Frank Zappa, 88-9 - Revision history

Spider of Destiny at 17:52, 5 July 2026

2026-07-05T17:52:23Z

Jason.Kreitzer at 19:40, 21 September 2021

2021-09-21T19:40:21Z

Jason.Kreitzer at 18:44, 2 August 2021

2021-08-02T18:44:53Z

Jason.Kreitzer at 19:51, 31 July 2021

2021-07-31T19:51:24Z

Spider of Destiny at 12:11, 7 October 2013

2013-10-07T12:11:36Z

Spider of Destiny at 11:10, 7 October 2013

2013-10-07T11:10:24Z

Spider of Destiny at 18:10, 17 December 2010

2010-12-17T18:10:32Z

Duncan: Frank Zappa, 88-9 on wheels moved to Frank Zappa, 88-9 over redirect

2008-09-19T17:33:05Z

Frank Zappa, 88-9 on wheels moved to Frank Zappa, 88-9 over redirect

Hagger: Frank Zappa, 88-9 moved to Frank Zappa, 88-9 on wheels

2008-09-19T16:17:21Z

Frank Zappa, 88-9 moved to Frank Zappa, 88-9 on wheels

Propellerkuh at 14:28, 4 February 2007

2007-02-04T14:28:03Z

@@ Line 7: / Line 7: @@
 What's the shortest book in the world? How about ''The Directory of Hot Guitarists with Good Musical Taste?'' Think about it. The title may be longer than the book. But one thing's certain: [[Biography|Frank Zappa]]'s name would have to figure prominently in it. How many other acrobatic axemen have consistently sidestepped both metal overkill and fusion flatulence in their pursuit of the perfect extended solo? How many technically dazzling guitarists can you name who can even write all their own goddamn material – good material, mind you – much less produce it? Okay, okay; maybe there's a few besides Zappa. But not many.
-Which is why it was such a pity when Frank put down his custom Strat in 1984 to dwell among the highly-programmable perfections of the [[Synclavier]]. But fans of the all-toohuman guitar got a treat this year, when Zappa returned to his main instrument and embarked on his ''Broadway the Hardway'' tour. Don't salivate too much, though. Zappa – relaxing after the tour in the cluttered, comfortable video lounge at his home studio – has mixed feelings about his triumphant return to the six-stringed realm.
+Which is why it was such a pity when Frank put down his custom Strat in 1984 to dwell among the highly-programmable perfections of the [[Synclavier]]. But fans of the all-toohuman guitar got a treat this year, when Zappa returned to his main instrument and embarked on his ''[[Broadway the Hard Way]]'' tour. Don't salivate too much, though. Zappa – relaxing after the tour in the cluttered, comfortable video lounge at his home studio – has mixed feelings about his triumphant return to the six-stringed realm.
 '''"At first, I was enjoying''' playing the guitar again. Then, at the end of the tour, this war broke out between the bass player and the drummer. They hated each other's guts. And so I just spent the last six weeks of the tour trying to wend my way through this garbage that was going on onstage. On a good night, the ideas I had for guitar solos came out. On a bad night, it was me versus the band. The audience didn't really know, but it was another example of the kind of thing that made me want to put the guitar down in the first place. I haven't touched the guitar since we came off the road. If I'm sitting around the house, I don't play it. I don't even think about it."
@@ Line 56: / Line 56: @@
 On tour, the guitars went through a pair of Carvin heads and a Roland GP-8 effects processor for Zappa's clean sound. His dirty sound was provided by four Marshall heads: 200 and 250W. Most of the speaker cabinets for these heads were placed and miked beneath the stage for better isolation. In addition, Zappa used a single 50W Marshall head and cabinet for onstage monitoring of his distorto sound.
 [[Category:Interviews with Zappa]]

@@ Line 27: / Line 27: @@
 The Floyd Rose, in turn, helped foster another key Zappa technique: picking way up near – or directly over – the guitar neck. "If you rest your palm on the Floyd Rose," he explains, "it puts the strings out of tune. I like to have some support for my right hand, and the easiest way to get it is to move farther up toward the neck and rest it there. You get better intonation that way too. Picking closer to the bridge gives you the kind of tone that I don't like to use very often. It's like ... twinkie. The tone's a little bit rounder the more you go toward the fingerboard."
-Zappa's unmistakable gander-with-sinusitis tone and [[Svengali]] control of feedback are in ample evidence all over Guitar. His lifelong fascination with blues riffs anchors his explorations of Middle-Eastern, jazz and twentieth-century "serious music" intervals. And he's one of the few gonzo guitarists who has really exploited the harmonic potential of the low strings on the electric guitar.
+Zappa's unmistakable gander-with-sinusitis tone and [[Wiktionary:svengali|Svengali]] control of feedback are in ample evidence all over Guitar. His lifelong fascination with blues riffs anchors his explorations of Middle-Eastern, jazz and twentieth-century "serious music" intervals. And he's one of the few gonzo guitarists who has really exploited the harmonic potential of the low strings on the electric guitar.
 '''"I think most guitarists''' have a tendency to play like they talk in some way. And since I'm not much of a squealer – I happen to be a baritone kind of guy – to play on the low strings is a little more in phase with my reality."

@@ Line 11: / Line 11: @@
 '''"At first, I was enjoying''' playing the guitar again. Then, at the end of the tour, this war broke out between the bass player and the drummer. They hated each other's guts. And so I just spent the last six weeks of the tour trying to wend my way through this garbage that was going on onstage. On a good night, the ideas I had for guitar solos came out. On a bad night, it was me versus the band. The audience didn't really know, but it was another example of the kind of thing that made me want to put the guitar down in the first place. I haven't touched the guitar since we came off the road. If I'm sitting around the house, I don't play it. I don't even think about it."
-That's the bad news for fans of Zappa's guitar work. The good news is that the '88 tour has been immortalized on tape by Frank's mobile recording truck. Highlights should be released later this year as an installment of his projected six-volume live double-CD series, [[You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore]]. Meanwhile, you can content yourselves with [[Guitar]], an album of guitar solos culled from Zappa's 1979-1984 live work and the latest in his seemingly interminable parade of [[Shut Up 'n Play Yer Guitar (The Series)|Shut Up 'N' Play Yer Guitar]] records.
+That's the bad news for fans of Zappa's guitar work. The good news is that the '88 tour has been immortalized on tape by Frank's mobile recording truck. Highlights should be released later this year as an installment of his projected six-volume live double-CD series, [[You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore]]. Meanwhile, you can content yourselves with [[Frank Zappa: Guitar|Guitar]], an album of guitar solos culled from Zappa's 1979-1984 live work and the latest in his seemingly interminable parade of [[Shut Up 'n Play Yer Guitar (The Series)|Shut Up 'N' Play Yer Guitar]] records.
-The solos on [[Guitar]] were selected from several hundred hours' worth of concert tapes. Whenever Zappa found a concert with a number of good performances, he would mix the entire show. The best overall songs from these mix sessions generally ended up as part of [[You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore]]. The bitchinest solos were pulled out and edited together to make Guitar.
+The solos on [[Frank Zappa: Guitar|Guitar]] were selected from several hundred hours' worth of concert tapes. Whenever Zappa found a concert with a number of good performances, he would mix the entire show. The best overall songs from these mix sessions generally ended up as part of [[You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore]]. The bitchinest solos were pulled out and edited together to make Guitar.
 You know what they say: waste not, want not. But you have to wonder whether there isn't something a little ... well ... prurient about yanking a bunch of guitar solos out of their original contexts like that. Isn't it sort of like taking all the sex scenes out of a good novel or film and editing them all together just for pure slobber value?
@@ Line 49: / Line 49: @@
 Shut Up 'n' List Yer Guitars
-Frank Zappa played two custom Strats on the Broadway the Hardway tour. One was the blonde-finished instrument that also appears on much of the [[Guitar]] LP. It consists of a heavy Fender Stratocaster body, a custom neck made by Performance Guitar, a Floyd Rose tailpiece and Seymour Duncan pickups wound for an 8-k boost. Strings are Ernie Ball Stainless Steels.
+Frank Zappa played two custom Strats on the Broadway the Hardway tour. One was the blonde-finished instrument that also appears on much of the [[Frank Zappa: Guitar|Guitar]] LP. It consists of a heavy Fender Stratocaster body, a custom neck made by Performance Guitar, a Floyd Rose tailpiece and Seymour Duncan pickups wound for an 8-k boost. Strings are Ernie Ball Stainless Steels.
 Except for its lighter-weight body and dark brown finish, the other Strat is virtually the same. Both axes include a custom active electronics circuit developed right at Zappa's [[Utility Muffin Research Kitchen]].

← Older revision		Revision as of 19:51, 31 July 2021
Line 5:		Line 5:


−	What's the shortest book in the world? How about ''The Directory of Hot Guitarists with Good Musical Taste?'' Think about it. The title may be longer than the book. But one thing's certain: [[Frank Zappa]]'s name would have to figure prominently in it. How many other acrobatic axemen have consistently sidestepped both metal overkill and fusion flatulence in their pursuit of the perfect extended solo? How many technically dazzling guitarists can you name who can even write all their own goddamn material – good material, mind you – much less produce it? Okay, okay; maybe there's a few besides Zappa. But not many.	+	What's the shortest book in the world? How about ''The Directory of Hot Guitarists with Good Musical Taste?'' Think about it. The title may be longer than the book. But one thing's certain: [[Biography\|Frank Zappa]]'s name would have to figure prominently in it. How many other acrobatic axemen have consistently sidestepped both metal overkill and fusion flatulence in their pursuit of the perfect extended solo? How many technically dazzling guitarists can you name who can even write all their own goddamn material – good material, mind you – much less produce it? Okay, okay; maybe there's a few besides Zappa. But not many.

	Which is why it was such a pity when Frank put down his custom Strat in 1984 to dwell among the highly-programmable perfections of the [[Synclavier]]. But fans of the all-toohuman guitar got a treat this year, when Zappa returned to his main instrument and embarked on his ''Broadway the Hardway'' tour. Don't salivate too much, though. Zappa – relaxing after the tour in the cluttered, comfortable video lounge at his home studio – has mixed feelings about his triumphant return to the six-stringed realm.		Which is why it was such a pity when Frank put down his custom Strat in 1984 to dwell among the highly-programmable perfections of the [[Synclavier]]. But fans of the all-toohuman guitar got a treat this year, when Zappa returned to his main instrument and embarked on his ''Broadway the Hardway'' tour. Don't salivate too much, though. Zappa – relaxing after the tour in the cluttered, comfortable video lounge at his home studio – has mixed feelings about his triumphant return to the six-stringed realm.

@@ Line 31: / Line 31: @@
 '''"I think most guitarists''' have a tendency to play like they talk in some way. And since I'm not much of a squealer – I happen to be a baritone kind of guy – to play on the low strings is a little more in phase with my reality."
-Not that Frank has total contempt for the "squealers" of the world. His current guitar faves include metal dive-bombers like [[wikipedia:Yngwie Malmsteen|Yngwie Malmsteen]] ("In spite of the negative things that are said about him, I happen to think he really can play"), [[Eddie Van Halen]] and Ratt's [[Warren DiMartini]]. Zappa's own bands have long included a position called "stunt guitarist," which typically gets filled by metal-plated players like [[Steve Vai]]. The stunt guitarist's role, says Frank, is twofold: '''1)''' "to enable me to write guitar parts that I could never play myself," and '''2)''' "to reproduce guitar parts I've done on old records, because I can't sing and play lead guitar at the same time onstage. This year's stunt guitar player," Zappa adds, "is also a very excellent guy named [[Mike Keneally|Michael Keneally]]."
+Not that Frank has total contempt for the "squealers" of the world. His current guitar faves include metal dive-bombers like [[wikipedia:Yngwie Malmsteen|Yngwie Malmsteen]] ("In spite of the negative things that are said about him, I happen to think he really can play"), [[Eddie Van Halen]] and Ratt's [[Warren DeMartini]]. Zappa's own bands have long included a position called "stunt guitarist," which typically gets filled by metal-plated players like [[Steve Vai]]. The stunt guitarist's role, says Frank, is twofold: '''1)''' "to enable me to write guitar parts that I could never play myself," and '''2)''' "to reproduce guitar parts I've done on old records, because I can't sing and play lead guitar at the same time onstage. This year's stunt guitar player," Zappa adds, "is also a very excellent guy named [[Mike Keneally|Michael Keneally]]."
 Indeed, it's the players and arrangements behind the solos that also help render Guitar enjoyable by people other than slavering guitar fanatics. In particular, Zappa's contrapuntal use of drums often sauces the thematic meat of his guitar riffs.

@@ Line 19: / Line 19: @@
 '''"Well, in a way, yeah,"''' Zappa acknowledges. "But I think that's what the marketplace wanted. That's what a guy who really likes guitar solos wants. And there have been enough customers for these albums over the years to prove that they exist out there. They don't want to wait around ... They don't need an excuse to have a guitar solo. And the solos themselves are constructed in such a way that they're like little set pieces. They have melodies of their own, development sections, recapitulations... just like compositions. I think that, for the most part, they do stand as tunes. So I don't find it especially objectionable to present them like that. In a way, it's niche marketing. For people who want that, I've constructed it and there it is."
-Zappa himself is someone who has never needed an excuse to hear a guitar solo. Among his personal six-string epiphanies he lists "the first time I heard the guitar solo in ''Three Hours Past Midnight'' by [[Johnny "Guitar" Watson]]. That's probably one of the most important musical statements I ever heard in my life. And also the guitar solos on ''I Got Something for You'' and ''The Story of My Blues'' by [[Guitar Slim]]. And ''Lover Man'' by [[wikipedia:Wes Montgomery|Wes Montgomery]]."
+Zappa himself is someone who has never needed an excuse to hear a guitar solo. Among his personal six-string epiphanies he lists "the first time I heard the guitar solo in ''[[Three Hours Past Midnight]]'' by [[Johnny "Guitar" Watson]]. That's probably one of the most important musical statements I ever heard in my life. And also the guitar solos on ''I Got Something for You'' and ''The Story of My Blues'' by [[Guitar Slim]]. And ''Lover Man'' by [[Wes Montgomery]]."
 Other inspirations came from more immediate sources: "There was this guy named [[Jim Gordon]] who used to be a drummer in one of my bands. He's in jail for murder right now. But he showed me how to do that thing [hammering] on the neck of the guitar with a guitar pick. And I certainly put that to good use for a number of years.
@@ Line 27: / Line 27: @@
 The Floyd Rose, in turn, helped foster another key Zappa technique: picking way up near – or directly over – the guitar neck. "If you rest your palm on the Floyd Rose," he explains, "it puts the strings out of tune. I like to have some support for my right hand, and the easiest way to get it is to move farther up toward the neck and rest it there. You get better intonation that way too. Picking closer to the bridge gives you the kind of tone that I don't like to use very often. It's like ... twinkie. The tone's a little bit rounder the more you go toward the fingerboard."
-Zappa's unmistakable gander-with-sinusitis tone and Svengali control of feedback are in ample evidence all over Guitar. His lifelong fascination with blues riffs anchors his explorations of Middle-Eastern, jazz and twentieth-century "serious music" intervals. And he's one of the few gonzo guitarists who has really exploited the harmonic potential of the low strings on the electric guitar.
+Zappa's unmistakable gander-with-sinusitis tone and [[Svengali]] control of feedback are in ample evidence all over Guitar. His lifelong fascination with blues riffs anchors his explorations of Middle-Eastern, jazz and twentieth-century "serious music" intervals. And he's one of the few gonzo guitarists who has really exploited the harmonic potential of the low strings on the electric guitar.
 '''"I think most guitarists''' have a tendency to play like they talk in some way. And since I'm not much of a squealer – I happen to be a baritone kind of guy – to play on the low strings is a little more in phase with my reality."
-Not that Frank has total contempt for the "squealers" of the world. His current guitar faves include metal dive-bombers like [[wikipedia:Yngwie Malmsteen|Yngwie Malmsteen]] ("In spite of the negative things that are said about him, I happen to think he really can play"), [[wikipedia:Eddie Van Halen|Eddie Van Halen]] and Ratt's [[wikipedia:Warren DiMartini|Warren DiMartini]]. Zappa's own bands have long included a position called "stunt guitarist," which typically gets filled by metal-plated players like [[Steve Vai]]. The stunt guitarist's role, says Frank, is twofold: '''1)''' "to enable me to write guitar parts that I could never play myself," and '''2)''' "to reproduce guitar parts I've done on old records, because I can't sing and play lead guitar at the same time onstage. This year's stunt guitar player," Zappa adds, "is also a very excellent guy named [[Michael Keneally]]."
+Not that Frank has total contempt for the "squealers" of the world. His current guitar faves include metal dive-bombers like [[wikipedia:Yngwie Malmsteen|Yngwie Malmsteen]] ("In spite of the negative things that are said about him, I happen to think he really can play"), [[wikipedia:Eddie Van Halen|Eddie Van Halen]] and Ratt's [[wikipedia:Warren DiMartini|Warren DiMartini]]. Zappa's own bands have long included a position called "stunt guitarist," which typically gets filled by metal-plated players like [[Steve Vai]]. The stunt guitarist's role, says Frank, is twofold: '''1)''' "to enable me to write guitar parts that I could never play myself," and '''2)''' "to reproduce guitar parts I've done on old records, because I can't sing and play lead guitar at the same time onstage. This year's stunt guitar player," Zappa adds, "is also a very excellent guy named [[Mike Keneally|Michael Keneally]]."
 Indeed, it's the players and arrangements behind the solos that also help render Guitar enjoyable by people other than slavering guitar fanatics. In particular, Zappa's contrapuntal use of drums often sauces the thematic meat of his guitar riffs.

← Older revision	Revision as of 17:33, 19 September 2008
(No difference)

← Older revision	Revision as of 16:17, 19 September 2008
(No difference)