Any Frank Zappa fans here?

[ProgressiveDoom]

I absolutely love Frank Zappa and my favorite music of his is still with The Mothers Of Invention, outside of Mothers wou;d be Zoot Alures, Sheik Yerbouti,Apostrophe and Studio Tan. One of my favorite songs ever is King Kong.

 

[Thegrandwazoo]

I believe my handle speaks for itself. I think Frank was one of the greatest guitarists of a generation frought with great guitarists, and I think his merit as a composer/arranger won't be equalled in his, the following, or my lifetime. Enough kind things can't be said about that musical wizard.

 

[Thegrandwazoo]

His boy, Dweezil, is (in my opinion) an EVEN BETTER guitar player, but lacks the old man's ability as a composer. From thefirst time I heard 'Freakout' (against my will, my friends taped headphones to my dome while I was on a headful of mushrooms, bless them) til the last time I saw ZPZ, I'm irrevocably smitten.

 

[Thegrandwazoo]

Also, he voiced the Pope in my favorite cartoon once.

 

[rogerb]

Lots of great and challenging bass lines in there, I learned the best/intersting bass lines from his "Strictly Commercial" compilation, just because it contains a bit of everything, the "Over-nite Sensation" is quite something, and the grooves from "Hot Rats". The "Tied to the Whipping Post" cover is great fun too. I'll put those on and play along so I don't forget them every once in a while. The bridge to "Moving to Montana" I always need to totally relearn it anyway, so I can get immersed for days/weeks. Helped my ear and my playing immensely.

 

[Thegrandwazoo]

Was at all six of these shows at The Palladium '77, i'll stop now.

I'd give an awful lot to have seen them (him) live, I can't tell you how jealous I am.

 

[Bob_Ross]

Was at all six of these shows at The Palladium '77

I was only at one of those Palladium '77 shows, the night before Halloween. But three years earlier I was at one of the November shows at the Capitol Theater in Passaic NJ -- my first ever concert without parental supervision -- and FZ had the classic Overnight Sensation band (Duke, Brock, Underwood, Fowler, Thompson). Mind = Blown.

I was just recently marveling at FZ's scope when I came to this realization: My introduction to his music came when I was 12 or 13 years old and I was attracted to the puerile sophomoric humor of "Dinah Moe Hum" but the thing that kept me interested in his music for 40+ years was the atypically non-gratuitous complexity and sophisticated musicianship evidenced on tunes like "Zomby Woof" ...and both tunes are on the same album.

My favorite albums are:
- Uncle Meat
- One Size Fits All
- The Yellow Shark
- We're Only In It For The Money
- The Grand Wazoo
- Studio Tan
- Sleep Dirt

 

[Thegrandwazoo]

Frank and Steve seem to be having a lot of fun with this one. I know i said i would stop, but can't.

Leave it to Steve Vai to continuously try to upstage a guy who made his career possible. That'd be like one of us guest-jamming with Geddy Lee and continuously slap-popping and making perfectly-coiffed ******** of ourselves. I had enough when I saw him in Cincinnati a bunch of years ago, it was frigid in the first few rows, I know it couldn't have been much over 55-60 onstage. He had several squirrelcage blowers aimed at his face to blow his stupid (by then) hair around.

 

[Thegrandwazoo]

No, not Geddy, someone more

"One Size Fit All" is my favorite album ( and that's like picking a favorite child, haha)

"One Size Fit All" is my favorite album ( and that's like picking a favorite child, haha)

I'd accidentally never heard it until I saw ZPZ do it live in Knoxville a handful of years ago, it's now in my top 5 Zappa records.

 

[sspear]

I just revisited I Am the Slime a couple of days ago. Still relevant considering our times.

 

[mellowgerman]

I feel like I'm almost a little late to the party here, but this was my experience...
An old friend of my dad's, who taught me a lot of stuff on the guitar when I was still in my early teens, tried to introduce me to apostrophe/overnight sensation, joe's garage, etc. back then, but my young ears didn't get it.
Fast-forward to a street market in NYC when I was 17, where I found a bootleg CD of the live 1974 "Unmitigated Audacity" recordings. For some reason the sickly yellow and black cover caught my eye, so I paid my $5 and went on my way. The recording quality was almost as bad as the the cover, but the madness and musical genius of the concert itself was unlike anything I had ever heard before. Highly recommend it!

also, this is great (roughly from the same era): Invalid Link Removed

 

[BASSKADET]

I went to see him at the Music Hall in Boston in the mid 70's. Excellent show.

 

[lfmn16]

Not my cup of tea, very repetitive, same joke over and over. I read his biography; he was a real Richard Cranium. As I remember he spent his last days in his basement studio alone trying to get him 'genius' on tape while leaving his family alone upstairs.

 

[4001]

I LOVE FZ! I've been a fan of Frank's music since around 1980, when I was turned on to his stuff..
Saw Dweezil doing Zappa Plays Zappa in 2016 playing the One Size Fits All LP...going to see him again in Milwaukee on May 4 this year.... I listen to lots of FZ. The drummers that have played for Frank read like a who's who of some of the best on the planet. That is one "tribute" band I'd love to be in, an FZ band. That would be a LOT of fun to do.

 

[guitar ed]

My daughter & I love to listen to "Dinah Moe Hum" She is 16yo. I love it.

edg

 

[sambass]

man I am jealous as can be of all the folks in this thread who saw FZ live!

 

[Crash 56]

Overnight Sensation was the album I couldn't let my Mom hear back in High School.... Who played bass on that? I loved the tone he had......

 

[ONYX]

In my record and CD library, Frank Zappa has his own shelving unit--I've lost track of how many recordings I have, and there are some that I haven't listened to yet.

My first exposure to Zappa was when I was maybe about 12--my local library had a record room where you could take an LP off the shelf and listen to it in a private listening room. I had found 'Over-Nite Sensation' and the album art looked interesting, so I put it on---and didn't really know what to make of it until I got to 'Montana'--after that, I had to find out who this guy was. When I got into high school, I made friends with a vibe player in the jazz program who was a Zappa fanatic and had all of his material up to that point. We would sit around and smoke we.......er, ah,.....think pure thoughts and have marathon Zappa parties. Good times.

 

[DJ Bebop]

Seeing as my first two posts either offended someone or broke the forum rules, Id figured why not give it one last try.
Unfortunately my first exposure to Uncle Frank was Titties 'n Beer. Ha Ha... toilet humor, but not interested.
Luckily a few years later someone played me The Adventures of Greggery Peccary.....20 minutes and 40 seconds later I pick my jaw up off the floor and submerged myself in to a world of what Frank describes as "his ugly melodies" and I never looked back.
I know he's not a bassist but he's had some real Mothers (pun intended) play for him.

I have been a fan of FZ since his first album release Freak Out. I bought that album with money I earn mowing lawns as a kid. I bought it in the summer of 1966 and have owned everything he's released since. Miss him and sorry his family is going through stuff over the estate. I think he would not approve.

 

[Bob_Ross]

Patrick O'Hearn would get arrested for domestic abuse if he beat up an upright bass like that nowadays!