Zappa's Inferno - Revision history

Jason.Kreitzer at 13:37, 6 October 2021

2021-10-06T13:37:54Z

Jason.Kreitzer at 04:57, 3 October 2021

2021-10-03T04:57:52Z

Jason.Kreitzer at 23:13, 29 August 2021

2021-08-29T23:13:40Z

Jason.Kreitzer at 15:13, 4 August 2021

2021-08-04T15:13:19Z

Jason.Kreitzer at 01:51, 21 July 2021

2021-07-21T01:51:27Z

Spider of Destiny at 20:00, 17 November 2020

2020-11-17T20:00:38Z

Spider of Destiny at 11:29, 7 October 2013

2013-10-07T11:29:08Z

Spider of Destiny at 19:15, 6 October 2013

2013-10-06T19:15:33Z

Spider of Destiny at 18:53, 6 October 2013

2013-10-06T18:53:36Z

Propellerkuh at 10:46, 21 April 2007

2007-04-21T10:46:54Z

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 The poodle chews it.
-'''Come on, Frenchie! Do you see a conceptual continuum between, say, "[[Call Any Vegetable]]" and [[Shut Up 'n Play Yer Guitar]] or between the "Mothers Of Invention" and the "Mothers Of Prevention"?<br>
+'''Come on, Frenchie! Do you see a conceptual continuum between, say, "[[Call Any Vegetable (1966 - Los Angeles)|Call Any Vegetable]]" and [[Shut Up 'n Play Yer Guitar]] or between the "Mothers Of Invention" and the "Mothers Of Prevention"?<br>
 There are some links, yeah. The main drawback of the medium I'm working in is, until I got the computer I was locked into making music based on the assets and/or liabilities of the guys in the band. In other words, if you want to write something that's faster than what the guys can play, you can't hear it, because they can't play it that fast. Or if you want something for an instrumentation that you don't have in the band, then you won't hear it. But now that I can do it with a computer, that's not a problem anymore.

@@ Line 15: / Line 15: @@
 Well, Frank was perfectly poised to talk about guitar and to play us some of the hours of great solos he has on all those tapes in his vault. But as far as performing on the instrument, we were surprised to discover, the guitar guru has been getting his playing jollies from entering notes and manipulating them with his [[Synclavier]]. For various reasons you will hear in his own words in this interview, Frank hadn't played serious guitar in two years (the last recorded example of Frank playing will be available on our [[The Guitar World According To Frank Zappa|Guitar World According To Frank Zappa]] tape). He'd even lost his callouses!
-But fear not, dear reader. Zappa had plenty to say about playing guitar and where the instrument is going. And, believe us, there's reams of guitar in Frank's vaults, which he continues to classify and release to the public as long as the demand is there, through his own [[Barking Pumpkin Records|Barking Pumpkin]] organization. The [[Shut Up 'N Play Yer Guitar]] collections did quite well worldwide, so you can expect more to be released in the future.
+But fear not, dear reader. Zappa had plenty to say about playing guitar and where the instrument is going. And, believe us, there's reams of guitar in Frank's vaults, which he continues to classify and release to the public as long as the demand is there, through his own [[Barking Pumpkin Records|Barking Pumpkin]] organization. The [[Shut Up 'n Play Yer Guitar|Shut Up 'N Play Yer Guitar]] collections did quite well worldwide, so you can expect more to be released in the future.
 And we hear that since our talk with Frank, he's been building up his callouses and thinking about going back on the road with his guitar and a band. The moral: you can take the Zappa out of guitar playing, but it'll take a long time to get all the guitar playing out of Frank Zappa.

← Older revision		Revision as of 23:13, 29 August 2021
Line 1:		Line 1:
−	By [[Noё Goldwasser]]<br>	+	By [https://www.discogs.com/artist/4187761 Noё Goldwasser]<br>
	[[Guitar World]], April 1987<br>		[[Guitar World]], April 1987<br>

@@ Line 15: / Line 15: @@
 Well, Frank was perfectly poised to talk about guitar and to play us some of the hours of great solos he has on all those tapes in his vault. But as far as performing on the instrument, we were surprised to discover, the guitar guru has been getting his playing jollies from entering notes and manipulating them with his [[Synclavier]]. For various reasons you will hear in his own words in this interview, Frank hadn't played serious guitar in two years (the last recorded example of Frank playing will be available on our [[The Guitar World According To Frank Zappa|Guitar World According To Frank Zappa]] tape). He'd even lost his callouses!
-But fear not, dear reader. Zappa had plenty to say about playing guitar and where the instrument is going. And, believe us, there's reams of guitar in Frank's vaults, which he continues to classify and release to the public as long as the demand is there, through his own [[Barking Pumpkin]] organization. The [[Shut Up 'N Play Yer Guitar]] collections did quite well worldwide, so you can expect more to be released in the future.
+But fear not, dear reader. Zappa had plenty to say about playing guitar and where the instrument is going. And, believe us, there's reams of guitar in Frank's vaults, which he continues to classify and release to the public as long as the demand is there, through his own [[Barking Pumpkin Records|Barking Pumpkin]] organization. The [[Shut Up 'N Play Yer Guitar]] collections did quite well worldwide, so you can expect more to be released in the future.
 And we hear that since our talk with Frank, he's been building up his callouses and thinking about going back on the road with his guitar and a band. The moral: you can take the Zappa out of guitar playing, but it'll take a long time to get all the guitar playing out of Frank Zappa.

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 <blockquote>'''People today don't appreciate guitar solos, and that burns Frank Zappa up. "All they want is fast playing that goes wee wee wee wee wee."</blockquote>
-[[Frank Zappa]]'s fully-equipped home Recording studio is where he'd most rather be. "I never go out," he says, though his Laurel Canyon home commands a panoramic view of Los Angeles. "I could be just as happy if all this" – gesturing toward the array of equipment that surrounds him in this devil's advocate's workshop – "were in Utah. Except for the fact that the hardware and technicians are available in the L.A. area, and the stuff can be serviced here." The fact is, all Frank really wants to do is work.
+[[Biography|Frank Zappa]]'s fully-equipped home Recording studio is where he'd most rather be. "I never go out," he says, though his Laurel Canyon home commands a panoramic view of Los Angeles. "I could be just as happy if all this" – gesturing toward the array of equipment that surrounds him in this devil's advocate's workshop – "were in Utah. Except for the fact that the hardware and technicians are available in the L.A. area, and the stuff can be serviced here." The fact is, all Frank really wants to do is work.
 Whether he acknowledges it or not, Zappa has been admired by guitarists for years because of the sheer free-flying gonzo-ness of his solos within the otherwise-precise organization of his compositions. He's always been a real Mother of a player. As a bandleader, his draconian insistence on perfection has brought out the best in ''his'' players, especially the guitarists he has introduced to the world through his succession of bands: [[Lowell George]], [[Adrian Belew]], [[Warren Cuccurullo]] and [[Steve Vai]] all cut their teeth in Zappa's marching society.

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 The answer is very simple. It's the same way you train a dog. When you don't want him to do something, you hit him on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper. When you do want him to do something, you give him a biscuit. Okay? All the biscuits have been given to copycats. Does anybody in guitar magazines ever say, "Wait a minute. You should get the newspaper on the nose if you're coming out sounding like the guy next door." You don't get the newspaper on the nose. People are being praised and rewarded for copying other people. Look at the award shows on television. People become exalted because they sound the same. And you say, "Why do they do it?" Because there's nothing to tell a new guy ''not'' to do it. Everything tells him, "Yes, ''do'' it." That's the key to success today, to be the same as the next guy, only faster.
-You know why that happens? Because generally the people who write about music don't know music. Anybody can tell whether these four notes are faster than these four notes. But what does it take to listen to Johnny Guitar Watson's one note, and know that he's doin' that? Did you ever point that out to a reader? Did you ever get across that there's something more to it than ''rilly-rilly-ree?''
+You know why that happens? Because generally the people who write about music don't know music. Anybody can tell whether these four notes are faster than these four notes. But what does it take to listen to [[Johnny "Guitar" Watson]]'s one note, and know that he's doin' that? Did you ever point that out to a reader? Did you ever get across that there's something more to it than ''rilly-rilly-ree?''
 If the criticism or reporting of current musical events is left to people who do not have enough of a musicological background to even know where the licks were stolen from – whaddaya got? There's nothing wrong with themes so long as you admit where the shit came from.
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 [[Category:Interviews with Zappa]]

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 '''You don't miss it at all?<br>
-Every once in a while ... but I don't play a style that is contemporary, you know? I don't do all the 1980s guitar noises. Unfortunately, the audience for guitar playing has a real narrow interest span. If you don't sound like [[wikipedia:Van Halen|Eddie Van Halen]], then apparently you don't actually play guitar any more. I have no intention of ever sounding like Eddie Van Halen, and, uh, it makes you wonder why you would even bother to play the guitar, because the current audience would listen to it and go, 'That's not a guitar. It doesn't go ''wee wee wee wee, wee wee wee wee.' "'' So why do it?
+Every once in a while ... but I don't play a style that is contemporary, you know? I don't do all the 1980s guitar noises. Unfortunately, the audience for guitar playing has a real narrow interest span. If you don't sound like [[Eddie Van Halen]], then apparently you don't actually play guitar any more. I have no intention of ever sounding like Eddie Van Halen, and, uh, it makes you wonder why you would even bother to play the guitar, because the current audience would listen to it and go, 'That's not a guitar. It doesn't go ''wee wee wee wee, wee wee wee wee.' "'' So why do it?
 '''[[Dweezil Zappa|Dweezil]] would probably rebut that, what with his own infatuation for Ed Van Halen.<br>
-I'm not saying anything against Eddie because I think what he's done for the guitar is wonderful. But the thing that's tragic about, the marketplace' is that ''everybody'' decided that they were all going to do that, and then the competition is not musical. It's gymnastic. Okay, they say, "'I want to sound like Eddie, but in order to be better than Eddie I have to be faster than Eddie." That seems to be the aesthetic operating procedure in the marketplace. Meanwhile, Edward projbably sits back and goes, "These guys are really stupid." Because I don't think that's what he had in mind when he developed the style. It's just like with [[wikipedia:MTV|MTV]]. MTV has a certain look, because it has a limited pictorial vocabulary. All the videos are made up of certain icons. If you don't work in that vocabulary, then the MTV audience doesn't perceive it as a real video, know what I mean? It's gotta have certain things in it. So, take your pick. You can write hooks and go in there and do that shit, or you can do something else. I decided to do something else.
+I'm not saying anything against Eddie because I think what he's done for the guitar is wonderful. But the thing that's tragic about, the marketplace' is that ''everybody'' decided that they were all going to do that, and then the competition is not musical. It's gymnastic. Okay, they say, "'I want to sound like Eddie, but in order to be better than Eddie I have to be faster than Eddie." That seems to be the aesthetic operating procedure in the marketplace. Meanwhile, Edward probably sits back and goes, "These guys are really stupid." Because I don't think that's what he had in mind when he developed the style. It's just like with [[MTV]]. MTV has a certain look, because it has a limited pictorial vocabulary. All the videos are made up of certain icons. If you don't work in that vocabulary, then the MTV audience doesn't perceive it as a real video, know what I mean? It's gotta have certain things in it. So, take your pick. You can write hooks and go in there and do that shit, or you can do something else. I decided to do something else.
 I'm looking for whatever else is out there. I'm looking for different structures, different sounds, different types of harmonic combinations. Different rhythms.

@@ Line 209: / Line 209: @@
 One of the most interesting guys on guitar on the planet is [[Allan Holdsworth]]. I really respect his playing.
-[[Billy Gibbons]] is an original. The style that he does, although I know a lot of the blues antecedents that it was derived from, he goes like ''that'' [''raises middle finger again'']. You've gotta have ''that'' in your playing.
+[[ZZ Top|Billy Gibbons]] is an original. The style that he does, although I know a lot of the blues antecedents that it was derived from, he goes like ''that'' [''raises middle finger again'']. You've gotta have ''that'' in your playing.
 I thought [[Jimi Hendrix|Hendrix]] was great. But the very first time I saw him I had the incredible misfortune to be sitting real close to him at the [[Whisky a Go-Go|A Go-Go]] in New York City, and he had a whole stack of Marshalls and I was right in front of it. I was physically ill – I couldn't get out, it was so packed I couldn't escape. And although it was great, I didn't see how anybody could inflict that kind of volume on himself, let alone other people. That particular show he ended by taking the guitar and impaling it in the low ceiling of the club. Just walked away and left it squealing.
 [[Category:Interviews with Zappa]]

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 '''No more school for ''him,'' right?<br>
-He was out of school at 15, because in California you can take the high school equivalency test at 15 and get a diploma. So he's out. Moon did the same thing.
+He was out of school at 15, because in [[California]] you can take the high school equivalency test at 15 and get a diploma. So he's out. Moon did the same thing.
 '''So he's not going to college, or ...<br>
@@ Line 196: / Line 196: @@
 Really, though, if you take away the gymnastics, you have to say, "What's the message here!" It's like, uh, a pissing contest [''laughter''].
-'''But it's weird, Frank. Here we are, the editors of a guitar magazine, we keep seeing the evidence of this copying of styles that is so prevalent today. And we keep going, tike, "What can we do to turn these people onto somebody, like, 'Listen to a Wes Montgomery record' " or something like that?<br>
+'''But it's weird, Frank. Here we are, the editors of a guitar magazine, we keep seeing the evidence of this copying of styles that is so prevalent today. And we keep going, tike, "What can we do to turn these people onto somebody, like, 'Listen to a [[Wes Montgomery]] record' " or something like that?<br>
-You know what happens if you turn 'em on to that? They'll ''copy'' Wes Montgomery. Because this is a copycat society.
+You know what happens if you turn 'em on to that? They'll ''copy'' [[Wes Montgomery]]. Because this is a copycat society.
 '''Why is that? It wasn't always like that.<br>
 The answer is very simple. It's the same way you train a dog. When you don't want him to do something, you hit him on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper. When you do want him to do something, you give him a biscuit. Okay? All the biscuits have been given to copycats. Does anybody in guitar magazines ever say, "Wait a minute. You should get the newspaper on the nose if you're coming out sounding like the guy next door." You don't get the newspaper on the nose. People are being praised and rewarded for copying other people. Look at the award shows on television. People become exalted because they sound the same. And you say, "Why do they do it?" Because there's nothing to tell a new guy ''not'' to do it. Everything tells him, "Yes, ''do'' it." That's the key to success today, to be the same as the next guy, only faster.
-You know why that happens? Because generally the people who write about music don't know music. Anybody can tell whether these four notes are faster than these four notes. But what does it take to listen to Johnny Guitar Watson's one note, and know that he's doin' that? Did you ever point that out to a reader. Did you ever get across that there's something more to it than ''rilly-rilly-ree?''
+You know why that happens? Because generally the people who write about music don't know music. Anybody can tell whether these four notes are faster than these four notes. But what does it take to listen to Johnny Guitar Watson's one note, and know that he's doin' that? Did you ever point that out to a reader? Did you ever get across that there's something more to it than ''rilly-rilly-ree?''
 If the criticism or reporting of current musical events is left to people who do not have enough of a musicological background to even know where the licks were stolen from – whaddaya got? There's nothing wrong with themes so long as you admit where the shit came from.
 Was there ever a practitioner of the guitar – Hendrix, say – that blew you away in terms of being a total original?<br>
-One of the most interesting guys on guitar on the planet is [[wikipedia:Allan Holdsworth|Allan Holdsworth]]. I really respect his playing.
+One of the most interesting guys on guitar on the planet is [[Allan Holdsworth]]. I really respect his playing.
-[[wikipedia:Billy Gibbons|Billy Gibbons]] is an original. The style that he does, although I know a lot of the blues antecedents that it was derived from, he goes like ''that'' [''raises middle finger again'']. You've gotta have ''that'' in your playing.
+[[Billy Gibbons]] is an original. The style that he does, although I know a lot of the blues antecedents that it was derived from, he goes like ''that'' [''raises middle finger again'']. You've gotta have ''that'' in your playing.
 I thought [[Jimi Hendrix|Hendrix]] was great. But the very first time I saw him I had the incredible misfortune to be sitting real close to him at the [[Whisky a Go-Go|A Go-Go]] in New York City, and he had a whole stack of Marshalls and I was right in front of it. I was physically ill – I couldn't get out, it was so packed I couldn't escape. And although it was great, I didn't see how anybody could inflict that kind of volume on himself, let alone other people. That particular show he ended by taking the guitar and impaling it in the low ceiling of the club. Just walked away and left it squealing.
 [[Category:Interviews with Zappa]]

← Older revision		Revision as of 10:46, 21 April 2007
Line 1:		Line 1:
−	By Noё Goldwasser<br>	+	By [[Noё Goldwasser]]<br>
	[[Guitar World]], April 1987<br>		[[Guitar World]], April 1987<br>