Category: Music

Xmas Values/N-lite

Think I'll take it easy on the blog today -- merry Christmas/Newtonmas/Tuesday/holiday of your choosing.

Anyhow, here's a video made by till593, to Xmas Values and N-lite.

Not Only In It for the Money

I thought an article called Frank Zappa's not only in it for the money (By Derk Richardson, Bay Guardian, February 2, 1983) would make a nice counterpoint to that talk about the artist as a businessman.

Guess there's not much to it -- it's another piece about Zappa's appreciation of Varèse, with a sort of rote, more-than-slightly-condescending rundown of his career. Still, it's got some good bits and is worth a glance.

Business

Frank Zappa: Portrait of the Artist as a Businessman, by Rob Partridge and Paul Phillips, Cream, 1972. Courtesy once again of afka.net.

Frank discusses the business side of things. He was certainly a much savvier and more thorough businessman than most rock artists, then or now -- but his comments about what a good deal he has with Warner Brothers are an indication that he still had some hard lessons left to learn; he'd be singing a much different tune a few years later.

Advance Romance

Video's tough to watch but audio sounds better than the other live recordings I found. Upload by bongolampos, who says it's from a performance in Stockholm in 1988.

Cavett, Part 3

I've always loved the nuance, the sort of duality, to Zappa's philosophy on music: he's certainly got strong opinions on what he likes and what he doesn't and that the industry is a bottomless cesspit, but he also believes the bottom line is that people like what they like and that's okay. He writes deep, complex music and lyrics -- but sometimes he writes silly stuff like Dancin' Fool, and he thinks people who overanalyze Jim Morrison's lyrics are missing the forest for the trees.

Ultimately, he's a Serious Musician who has the good damn sense to understand you shouldn't always take music so seriously.

Cavett, Part 2

The comment that Moon is 12 years old places this in late '79 or '80, about where I figured between the fashions and the Jewish Princess controversy.

Another abrupt cut -- from the bad old days of YouTube limiting videos to 10 minutes. (As opposed to the bad new days, where YouTube automatically flags infringing videos based on pattern-matching algorithms, whether they're actually infringing or not.) To be concluded!