| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| lemonade kid |
Posted - 21/09/2011 : 23:10:56
Cool to see the influence even in an interview about Zappa and his music...thought it would be cool to have this here too....even though I placed it in the Mothers thread too.
---------------------------------------------
KOFSKY: California is clearly the center of the new popular music. I wonder how you relate the Mothers to some of the northern California groups like the Jefferson Airplane, and the Grateful Dead, and, though it's a southern California group, Love. I'm curious as to how you see the relationship between you and your audience compared to the relationship between them and their audience?
ZAPPA: The whole San Francisco scene is promoting a love relationship between the audience and the group. The group is supposed to love the audience to death.
--------------------------------------------
KOFSKY: I think it rules the world. Actually, it's cannon fodder like the rest of us.
Love, a group I'm not terribly impressed with as a whole, also have a saxophonist and are trying to combine jazz improvisation with rock.
ZAPPA: Actually, what they're trying to do is to imitate our band.
KOFSKY: I heard them first. Is it just coincidental that their album was released first?
ZAPPA: Well, let me tell you of a few interesting coincidences that I've noticed, that lead me to suspect that we're making more of an impact on the industry than the people in the industry would like to admit. I was mailed a picture of Paul McCartney many months ago, from a girl in Europe, with my mustache and my tie, with my earphones, conducting an orchestra. And this is about the time I was preparing an album for Capitol where I was conducting an orchestra.
------------------------------------------------------
And this last quote by Zappa about LoVE.....it's remarkable to me that they are noted as many times in this 1967 interview....before Forever changes was even released.
KOFSKY: Some of my students at Carnegie Tech turned me on to it and the Andy Warhol album at the same time.
ZAPPA: I like that album. I think that Tom Wilson deserves a lot of credit for making that album, because it's folk music. It's electric folk music, in the sense that what they're saying comes right out of their environment.
KOFSKY: It's folk in the sense of relating to a milieu.
ZAPPA: Love is that kind of group too, because what they sing about is the folk music of the L.A. freak. What we sing about is the folk music of our environment from Pomona to L.A. You know, being kicked around in go-go bars, and like that.
_____________________________________________
and again the full FASCINATING INTERVIEw--
http://www.afka.net/Articles/1967-09_Jazz_Pop.htm
_____________________________________________
Sometimes I have good luck...
& write better than I can.
-Hemmingway |
| 15 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Joe Morris |
Posted - 07/10/2011 : 15:27:56
hows Zappas early films, the ones he got arrested for? |
| waxburn |
Posted - 06/10/2011 : 19:42:50
quote:
Originally posted by lemonade kid
quote:
Originally posted by waxburn
quote:
Originally posted by rocker
Most are scared to talk about him due to the situation with the estate.
I didn't know about that. Not too good I'd think, eh?
Steely Dan does have a bit of a Zappa flavor or maybe Zappa was influenced by Steely Dan.
I would go with the latter but i could be wrong, their studio sound back in the 80s was very influential.
interesting because i know this band that started being an indie band, they were doing reasonably well, then they started listening to
Zappa and copping his stuff for their songs. People said they sounded like Steely Dan.
Irregardless as soon as they started doing the Zappa influenced material they began losing gigs. Soon they couldnt get arrested. They dont exist anymore.
Zappa I suppose, is sort of the Shecky Greene of music. If you like that sort of thing.
Zappa and Steely Dan were on a parallel, but staggered path (Zappa started ten years earlier-Zappa was a forties kid, Becker and Fagen 1950's kids), both very influenced by jazz artists such as Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, Sonny Rollins, with pop influences like the Turtles and Lovin' Spoonful, Dylan....I doubt Zappa was influenced directly by "Dan" as they didn't get going until the early 70's and Zappa was moving through his music at a fast pace in the early 60's.
_____________________________________________
Don't you know there ain't no devil,
There's just god when he's drunk.
-Tom Waits
the Zappa stuff that sounds eerily like the Dan is the apres 1960s stuff, i dont think his 60s stuff showed the Dan influence. My memory may be off as im not the biggest Dan fan. i like that Cuervo Gold song tho. they are a bit too cold, for my taste.
I also am not a regular listener of Zappas 60s work.
|
| lemonade kid |
Posted - 06/10/2011 : 18:44:32
quote:
Originally posted by waxburn
quote:
Originally posted by rocker
Most are scared to talk about him due to the situation with the estate.
I didn't know about that. Not too good I'd think, eh?
Steely Dan does have a bit of a Zappa flavor or maybe Zappa was influenced by Steely Dan.
I would go with the latter but i could be wrong, their studio sound back in the 80s was very influential.
interesting because i know this band that started being an indie band, they were doing reasonably well, then they started listening to
Zappa and copping his stuff for their songs. People said they sounded like Steely Dan.
Irregardless as soon as they started doing the Zappa influenced material they began losing gigs. Soon they couldnt get arrested. They dont exist anymore.
Zappa I suppose, is sort of the Shecky Greene of music. If you like that sort of thing.
Zappa and Steely Dan were on a parallel, but staggered path (Zappa started ten years earlier-Zappa was a forties kid, Becker and Fagen 1950's kids), both very influenced by jazz artists such as Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, Sonny Rollins, with pop influences like the Turtles and Lovin' Spoonful, Dylan....I doubt Zappa was influenced directly by "Dan" as they didn't get going until the early 70's and Zappa was moving through his music at a fast pace in the early 60's.
_____________________________________________
Don't you know there ain't no devil,
There's just god when he's drunk.
-Tom Waits |
| waxburn |
Posted - 06/10/2011 : 16:20:16
quote:
Originally posted by rocker
Most are scared to talk about him due to the situation with the estate.
I didn't know about that. Not too good I'd think, eh?
no not so good, from what i understand they want no competition against Zappa plays Zappa. never seen them and doubt i ever will. |
| waxburn |
Posted - 06/10/2011 : 16:12:25
quote:
Originally posted by rocker
Most are scared to talk about him due to the situation with the estate.
I didn't know about that. Not too good I'd think, eh?
Steely Dan does have a bit of a Zappa flavor or maybe Zappa was influenced by Steely Dan.
I would go with the latter but i could be wrong, their studio sound back in the 80s was very influential.
interesting because i know this band that started being an indie band, they were doing reasonably well, then they started listening to
Zappa and copping his stuff for their songs. People said they sounded like Steely Dan.
Irregardless as soon as they started doing the Zappa influenced material they began losing gigs. Soon they couldnt get arrested. They dont exist anymore.
Zappa i suppose, is sort of the Shecky Greene of music. If you like that sort of thing. |
| rocker |
Posted - 06/10/2011 : 14:12:49
Most are scared to talk about him due to the situation with the estate.
I didn't know about that. Not too good I'd think, eh? |
| Joe Morris |
Posted - 05/10/2011 : 22:34:06
Lets do the taster! |
| lemonade kid |
Posted - 05/10/2011 : 22:25:51
quote:
Originally posted by ZFarrar
Lemonade Kid
Great job in bringing to light some of Frank Zappa's background and stories. I don't honestly think there is much interest here from some of the Love fans. I was going to discuss Frank's Antelope Valley band "The Soul Giants", but all of this is easily obtained in any number of books on Frank. There are some hilarious stories of he and Captain Beefheart borrowing (Don's father) his Helms Bakery Truck in Lancaster, cruising for chicks and eating pineapple rolls. The funny thing is Frank's description of the Maryland Hotel is a place that 10-15 years later I discovered, it was called Arcade Music. with 45 priced at 3 for a buck, albums were 50 cents to 1.99. Besides the juke box records, radio station promo copies were massive. It was there that I discovered that strange 45 with the Herb Alpert trumpet on an Elektra promo 45, later I also purchased Forever Changes there
Meanwhile I spent some time in Lancaster CA years ago, in a small coffee shop at the Antelope Valley Inn I met a friend of mine who had just spent some time with John French (Drumbo) from Beef's Magic Band. He had some great stories about Don and Frank, suddenly an waitress approached us, she was maybe 60 and very much a grand mother type). She had overheard us talking about Frank, she recounted that she and Frank had dated in high school, and some of his early music. She was still upset over his passing (which had happened the year before). What I was amazed by is she told me she had a huge collection of his albums.
No..keep the stories coming. There are actually many Zappa fans here...they are just not as vocal as some of us....pro & con.
But that's ok. So keep the Zappa stuff coming, please. There are more closet Zappa fans EVERYWHERE than we realize!! Especially in the Boomer generation that are approaching retirement. I wonder how many of those gray haired joggers or golfers have "Freak Out!" playing in their earbuds?! More than some would like to imagine at their safe little posh golf resorts!
I was listening to some Steely Dan and I swear I hear Zappa in some of those jazz arrangements with all those abrupt time signature changes!
Your Gold Teeth...especially in the intro with unusual time sigs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3BjjpZedl8
Green Earring
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1Z4HSer4uw
_____________________________________________
Don't you know there ain't no devil,
There's just god when he's drunk.
-Tom Waits |
| waxburn |
Posted - 05/10/2011 : 22:08:33
quote:
Originally posted by rocker
You know I'd be curious as to how his contemporaries reacted to him. Was he held in good stead? I always thought he had idea which weren't mainstream even for the "rock" world at the time. He was certainly different in his approach to music.
Most are scared to talk about him due to the situation with the estate. |
| ZFarrar |
Posted - 05/10/2011 : 20:35:29
Lemonade Kid
Great job in bringing to light some of Frank Zappa's background and stories. I don't honestly think there is much interest here from some of the Love fans. I was going to discuss Frank's Antelope Valley band "The Soul Giants", but all of this is easily obtained in any number of books on Frank. There are some hilarious stories of he and Captain Beefheart borrowing (Don's father) his Helms Bakery Truck in Lancaster, cruising for chicks and eating pineapple rolls. The funny thing is Frank's description of the Maryland Hotel is a place that 10-15 years later I discovered, it was called Arcade Music. with 45 priced at 3 for a buck, albums were 50 cents to 1.99. Besides the juke box records, radio station promo copies were massive. It was there that I discovered that strange 45 with the Herb Alpert trumpet on an Elektra promo 45, later I also purchased Forever Changes there
Meanwhile I spent some time in Lancaster CA years ago, in a small coffee shop at the Antelope Valley Inn I met a friend of mine who had just spent some time with John French (Drumbo) from Beef's Magic Band. He had some great stories about Don and Frank, suddenly an waitress approached us, she was maybe 60 and very much a grand mother type). She had overheard us talking about Frank, she recounted that she and Frank had dated in high school, and some of his early music. She was still upset over his passing (which had happened the year before). What I was amazed by is she told me she had a huge collection of his albums. |
| rocker |
Posted - 05/10/2011 : 14:26:25
You know I'd be curious as to how his contemporaries reacted to him. Was he held in good stead? I always thought he had idea which weren't mainstream even for the "rock" world at the time. He was certainly different in his approach to music. |
| lemonade kid |
Posted - 04/10/2011 : 21:41:01
Sorry, I got diverted...
Zappa was active in the early 60's ('60-64) often collaborating with Ray Collins. Zappa started a power trio in 1964 called The Muthers. The Mothers came to be in 1965.
During the early 1960s, Zappa wrote and produced songs for other local artists, often working with singer-songwriter Ray Collins and producer Paul Buff. Their "Memories of El Monte" was recorded by The Penguins, although only Cleve Duncan of the original group was featured. Buff owned the small Pal Recording Studio in Cucamonga, which included a unique five-track tape recorder he had built. At that time, only a handful of the most sophisticated commercial studios had multi-track facilities; the industry standard for smaller studios was still mono or two-track. Although none of the recordings from the period achieved major commercial success, Zappa earned enough money to allow him to stage a concert of his orchestral music in 1963 and to broadcast and record it. He appeared on Steve Allen's syndicated late night show the same year, in which he played a bicycle as a musical instrument. With Captain Beefheart, Zappa recorded some songs under the name of The Soots. They were rejected by Dot Records for having "no commercial potential", a verdict Zappa subsequently quoted on the sleeve of Freak Out!
In 1964, after his marriage started to break up, he moved into the Pal studio and began routinely working 12 hours or more per day recording and experimenting with overdubbing and audio tape manipulation. This set a work pattern that endured for most of his life. Aided by his income from film composing, Zappa took over the studio from Paul Buff, who was now working with Art Laboe at Original Sound. It was renamed Studio Z. Studio Z was rarely booked for recordings by other musicians. Instead, friends moved in, notably James "Motorhead" Sherwood. Zappa started performing as guitarist with a power trio, The Muthers, in local bars in order to support himself.
The "Brain Police" arrest Zappa...
An article in the local press describing Zappa as "the Movie King of Cucamonga" prompted the local police to suspect that he was making pornographic films. In March 1965, Zappa was approached by a vice squad undercover officer, and accepted an offer of $100 to produce a suggestive audio tape for an alleged stag party. Zappa and a female friend recorded a faked erotic episode. When Zappa was about to hand over the tape, he was arrested, and the police stripped the studio of all recorded material. The press was tipped off beforehand, and next day's The Daily Report wrote that "Vice Squad investigators stilled the tape recorders of a free-swinging, a-go-go film and recording studio here Friday and arrested a self-styled movie producer". Zappa was charged with "conspiracy to commit pornography". This felony charge was reduced and he was sentenced to six months in jail on a misdemeanor, with all but ten days suspended. His brief imprisonment left a permanent mark, and was key in the formation of his anti-authoritarian stance. Zappa lost several recordings made at Studio Z in the process, as the police only returned 30 out of 80 hours of tape seized. Eventually, he could no longer afford to pay the rent on the studio and was evicted. Zappa managed to recover some of his possessions before the studio was torn down in 1966.
The Mothers Of Invention
In 1965, Zappa was approached by Ray Collins who asked him to take over as the guitarist in local R&B band The Soul Giants, following a fight between Collins and the group's original guitarist. Zappa accepted, and soon he assumed leadership and the role as co-lead singer (even though he never considered himself a singer). He convinced the other members that they should play his music to increase the chances of getting a record contract. The band was renamed The Mothers, coincidentally on Mother's Day. The group increased their bookings after beginning an association with manager Herb Cohen, while they gradually gained attention on the burgeoning Los Angeles underground music scene. In early 1966, they were spotted by leading record producer Tom Wilson when playing "Trouble Every Day", a song about the Watts Riots. Wilson had earned acclaim as the producer for singer-songwriter Bob Dylan and the folk-rock act Simon & Garfunkel, and was notable as one of the few African Americans working as a major label pop music producer at this time.
Wilson signed The Mothers to the Verve Records division of MGM Records, which had built up a strong reputation in the music industry for its releases of modern jazz recordings in the 1940s and 1950s, but was attempting to diversify into pop and rock audiences. Verve insisted that the band officially re-title themselves "The Mothers of Invention" because "Mother", in slang terminology, was short for "mother****er" — a term that apart from its profane meanings can denote a skilled musician. -wiki
_____________________________________________
Don't you know there ain't no devil,
There's just god when he's drunk.
-Tom Waits |
| Joe Morris |
Posted - 04/10/2011 : 21:24:42
Hey! I thought the Grass Roots were the first band to play the bicycle live on Steve Allen
Oh, Well. Perhaps Steve played "Hows your sister?" at some time also
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-trLWRvnJY
SCHMOCK SCHMOCK!! |
| waxburn |
Posted - 04/10/2011 : 21:24:04
quote:
Originally posted by lemonade kid
But they were acquaintances and sometimes you can be inspired by someone, their talent and their passion, without being directly derivative or influenced in your music.
I think it probably worked that way with Bryan and Zappa with much of the music that inspired them....from Lerner & Lowe to Edgard Varese.
Edgard Varese: The Idol of My Youth
By Frank Zappa
Article taken from Stereo Review, June 1971. pp 61-62.
I have been asked to write about Edgard Varese. I am in no way qualified to. I can't even pronounce his name right. The only reason I have agreed to is because I love his music very much, and if by some chance this article can influence more people to hear his works, it will have been worthwhile.
I was about thirteen when I read an article in Look about Sam Goody's Record Store in New York. My memory is not too clear on the details, but I recall it was praising the store's exceptional record merchandising ability. One example of brilliant salesmanship described how, through some mysterious trickery, the store actually managed to sell an album called "Ionization" (the real name of the album was "The Complete Works of Edgard Varese, Volume One"). The article described the record as a weird jumble of drums and other unpleasant sounds.
i dashed off to my local record store and asked for it. Nobody ever heard of it. I told the guy in the store what it was like. He turned away, repulsed, and mumbled solemnly, "I probably wouldn't stock it anyway... nobody here in San Diego would buy it."
I didn't give up. i was so hot to get that record I couldn't even believe it. In those days I was a rhythm-and-blues fanatic. I saved any money I could get (sometimes as much as $2 a week) so that every Friday and Saturday I could rummage through piles of old records at the Juke Box Used Record Dump (or whatever they called it) in the Maryland Hotel or the dusty corners of little record stores where they'd keep the crappy records nobody wanted to buy.
One day I was passing a hi-fi store in La Mesa. A little sign in the window announced a sale on 45's. After shuffling through their singles rack and finding a couple of Joe Houston records, I walked toward the cash register. On my way, I happened to glance into the LP bin. Sitting in the front, just a little bent at the corners, was a strange-looking black-and-white album cover. On it there was a picture of a man with gray frizzy hair. He looked like a mad scientist. I thought it was great that somebody had finally made a record of a mad scientist. i picked it up. I nearly (this is true, ladies and gentlemen) peed in my pants... THERE IT WAS! EMS 401, The Complete Works of Edgard Varese Volume I... Integrales, Density 21.5, ionization, Octandre... Rene Le Roy, the N. Y. Wind Ensemble, the Juilliard Percussion Orchestra, Frederic Waidman Conducting... liner notes by Sidney Finkelstein! WOW!
I ran over to the singles box and stuffed the Joe Houston records back in it. I fumbled around in my pocket to see how much money I had (about $3.80). I knew I had to have a lot of money to buy an album. Only old people had enough money to buy albums. I'd never bought an album before. I sneaked over to the guy at the cash register and asked him how much EMS 401 cost. "That gray one in the box? $5.95 - "
I had searched for that album for over a year, and now... disaster. I told the guy I only had $3.80. He scratched his neck. "We use that record to demonstrate the hi-fi's with, but nobody ever buys one when we use it... you can have it for $3.80 if you want it that bad."
I couldn't imagine what he meant by "demonstrating hi-fi's with it." I'd never heard a hi-fi. I only knew that old people bought them. I had a genuine lo-fi... it was a little box about 4 inches deep with imitation wrought-iron legs at each corner (sort of brass-plated) which elevated it from the table top because the speaker was in the bottom. My mother kept it near the ironing board. She used to listen to a 78 of The Little Shoemaker on it. I took off the 78 of The Little Shoemaker and, carefully moving the speed lever to 33 1/3 (it had never been there before), turned the volume all the way up and placed the all-purpose Osmium-tip needle in the lead-in spiral to Ionization. I have a nice Catholic mother who likes Roller Derby. Edgard Varese does not get her off, even to this very day. I was forbidden to play that record in the living room ever again.
In order to listen to The Album, I had to stay in my room. I would sit there every night and play it two or three times and read the liner notes over and over. I didn't understand them at all. I didn't know what timbre was. I never heard of polyphony. I just liked the music because it sounded good to me. I would force anybody who came over to listen to it. (I had heard someplace that in radio stations the guys would make chalk marks on records so they could find an exact spot, so I did the same thing to EMS 401... marked all the hot items so my friends wouldn't get bored in the quiet parts.)
I went to the library and tried to find a book about Mr. Varese. There wasn't any. The librarian told me he probably wasn't a Major Composer. She suggested I look in books about new or unpopular composers. I found a book that had a little blurb in it (with a picture of Mr. Varese as a young man, staring into the camera very seriously) saying that he would be just as happy growing grapes as being a composer.
On my fifteenth birthday my mother said she'd give me $5. I told her I would rather make a long-distance phone call. I figured Mr. Varese lived in New York because the record was made in new York (and because he was so weird, he would live in Greenwich Village). I got New York Information, and sure enough, he was in the phone book.
His wife answered. She was very nice and told me he was in Europe and to call back in a few weeks. I did. I don't remember what I said to him exactly, but it was something like: "I really dig your music." he told me he was working on a new piece called Deserts. This thrilled me quite a bit since I was living in Lancaster, California then. When you're fifteen and living in the Mojave Desert and find out that the world's greatest composer, somewhere in a secret Greenwich Village laboratory, is working on a song about your "home town" you can get pretty excited. It seemed a great tragedy that nobody in Palmdale or Rosamond would care if they ever heard it. I still think Deserts is about Lancaster, even if the liner notes on the Columbia LP say it's something more philosophical.
All through high school I searched for information about Varese and his music. One of the most exiting discoveries was in the school library in Lancaster. I found an orchestration book that had score examples in the back, and included was an excerpt from Offrandes with a lot of harp notes (and you know how groovy harp notes look). I remember fetishing the book for several weeks.
When I was eighteen I got a chance to go to the East Coast to visit my Aunt Mary in Baltimore. I had been composing for about four years then but had not heard any of it played. Aunt Mary was going to introduce me to some friend of hers (an italian gentleman) who was connected with the symphony there. I had planned on making a side trip to mysterious Greenwich Village. During my birthday telephone conversation, Mr. Varese had casually mentioned the possibility of a visit if I was ever in the area. I wrote him a letter when I got to Baltimore, just to let him know I was in the area.
I waited. My aunt introduced me to the symphony guy. She said, "This is Frankie. He writes orchestra music." The guy said, "Really? Tell me, sonny boy, what's the lowest note on a bassoon?" I said, "B flat... and also it says in the book you can get 'em up to a C or something in the treble clef." He said, "Really? You know about violin harmonics?" I said, "What's that?" He said, "See me again in a few years."
I waited some more. The letter came. I couldn't believe it. A real handwritten letter from Edgard Varese! I still have it in a little frame. In very tiny scientific-looking script it says:
VII 12th/57
Dear Mr. Zappa
I am sorry not to be able to grant your request. I am leaving for Europe next week and will be gone until next spring. I am hoping however to see you on my return. With best wishes.
Sincerely
Edgard Varese
I never got to meet Mr. Varese. But I kept looking for records of his music. When he got to be about eighty I guess a few companies gave in and recorded some of his stuff. Sort of a gesture, I imagine. I always wondered who bought them besides me. It was about seven years from the time I first heard his music till I met someone else who even knew he existed. That person was a film student at USC. He had the Columbia LP with Poeme Electronique on it. He thought it would make groovy sound effects.
I can't give you any structural insights or academic suppositions about how his music works or why I think it sounds so good. His music is completely unique. If you haven't heard it yet, go hear it. If you've already heard it and think it might make groovy sound effects, listen again. i would recommend the Chicago Symphony recording of Arcana on RCA (at full volume) or the Utah Symphony recording of Ameriques on Vanguard. Also, there is a biography by Fernand Oulette, and miniature scores are available for most of his works, published by G. Ricordi.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
The way I see it is this, WB.....music is a sonic/love thing. A combination of notes or sounds that are assembled in a way that turns you on. Discussions about what is good, or what or who is genius, is pointless and cannot be proven anyway.
Whatever gets you through the night (and day!)....but it's pointless to look down on a certain artist's music. Don't listen to it. Don't think about it. Enjoy what gets us off, not what pisses us off. Life's too short.
If what turns me on, doesn't turn you on, or visa versa, that's cool. No worry...as Georgie Beatle said, "It's just stuff."
_____________________________________________
Don't you know there ain't no devil,
There's just god when he's drunk.
-Tom Waits
i didt question Mr Zappas greatness, he is without doubt an icon. he could have been President of czechoslovakia, and im told they have statutes of him there. the plastic people of the universe used to hum to his songs. I think they even have a Zappastock type of festival over there.
I just wondered whether Bryan was influenced by him. Bryans songs seem far far away from Zappaland, sonically speacking. Also wondered if the Mothers were active in 1964. |
| lemonade kid |
Posted - 04/10/2011 : 18:19:27
But they were acquaintances and sometimes you can be inspired by someone, their talent and their passion, without being directly derivative or influenced in your music.
I think it probably worked that way with Bryan and Zappa with much of the music that inspired them....from Lerner & Lowe to Edgard Varese.
Edgard Varese: The Idol of My Youth
By Frank Zappa
Article taken from Stereo Review, June 1971. pp 61-62.
I have been asked to write about Edgard Varese. I am in no way qualified to. I can't even pronounce his name right. The only reason I have agreed to is because I love his music very much, and if by some chance this article can influence more people to hear his works, it will have been worthwhile.
I was about thirteen when I read an article in Look about Sam Goody's Record Store in New York. My memory is not too clear on the details, but I recall it was praising the store's exceptional record merchandising ability. One example of brilliant salesmanship described how, through some mysterious trickery, the store actually managed to sell an album called "Ionization" (the real name of the album was "The Complete Works of Edgard Varese, Volume One"). The article described the record as a weird jumble of drums and other unpleasant sounds.
i dashed off to my local record store and asked for it. Nobody ever heard of it. I told the guy in the store what it was like. He turned away, repulsed, and mumbled solemnly, "I probably wouldn't stock it anyway... nobody here in San Diego would buy it."
I didn't give up. i was so hot to get that record I couldn't even believe it. In those days I was a rhythm-and-blues fanatic. I saved any money I could get (sometimes as much as $2 a week) so that every Friday and Saturday I could rummage through piles of old records at the Juke Box Used Record Dump (or whatever they called it) in the Maryland Hotel or the dusty corners of little record stores where they'd keep the crappy records nobody wanted to buy.
One day I was passing a hi-fi store in La Mesa. A little sign in the window announced a sale on 45's. After shuffling through their singles rack and finding a couple of Joe Houston records, I walked toward the cash register. On my way, I happened to glance into the LP bin. Sitting in the front, just a little bent at the corners, was a strange-looking black-and-white album cover. On it there was a picture of a man with gray frizzy hair. He looked like a mad scientist. I thought it was great that somebody had finally made a record of a mad scientist. i picked it up. I nearly (this is true, ladies and gentlemen) peed in my pants... THERE IT WAS! EMS 401, The Complete Works of Edgard Varese Volume I... Integrales, Density 21.5, ionization, Octandre... Rene Le Roy, the N. Y. Wind Ensemble, the Juilliard Percussion Orchestra, Frederic Waidman Conducting... liner notes by Sidney Finkelstein! WOW!
I ran over to the singles box and stuffed the Joe Houston records back in it. I fumbled around in my pocket to see how much money I had (about $3.80). I knew I had to have a lot of money to buy an album. Only old people had enough money to buy albums. I'd never bought an album before. I sneaked over to the guy at the cash register and asked him how much EMS 401 cost. "That gray one in the box? $5.95 - "
I had searched for that album for over a year, and now... disaster. I told the guy I only had $3.80. He scratched his neck. "We use that record to demonstrate the hi-fi's with, but nobody ever buys one when we use it... you can have it for $3.80 if you want it that bad."
I couldn't imagine what he meant by "demonstrating hi-fi's with it." I'd never heard a hi-fi. I only knew that old people bought them. I had a genuine lo-fi... it was a little box about 4 inches deep with imitation wrought-iron legs at each corner (sort of brass-plated) which elevated it from the table top because the speaker was in the bottom. My mother kept it near the ironing board. She used to listen to a 78 of The Little Shoemaker on it. I took off the 78 of The Little Shoemaker and, carefully moving the speed lever to 33 1/3 (it had never been there before), turned the volume all the way up and placed the all-purpose Osmium-tip needle in the lead-in spiral to Ionization. I have a nice Catholic mother who likes Roller Derby. Edgard Varese does not get her off, even to this very day. I was forbidden to play that record in the living room ever again.
In order to listen to The Album, I had to stay in my room. I would sit there every night and play it two or three times and read the liner notes over and over. I didn't understand them at all. I didn't know what timbre was. I never heard of polyphony. I just liked the music because it sounded good to me. I would force anybody who came over to listen to it. (I had heard someplace that in radio stations the guys would make chalk marks on records so they could find an exact spot, so I did the same thing to EMS 401... marked all the hot items so my friends wouldn't get bored in the quiet parts.)
I went to the library and tried to find a book about Mr. Varese. There wasn't any. The librarian told me he probably wasn't a Major Composer. She suggested I look in books about new or unpopular composers. I found a book that had a little blurb in it (with a picture of Mr. Varese as a young man, staring into the camera very seriously) saying that he would be just as happy growing grapes as being a composer.
On my fifteenth birthday my mother said she'd give me $5. I told her I would rather make a long-distance phone call. I figured Mr. Varese lived in New York because the record was made in new York (and because he was so weird, he would live in Greenwich Village). I got New York Information, and sure enough, he was in the phone book.
His wife answered. She was very nice and told me he was in Europe and to call back in a few weeks. I did. I don't remember what I said to him exactly, but it was something like: "I really dig your music." he told me he was working on a new piece called Deserts. This thrilled me quite a bit since I was living in Lancaster, California then. When you're fifteen and living in the Mojave Desert and find out that the world's greatest composer, somewhere in a secret Greenwich Village laboratory, is working on a song about your "home town" you can get pretty excited. It seemed a great tragedy that nobody in Palmdale or Rosamond would care if they ever heard it. I still think Deserts is about Lancaster, even if the liner notes on the Columbia LP say it's something more philosophical.
All through high school I searched for information about Varese and his music. One of the most exiting discoveries was in the school library in Lancaster. I found an orchestration book that had score examples in the back, and included was an excerpt from Offrandes with a lot of harp notes (and you know how groovy harp notes look). I remember fetishing the book for several weeks.
When I was eighteen I got a chance to go to the East Coast to visit my Aunt Mary in Baltimore. I had been composing for about four years then but had not heard any of it played. Aunt Mary was going to introduce me to some friend of hers (an italian gentleman) who was connected with the symphony there. I had planned on making a side trip to mysterious Greenwich Village. During my birthday telephone conversation, Mr. Varese had casually mentioned the possibility of a visit if I was ever in the area. I wrote him a letter when I got to Baltimore, just to let him know I was in the area.
I waited. My aunt introduced me to the symphony guy. She said, "This is Frankie. He writes orchestra music." The guy said, "Really? Tell me, sonny boy, what's the lowest note on a bassoon?" I said, "B flat... and also it says in the book you can get 'em up to a C or something in the treble clef." He said, "Really? You know about violin harmonics?" I said, "What's that?" He said, "See me again in a few years."
I waited some more. The letter came. I couldn't believe it. A real handwritten letter from Edgard Varese! I still have it in a little frame. In very tiny scientific-looking script it says:
VII 12th/57
Dear Mr. Zappa
I am sorry not to be able to grant your request. I am leaving for Europe next week and will be gone until next spring. I am hoping however to see you on my return. With best wishes.
Sincerely
Edgard Varese
I never got to meet Mr. Varese. But I kept looking for records of his music. When he got to be about eighty I guess a few companies gave in and recorded some of his stuff. Sort of a gesture, I imagine. I always wondered who bought them besides me. It was about seven years from the time I first heard his music till I met someone else who even knew he existed. That person was a film student at USC. He had the Columbia LP with Poeme Electronique on it. He thought it would make groovy sound effects.
I can't give you any structural insights or academic suppositions about how his music works or why I think it sounds so good. His music is completely unique. If you haven't heard it yet, go hear it. If you've already heard it and think it might make groovy sound effects, listen again. i would recommend the Chicago Symphony recording of Arcana on RCA (at full volume) or the Utah Symphony recording of Ameriques on Vanguard. Also, there is a biography by Fernand Oulette, and miniature scores are available for most of his works, published by G. Ricordi.
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The way I see it is this, WB.....music is a sonic/love thing. A combination of notes or sounds that are assembled in a way that turns you on. Discussions about what is good, or what or who is genius, is pointless and cannot be proven anyway.
Whatever gets you through the night (and day!)....but it's pointless to look down on a certain artist's music. Don't listen to it. Don't think about it. Enjoy what gets us off, not what pisses us off. Life's too short.
If what turns me on, doesn't turn you on, or visa versa, that's cool. No worry...as Georgie Beatle said, "It's just stuff."
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Don't you know there ain't no devil,
There's just god when he's drunk.
-Tom Waits |
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