jbow Moshkito batsbrew a LOT of those guitar tones, were recorded with a pignose amplifier..
Not surprised ... when everyone around him was going for the Marshal Stack and the loudness.
...and a half cocked WAH.
Frankly... I still like Frank's music, especially things like Peaches en Regalia but the pornographic nature of some of the lyrics bother me now that I am older and have changed a bit. Especially albums like The Mothers at the Fillmore East, June 6 1971. I am so familiar with that album I didn't look it up, I'm pretty sure I got it right, I could probably sing along with the whole thing... Mud sh sh shaarrrrk!
It's strange, as I get older, the hard language and such bothers me less and less. I remember one of my favorite plays, "Marat/Sade" and being that it was written by a German and then made famous in London, you can tell that the language was cleaned up, but I still feel the same, and to this day, I take a cabbage now and then and ... it's like you have to take out all your angers!
When it comes to FZ, the words don't bother me ... similar to my own example here ... took me longer to get over the first several thousand words of "Our Lady of Flowers" than it did Frank Zappa at any time! And Camus, Sartre and many others were fighting for it! Probably like many others would for Frank, were he not in rock music, which is considered, somewhere in the annals of the arts as just street, and uneducated music!
I look at it, as we must fight that thought ... and not become it. That is a well known tactic of fascist governments and controlling people's to ensure that the populace and public do what they are told, and NEVER EVER NEVER EVER be allowed to express their feelings about anything. To me, the language is a liberating factor ... and in the 50's in Portugal, they didn't like Brando, or Robarts or Kazan, either, because they were "violently" agitating people by screaming and shouting ... and to me, the late 60's was the same thing, and Frank continuing it was not a surprise, and later, I thought it was just a pastiche of itself ... a joke on itself.
jbow ... I had "We're only in it for the Money" rom about the 10th grade, a good four years before I encountered any illicit substances, and I loved it. I know it word for word. Hot Rats, Chunga's Revenge, Waka Jawaka, The Grand Wazoo... oh and Just another band from LA... "rifa"... Billy The Mountain (Ethyl was a tree growing off of his shoulder)... those are my favorites.
This is my favorite period as well, although it is pretty obvious to me, that he concentrated on the quality of the music much more going into that time period and beyond. Although I have a hard time saying anything about the bandit later, in general, all the work he did was fine with me. You write some great things, and some not so great ... we're all like that, no?
jbow ... I would probably be torn over liking or not liking this movie but I'll likely watch it. Flo and Eddie... is Ansley Dunbar on this?
(Have to look to see if Ansley is there or not ... don't remember.)
You have to take a step back, to see something like this. I kinda think that some folks go into it, with today's perceptions, and ideas about the 60's and how screwed up and stupid they were and how we were so stoned that everything else was just us doing home movies like children ... but you know what, I can sit and watch it today, and I do not see someone manipulating marionettes ... I see someone saying ... something else ... and it is not clear, and I think that Frank was learning much of this at the same time, and thought that he might have something at the end, like it happens with ALL HIS MUSIC! But in film, the ego of the studios and what not, were way out there and different, and I think they made it difficult for Frank to experiment, until he found that moment he was kinda looking for.
This is really hard to do in film, unlike music, because the expense in time and everything else is insane ... a lot less today with graphics, and other things, but still way too time consuming for everyone involved. I don't think Frank ignored that, I kinda think that he was a bit naive going into it. Both you and I would kill for a chance to try and do something like this, and even when I mention a thing or two, even the old CHB as you well know, it's like ... impossible ... not gonna happen ... and I do not have the heart to do it, and then send a copy of it to 3 people, and 2 of them freak out on me ... I would die inside! It's your own "poem", to something that felt great to me ... but that person has no idea ... and still think I'm putting it down in some cases!
After that, the rest of the film is just fun and nuts to watch. It's challenging, though now we can step aside, and think that some drug movies are better done, and this was not even a drug movie, if the stories are there, but the whole thing is INSANE ... in its entirety ... that anyone would be crazy enough to think it, and then develop it, and actually do it ... somewhere along the way we have to say ... wow ... that's courageous ... even if crazy!
But I would rather have that "crazy" than hear the same thing over and over again! And sometimes, today's rock music is elevator music for me! Even Eno's version was better!