Zappa for Begginers - Where should I start?

[foq1978]

Ok, I want to know Frank Zappa better, and I have no idea where to start. Can you suggest me

a) Either a couple of albums or
b) A list of 10 - 15 songs where to start?

I realize he has covered gazillions of styles, so in case you're wondering about my musical preferences (so you might know how I should approach Zappa's work), I am a big Tom Waits, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, The Beatles and Morphine fan. Does that help?

Thanks a lot!

[GtenderG]

Try listening to the albums Apostrophe and Overnight Sensation.
I think they're a good place to start

Listen to the whole album front to back. Don't think in terms of individual song just yet...


Enjoy!

[Mark Latimour]

I would suggest buying:

Hot Rats and either Overnite Sensation or One Size Fits All.

They are generally quite accessible and would give you a good overviewo f his music.

The other album which is a great voerview (but expensive) is "The Best Band You Never Heard in Your Life". THere is music from almost all periods palyed in the big band format. Its an excellent live disc.

[marijn van gils]

+ 1!!! to Apostropy-Overnight Sensation. That's probably the best place to start.

"Sheik Yerbouti" and "Hot rats" are also good to add to this: both different enough from "Apostrophe" and "Overnight Sensation", and with a good amount of variation in each album.

And I second the idea not to listen to individual songs, but to albums as a whole. Zappa usually never attemted to just write songs, but saw his work as a bigger concept.

Maybe one of the clearest examples for this is "Joe's Garage". It is brilliant, but you need to from beginning to end, and preferably multiple times. This would be a good start to check out his '80ies work.

Enjoy the ride!

Marijn

[dalkowski]

Originally Posted by GtenderG

Try listening to the albums Apostrophe and Overnight Sensation.
I think they're a good place to start

Listen to the whole album front to back. Don't think in terms of individual song just yet...


Enjoy!

+1. Those would be my first choices. Live at the Fillmore is very good also.

After that, just grab any album, dig in and enjoy. He'll change your life. FZ left us way, way too soon...

[foq1978]

Thank you all! Apostrophe and Overnight Sensation it is.

I'll keep ears open to Hot Rats, One Size Fits All and Sheik Yerbouti as well.

Again, thanks a lot for the advice!

[Hoover]

I think a good way to get a Zappa overview would be to listen to albums from the various "periods" in his career. IOW, while Overnite Sensation and Apostrophe are both wonderful albums and definitely two of his strongest works, they're both from exactly the same time period (they were released consequetively, in 1973 or 74), so by listening to those you miss out on other eras. And One Size Fits All, while admittedly being one of the most universally regarded "Best Zappa Albums Ever", was the next release after Apostrophe so you're still only getting a slice of Frank's 1970s output.

Which shouldn't stop you from running out and buying all three of those albums right away; in fact I'd encourage that! But I'd also encourage cherry picking some albums from the more distinctly different periods in his career:

- early Mothers of Invention (with Jimmy Carl Black, the Gardners, Don Preston, Motorhead Sherwood, etc)

- the Flo&Eddie period

- the "big band" albums (especially Waka-Jawaka and Grand Wazoo)

- the mid-70s (with George Duke, Tom Fowler, Ruth Underwood, etc)

- the 80s/Shut Up & Play Yer Guitar era (with Vinnie Colliuta and/or Steve Vai)

- the Synclavier works

- the final recordings: Make A Jazz Noise Here, Broadway The Hard Way, and especially The Yellow Shark

Also highly recommended: Läther, which consolidates all the mid-70's Warner Bros contractual obligation material; Uncle Meat, which to my ear shows an incredible metamorphosis from the early Mothers period to the big band period; and any of the You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore series of live albums.

Hell, it's all good...

[knumbskull]

definitely agree on Hot Rats

also The Grand Wazoo is quite accessible, sort of in a similar style.

[fu22ba55]

Not to derail the thread... all the Zappa suggestions are spot on, but if you're a Tom Waits fan, you should check out Captain Beefheart too, (and Howlin' Wolf for that matter). Zappa and Beefheart were pals in the early days.

Captain Beefheart
--------------------
Safe As Milk (60's fuzzed out bass, great stuff)
Spotlight Kid / Clear Spot (both on one CD)

[foq1978]

Originally Posted by fu22ba55

Not to derail the thread... all the Zappa suggestions are spot on, but if you're a Tom Waits fan, you should check out Captain Beefheart too, (and Howlin' Wolf for that matter). Zappa and Beefheart were pals in the early days.

Captain Beefheart
--------------------
Safe As Milk (60's fuzzed out bass, great stuff)
Spotlight Kid / Clear Spot (both on one CD)

Funny you mention that, as the original thread title would be "Zappa / Beefheart for Begginers". I have listened to Trout Mask Replica and Ice Cream for Crow - but found hard to get into them. I'll check those you've mentioned.

Thanks a lot!

Amazing how these prolific composers can be hard to be approached!

[Barkless Dog]

Captain Beefheart has never been an "easy listen". He created a music that was totally unique, through sadistic torture & a cult like abuse of his band. No one will likely recreate what he did in those early days. He makes Buddy Rich look like a softy.

http://www.beefheart.com/datharp/reviews/finsrevrad.htm

A miracle indeed. The horror of the situation, particularly during the recording of Trout Mask Replica, is terrible to the point of hilarity:

'We rarely left the house, and up until a month or two before recording, we were not eating very well. During this time, Jeff, Mark and I all tried to escape. Jeff ran out the door one night with me chasing him down the street and wanting to go with him. Mark had his clothes hidden in a field across the street once, trying to escape after dark.'

[Barkless Dog]

http://www.freewebs.com/teejo/argue/johndrumbo.html

in order to prevent the fruition of any such plot, don - who was a master manipulator and 8-9 years our senior - would start a 'talk', as he called it. usually the unfortunate target was whoever was having difficulty with a particular section of music. or perhaps someone in a foul mood because they had had nothing to eat for a month but a small four ounce jar of soyabeans a day.

it's painful for me to talk about this time in my life. many in my family looked down on me because i didn't stand up for myself. they didn't realise this wasn't a john wayne physical type of battle. it was a mental battle, and a spiritual one. i was completely unprepared for the hostile environment which i and my friends found ourselves in. i was completely at a loss as to how to react to this environment.

my three best friends and i became ensnared in an atmosphere of fear, dread and misery. my main goal was to finish 'trout mask replica' and get out and never go back. we had no money. we hardly saw girls. we slept on the floor. we were verbally abused. we were hungry. out clothes weren't even clean. we couldn't be ourselves without starting a 'talk'. sometimes these 'talks' lasted two and three dáys with the 'target' finally bursting into tears or lying his way out of some imaginary maze of guilt.

all of us were doing our best to finish the project, and had a great deal of respect for don's music. in our - the band's - perspective, these talks were our fault, and we hadn't arrived at some level we needed to be at in order for harmony to exist.

anything specific you can remember?

images i remember are: everyone else in the band hitting me in the face at the same time; falling asleep from utter exhaustion with a cigarette and everyone watching it burn my hand after being up for three days; after going to the bathroom, i laid down in exhaustion only to wake up with everyone staring at me, and when i stood up i was struck in the face and fell down, so exhausted and mentally screwed up i couldn't defend myself; being hit in the chin and looking in a mirror hours later to discover blood caked in my beard and hair: getting drunk - i hardly ever drink - going off by myself and passing out only to be carried and propped up in a chair in the living room and having ice thrown on me for hours, so that i woke up shivering and then enduring an interrogation as to how i could possibly embarrass the band in this way...

it wasn't the physical violence that was the worst part, it was the mental strain of walking on eggs around a man who constantly thought everyone was involved in some devious plot. langdon winner mentioned this behaviour in [one of the last paragraphs of] his rolling stone article on the captain in [...] 1970, saying in effect that don at one point began to view him as 'public enemy number one'.

Want to find out who your friends are?

Put on Beefheart at a party

[Hoover]

Originally Posted by Barkless Dog

Want to find out who your friends are?

Put on Beefheart at a party

Totally OT: I had a friend who was sort of "socially bipolar", in that he ran in two diametrically opposed circles of friends: highly educated intellectual musicians with academic credentials, and Harley-Davidson motorcycle owners. Biker gangs & music nerds.

At one of his parties some folks from the music nerds circle put on a CD of Pierre Boulez' "Le marteau sans maître" and whipped out the score so that party-goers could read along!

Half the party left. The other half stuck around and got really into sight-reading the score while listening to this thorny mid-20th Century serial masterpiece.

What was really funny is that the split did not occur along "party lines"...a good number of the folks who stuck around for the score-reading fun were the leather-clad Harley bikers!

[5StringBlues]

Tinseltown Rebellion

[Andy_D]

I vote for "One Size Fits All". This was Zappa at the top of his game. Of course I think a lot of that was the George Duke influence as well.Songs like Inca Roads, San Bernadino, Po-Jama People and Andy are all Zappa Masterpieces. Zappa even had 70's Funkster Johnny Guitar Watson on board for this one.

[Dom Phenom]

Roxy and Elsewhere.

The Best Band You've Never Heard in Your Life.

Joe's Garage


have fun, there's a lot of crazy zappa stuff out there to dig into.

[bobm2112]

I was always a fan of Zappa in New York.. THE Illinois ENEMA BANDIT.. I HEARD HES ON THE LOOOOOSEEEE Joes Garage a classic. You Are What You is great album. Baby Snakes: the live version of Dynamo Hum is so great and Punky Whips is hysterical Thing Fish, a great concept album. Stay away from Them or Us.

If you wanna get a little strange, get Were Only In IT For The Money. I personally love that album.

[boombap]

Apostrophe/Overnite Sensation is good too.

"Make a Jazz Noise Here" and ANY of the YOU CAN'T DO THAT ON STAGE ANYMORE series of live recordings.

"Hot Rats" is Frank's first solo album and is one off my FAVORITE. I love to play parts of the "Willie the Pimp" solo on my bass. Funking AWesome!!!

Peace

[ksandvik]

Originally Posted by GtenderG

Try listening to the albums Apostrophe and Overnight Sensation.
I think they're a good place to start

Listen to the whole album front to back. Don't think in terms of individual song just yet...


Enjoy!

Second that, a nice kickstart to a life-long Zappa habit. You could usually get both on a CD for a one-CD price! Check Amazon.com

[Deluge Of Sound]

My vote is for the first few Mothers albums: Freak Out! Absolutely Free, We're Only In It For The Money, and Weasels Ripped My Flesh.

His early solo stuff is also great--my favorite of those is Hot Rats.

That's my favorite Zappa period, and what better place to start than the beginning?