Zappa.com

Hi,

(long story ... you are welcome to skip the whole thing!)

So, on the other board there was a discussion on "needlin" which was a process that a lot of radio stations used, that basically showed how much they knew music, or loved music, and you already know the answer!

You took the needle on your turntable, dropped it here, heard 3 bars, dropped it there and heard 2 bars, dropped it there and heard one bar ... and voila ... you decided if this was a hit or not!

As you and I know ... how creative that is ... and the folks on the PA board, of course took offense on a comment I made ... that "if you have to "needle" something, your listening habits would not be "progressive" per se, in fact, you would be mirroring the very process that hurt serious music and a lot of other folks that ended up being considered "progressive" in the annals of rock history that one city with a fake hall in the US has never heard of before!

I remember when "Overnight Sensation" came out, and even then, it took a while for many folks to "get" that, into commercial radio ... but, if you "needled" a lot of the earlier stuff, or even later, it would, likely, make your evaluation of Frank's work ... even harder!

So, I stand by my stuck up comment ... that if you have to needle things, you are not a serious listener of music, and Frank would not like you, and he would screw up the guitar solo just to finger you out and off!

It was, another of those moments, where you stand up for the "work", in its entirety, and all of a sudden, a bunch of folks that consider themselves progressive, are not taking on the progressive idea ... and instead are doing exactly the same thing that we fought against, which was the rise of FM radio as an alternative to the AM hit mentality ... but nooooo ... some folks instead took it personal and thought I was calling them stupid!

Thought I would share that here, as folks here can appreciate music a lot better, and with a much less stuck up attitude towards an idea ... that doesn't even exist ... and that board is full of ass kissers like you would not believe!

Anyway ... rant off ... and thanks for ... and I still think that 200 Motels is one of the best things ever done in film and music!

Interesting opinion. But , I think the keywords here are radio stations.If you have never been involved in that type of environment , you might not understand. Radio personal are bombarded by ' new ' music coming their way everyday. You can usually tell a ' hit ' with a few needles. Hell , you do it all the time on your car radio , don't you ?

The time to listen fully to one song , let alone dozens , would be way too inefficient for even many listeners , and still get other work done.

But , if someone would pay me to listen to music all day everyday , and that's all , hey , sign me up.

Nope and an even bigger NOPE!

I'm a music listener ... and I like the idea of giving people the time, place and effort they deserve for their music ... and Frank was one of these for me ... I don't even enjoy radio int eh background ... why? ... I like to live inside the music and fly with it! ... and that is another reason why I'm not a picker ... !!!



Me 2!

It's the same issue with film reviews, of which I have done over 500 of them already and have many at the Internet Movie Database ... but the real issue is that on that other broad ... oooppppssss .... board ... but that bored has this "fan" thing going ... that is really sad ... and is killing the music by commercializing it and trivializing it with fans that don't give a shit and are making sure that these fans are contaminated with the nearest disease that radio had to offer a few years back!

Time to bring back, the Machine Gun Kelly's, the Real Don Steele's and many more of those ... !!!

Ohhh Frank ... do we need you now more than ever!

Dammit, I thought this was a thread about needlepoint.

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

You knew it wasn't, you're just needlin', right?

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The way I see it Barry, this should be a very dynamite show.

I was told major record companies will listen to approximately 3 seconds of your demo. if it doesn't go cha-ching in 3 seconds it's, next...

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Stop Plate Techtonics!!
http://www.myspace.com/originalfacelift
http://www.balkanmusic.org/
http://thesurfonics.com/index.html

And now you know why Frank Zappa had so many issues with them ... but them, remember to take a look at the list of the worst business decisions ever made ... and Frank and many others were aware of that ... but it also meant that you had the good/right folks with you ... and I wonder if Frank, or someone else in the family, alienated way too many people to be able to make, better and stronger business decisions.

It's a tough inch, either way you look at it! But it was very much like Frank to play the star guitar hero on the stage and then do the same grandstanding to a record executive and ... blow away his chance for some free money ... but I think that he already knew that he did not want these wigs around him!