One of Frank Zappa’s personal heroes, name-checked in the famous “Freak Out” list of his formative influences (“These People Have Contributed Materially In Many Ways To Make Our Music What It Is. Please Do Not Hold It Against Them”) is the legendary R&B singer, bandleader, promoter and DJ, Johnny Otis. As most Zappaphiles are also aware, Zappa copied the “Imperial”-style mustache Otis sported, a crucial bit of iconic borrowing that!

At one point during the recording sessions for Zappa’s 1969 solo album Hot Rats, Zappa called the bandleader, then doing a popular R&B radio show on KPPC in Pasadena, for some help in tracking down violinist Don “Sugarcane” Harris, who was then, it was discovered, currently sitting in the county jail (apparently Zappa bailed him out). Zappa invited Otis to the sessions in Hollywood and he brought along his musical protege son, Shuggie, who had been playing with his father’s band since he was twelve.

Otis the younger, credited incorrectly as “Shuggy” on Hot Rats, played bass on “Peaches en Regalia,” one of Zappa’s most famous numbers and on November 2nd, 1970 the two brought out their acoustic guitars for a delicious nine-minute-long jam session on-air during “The Johnny Otis Show.” There was also a blues jam with Ray Agee during that same radio show.

Shuggie Otis would later turn down an offer to join the Rolling Stones. His new album, Wings of Love, has recently come out and the seldom-seen Otis is currently touring the world in support of the slow-baked long-player that has some songs dating as far back as 1975.
 

“A lot of the kids who are walking around the street with long hair.. a lot of the kids that you see from time to time—and retch over—are going to be running your government for you.”
—Frank Zappa

For a while now, tantalizing bit and pieces of Inside Pop: The Rock Revolution, a 1967 CBS News special presented by the great Leonard Bernstein have popped up on YouTube but this is the best version I’ve seen.

This program marked the first time that pop music was presented as a legitimate art form, with sympathetic host Bernstein lending an intellectual gravitas to the proceedings that only he could bestow upon the “strange and compelling scene called pop music.” It’s fascinating to watch the famous composer/conductor look straight at the audience as he tries to make sense of what rock music was becoming, one would presume, for a “square” middle-aged audience. The second part of the show goes into the field and was mostly shot in 1966.

One of the ultimate time capsules of the moment when the world went from black and white to vivid color in the space of one year. This must have been riveting television in its time, because it still is.

With great bits from Frank Zappa, Graham Nash, Tim Buckley, Herman’s Hermits, Reger McQuinn and the legendary performance of Brian Wilson’s “Surf’s Up” that will cause your mind to explode into a million pieces if you are a Beach Boys fan. Inside Pop also includes 15-year-old Janis Ian performing “Society’s Child,” a then highly controversial song about interracial romance. It was Bernstein’s championing of the song that saw it become a hit. Before Inside Pop aired, radio programmers were still skittish about the number.
 

 
Thank you kindly, Dalton Anthony!

George Carlin

When I blogged about Alex Queral‘s hand-carved phonebook sculptures back in 2009, I only featured his ace George Carlin piece as a prime example of Queral’s work.

I still like George the best, but Alex has added a lot more work since then. Check these out:

Marty Feldman
 

Sammy Davis Jr.
 
More after the jump…
 

 
Grace Slick wanted Frank Zappa to produce the Jefferson Airplane’s fourth album, Crown of Creation, but he was too busy at the time doing his own thing. They must’ve gotten beyond the discussion phase, however, because one number was put on tape at RCA Studios in Hollywood, the avant garde oddity, “Would You Like A Snack”  a freeform freakout with a multi-tracked Slick singing about getting her period and oral sex.

Zappa was credited at the June 5, 1968 session at RCA Studios in Hollywood as the “leader” and shares songwriting credit with Slick. Also present were Mothers Ian Underwood on piano & woodwinds, Don Preston on keyboards and Art Tripp on drums & percussion.

The track was first released on the Jefferson Airplane Loves You box set in 1992
 

 
The complete orchestral score of Frank Zappa’s notoriously difficult to play 200 Motels will be premiered in the composer’s hometown of Los Angeles, when the L.A. Philharmonic reconvenes for their tenth year at the Walt Disney Concert Hall on October 23rd.

“I believe in my heart of hearts that someone on the board (of the L.A. Philharmonic) said it’s about time,” Gail Zappa told Billboard:

Written mostly in motel rooms while Zappa and the Mothers of Invention were on tour, portions of the piece received a premiere in May 1970 at UCLA’s Royce Hall with Zubin Mehta conducting the L.A. Philharmonic. Portions of the score were used in Zappa’s film of the same name.

The Zappa family and its representatives have had ongoing conversations with the L.A. Philharmonic about presenting Zappa’s orchestral music, which is heard far more often in Europe than in the area he lived his entire life, Southern California.

“Musicians now are very familiar with the composers of their time, which I am glad about,” Zappa added. “Frank wrote music that challenges your playing ability and I think musicians embrace that.”

On October 29th, just six days after the LA premiere, the BBC Concert Orchestra, with Jurjen Hempel conducting, will perform 200 Motels at the Royal Festival Hall in London.

Below, Ringo Starr introduces Frank and the boys:

“The power of pop music to corrupt and putrefy the minds of world youth are virtually limitless.”

 
Filling in for an AWOL Keith Richards (who had visa problems at the time, stemming a then-recent drug bust in Toronto), Frank Zappa reads “The Talking Asshole” routine from William S Burroughs’ Naked Lunch. The occasion was the Nova Convention, a three-day celebration of Burroughs’s work that took place in New York City in early December of 1978.

Others on the bill at the Nova Convention included Patti Smith, Robert Anton Wilson, Brion Gysin, Laurie Anderson, poet John Giorno, Timothy Leary, Philip Glass, John Cage and author Terry Southern, who can be heard at the beginning of the clip, introducing Zappa.
 

’Don’t Eat The Yellow Snow’ Zappa Utility Muffins complete with ‘deadly yellow snow crystals’

The juvenile humor that crept into Frank Zappa’s work from the early 70s onward is difficult for me to defend. Even as an admitted Zappa freak, I tend to steer clear of anything not mostly instrumental after a certain point. It was an obvious decision that Frank Zappa made, not only as an artist, but as a businessman and a touring bandleader operating his own record label, to go there with the groupie/scatological subject matter that would endear him to pimply-faced teenage boys the world over, and sell more records and concert tickets to be sure, but most of it just makes me wince.

I’ve heard a tape of Genesis P-Orridge and Sandy Robertson interviewing Zappa in a London hotel around the time that Zoot Allures came out. Genesis pursues a (polite) line of questioning about Zappa’s “old style” with the more “serious” sound of the original Mothers evolving into the “comedy” material of the 70s and gets a flat-out denial from Zappa that there was ever any change whatsoever in his work, which obviously just is not true.

Nevertheless, there were still some pretty incredible gems he was turning out, like the Raymond Scott-esque song suite that takes up side one of Apostrophe, beginning with “Don’t Eat the Yellow Snow.” Yes, it’s about “doggie wee-wee” and a leprechaun who is masturbating into a sock, but Zappa does the cartoon music thing really, really well—helped out immensely by his percussionist Ruth Underwood on marimba and trombonist Bruce Fowler—and this material was super well-recorded, so on a good stereo, certain things really jump out at you.

When Apostrophe came out in 1974 a disc jockey in Pittsburgh made an edited version of “Don’t Eat the Yellow Snow” and “Nanook Rubs It” and the song became a local hit (I remember hearing this when I was a kid). Zappa liked the idea and made his own edit, incorporating a part of the third number, “St. Alfonzo’s Pancake Breakfast.” It reached #86 on the Billboard singles chart and Apostrophe became his biggest commercial success, hitting the top ten in the US for the only time in his career.

The original studio recording:
 

 
Below, Zappa performing the “Don’t Eat the Yellow Snow Suite” at the Capitol Theatre in Passaic, NJ on October 13th, 1978:
 

 
Frank Zappa: New York & Elsewhere is an Austrian produced TV documentary directed in 1980 by Rudolph Dolezal and Hannes Rossacher, aka DoRo productions, who are best known for their work with Freddie Mercury and Queen.

Frank Zappa: New York & Elsewhere consists of interviews with Zappa intercut with performances at New York’s Mudd Club and at Upper Darby’s Tower Theater, in Pennsylvania, from May 1980.

The picture quality is poor but the sound is okay, and is not covered with German voice-over. Tracks include “Mudd Club,” “Beauty Feels No Pain,” “Chunga’s Revenge.”
 

Gif via The Gypsy Astronaut

UPDATE: The winner is Richard Swanson! Congratulations! 

Thanks to the kind folks at the Universal Music Group, Dangerous Minds will be giving away TWELVE, that’s right, TWELVE Frank Zappa CDs, personally selected by yours truly, the arch Zappa freak who is sitting beneath a painting of Frank and the Mothers of Invention above my desk as I type this.

Did I say twelve? I meant THIRTEEN Zappa albums (and some selections contain multiple discs)!

My selection concentrates on my favorite era of Zappa’s vast oeuvre, the early years when he worked with his best collaborators, in my opinion at least, the original Mothers.

“These Mothers is crazy. One guy wears beads & they all smell bad.”—Suzy Creamcheese

The lucky winner will receive:

Freak Out!
Absolutely Free
Lumpy Gravy
We’re Only in It for the Money
Uncle Meat
Hot Rats
Burnt Weeny Sandwich
Weasels Ripped My Flesh
Ahead of Their Time
You Can’t Do That on Stage Anymore, Vol. 5
The Lost Episodes
Mystery Disc

Plus one glorious example of Zappa’s admittedly sketchier, mid-period: the sprawling 3-CD set, Läther, making this prize a BAKER’S DOZEN of Zappa goodies for one lucky reader!

To enter, it’s simple: First you must be signed up to receive the Dangerous Minds Daily Newsletter via email (look for the sign-up widget in the top toolbar of this page) and “like” the official Frank Zappa Facebook fanpage. Then you have to leave a comment below, telling us why you deserve to win.

One newsletter subscriber will be chosen by the editors of Dangerous Minds to receive this musical bounty. The winner will be picked later today, December 17th, 2012. Good luck!

Frank Zappa discusses the absurdity of sin, guilt and four-letter words on Canadian television in 1969:
 

 
Big thanks to UMe’s Adam Starr!

UPDATE: The winner is Richard Swanson! Congratulations!

Thanks to the kind folks at the Universal Music Group, Dangerous Minds will be giving away TWELVE, that’s right, TWELVE Frank Zappa CDs, personally selected by yours truly, the arch Zappa freak who is sitting beneath a painting of Frank and the Mothers of Invention above my desk as I type this.

Did I say twelve? I meant THIRTEEN Zappa albums (and some selections contain multiple discs)!

My selection concentrates on my favorite era of Zappa’s vast oeuvre, the early years when he worked with his best collaborators, in my opinion at least, the original Mothers.

“These Mothers is crazy. One guy wears beads & they all smell bad.”—Suzy Creamcheese

The lucky winner will receive:

Freak Out!
Absolutely Free
Lumpy Gravy
We’re Only in It for the Money
Uncle Meat
Hot Rats
Burnt Weeny Sandwich
Weasels Ripped My Flesh
Ahead of Their Time
You Can’t Do That on Stage Anymore, Vol. 5
The Lost Episodes
Mystery Disc

Plus one glorious example of Zappa’s admittedly sketchier, mid-period: the sprawling 3-CD set, Läther, making this prize a BAKER’S DOZEN of Zappa goodies for one lucky reader!

To enter, it’s simple: First you must be signed up to receive the Dangerous Minds Daily Newsletter via email (look for the sign-up widget in the top toolbar of this page) and “like” the official Frank Zappa Facebook fanpage. Then you have to leave a comment below, telling us why you deserve to win. (If you’ve already commented on the earlier post, it’s not necessary to do it twice).

One newsletter subscriber will be chosen by the editors of Dangerous Minds to receive this musical bounty. The winner will be picked on Monday, December 17th, 2012. Good luck!

Below, a fantastic 1971 Dutch documentary that spends a day with Frank Zappa from Holland’s VPRO.
 

 
Big thanks to UMe’s Adam Starr!

UPDATE: The winner is Richard Swanson! Congratulations!

Thanks to the kind folks at the Universal Music Group, Dangerous Minds will be giving away TWELVE, that’s right, TWELVE Frank Zappa CDs, personally selected by yours truly, the arch Zappa freak who is sitting beneath a painting of Frank and the Mothers of Invention above my desk as I type this.

Did I say twelve? I meant THIRTEEN Zappa albums (and some selections contain multiple discs)!

My selection concentrates on my favorite era of Zappa’s vast oeuvre, the early years when he worked with his best collaborators, in my opinion at least, the original Mothers.

“These Mothers is crazy. One guy wears beads & they all smell bad.”—Suzy Creamcheese

The lucky winner will receive:

Freak Out!
Absolutely Free
Lumpy Gravy
We’re Only in It for the Money
Uncle Meat
Hot Rats
Burnt Weeny Sandwich
Weasels Ripped My Flesh
Ahead of Their Time
You Can’t Do That on Stage Anymore, Vol. 5
The Lost Episodes
Mystery Disc

Plus one glorious example of Zappa’s admittedly sketchier, mid-period: the sprawling 3-CD set, Läther, making this prize a BAKER’S DOZEN of Zappa goodies for one lucky reader!

To enter, it’s simple: First you must be signed up to receive the Dangerous Minds Daily Newsletter via email (look for the sign-up widget in the top toolbar of this page) and “like” the official Frank Zappa Facebook fanpage. Then you have to leave a comment below, telling us why you deserve to win.

One newsletter subscriber will be chosen by the editors of Dangerous Minds to receive this musical bounty. The winner will be picked on Monday, December 16th, 2012. Good luck!

Below, an incredible hour and twenty minutes of some of the best footage of Frank Zappa and the original Mothers of Invention that you will ever see—high quality, too—shot in various places along their 1968 European tour:
 

 
Big thanks to UMe’s Adam Starr!

 
Frank Zappa talks with Charlie Rose on Newsnight in 1988 about Tipper Gore and the PMRC censorship battles, Christian fundamentalism and tee-vee evangelists.

Good old Pat Robertson—who ran for president in 1988 as a Republican, of course—comes in for particularly withering comments regarding his connection to the Iran-Contra scandal!

The entire Zappa catalog has gotten an extensive sonic make-over in 2012 from the Universal Music Group. In recent months there have been a dozen releases coming at you at a time (admittedly more than I have been able to process as yet) including Understanding America, a new politically themed compilation selected by the iconoclastic composer’s widow, Gail Zappa.
 

2007.  Les Savy Fav releases Let’s Stay Friends. Not only does Les Savy Fav treat you to sweaty, powerful performances with plenty of partial nudity and plenty of beard, they also treat you to some of the finest songs ever written.

Music History in GIFs is exactly what the title says. The 8-bit animations are by Brooklyn-based guitarist Joshua Carrafa who’s in the band Old Monk.

Below each GIF is a caption written by Carrafa.

1986.  Jello Biafra and Alternative Tentacles are dragged in to court and charged with “distributing harmful matter to minors” over the visual and lyrical content of the Dead Kennedys album Frankenchrist.  After the police raid Biafra’s house and lawyers probe through the album, they remember there is some law or something that says you can’t censor that kind of stuff.

1979.  Frank Zappa releases Sheik Yerbouti. He masters the combination of humor and music, and it becomes his most successful album.  His song titles are dead serious though, like “I Have Been In You,” “Broken Hearts Are for Assholes,” and “Jewish Princess.”

Via Post Punk Tumblr

 
Here’s something to mull over music nerds: Did New Order blatantly cop the groove for “Blue Monday” from obscure minimalist Manchester new wave novelty act, Gerry & the Holograms?

Or what?

Championed by Frank Zappa during a 1980 BBC Radio 1 guest disc jockey stint (as well as 1979 radio spot on WPIX in New York and The Dick Cavett Show), Gerry & the Holograms (who consisted of a guy named John Scott, and CP Lee of Manchester-based 70s comedy-rock group, Alberto y Lost Trios Paranoias) put out this Residents-influenced piss-take on the synthpop bands that would have been emerging then, like Soft Cell or The Human League.

Zappa referred to Gerry & the Holograms as “the hottest thing to come out of Manchester in at least 15 minutes.” The duo’s second record, “The Emperor’s New Music” came glued to the picture sleeve.

Gerry & the Holograms was later remixed by Diplo, in a manner, that somewhat amplifies the question about the “inspiration” behind a certain massive-selling worldwide dancefloor hit of 1983.

Coincidence? You decide!
 

 
Thanks Nico!

Painting of The Mothers of Invention by the great Cal Schenkel
 
This is the footage that matches much of the Ahead of Their Time live album that came out in 1993. It’s essentially a comedy “play” featuring Zappa as “The Imaginary Director” with Mothers Don Preston, Jimmy Carl Black, Bunk Gardner, Roy Estrada, Ian Underwood, Euclid James “Motorhead” Sherwood, Arthur Dyer Tripp III and various members of the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Filmed on October 25th, 1968. Part of the long out-of-print Uncle Meat VHS release from 1987.

Universal Music Groups’s Frank Zappa CD reissues are coming out fast and furiously, a dozen of them each month until the end of the year (frankly—no pun intended—I’ve just barely been able to digest the first round that came out in the summer). The September batch included Orchestral Favorites, Joe’s Garage Acts I II & III, Shut Up ‘N Play Yer Guitar, London Symphony Orchestra Vols. I & II, Boulez Conducts Zappa: The Perfect Stranger and Zappa’s 1984 cast recording for his proposed Broadway musical about genetic mutation, conspiracy theories, AIDS and racism, Thing-Fish.