I think I first heard Frank's name in connection with the PMRC hearings, when I was a teenage metalhead in the mid-80s. I had always assumed he was a blues rocker in the Hendrix/Santana mold. When I finally did check out his music, it was (IIRC) because of a column in
Guitar for the Practicing Musician magazine, written by Randy Coven and called "Bass Secrets" or something like that. In it, he talked about rhythmic concepts like playing five notes in the space of three (5:3) and stated that he first learned of such rhythms when studying Frank's music at Berklee. At that point, I ran straight to the record store, and they had probably 20 or so Zappa CDs in stock. I selected one based on the cover, because it made me laugh, and also the fact that the disc contained a song called "Teenage Prostitute". I figured any album with a tune called "Teenage Prostitute" was worth having for the audacity alone. (Ironically, the album also contained "Valley Girl", which I am just young enough to have never heard played on the radio even once in my life. I was surprised years later to learn that it had been a hit.)
On my first spin through the disc, I listened to the first three songs, and thought they were OK. "I might listen to this once in a while," I said to myself. Then the title track hit. After Frank says "ritual sacrifice", the album went into an utterly unrelenting, staggeringly complex section of instrumental music that converted me instantly and completely. In the span of a few short years I had purchased every album he ever made.
Although I enjoy most of his music, I'm a bit of a snob in the sense that I do think of some of his releases as "Zappa Lite". I'm not so much into the comedy as I am the music. My personal favorite albums:
Uncle Meat
Burnt Weenie Sandwich
Hot Rats
Grand Wazoo
Pretty much everything from the Brock/Duke/Underwood era
Studio Tan
Sleep Dirt
Frank Zappa Meets The Mothers Of Prevention
Jazz From Hell
The Best Band You Never Heard In Your Life
Make A Jazz Noise Here
The Yellow Shark
And, perhaps my all-time desert island disc:
Civilization Phaze III
