums, he suddenly disbanded the group.
-'''[[Motorhead Sherwood]]:''' It was getting to the point that I think Frank wasn't going in the direction he wanted to, wasn't being as creative as he wanted to. So that's basically how we disbanded. He just got tired and said 'Hey guys, let's go out into other groups, let's infiltrate other bands, and let's get some fresh ideas. You guys come back, and maybe we'll get together three or four years down the line, bring in your ideas from the groups you have, and let's get back together and do something. But it just never happened.
+'''[[Jim "Motorhead" Sherwood|Motorhead Sherwood]]:''' It was getting to the point that I think Frank wasn't going in the direction he wanted to, wasn't being as creative as he wanted to. So that's basically how we disbanded. He just got tired and said 'Hey guys, let's go out into other groups, let's infiltrate other bands, and let's get some fresh ideas. You guys come back, and maybe we'll get together three or four years down the line, bring in your ideas from the groups you have, and let's get back together and do something. But it just never happened.
 '''Narrator:''' Zappa surprised his large following with the relatively smooth style of [[Hot Rats]], the first album released under his own name. It was mostly instrumental, featuring extended sax, violin and guitar solos, which were melodically accessible as well as musically sophisticated.