More music angle...
This week, I returned to the roots of rock and roll with "Mr. Rock and Roll: The Alan Freed Story" with a surpisingly brilliant Judd Nelson as Alan Freed (way better than the crappy jobs he's done before!) and the documentary "Rock and Roll" along with the 1971 Frank Zappa movie "200 Motels".
I first heard about Frank Zappa when Griffin Dune starred in the movie "Parental Advisory" as Zappa. The ending credits of the movie claimed that none of Zappa's albums ever received the "Parental Advisory" label, however, Zappa's "Jazz From Hell", which is an instrumental album, did receive such a label! Anyway, at that time there wasn't any Zappa readily available and School wasn't much of a help... it was ATB and trance all the way there. And so my interest in Zappa slowly faded away.
It was only after I watched a recording of a 1978 Zappa concert at California State University in college that I was interested in Zappa again. Fortunately, James, like most other stoners is a big Zappa fan and leant me most of his collection. With more than 60 albums to his name, there's a lot to go through!
Zappa may not suit everyone's tastes, specially those who prefer coherent, romantic and mushy lyrics of say Backstreet Boys (I was going to put Bryan Adams here but decided against it). Most of my favourite Zappa songs, including the title of this post, have strange undecipherable chants and blabber that remind you of Candarian demonic worship but are undeniably catchy.
Speaking of catchy and undecipherable, nothing beats Tom Waits' "Telephone Call From Istanbul".
Black humor and social satire is another intricate aspect of Zappa's music as is evident from "Why Does it Hurt When I Pee", "My Guitar Wants to Kill Your Mama", "Take Your Clothes of When You Dance", "Help I'm A Rock" and "Uncle Remus" (to name a few).
One of Zappa's songs "Watermelon In Easter Hay" was used for the brilliant 2001 Mexican movie "Y Tu Mama Tambien" (which stars Gael Garcia Bernal of "The Motorcycle Diaries", another good movie), although Zappa had requested that three of his songs, including the one in question, be never used in any other media except in an album. However, his widow (Zappa died in 1993) allowed this exception because she was so moved by the film.
This week, I returned to the roots of rock and roll with "Mr. Rock and Roll: The Alan Freed Story" with a surpisingly brilliant Judd Nelson as Alan Freed (way better than the crappy jobs he's done before!) and the documentary "Rock and Roll" along with the 1971 Frank Zappa movie "200 Motels".
I first heard about Frank Zappa when Griffin Dune starred in the movie "Parental Advisory" as Zappa. The ending credits of the movie claimed that none of Zappa's albums ever received the "Parental Advisory" label, however, Zappa's "Jazz From Hell", which is an instrumental album, did receive such a label! Anyway, at that time there wasn't any Zappa readily available and School wasn't much of a help... it was ATB and trance all the way there. And so my interest in Zappa slowly faded away.
It was only after I watched a recording of a 1978 Zappa concert at California State University in college that I was interested in Zappa again. Fortunately, James, like most other stoners is a big Zappa fan and leant me most of his collection. With more than 60 albums to his name, there's a lot to go through!
Zappa may not suit everyone's tastes, specially those who prefer coherent, romantic and mushy lyrics of say Backstreet Boys (I was going to put Bryan Adams here but decided against it). Most of my favourite Zappa songs, including the title of this post, have strange undecipherable chants and blabber that remind you of Candarian demonic worship but are undeniably catchy.
Speaking of catchy and undecipherable, nothing beats Tom Waits' "Telephone Call From Istanbul".
Black humor and social satire is another intricate aspect of Zappa's music as is evident from "Why Does it Hurt When I Pee", "My Guitar Wants to Kill Your Mama", "Take Your Clothes of When You Dance", "Help I'm A Rock" and "Uncle Remus" (to name a few).
One of Zappa's songs "Watermelon In Easter Hay" was used for the brilliant 2001 Mexican movie "Y Tu Mama Tambien" (which stars Gael Garcia Bernal of "The Motorcycle Diaries", another good movie), although Zappa had requested that three of his songs, including the one in question, be never used in any other media except in an album. However, his widow (Zappa died in 1993) allowed this exception because she was so moved by the film.
Were you trying to make a point with the Bryan Adams comment???
ReplyDeleteOf course not, I wasted 500 bucks on a Bryan Adams concert in Delhi a couple of years ago!
ReplyDeletehey! i've always wanted to hear zappa! you should have written more. i have this book rock 'n' roll scandals and he sounds like a pretty interesting guy..did you catch floyd on Vh1..i hope they play it again sometime. i watched it for 8 hours and then gave up..but that show was such a sham. did you read that only 8000 people landed up in johannesburg cause they wre given the worst line up...
ReplyDeleteYeah, I heard about the disaster at JoBurg, but apparently an appearance by good ol' Nelson Mandela drew in a lot of people later in the show.
ReplyDeleteYeah I caught Floyd on VH1. A Floyd reunion, who would have thought? I wish Phish had come out of retirement to play in Philly.
Sgt. Pepper's was such an amazing song to start with at Hyde Park...it was 20 years ago!
Zappa has made more than 55 albums, but I'd recommend Apostrophe to start with. Yeah Zappa is bad ass, another one of the bad boys of rock and roll...
Live 8 rocked. I saw the beginning and end live. Pink FLoyd Lives!
ReplyDeleteAnd everyone bows before the Beatles.
The only Zappa song I've heard is Titties and Beer. I did not get it.
Musically, right now I'm tripping on Coldplay and The Killers ('cause I'm mister Brightside.) Thank you VH1.
The Killers...the fictitious guys or the real ones?
ReplyDeleteI doubt if Zappa songs are meant to be got...