Zappa.com

i've been trying to get my wife to appreciate zappa and the mothers, (also my friends) but they just don't "get it". i know there are others like me who's wives look at me like i'm crazy and calls me obsessed. she also says she doesn't want to hear somebody who only sings about "broccoli and gonhorea"

so i've been trying to come up with all of his "firsts" that he's accomplished that has changed music forever:

first to record with a wah wah
first to use a 16 track recorder
first to film a movie on tape and transfer it to actual film
first to use electric woodwinds

anymore things i'm missing? was he the first to put transducers in the marimba and vibraphone?

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Who's this dude with his hair straight back?
His new white socks, 'n his pants all black
His T-shirts rolled His watch is gold
A '55 Chevy that his brother just stoled

Some people will never like his music, no matter what. It's all a matter of personal taste.

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You gotta give the people something good to read, on a Sunday

i just remembered:

first rock concept album
first rock double album

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Who's this dude with his hair straight back?
His new white socks, 'n his pants all black
His T-shirts rolled His watch is gold
A '55 Chevy that his brother just stoled

Calvin's right. You can quote all the statistics you like but like Frank said "either you get it, or you don't". I've tried to casually and sometimes not so casually introduce Zappa to other folks over the years and I don't think I've converted one person.

yes, it's very strange. I met this guy who had a very similar taste in music to mine. Put together an "intro to FZ" that I was sure he'd love, and he was like.......ummmm no, no thanks.

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"Why do people say "Grow some balls"? Balls are weak and sensitive! If you really wanna get tough, grow a vagina! Those things take a pounding"! -- Betty White

I once thought anybody should like Peaches En Regalia (the version from Hot Rats). But sometimes I got reactions like: "This is the most horrible shit I've ever heard!"

So I've given up trying to convert others a long time ago.

Th.

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Active forum member since 2005 - R E T I R E D from this forum in 2013

When i was 16 years old i used to bring You are what you is all the time at my friend place where her mother was never there. I brain washed his mind all a summer and i even made him smoked alot of free canabis and when i saw him 8 years later in Montreal he had alot of Zappa albums.

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'N then I might just Jump back on An' ride Like a cowboy Into the dawn to Montana

I think Frank is the first who bring rock listeners in the contemporary music world.

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'N then I might just Jump back on An' ride Like a cowboy Into the dawn to Montana

I have to agree with the above! You have to have the "light bulb" experience. I heard one small song (Absolutely Free) and completely flipped out. It had so many intriguing elements that I had to check out more. Some of it I didn't get and I gave up on Frank for a while, but it was all there waiting for me when I was ready. Thanks to Ryko.

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Country music + Black music = Rock and Roll

for me, i'm into really "different" music and at that time i was all about mike patton (mr.bungle, fantomas, faith no more) and somebody played me joe's garage, and that was it! i was crazy about it. so i was used to listening to music most of my friends didn't like.

anybody here into mike patton?

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Who's this dude with his hair straight back?
His new white socks, 'n his pants all black
His T-shirts rolled His watch is gold
A '55 Chevy that his brother just stoled

Yep, there are others. I did make a point of making sure my wife knew of my "obsession" before we got married. All attempts at "converting" her have failed so far, but maybe time is on my side. I did catch her humming that wonderful vocal chorus after the guitar solo in Inca Roads while she was doing housework the other day. Maybe playing the ZPZ DVD once or twice a week for over a year is having an affect.

I haven't "converted" any other person with the exception of my brother. His "light bulb" experience was when he heard the version of "Outside Now" on BTHW. I'd been playing Zappa for him for years and nothing clicked until the day he heard that particular song. I don't know why, but that one tune set him off. Next thing I know he has the entire YCDTOSA set, and about a dozen other assorted albums and a couple of videos! Well, as we all know, once you start...

But it did take years, and he is my brother, so similar tastes in some things can be expected. I guess that would be a "easy conversion". I've had no luck at all trying to convert anyone else, and have given up trying.

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Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.

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Ahhh!!!! So I guess the key is brainwashing in an isolated environment with forced marijuana intoxication. I'll try that next time.


Just kidding.

The pot was the positive reinforcement and later his brain maybe started to need FZ music to smoke or smoke to listen Zappa.

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'N then I might just Jump back on An' ride Like a cowboy Into the dawn to Montana

thank you!

my bro is also a big zappa fan too, but i guess it helps when i buy/collect all the music!

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Who's this dude with his hair straight back?
His new white socks, 'n his pants all black
His T-shirts rolled His watch is gold
A '55 Chevy that his brother just stoled

First to write a rock opera? (I was a teenage malt shop)

First with "psychedelic music" (Freak Out was released before Revolver, and Rubber Soul isn't very "out there")

But I agree to that people who doesn't like his music probably won't care.
A good introduction is probably to start where he did. With Freak Out!
Or with WOIIFTM. I think rather albums than compilations, but maybe strictly commercial. That's a good, easy listened compilation.

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"Jazz is not dead, it just smells funny"

fz interview, 1967 ('psychedelic upholstery' mofo - 4cd box)

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"bit of nostalgia for the old folks."

First church of appliantology

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"Jazz is not dead, it just smells funny"

First guy to take a shit on stage and eat it...


Oh wait...

whats with that story? I often hear it, but who, where, when, why? WWWW?

OT:
I've suggested to the suggestible listener ( ), about 6 or7 people, franks music... only 3 of them found it interesting and started to listening... well, one likes various songs, one likes 84 tour and one likes guitar solos

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i just wikipedia-ed it, and pink floyd started recording piper at the gates of dawn BEFORE the mothers started freak out. but freak out was released first. so who knows who was first with that.

zappa was the first to make a jazz-rock album right? (hot rats)

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Who's this dude with his hair straight back?
His new white socks, 'n his pants all black
His T-shirts rolled His watch is gold
A '55 Chevy that his brother just stoled

Yes, and without trying to take away from any accomplishment one can attach to Freak Out!, The Monks were making psychedelic music in 1965. Of course, they were also making punk. WAY ahead of their time.

As far as how to turn people on to Frank...........I can't think of just one way. His catalogue is versatile enough that you would think you could find at least one song for every person you meet.

I dunno. I got turned onto the idea of Frank as a young child, watching a clip of him playing the bicycle on Steve Allen's show on a Rolling Stone history of rock video series. Somewhere in there was Bruce Bickford's video for "Don't Eat The Yellow Snow". So I got lucky and stumbled upon the persona and wonder of Frank Zappa long before I heard or bought an album of his.

If I'd lived to be the age I am now and had never heard of Frank or his music, I don't know what would have connected with me and what wouldn't have. I just keep his records around, even on my iPod when I sit in hospital waiting rooms, so if anyone should happen to ask what those strange sounds are coming from my headphones, it's an opportunity to plant a seed of interest.

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NJP

you don't really believe that's a true story, do you?

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"bit of nostalgia for the old folks."

From "The Real Frank Zappa Book":

The other fantasy is that I once took a shit on stage.' This has been propounded with many variations, including (but not limited to):

[1] I ate shit on stage

[2] I had a 'gross-out contest' (what the fuck is a 'gross-out contest'?) with Captain Beefheart and we both ate shit on stage.

[3] I had a 'gross-out contest' with Alice Cooper and he stepped on baby chickens and then I shit on stage, etc.

I was in a London club called the Speak Easy in 1967 or '68. A member of a group called the Flock, recording for Columbia at the time, came over to me and said:

You're fantastic. When I heard about you eating that shit on stage, I thought, 'That guy is way, way out there.'

I said, "I never ate shit on stage." He looked really depressed - like I had just broken his heart.
For the records, folks: I never took a shit on stage, and the closest thing I ever came to eating shit anywhere was at a Holiday Inn buffet in Fayetteville, North Carolina, in 1973

The first to put out classical music and rock on the same release?

The first "rock" guy to write classical music?

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Everytime we picked a booger we'd flip it on this one winduh. Every night we'd contribute, 2, 3, 4 boogers. We had to use a putty knife, man, to get them damn things off the winduh. There was some goober ones that weren't even hard...