Zappa.com

[quote author=brown_shoes link=board=legends;num=1030034174;start=90#101 date=02/07/03 at 20:58:44]My first exposure to Frank was 1967, when Absolutely Free was first released on vinyl....................  <br>We all miss you, Frank![/quote]<br><br>That's a nice story, brown_shoes. Welcome to the board!

I had heard about FZ but had never actualy heard FZ.  So one day when I was about 11 years old I picked up the just released Zoot Allures, much to the horror of my brother. I remember actualy being frightened by the scream at the begining of Mrs Pinky the first time I heard it.<br><br>Years later in 7th grade I met a few kids who had been turned on to FZ by older brothers and they in turn turned me on to Freak Out and many of the other early albums. <br><br>From then on I was totaly hooked.

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Keap It Greasey!

I was sixteen...At a party...My friend put on Disk two of "live in NY" .......Bozzio floored me....I was so won over that I bought "Live in NY" the very next day....

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The Meek Shall Inherit Nothing

::)<br>Wow! Can't quite remember the FIRST Time I heard Frank. Must've been by accident on one of the Early SNL appearances. Had READ about him before. What A freakI must've thought, gotta check this out. <br><br>First time I got MOOVED to buy an album was some kind of blurb in some kind of monotomous magazine that mentioned his new album carried some kind of song entitled "Broken Hearts are for ASSHOLES!" Don't care what it sounds like, gotta hear something like that" said little old freshman in High school me. Bought it behind my parents' back at the local discount store, (Before Frank got banned from such things) & went backwards, & forwards from there.<br><br>"Whatcha gonna do...CAUSE YER AN ASSHOLE???"<br><br>JW Foust

It was 1985 and I was 11.   I was deep in the throes of 80s hair metal guitar hero worship.  I had just started playing the guitar and was really into "shredders" and had embarked on a crusade to hear all the "great guitar gods".<br><br>This of course led me eventually to a relatively new kid on the block who was starting to get noticed by the guitar magazines.  Some guy named Steve Vai.  I got his Flexable album and was just amazed at how original, unique, and totally different this music was from all the other crap I was listening to.  In the liner notes, there are a few mentions of Frank Zappa.   I had also read several interviews with Vai wherein he mentioned how he'd got his start with Zappa's band, and how highly he thought of Frank, and I decided that I needed to hear some FZ music.  After all, if Steve Vai thought he was cool, then it's GOTTA BE TRUE.<br><br>Knowing that Steve had performed on "Man From Utopia", I chose that one as my first FZ album.  <br><br>It was that album that, eventually, completely changed my tastes in music.  "Tink Walks Amok", "The Radio Is Broken", and especially "Moggio" were about the only 3 songs I listened to for the next week.  <br><br>I began to acquire more FZ albums, some of which I loved, some of which I cared less for.   But they ALL had something new on them; something I had never heard before.  Suddenly, all my heavy metal albums seemed so completely absurd, cheesy, and empty.<br><br>Over the years, I grew to like other types of music, of course.  I discovered bands like King Crimson, Allan Holdsworth, and many others.  But Zappa was always the benchmark against which I judged other music.   Because I now knew of the greatness that was FZ, my tastes in music evolved significantly and I became much harder to impress.<br><br>At 11 and 12 years old, NONE of my friends had HEARD of Frank Zappa, much less had they heard his music.  In a way, this was kinda cool.  I began to feel like I knew the world's coolest secret.  I was building a collection of this vast universe of mind-blowingly wonderful music,  and I had it all to myself.   Because of this, Frank's music became very, very personal to me. <br><br>When I would meet new friends, especially in my mid and late teenage years, I would always sit them down and make them listen to a few selected FZ tracks and interrogate them about what they thought of it.  Anyone who reacted in a non-negative way to it was instantly branded cool. ;D  I read years later an interview wherein FZ mentioned that he used to do the same thing to his friends with Varese and Stravinsky.    I thought the synchronicity in that was really cool.<br><br>I remember when I heard Frank died.  I was sitting in my room, really early in the morning, and my mom came in and said, "Did you know your hero died?" and handed me the paper with the little sidebar.  My dad had died about a year prior, and I was immediately surprised to find that it felt every bit as painful as when my dad died.  I genuinely felt like I had lost a huge part of myself.   I had known about Frank's cancer, but I was under the impression that he would eventually overcome it.  I was devastated.  I turned on the CD player and "One Size Fits All" happened to be in it.  When the guitar solo to Inca Roads came around, I started bawling and cried all the way through the rest of the song, and then some. <br><br>To this day, I can still put on a Zappa album I haven't listened to in a while and hear something new that I'd never noticed before.   How many other artists can you say that about?

In 1974 when I was 15, I caught the last minute or so of "Montana" on the radio but the DJ never said the name of the song or who it was. For a few days, I left the radio on all the time, hoping to find out more about this masterpiece so I could go out & buy it. A few days later I heard Arthur Penhallow on WRIF in Detroit (he's still there, same station, same afternoon shift) say something like "that was Uncle Frank Zappa talking 'bout moving to Montana and raising up some o' that funky ol' dental floss", so I rode my bike to the record shop but they didn't have "Over-Nite Sensation". I was disappointed but figured if this guy Zappa had one song that was this cool, he probably had some other good stuff. The had a poster advertising his newest album, "Apostrophe", so I bought a copy and was stunned at how great it was - I even forgot about the Beatles for a while. It's funny how you can hear just a little bit of a song and get that feeling like this is going to lead to a lifelong obsession, but that's exactly how it turned out.

I was in grade school, and my older brother told me to come into his room and check out his new stereo, it was ready to go. Some of you remember the little "stereos" which flipped open and had tiny built in speakers and a turntable that required coins on the tone arm to work. Well, now he had a REAL stereo, and it was a quantum leap up from our little piece of shit. He had the speakers up off the floor and seperated, and had me sit across the room in the center. He put on his new album, which was Apostrophe, to demonstrate the full stereo effect of wind noise swooshing back and forth across the room. My parents were gone, so naturally he cranked it up REALLY loud. I really liked it, so he let the whole album side play. It was a great way to be introduced to FZ's music.

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“The person who stands up and says, 'This is stupid,' either is asked to behave or, worse, is greeted with a cheerful 'Yes, we know! Isn't it terrific!" -Frank Zappa

I probably heard Zappa a few times at my friend's house, but since it was her brothers who were playing the record, I wasn't paying much attention to it. But I do remember one of his LP's being  solid red in color, and her brothers showed me the album cover of "We're Only In It For the Money", which I found very amusing. That was in the late 60's.                                                           Later on around '77 a group of guys I got to know played "200 Motels" for me. I remarked on how Frank's speaking voice sounded so professional, like a dj. These guys kept telling me to just listen to his stuff, that it was more than silliness and weirdness that I was led to believe before, and I was hooked from then on. One of those guys I ended up getting married to and we've spent a good 20 years now enjoying FZ.

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the torture never stops

;D ;D ;D ;D<br><br>    As I have stated before in these lovely society pages, I am a younger Zappa fan with just 25 years to my name, but the first stuff I recall hearing my mom and dad play in the house was selected muffin remnants from Sheik Yerbouti, New York, You Are What You Is and Tinseltown Rebellion...I can clearly recall hearing between kindergarten and 1st Grade...<br><br>1.I don't wanna get drafted<br>2.Titties and beer<br>3.Fine girl<br>4.Easy meat<br>5.Honey, don't you want a man like me?<br>6.Teenage wind<br>7.Harder than your husband<br><br>  Only the most morally sound for the child of two Zappa fans

the first time i heard of zappa, i was trying to introduce the music of steve vai to a friend of mine. he explained that vai used to play in frank's band. I was completely shocked. i couldn't believe that a guitar god like vai would have anything to do with a weirdo like zappa. then my friend said that steve learned quite a bit of his technique from zappa. he then played the album "as an am" for me i heard the guitar solos on stevie's spanking, and was hooked. i went out bought that album, then every other zappa album that featured steve vai. after awhile i started buying other zappa albums prior to the vai era. what a surprise! his music rocks. never thought i would enjoy listening to that style of music. i'm glad i was wrong.thanks Frank, and thanks kelley for introducing the real genius rock to me!!<br>

Only a year ago, when I was 14. I saw FZ's name on a forum on some site. Looked funny, I thought.<br><br>Some time later I asked my parents. They had a copy of Strictly Genteel. I listened to it, and it wasn't bad. But the thing that really got me going was the fact that my mother mentioned Montana, which she had heard at one time, and remembered it mostly because of all the bits about dental floss. I downloaded it, and loved it. FZ was one of the first musicians that really got me to like strange music. No wonder I bill him as an inspiration.

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lol internet.

The name Frank Zappa has been circling around my head for what seems like FOREVER. I remember seeing a pic of him in a magazine when I was pretty young. Guitar World had a list of the 100 best guitar players, and FZ was one of them. I remember seeing the video from "You Are What You Is" on an episode of Beavis and Butthead. It wasn't until my senior year of HS that I actually got something by him. I was flipping through the Used CD section of a local record store, when I came upon a CD with ugly guys dressed in drag on the cover. I looked it over and found out that it was Frank Zappa's WOII4$. Some weird voice in the back of my head said "You have to get this", so I did. I went home and put it on my CD player, and I was barraged by sounds I had never heard before. I fell in love with it from then on. <br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br>

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Faster'n a three-peckered owl!

first time i heard him, i was on my way to see my first arena rock show (rush 92-2nd row floor!) in the car.  i was 13 and went with my friend, his father and uncle.  my friend said "you gotta hear this its funny, they say ram it up your poop shoot."  obviously now it was the sheik yerbouti album.  it was a few years later though that i really got into him.

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looks like i'm back playing with Clearlight Industries. CLI MySpace

Well, my story is kinda simple.<br><br>There was, last year(maybe 2 years ago) a rock album collection. In that one it was the most popular rock songs from the old times, or something like that.<br><br>Well, in that commercial I heard the part of the lyrics from Bobby brown when it opens up "Hey there people i'm bobby brown". You that have heard it, you know what I mean.<br><br>Also, there was a short cut on Franks head...He was like having a smile and nicking back or something.<br><br>Well, I was going around singing on the words "Hey there people I'm bobby brown". Unforunately, my mum told me that the song I was singing of wasn't having good lyrics, ro something so. <br><br>Well, to put in here, my mum never liked Frank so much, for example she has said it was "complete jungle music". <br><br>Anyway, my parents buy this album since it had alot of other classics. Also, my dad have Sheik yerbouti and Bongo fury in his old LP collection. But we didn't have a working LP player.<br><br>So, there I was, listening to Bobby brown. And only Bobby brown.<br><br>Until one day my music teacher told us to do a music project. One was going to do a work about Zappa, I wanted to but wanted to do something different. But still though I was pretty enthusiastic and downloaded a few Zappa albums.<br><br>Later my knowledge about him have growed over such little time(It hasn't nearly gone a year since I started to listen to him). Also, my CD (and sometimes LP) collection have growed and I'm more looking to ind most of his album.<br><br>So, thats my story, also, I ended up here because of my enthusiasm in that music project. <br>But that's another story....<br><br> -/dr_grogg<br><br>

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Yeah, just as it used to be, but still not.....