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lemonade kid
Old Love
USA
9873 Posts |
 Posted - 21/09/2011 : 23:10:56
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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and again the full FASCINATING INTERVIEw--
http://www.afka.net/Articles/1967-09_Jazz_Pop.htm
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Sometimes I have good luck...
& write better than I can.
-Hemmingway |
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Joe Morris
Old Love
3491 Posts |
Posted - 22/09/2011 : 00:27:19
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| Forever Changes vs Lumpy Gravy. Discuss |
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lemonade kid
Old Love
USA
9873 Posts |
Posted - 22/09/2011 : 00:43:56
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It's hard to believe that any LA band open to new ideas was not influenced by Zappa and his radical and "weird" approach to musical structures and time signatures.
Both FC and Lumpy Gravy are masterpieces of weird (for the day) and unusual compositions....amazing achievements of completely individual works of genius.
Though Lumpy Gravy was not widely available until 1968, it's easy to imagine that everyone in LA, and the WORLD at large, was aware of the new and groundbreaking work of Zappa--he was indeed a presence in the Canyon and the LA scene...and Zappa's jazz/classical/rock influence on Arthur is hard not to imagine....if just thru osmosis.
Both were "students" of classical, jazz, blues, and early rock...though without any formal musical education (which is remarkable), but who remembered everything they heard.
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Sometimes I have good luck...
& write better than I can.
-Hemmingway |
Edited by - lemonade kid on 22/09/2011 01:08:38 |
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sometimesmylifeissoeerie
Fourth Love
198 Posts |
Posted - 22/09/2011 : 06:29:40
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| In the Zappa biography I read, Zappa said he used to sit in with Love on the Strip in the 60s. |
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waxburn
Old Love
USA
735 Posts |
Posted - 22/09/2011 : 14:25:09
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quote:
Originally posted by Joe Morris
Forever Changes vs Lumpy Gravy. Discuss
Forever Changes. |
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kdion11
Old Love
USA
552 Posts |
Posted - 24/09/2011 : 00:40:56
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quote:
Originally posted by lemonade kid
It's hard to believe that any LA band open to new ideas was not influenced by Zappa and his radical and "weird" approach to musical structures and time signatures.
Both FC and Lumpy Gravy are masterpieces of weird (for the day) and unusual compositions....amazing achievements of completely individual works of genius.
Though Lumpy Gravy was not widely available until 1968, it's easy to imagine that everyone in LA, and the WORLD at large, was aware of the new and groundbreaking work of Zappa--he was indeed a presence in the Canyon and the LA scene...and Zappa's jazz/classical/rock influence on Arthur is hard not to imagine....if just thru osmosis.
KD: I completely disagree. Zappa is terribly over rated. A great lead guitarist sure but that's about it. A "classical composer"? Paaaalllleeeese. Just because one knows how to write down musical notation does not make one a "classical composer".
Tack on to that his never ending, toilet humor nonsence lyrics - no thanks. Uncut got it best on old Frank with their career retrospecitve on him from a few years ago:
"Too high brow for the low brows, and too low brow for the high brows".
Nuff said ! He would have made a great guitarist in somebody else's band. A band that knew how to write good songs. Anyone listen to his records on a regular basis around here ?
Didn't think so. |
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lemonade kid
Old Love
USA
9873 Posts |
Posted - 24/09/2011 : 02:46:39
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Yep...listen regularly.
The Mothers of Invention period mostly. Can't explain but they and Frank are a part of my youth, freak psyche, and their rep is unshakeable....so don't diss my Zappa!
Maybe you had to be there, but most of the present day [Uncut,etc, who were born 20 years AFTER any real music was made] critics don't have a clue what Zappa was about. He was there to, heaven forbid, shake up the status quo with his music. All the Ozzie and Harriet, Leave It To Beaver stuff was just too out of touch and we kids just had to let our freak flag fly...and Frank led the United Mutants!
Like I said, you had to be there...it is something hard to explain, and I don't doubt impossible for the iPod, iTunes, Starbucks I-Me-Mine generation to ever comprehend.
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Sometimes I have good luck...
& write better than I can.
-Hemmingway |
Edited by - lemonade kid on 24/09/2011 02:49:01 |
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jayson_valentine
Third Love
USA
72 Posts |
Posted - 24/09/2011 : 21:42:37
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| Lumpy Gravy is a terrible album. It lacks direction, substance, and sophistication in my opinion. |
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John9
Old Love
United Kingdom
2154 Posts |
Posted - 24/09/2011 : 22:39:57
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I must admit, I was never very fond of Lumpy Gravy, but for my money Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention, released some of the most important albums in the latter half of the revolutionary 60s. Brock Helander in the The Rock's Who's Who wrote these words about them:
Despite the seemingly chaotic and deranged nature of their on-stage spectacle, Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention performed (and recorded)remarkably disciplined, precise and technically demanding music, complete with intricate and complex changes of time and key signatures and unusual and difficult phrasings.
Just like Love with Forever Changes, I think that The Mothers helped to elevate popular music to another level entirely. |
Edited by - John9 on 24/09/2011 22:40:32 |
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lemonade kid
Old Love
USA
9873 Posts |
Posted - 24/09/2011 : 23:43:45
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I have to agree about Lumpy Gravy. I never bought it in '68. But the first three Mothers of Invention vinyl are as precious to me as the LoVE trilogy.
Hot Rats is very fine, a he hits his stride after the experiment with Lumpy Gravy. Call it his "Revelation"....
The Lumpy Money 3 CD set is worth the CDs and the unreleased material and rare mixes are very nice.
And just as Arthur was spotty after LOVE (you know what I mean), so Zappa was, after the Mothers...though Frank hit higher heights I think, as the decades passed, than Arthur did.
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Sometimes I have good luck...
& write better than I can.
-Hemmingway |
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lemonade kid
Old Love
USA
9873 Posts |
Posted - 25/09/2011 : 01:56:28
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To paraphrase Michael....
LoVE, Arthur, Johnny, Bryan never once mentioned The Mothers. He never saw a record in any of their large collections by The Mothers.
The Mothers never influenced LOVE...period.
I believe him and really their music so so unique, but diametrically opposed that it must be so...without a doubt. Frank's assertion that Love copied the Mothers is probably based...well, an honest assumption or an observation from hearing them. Maybe, as both were very observant artists, Love influenced Frank a little.....after all, LoVE's succes was what Frank would likely be wishing for at the time!
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Sometimes I have good luck...
& write better than I can.
-Hemmingway |
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ZFarrar
Fourth Love
USA
164 Posts |
Posted - 25/09/2011 : 02:20:24
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[
[/quote]
KD: I completely disagree. Zappa is terribly over rated. A great lead guitarist sure but that's about it. A "classical composer"? Paaaalllleeeese. Just because one knows how to write down musical notation does not make one a "classical composer".
Tack on to that his never ending, toilet humor nonsence lyrics - no thanks. Uncut got it best on old Frank with their career retrospecitve on him from a few years ago:
"Too high brow for the low brows, and too low brow for the high brows".
Nuff said ! He would have made a great guitarist in somebody else's band. A band that knew how to write good songs. Anyone listen to his records on a regular basis around here ?"
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Over-rated, a term used in your case for music that is beyond your scope or understanding. Better keep your comments limited to something you have actual knowledge of. Zappa was a genius.
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Edited by - ZFarrar on 25/09/2011 02:25:49 |
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lemonade kid
Old Love
USA
9873 Posts |
Posted - 25/09/2011 : 06:37:22
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I have to agree, ZF---Zappa was a genius.
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Sometimes I have good luck...
& write better than I can.
-Hemmingway |
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ZFarrar
Fourth Love
USA
164 Posts |
Posted - 26/09/2011 : 05:57:32
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Lemonade: Right you are about Zappa, he and Arthur were apparently casual friends, and judging from FZ's comments he respected Love's style, he certainly understood it.I always found that the everyday rocker type could not relate to Zappa or especially his friend Captain Beefheart.
It's a shame. Here's 2 of my favorites from the more laid back side of both artists. I hope they resonate with some of you Love fans.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Xdd7YVfY6w&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKlAIhuXRLE |
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waxburn
Old Love
USA
735 Posts |
Posted - 26/09/2011 : 16:03:07
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quote:
Originally posted by sometimesmylifeissoeerie
In the Zappa biography I read, Zappa said he used to sit in with Love on the Strip in the 60s.
Unlistenable. Have to give him credit tho, he did influence that band Zappa plays Zappa. |
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lemonade kid
Old Love
USA
9873 Posts |
Posted - 26/09/2011 : 18:17:41
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quote:
Originally posted by waxburn
quote:
Originally posted by sometimesmylifeissoeerie
In the Zappa biography I read, Zappa said he used to sit in with Love on the Strip in the 60s.
Unlistenable. Have to give him credit tho, he did influence that band Zappa plays Zappa.
It really comes down to personal taste in the end.
We love Zappa. You don't. That's all. And that's cool.
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Sometimes I have good luck...
& write better than I can.
-Hemmingway |
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Topic |
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LoVE name checked 3 times in Zappa '67 interview
