Frank Zappa (1940 - 1993)
Debut recording: Freakout (1966)
Related: rock - satire - American music - experimental music
The Man From Utopia (1983) - Frank Zappa [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
The Man From Utopia is a 1983 rock 'n' roll album by Frank Zappa. By no means his best but the most interesting on a visual level, the cover featuring the work of RanXerox artist Tanino Liberatore. Cocaine Decisions is probably the best-known track, with its Zappa groove redolent of skiffle washboards and its contribution to the great mis-rhymes of rock history: "...you are a doctor or a lawyer / you got an office with a foyer..." Also included, Dangerous Kitchen, a track which describes a place "where the cream is all clabbered and the salad is frightful..." and "the milk can hurt you". --[1]
Freakout (1966) - Frank Zappa [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
"This is the voice of your conscience, baby..."
Freak Out! is the debut album of Frank Zappa and his group, the Mothers of Invention. Released in 1966, it was one of the first double album sets, showcasing Zappa's lyrical talents for demoralising American politics while also making fun of the prevailing counterculture in the latter part of the decade. . --[1]
Influenced by:
Frank Zappa grew up influenced in equal measures by avant-garde composers such as Edgard Varèse and Igor Stravinsky, local rhythm and blues and doo-wop groups (particularly local pachuco groups), and modern jazz (including bebop and free jazz).
Biography
Frank Vincent Zappa (December 21, 1940 - December 4, 1993) was an American rock/jazz fusion musician, composer, and satirist. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Zappa [Jan 2005]
Rock Music, Concept Albums
Freak Out was [Rock] music's first true "concept album," Zappa's aural collage mashes together chunks of psychedelic guitars, outspoken political commentary, cultural satire, and avant-garde musical sensibilities, and then hides it all under cleverly crafted pop melodies. --Andrew BoscardinEdgar Varèse
One day I was passing a hi-fi store in La Mesa. A little sign in the window announced a sale on 45's. After shuffling through their singles rack and finding a couple of Joe Houston records, I walked toward the cash register. On my way, I happened to glance into the LP bin. Sitting in the front, just a little bent at the corners, was a strange-looking black-and-white album cover. On it there was a picture of a man with gray frizzy hair. He looked like a mad scientist. I thought it was great that somebody had finally made a record of a mad scientist. I picked it up. I nearly (this is true, ladies and gentlemen) peed in my pants . . . THERE IT WAS! EMS 401, The Complete Works of Edgard Varese Volume I . . . Integrales, Density 21.5, Ionization, Octandre . . . Rene Le Roy, the N. Y. Wind Ensemble, the Juilliard Percussion Orchestra, Frederic Waidman Conducting . . .liner notes by Sidney Finkelstein! WOW! --Frank Zappa [...]Academy Zappa (2005) - Ben Watson, Esther Leslie
Academy Zappa : Proceedings of the First International Conference of Esemplastic Zappology (2005) - Ben Watson, Esther Leslie [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
see also: Ben Watson