Zappa.com

Mountain Girl's diet pills on the 1st album
second album was mixed on LSD by Jerry and Phil

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Music > Everything
CLETUS must now, regretfully, dispose of the ones who refuse to alter their unmusical ways.
http://www.vulturesawait.com

Metal Machine Music? Maybe? Possibly? Right?

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

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Nah, that's not the kind of stuff you'd make on acid. He was just trying to piss off RCA.

And it worked...

BTW: I was kind of surprised that it took so long for someone to mention The Grateful Dead in this thread.

I mean, HELLO: Owsley Stanley was their first sound engineer, and he paid for their equipment by becoming Alice D. Millionaire. "Viola Lee Blues" wasn't just recorded on acid; it was financed by acid...

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The Cure - Pornography
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_pTSrOKNKs

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The more I learn, the less I know.

The GONG situation is weird (can't believe I did not list it!) ... it is known that the Tea Pot Trilogy was drugged up, however, the 3rd album in it (YOU) was done without drugs for the most part and while there are many stories about it, the main one was ... that it was too much work to record, and it was not as much fun as the others ... meaning that the drugs kinda just let you do anything, and you did not think about ... "music" ... or anything else. That said, "YOU" is one of the best albums of rock music ever recorded, and just so anyone knows, Pierre did mention he wished he had a chance to work with Frank when we met on their tour here in the US. Didier will also tell you that Frank is acknowledged as an influence on a similar discussion at another time, although, they did not intentionally "think" of Frank Zappa ... and a lot of it had to do with their 2 "beat poets" ... remember that Daevid Allen and Gilly Smith lived in a house that had many writers coming and going, including Burroughs (Naked Lunch), Ginsburg (the poet) and others ... the very same house that also featured Syd Barrett and Kevin Ayers and Robert Wyatt! In essence, both Daevid and Gilly are excellent beat poets, and this is underestimated when you listen to their work, as it makes for a very impressive amount of material ... that they probably have to scratch and claw to get over to other folks to play!

Gilly does not think that the drugs were that big a deal. I kinda think that she has a bit of a tolerance for them, and having babies at that time probably meant that she did not take as much as others. She is funny, witty, and nuts, and all that ... but self-conscious and afraid of what she does on the stage of life ... is not an issue.

It's more fun to allude to the sign on the album cover than anything else ... that cover, itself, is probably inspired by Frank Zappa.

Again, however, this band was very much a very literary and educated group of people that had a pretty darn good idea of what they did. Original member Neil Innes went on to work with Paul McCartney's brother Mike McGear (Grimms), Monty Python and then have a massive body of work on his own as well.

You have to see the film "The Trip" ... it is without a doubt one of the best documentaries of what the whole psychedelic thing was about, and pretty much, Ken even says it, he accidentally even lets you know why so much of it failed ... too many people couldn't get over their own hangups!

It is an absolutely fabulous film, and the whole thing about the other two writers, and pretty much teaching you what Jack Kerouac was all about, makes this a very important document ... that is going to get lost because we love stars and tu$$hmediakissing ... and we already forgot what Frank Zappa was so about ... these people showed you what Frank went on to do ... in many ways, the Grateful Dead were the folks that stuck to Ken ... but their music no longer reflected the freedom and the learning and the experience itself.

Compare this with the stuff around "krautrock" and specially the Cosmic Courier thing ... exactly same issue!

The worst part of it all? ... the bit about Nurse Ratchet! "she's not evil!. She's just another nurse with a job, a slave to the society she is a part of! ... " and we still don't get it, don't we? Guess what Frank was fighting? Being another slave to the society! SPECIALLY the COMMERCIAL side of things and what it has become years after his passing.

This is the "literary" side of Frank that he will never get credit for ... since his family only can see and understand the "rock star" and "fame" thing ... and the fans are mostly into the guitar than anything else. And comments/connections like my words on this are not going to have any meaning, or get any attention ... because this is just a board with fans and idiots all having fun together and ... the family itself of the artist, is not capable of appreciating these comments and what they state and where they fit in the life of the artist.

This is how arts get lost! Frank's work is not going to improve until such a time as someone can connect the dots to the other arts and how he stands out as a creative person ... instead of just another rock'n'roll star that had awfully rude lyrics!

But, honestly, I think that Frank already knew that drugs could influence things, but then, so could your work. And you have to decide which you want more!

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"Voodoo Butter Underpants...
heh, heh... the pants that
nearly broke Tommy Mars' neck."

That was quite an enjoyable take on Gong. Obtained some info I did not previously possess. Knew some of the info on Daevid. Do you have a similar take/knowledge on tear garden/The Dots. I must assume you have a familiarity with them, as most Gong fans do, but perhaps a bridge too far?

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“The power of pop music to corrupt and putrify the minds of world youth are virtually limitless."

Huh? Robert Hunters lyrics always reflected that experience. And the dead's music stayed as free as any set by Gong. Or Zappa. Half of it sucked..but still.


Too bad the whole world couldn't live in a tree house at Kesey's.

Perhaps because he said he didn't like to read.


Actually, teaching you what Kerouac's book On The Road was all about. 2 different things.


Wrong again.

I don't know about the musical content, but the cover certainly was...

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The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true Art and Science. - Albert Einstein

Not quite familiar or studied about The Dots and will take a look at it asap. My apologies for my ignorance on that one.

The Gong family, unlike many on the Woodstock generation, is not a family of doodahs and stoneheads. That is a very American thing to be and do ... only to find that one day you have a child and have to get a job ... and you are sad, bummed and frustrated the rest of your life ... so to speak.

Without wanting to place a social comment on the above area (not interested in that), the real issue is that these folks went on to do a lot of their work, because it was their calling and their muse ... and if they had something to learn .... they learned from some of the best out there ... but America was NEVER very good, or appreciative of its writers, artists and musicians ... it's always been ... Broadway, Hollywood, and the monsters! And the media in America, so owned by the corporations that own them (Citizen Kane!!!!!) are telling you what to like and not read ... and learn from. So let's give you the good book, and make sure you learn it, so you stop asking questions!

You have to make a call ... and the European scene already knew this ... from ART HISTORY ... which America supresses in its schools ... it's the reason why Reagan, Ford, Bush and then Bush wanted it out of the schools ... so you do not know the difference ... though they will never express it that way, at all. For them this learning was not as important as another type of learning ... like making sure the church choices of books were better! You have, sooner or later, to take a stand on that or America will die its freedom dream!

Art in Europe has been ... for at least 500 years ... the face of the truth ... and the vision of the freedoms that we did not have. Think of Guernica ... not as a painting but a snapshot of what a kid saw outside his window on the streets of Madrid ... all of a sudden it's a different ball game, isn't it ... and you think Hollywood or Broadway would allow you to show that? Can't have kids seeing that!

I....didn't....like.......................the Dead, but.then...again, they always seemed..........................................to be more of a stoner band.............................................................to me.

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

Impressed once again. I am especially surprised you went in the direction of Art History, as I obtained my Masters in it. Certainly agree on the public school system. In my area at least, most schools still offer art production in schools, but art history is virtually nil. So mush so that I gave up trying to teach art and settled on general education, as it was far more interesting, for me, than teaching kids to make clay pots. And with such strict curriculum guidelines, any art history I would be able to squeeze in would be incredibly minimal. But you certainly should give Tear Garden and the Dots a listen if you are able. I would suggest The Last Man to Fly (TG) and From Here You'll Watch the World Go By (LPD). On a personal level, I would argue that Marcel Duchamp's Fountain was as revolutionary as Guernica, but I admit to being biased.

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“The power of pop music to corrupt and putrify the minds of world youth are virtually limitless."

This just in......Chris Elliot prenant and on acid!

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I'm getting larger as I walk away.

I was lucky. I came from a VERY HIGH literary field ... dad is in the Brittanica, and in the annals of Portuguese Literature ... but sadly, for many folks here, it doesn't mean crap ... they are not even going to look at Wiki to learn a little about art history ... so for them, all this discussion in music is just ... another hit ... or another rock star ... the concept of "history" and (specially) the arts, is a lost art, and not enough of us are fighting it off ... same thing as ... repeating your mistakes ... and art/literature/music is one way to learn ... but you can not tell this to folks that only know one book ... because they have never seen the world out there.

Doesn't make me right, please!!!! It doesn't make them all wrong, either!

But it makes it difficult on communication when some posters will (instead) make snag remarks, the surest sign that they don't care ... or mis-quote Frank ... saying that art is crap ... when all he was saying was ... that the media was the one that said that art was crap ... except the dad'srecord'ssymphony that you were supposed to go to, but never did, of course! Frank, very simply, did not wish to say something was crap, and he immediately placed himself in the midst of those crap folks! But making fun of it, and his "wit" is very strong and would make the French and the English proud, is very difficult for Americans to appreciate ... because there is no laugh track ... and it loses you!

Frank Zappa, knew that he did not want to be the pariah of "art history" ... but he had an appreciation for a lot of that art, and saying he did not know music, like Stravinsky (ever seen one of those scores? ... yeah ... go compare it to Stairway to Heaven!), or Varese ... is, of course ... crazy, because you know he did ... but he could not go around saying ... Picasso is great ... because ... well ... because ... well ... that is not the Southern California "star" way! (favorite joke!).

All in all ... look at an opera score ... about 30 or 40 lines ... look at a rock song ... 4 lines! ... then think about Frank making sure that he had at least 12 lines ... on his scores ... and most rock music, is so simplistic, that understanding the concept of more than one thing happening at the same time ... is almost impossible.

It's the hard part, for me to post, even here, because my appreciation for Frank's music is not the same as most folks here, and yet, they can not fathom me discussing it and why, and having over 25 CD's of his music! But there isn't ... in all of "rock music" more than a handful of people that are doing "scores" for real, as Frank did ... and this is what Dweezil can not understand and his band is not capable of doing ... he's turning it down to a garage level without all the extra lines on the score, and as such, he looked just like a garage band next to Return to Forever ... I guarantee you that Frank would not have stood for that and probably fired the whole band!

Any way ... this conversation is too far off the "acid" ... but it does show ... how slim, most of our ears have become ... and that us getting off that mode is going to be hard ... what do I do, now?

I just go and listen to more music! And the weirder the better!

I'm surprised no one mentioned this classic!

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"You can fly like a Penguin when you're dealing with Turkeys."

Hi,

(Small soap box moment)

I would think that everyone would state that almost anything that came out of San Francisco, or LA were probably so laden with acid that it was not funny ... but then, the other side is like saying that most of those people did not know music to deserve the chance to come up with something ... which you and I would no doubt consider it ... LUCK!

Not likely!

The difficult thing, to explain to many is that the record companies in America killed the long cuts, the experiments and the freedom ... and we're all way too sedated and drunk on American Idol, or Football, to give a damn! Thus, the "art" that helped create the music ... was lost!

You can go back to Grateful Dead doing shows for 4, 5 and more hours ... and I suppose that we could say ... that half the time they were so ripped they did not know what they were doing. When you check the equivalent stuff in Europe (mostly Germany in the days of Guru Guru) some of that stuff was really good, and you can hear it ... the GD stuff? ... all gone ... and this is the reason why so many fans still have all those old bootlegs, most of which also cutoff/cutdown the majority of the long cuts!

Somewhere along the way, the artists have to stand up ... but they didn't. The sex, drugs and what not abuses took them all ... and with them ... the art! Jim M may habe been going crazy, but no one got to learn/understand his connection to film and him making his lyrics ALL visual! Jimi died before he was able to explain to us what he liked doing, that was not blues! Janis died, before we learned that she wanted to be loved, and instead was around people that milked. bilked and robbed her of her innocence, her life and her love!

Art History is full of those examples ... of people that "died" before their time ... and a lot of their work has survived time ... and we still ask questions about what it all meant ... no one is sitting here and getting upset and reverential about Edgar Allan Poe writing his stuff on some serious dope ... but we think that someone else doing it is not good! Specially in rock music!

We have to get over the idea of "drugs" or any other excuse ... is the issue ... it isn't!

It takes a person ... that FEELS it ... and it doesn't matter if they dope up or not. They were capable of expressing it for however long they were alive. Many of those moments and experiences are beyond our comprehension ... but we do not sit here and try to learn from them ... we talk about the albums done on acid! I would rather talk about the music these wonderful folks put together and I don't care if they did dope or not!

This is the hard part with Frank Zappa's work, because at first listen, too many people think he is drugged up and crazy, because only someone that doped up could be so weird and crazy ... and instead it is the opposite ... which gives you the SECRET to the whole thing ... it's about the music, the art, the poetry, the writing ... you just have to "live through" ... and this can be done with ot without drugs ... but we have these romantic notions about drugs ... and as a mystic once said ... if you have to do them again, you're enslaved, and you're already dead!

Your art is over!

Alan Watts on psychedelics:

"When you get the message, hang up the phone."

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The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true Art and Science. - Albert Einstein

I thought Frank steered clear of drugs?

The Beatles: Revolver
Pink Floyd: Umma Gumma (studio sides)
Jefferson Airplane: Surealistic Pillow

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"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."

It's the pretentiousness that turns people away. The fucking preciousness.

People need to have some food to eat and be somewhat comfortable before they can cozy up to a work of art.

Yet somehow they have no problem dedicating hour after hour to making multi-millionairs out of sports stars.

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“The power of pop music to corrupt and putrify the minds of world youth are virtually limitless."

Right.

All the whiny, neglected artists should have learned to play football. They'd be happier.


You're saying that each member of pink floyd took acid and then went off alone and recorded solo pieces separately? That seems highly unlikely.