Frank Zappa: Classic or Dud?

On the other hand, stuff released in the late seventies and through the eighties was often fairly puzzling. Musically speaking, it was incredibly well-played, and the lyrics had a bitter sting to them that you couldn't help but admire a good chunk of the time. By this time, though, he got into a really nasty groove that went past obvious satire to the point where you weren't quite sure that he wasn't being serious anymore: how many times can you release an album filled to the gills with songs about big breasts, blow jobs, drugs, and various other degeneracies until any claims to satire are dismissed? In a lot of ways it became a one-note dirty joke, and while it remained clever it became redundant and increasingly transparent. Moments of brilliance were still there: Ship Arriving Too Late to Save a Drowning Witch was actually quite solid if you jettisoned the novelty hit single. The Yellow Shark proved that the man knew how to compose music (though Jazz From Hell had already proved that, it was a bit on the sterile side). More than anything, this became a period where Zappa was more notable just for the sheer amount of product he cranked out. That's not enough to change my vote, though. Still classic.

If you bother to learn how to write music, write a big, run-on sentence like Zappa did so you can just sit back and hire super-professional musicians to play it later, as a challenge to their virtuosity and a feather in all of your caps! And then mix and match your paragraphs, so you never have to start a new book (since it's such a mess to begin with) and have people call your entire body of work a brilliant intertwined "concept"!

Music that is composeurish is rather dull, unless it is actually goodlike Mozart, Vivaldi or Beethoven, when the orchestration is so good, you don't notice the minutia unless you concentrate and are then blown away on a whole different level. Zappa falls way short of that. Everything is "hey, listen to this little weird thing" *insert cowbell rattle followed by kazoo*. (This reminds me of Metallica, by the way; I can hear the metronome ticking in the background. That's bad music! Is that supposed to be emotion? Hmmm...)

I prefer the Grateful Dead to most Zappa, with the exception of "Apostrophe" & "Sheik Yerbouti". Some others that are okay, but by no means what the fans make it out to be, are "The Best Band You Never Heard In Your Life", "Yellow Shark", "Joe's Garage" and "You Are What You Is". I also have "Live At The Ritz" (or something?) that I never listen to. It is some of the most boring shit I own, except for the one track "I Am The Slime" which I don't have on any other recording... Which album has "Zombie Woof"? That'sa good one, actually.

Anyway, I think what I'm trying to say is that it's a lot harder to make a cohesive song that has some emotion rather than filling a music sheet with black dots and having Steve Vai and Anton Figg play it for you while you play composer genius. The main guy from Jethro Tull is like that, too, but I think he actually has a reason to be, since it's not 1/2 just free improvisation and studio overdubs.

Of course, if you are a fan of his music, you'll be ridiculously offended by the notion that he's nota super genius, even if you have no musical knowledge or skill yourself as a source to draw upon for judgement, and tell me to piss off or something for daring to compare my unfamous non-music-reading sensibilities to the god of avant garde. He definitely gets tons of points for being first. Who knows if I would be able to lay on a couch, imagining constantly changing music patterns if he hadn't shown me how (or did he)? I do it all the time, but it drives me nuts because songs that wander off into insanity are boring. Playing simple and well is difficult. I think Zappa released too much of too little value (except to those fanatics of course). But, I still think he's a classic for the good stuff he did put out and for trying to do something interesting (even if not really very funny at all, just weird and kinda perverted) with music.

hey, nobody's mentioned 'hot rats' yet, perhaps his greatest album?

Oh, check out his autobiography. It's got some good laughs. Spoo!

Interestingly I don't really feel qualified to respond to this thread any more, despite owning a load of Zappa. I haven't listened to any of it in more than a year.

I think my favorites used to be Apostrophe'/Overnite Sensation (esp. "Montana" - "I think I'll raise me up some DENNIL FLOSS"), the guitar box (esp. the track with the bouzouki), parts of Joe's Garage (mostly for the guitar sound, cf. 'Watermelon in Easter Hay', and because I get an enormous kick out of hearing the Ceeeeentral Scrooooaaaatinizer), One Size Fits All, much of Zoot Allures and Lather (I get an infantile kick out of the Stravinsky namedrop on "Titties 'n' Beer", but that's just a perk).

- following the awesome tribute night to zappa and beefheart at THE CLUNY - where was the fuckin' WIRE ? - another night is planned on thursday 17th may at newcastle arts centre - featuring ex- zappa/beefheart drummer jimmy carl black and the muffin men, zoviet france, hounds of the hill and many others - zappa and beefheart classics fucked over bigstyle - like susan george in straw dogs !

Tadeusz says astute, but I've never thought FZ was over-and-above astute — just, y'know, run-of-the-mill astute. Never heard an FZ commentary that I hadn't already heard elsewhere (not nec. heard elsewhere in pop /rock, but in Letterman or Alex Cockburn, or just somewhere... ): I think the prob. is he NEVER turned his laser-eye on himself and the wackness of his dreams/fears. "Astute" somewhat excepted, all the good words TS uses are true — but (to me) so what. FZ is just too guarded, so that's how he makes me.

Anyway, my own thoughts: I tend to like Zappa's earlier stuff most (just about everything he did with the Mothers of Invention), plus a great deal of his late seventies/early eighties post-Mothers stuff. Faves would have to be Apostrophe (as someone upthread said, so gleeful), Freak Out!, Hot Rats, Joe's Garage, and Läther (because it's so over-the-top, has all of the best bits from Sheikh Yerbouti and Orchestral Favorites, and that cow on the cover with the Zappa goatee-and-beard). Guilty favorites would be Sheikh Yerbouti (great pop songs and awesome guitarwork mixed with pure wank and pointlessly stupid lyrics) and Thing Fish (mainly because it brings together everything that was good and was bad about Zappa). Largely agree that he tapered off towards the end, when he was releasing albums largely because he could (and because he'd gotten that damn Synclavier doing music by himself, without anyone or anything to keep him or his sketchier ideas in check).

As for the astuteness -- I guess some of that's from my having read a lot of his interviews as well as his autobiography. His lyrics are a grab-bag of the funny, the astute, the obscene and the flat-out stupid ... even he admitted that a lot of his lyrics and plots (esp. Joe's Garage) were stupid.

'Hot Rats' is good though, and is it 'Suzy Cream Cheese' (?). Actually, Zap ain't so bad. I mean the guy did twiddle the knobs on 'Troutmask' right? It's just he's so fucking odd; but for the sake of being odd, you know. Whereas with Loonheart, you know that he is genuinely fucking out there, Zappa is always trying so damn hard.

With this is mind: Dud.

So... Nobody here has a sense of humor unless they're STONED??

All of you hate fun and sweet sweet guitar solos. REVIVE!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssjVez9UA4w

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ew3Dq82Q1bQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCG4Caw7IIc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_i_HVBD9ks

Alternate '73 version of Montana with better video quality but lower sound. KILLER solo.

ahhhhh thanks

whoa i just clicked on that "last zappa interview" video--really sad

fuckin ian underwood!

I haven't brought myself to watch that yet, but there are 5 sections of the Zappa bio from BBC on there too, which I highly recommend.

That video of "You are what you is" made the 8 year old me extremely nauseous when it originally aired.

I just read about this morning--no recollection of it playing any festivals here, and I can't find a listing on IMDB.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7figLnhYZ44

”both” is the answer to the this thread

haha, otm

So much material that there are extremes of both.

Full catalogue to be reissued by Universal this year, apparently including some new mastering jobs. (By Joe Travers? No details given.)

My first question is whether Gail and the ZFT retains the right to keep on mining the extensive vaults and putting stuff out themselves.

hmmm, i seem to recall that the mixes of a lot of those 90s reissues had been futzed w/ by Zappa? wonder if these are the "original" mixes or whatever.

RIP Rykodisc.

I hope they're the "unfutzed" versions.

I dunno - the original version of "We're Only In It For the Money" is pretty horrible, really

sonically, I mean

Would like somebody to explain me the difference between remixing and remastering in the context of this news. When FZ did the CD releases of Ruben and the Jets and WOIIFTM with new bass & drum tracks, it's safe to say he did new mixes. There are fairly radical differences in LP and CD mixes of Hot Rats. But I imagine that most of the CD catalogue consisted of digital transfer of the original vinyl masters, right, without much fiddling around?

You have it right, Remastering is tracking down the best possible format of the final mixes of an album (in Zappa's case probably 1/2 or 1/4 inch analog tape reels and adding equalisation and/or compression & limiting to get the best overall sound and dynamics onto whichever format the recording is going to end up on. Of course the potential abuse of the process is a big issue in the digital age.

Remixing is loading the original unmixed master tapes onto whatever the relevant playback machine would be and repeating the process of mixing the album from scratch.

The regular cds of Freak Out have a bunch of digital echo Frank added in the 80s. The reissue entitled MOFO has the og mix.

I remember reading that he apparently dicked about with recordings other than Hot Rats and WOIIFTM too, that's where the UMRK Approved master tag came in.

I dunno - the original version of "We're Only In It For the Money" is pretty horrible, really

the version on cd with added slap bass is a whole new level of awful though

hmmm, i seem to recall that the mixes of a lot of those 90s reissues had been futzed w/ by Zappa? wonder if these are the "original" mixes or whatever.

"futzed" is putting it mildly.

Reissues

In 1984, Zappa prepared a remix of Cruising with Ruben & the Jets for its compact disc reissue and the vinyl box set The Old Masters I. The remix featured new rhythm tracks recorded by bassist Arthur Barrow and drummer Chad Wackerman, much as the 1984 remix of We're Only in It for the Money had featured. Zappa stated "The master tapes for Ruben and the Jets were in better shape, but since I liked the results on We're Only in it For the Money, I decided to do it on Ruben too. But those are the only two albums on which the original performances were replaced. I thought the important thing was the material itself."[2]

After the remixing was announced, a $13 million lawsuit was filed against Zappa by Jimmy Carl Black, Bunk Gardner and Don Preston, who were later joined by Ray Collins, Art Tripp and Motorhead Sherwood, increasing the claim to $16.4 million, stating that they had received no royalties from Zappa since 1969.[2]

In 2009, the original mix of the album was released as part of a compilation entitled Greasy Love Songs.[6]

zappa was so nuts about that sort of thing, it seems. i remember reading something about the creation of "shut and play your guitar" (i think) where he would put guitar solos from, say, 1974 into a recording from 1981.

He would lift guitar tracks from live recordings and drop them into studio based stuff, he did a whole track by layering elements from different recordings, Tink Runs Amok? He called it Xenochrony iirc.

XENOCHRONY! Exciting. Bands that never were.

"Rubber Shirt," from Sheik Yerbouti:

SPECIAL NOTE: The bass part is extracted from
a four track master of a performance from Goteborg,
Sweden 1974 which I had Patrick O"Hearn overdub on
a medium tempo guitar solo track in 4/4. The noted
chosen were more or less specified during the overdub
session, and so it was not completely an improvised
"bass solo." A year and a half later, the bass track was
peeled off the Swedish master and transferred to one
track of another studio 24 track master for a slow song
in 11/4. The result of this experimental re-synchronization
(the same technique was used on the Zoot Allures
album in "Friendly Little Finger") is the piece you are
listening to. All of the sensitive, interesting interplay
between the bass and drums never actually happened ...
also note, the guitar solo section of the song "Yo' Mama"
on side four was done the same way.

One of my favorite Sheik Yerbouti tracks.

I was just to talking to a big Zappaphile firend of mine, and he mentioned that some of the other "futzing" was undoing vintage edit jobs done to fit lp time constraints. He cited these two (and was only partially wrong):

Wiki on Hot Rats:

In 1987 Zappa remixed Hot Rats for re-issue on Compact Disc. "Willie the Pimp" is edited differently during the introduction and guitar solo. "The Gumbo Variations" has 4 minutes of additional material including an introduction and guitar and saxophone solo sections which were cut from the vinyl LP version. Piano and flute which were buried the LP mix of "Little Umbrellas" are prominent on the CD. Other differences include significant changes to the overall ambiance and dynamic range. The original mix was reissued in 2009 as a limited edition audiophile LP by Classic Records.

Wiki on Weasels...:

The CD version of the album features different versions of "Didja Get Any Onya?" and "Prelude to the Afternoon of a Sexually Aroused Gas Mask", which featured music edited out of the LP versions. Some of this extra music was used (in a different studio recording) as the backing track for "The Blimp" on the Captain Beefheart album Trout Mask Replica, produced by Frank Zappa.

the version on cd with added slap bass is a whole new level of awful though

― zappi

I was trying to youtube some songs off it a few years back, and the only versions that came up were from this, which I hadn't been aware of before, and I was seriously appalled. Especially since the original WOIIFTM is one of my all-time faves.

It'll be taken down Monday morning at 9 PDT, so watch it now if you haven't yet. Being released on media, this is a teaser for publicity.

Buckling in for a good watch tonight!

I bought the BD/CD package last month. The liner notes mention multiple takes of some tracks and they all look pretty tired by the end of the shoot.

man this band is COOKING.

I’m halfway in and taking a break. Absolutely incredible. I feel like if you don’t “get” this, you’ll never get Zappa. And even for folks like me who have overplayed Roxy and Elsewhere, little changes in the arrangements make for maximum enjoyment.

What other music is simultaneously complex, funky and funny? Gong is in the neighborhood…

I like the little run of Freak Out! tunes. I've never heard this band play those before.

It's no surprise that this band is a fan favorite, all killer musicians, FZ at the top of his songwriting and guitar playing powers. It's wild that this film never saw the light of day. At this point though, I've experienced so much from this particular group that it makes me wish other periods in his career were as well documented.

“Let’s Make The Water Turn Black” was not revived on any recording from this era I’ve heard before, that was great.

I’ve never really watched video from this era, Napoleon is such a charismatic front man.

This whole thing was A+, Zappa Trust take my money…

I don't think I've ever heard Freak Out songs done by anyone other than the original Mothers, outside of Trouble Every Day on Roxy (sort of)...they're sung so differently here that they almost seem like different songs altogether

here's a very 80s version of You Didn't Try To Call Me, which is how I originally heard this song, I still like this version despite all the corny synths and drum fills

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsJ5QWYBJHc

Lady Bianca sang an absolutely _bravura_ rendition of "You Didn't Try To Call Me" on the fall '76 tour. Here's a great performance, enlivened further by Lady Bianca responding to a heckler by telling him "Tell your mama to take her clothes off and then suck a rat's dick". Zappa upbraided Lady Bianca backstage for that, saying that it was "unprofessional" of her.

Not sure why Zappa couldn't seem to keep women in his band.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfHuhZ7UNhg

How'd she manage to keep a straight face through that upbraiding? Damn he was such an asshole.

I’ve never really watched video from this era, Napoleon is such a charismatic front man.

This whole thing was A+, Zappa Trust take my money…

― once beloved, recently troubled (Dan Peterson), Monday, June 30, 2025 12:51 AM (sixteen hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

It's so funny to me that Napoleon was basically poached from a wedding dance band in Hawaii and a few months later was seamlessly gelling with probably the most A-listy of all Zappa incarnations (think he joined right before Jean-Luc Ponty left).

This is jaw-dropping stuff, and 1974 is a sweet spot for personnel/material/style, too. Feel like this is one of the highest quality live recordings I can remember from a Zappa release.

Not sure why Zappa couldn't seem to keep women in his band.

At some point early on in this, Zappa introduces Underwood as "Luscious Ruth," gag. She left the band in 1975 and I think stopped recording/performing after that, can't imagine what her day-to-day was like working w/ Zappa / those bands.

Not sure why Zappa couldn't seem to keep women in his band.

sad lol

enlivened further by Lady Bianca responding to a heckler by telling him "Tell your mama to take her clothes off and then suck a rat's dick". Zappa upbraided Lady Bianca backstage for that, saying that it was "unprofessional" of her.

well yeah plagiarizing Wesley Willis is not very professional now is it

In other words, "There's only room for one smartass in this band".

In every interview I've ever seen with Ruth, she never seems to have a bad word to say about Frank

well yeah plagiarizing Wesley Willis is not very professional now is it

― frogbs

honestly i think that Lady Bianca is better at telling my momma to suck a rat's dick than Wesley Willis was

personal preference

but can she do it as loudly

At some point early on in this, Zappa introduces Underwood as "Luscious Ruth," gag. She left the band in 1975 and I think stopped recording/performing after that, can't imagine what her day-to-day was like working w/ Zappa / those bands.

― ヽ（´ー｀）┌ (CompuPost)

i mean look, zappa was a misogynist, clearly and obviously, and also:

In every interview I've ever seen with Ruth, she never seems to have a bad word to say about Frank

― Paul Ponzi

and i think there's a good reason for that! context matters.

and to me the context is this. fans do talk about the "ponty era" - when jean-luc ponty left the mothers in september '73, that was significant. to the exclusion of the other guy who left the mothers around that time, ian underwood. at one time, he was zappa's closest collaborator. "hot rats", a huge amount of that was ian underwood. and he was also, at the time, the husband of the lady playing marimba in the mothers.

i don't know anything about ian and ruth's marriage. i don't know what kind of relationship they had, what the breakup was like. i know that, under any circumstances, divorces suck. divorces can be devastating to someone's self-confidence. i don't necessarily get the impression that ruth had an abundance of self-confidence to begin with.

look, i'm a middle-aged white woman with self-confidence issues. i'm reasonably good-looking, but i'm very well aware that a lot of guys don't find me physically attractive. and i know i'm not the only one with those issues. i'm a lesbian. i like fat dykes. i find fat dykes physically attractive. one of the major challenges i face is that the fat dykes i date have a really hard time accepting this, no matter what i say or do. there are very strictly enforced social norms about women's appearance - _any_ woman's appearance. norms which are enforced pretty much to the exclusion of anything else. it's _tough_.

and, of course, people take sides in divorces. no matter how amicable the divorce, it happens. people take sides. ian underwood left the mothers in september 1973. ruth, well, she was the mainstay of basically the best band of zappa's entire career. everybody loves ruth, in about the same way that people who went to brian wilson concerts love brian wilson. ruth is a national treasure.

and i think the people in the band, one of the most close-knit bands zappa ever had, a group of people who - in contrast, honestly, to the _vast majority_ of zappa's bands - seemed to genuinely like each other and enjoy spending time around each other - i mean, ruth was an integral part of that band. _not_ just as "one of the guys". the sense i get was that they encouraged her - there's a tape from that era where the band joke around about ruth having a casual encounter with someone on the road in, like, an affirming sense, in a kind of "you go girl, get it ruth" sense. that's the context in which i see something like "luscious ruth", this sense of hey, you're on the road, you're touring with a big-name rock band, just because you're not a guy doesn't mean people don't _want_ you. i think it can be nice for a woman to be able to feel that way.

idk. i've listened to a lot of tapes from this era of the band (it is, after all, the best touring era of zappa's entire career), and that's the sense i get from it. i could be wrong.

i was enjoying flipping around that video, but then when i try to watch it in full OF COURSE frank starts out immediately with some "LADIES AND GENTLEMAN THE MONSTER KNOWN AS VORTRON" spoken word crap looooool

Yes, I started watching it and Frank just ruins it every time he opens his mouth.

The thing is, yeah, they were a band. And having someone with the personality and attitude of George Duke (someone no one has ever had anything bad to say about) around would probably go a long way to balance out Zappa's... Frank-ness.

i was enjoying flipping around that video, but then when i try to watch it in full OF COURSE frank starts out immediately with some "LADIES AND GENTLEMAN THE MONSTER KNOWN AS VORTRON" spoken word crap looooool

― brimstead

idk, it's hard to watch zappa now without thinking about what he became. looking at him now talking about "frunobulax" or whatever i see a painfully insecure control freak being loudly and frequently cringe, and at the same time he kinda comes off as a corny dad-rock goofball? the stuff he did later makes the earlier versions of his schtick seem more grating by association, maybe.

maybe he shoulda just smoked weed more lol 420 420 get high everyday

I actually like the sound/tone of his speaking voice, for example on “Montana”, he has a really nice smooth sort of radio dj tone but yeah I just don’t vibe with his sense of humor

yeah he's a really good narrator so long as he's just speaking and not trying to do some funny/sleazy voice

what I find baffling about his sense of humor is that he is genuinely quick-witted and incisive, you hear it in his interviews, you can even hear it in the stage banter or improvised asides on his studio stuff, he can be pretty funny off-the-cuff but when he's writing humorous material it pretty much always falls flat. reminds me of those guys who are really great on Whose Line is it Anyway but can't do stand-up to save their lives and kinda suck on sitcoms as well

what I find baffling about his sense of humor is that he is genuinely quick-witted and incisive, you hear it in his interviews, you can even hear it in the stage banter or improvised asides on his studio stuff, he can be pretty funny off-the-cuff but when he's writing humorous material it pretty much always falls flat. reminds me of those guys who are really great on Whose Line is it Anyway but can't do stand-up to save their lives and kinda suck on sitcoms as well

― frogbs

i do see him as being extremely insecure. hypervigilant. has to control other people, has to control himself, sure, make everything into a joke. won't write love songs, refuses to write love songs, you know, thinks love is stupid. wrote a love song once, to his wife. it said "thanks for leaving me the fuck alone".

fuck if i know. i know there's a tendency to want to blame everything on the Composer's Widow but given what i've heard about gail... maybe there was selection bias in how he understood "love". he seems like the kind of guy who might actually have been a good father, if he'd been around. that's the fucking tragedy of it. nah, he was always on the road or locked in his home studio. and there was stuff he didn't talk about. he did a tv interview with VPRO in 1970 where he talked pretty candidly and openly about catching venereal diseases from sleeping with women on the road. well, he never talked about it again after that, to anybody. didn't deny it, but anybody who asked... howard stern spent like 5 minutes in 87 asking zappa about it, and zappa greyrocked the shit out of him. nope. nope. not talking about it. nope. the man was just so completely _repressed_!

I've always assumed it was his probable experiences with girls in jr high and high school, where an ugly, hairy guy with smart-ass tendencies got no play at all.

he seems like the kind of guy who might actually have been a good father, if he'd been around.

This was not at all the impression I got from Moon Zappa's book.

I mean, was he "let Roy Estrada babysit the kids" bad? No, but in most other ways he was someone who should not have ever had children.

I mean, was he "let Roy Estrada babysit the kids" bad? No, but in most other ways he was someone who should not have ever had children.

― Instead of create and send out, it pull back and consume (unperson)

i mean you do have a point. like no he wasn't "let roy estrada babysit the kids" bad but maybe the whole "hey let's let this schizophrenic man hang out with my infant daughter HEY WAIT NO WHY ARE YOU THREATENING HER WITH A KNIFE" thing doesn't make him look like a "dad of the year" award candidate

shit i gotta peace out of this thread, this zappa dude is too fucked up to get space in my head

Thread always circles back to fucked up Frank. Couldn’t I for just once enjoy a cool, rare vault performance from my favorite era of the band?

God yes, for once.

nobody is stopping you from enjoying a cool, rare vault performance from your favorite era of the band

My favorite Zappa is the late 80s big band stuff, so it's great to hear such a beautiful recording of one of the more stripped-down (and kinda unrehearsed) bands – would've loved to hear this grouping's sound develop over a few years, esp. w/ touring.

Chester Thompson sounds particularly good on this. I don't think Zappa ever really wanted to be a fusion guy but this band could've really ripped if it had stayed intact longer, this is such a slick rhythm section.

I don't know if I'd ever call an FZ band unrehearsed. I'd say they sound looser, relaxed, less worried about impressing the boss — they're hot rats shit and they know it...

btw the audio of this taping is up on all the streaming services, if you don't need the visuals

Unrehearsed for a Zappa band at least – they lost four members in mid-May and I don't think this Cheaper Than Cheep band played in-studio / live ahead of taping a month later in June (which they rushed to get done before they started their 74 tour). Although obviously not too unrehearsed to give the taping a shot.

Just digging into the Whiskey a Go Go 1968 set that came out last year and it pretty much peak Mothers, like it might be my favorite thing from this era

Ok, everyone can get back to teeth-gnashing about Zappa

won't write love songs, refuses to write love songs

OK, but how many love songs did, say, Carla Bley write? And how good would she (or Zappa) have been at doing that? And are bad love songs worse than no love songs? And is any of this a moral failing?

Did Carla Bley write lyrics?

A bit

Though Nick Mason's Fictitious Sports was released under Mason's name, it is effectively an album by jazz composer and keyboardist Carla Bley and her ensemble, for whom Mason is merely the drummer. Bley wrote all the music and lyrics for the album.

^^^ one of the best albums ever

I just dropped in to say "Willie The Pimp" is one of the greatest rock songs of all time

love the Qui version

Moon's book is really good. Something I find interesting about it is that she's got kind of a natural wit about her that her father doesn't have. I always thought the main bug up Frank's ass had to do with people not finding him funny. Obviously a lot of his fans did and I think everyone can admit he's at least funny sometimes but he doesn't really elicit belly laughs...he's not, yknow, ha-ha funny. He's clever funny. You can hear the audience laugh in the live recordings sometimes but not to the extent he wants them to. I wonder if this really plagued him as he got older. Especially since the one time he actually scored a comedy hit it was because of his daughter, who is actually funny.

Anyways. Wondering if I should pick up the deluxe One Size Fits All. I think its probably my favorite Zappa album, not just musically but even the humor on it is just absurdist shit which I think actually was way more influential than anything he else he tried to do lyrically.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wT6JAhD1Cr0 starting at 5:42 that's the bridge from "yo mama" (starting at 1:30) they're using as bumper music. i was not expecting ted turner to use "yo mama" as bumper music.

It is a rather majestic synth theme.

Most importantly is that awesome music that starts the clip, which Shazam found for me. Orion by FM (have never heard of this).