Category: Music

A Frank Frazetta of Frank Zappa

Image: Portrait of the Master
Image courtesy of manosinhd.com

Caught the Rifftrax of Manos: The Hands of Fate this evening. It was great fun; all new riffs, plus two fun new shorts.

Also, it closed with this:

Back to the subject of Zappa: Zappa, because he appreciated things that were awesome, was an MST3K fan. Purportedly he once described the experience of watching the show and suddenly hearing a reference to himself as "unsettling". (Unfortunately I can't seem to find the interview where I originally read that at the moment...)

Go Ask Alice

Local boy Alice Cooper talking about how Zappa signed him for his first record. It's an incomplete cell phone clip, recorded in 2010, but it's good stuff.

He's a good storyteller; I catch Nights with Alice Cooper now and again.

And Finally...

The closing ceremonies are airing on NBC, and, to close out my theme of Zappa material tangentially related to the 2012 Olympics, I give you: Zappa music actually performed at the 2012 Olympics.

That's Bamboozled by Love and Whipping Post, performed by Sarah Knight and the Blue Stones on July 31 in Hyde Park.

It's a cell phone vid; the video quality's poor and the audio's worse. I don't usually post stuff in this quality, but hell, it's just too perfect.

Next I'll be resuming regular, non-London Olympics-themed Zappa posting. There's plenty more British Zappa to go 'round -- concerts, BBC docs, what-have-you -- but from here on in it'll just be mixed in with whatever other interesting Zappa stuff I dig up.

Goodnight everybody.

Hello Teenage America

Per the uploader:

ThisTownIsASealedTunaSandwich"1968 & & "Cosmik Debris"1974 BeeBeeSea tv UK 1993 Zappa at the Royal Festival Hall London UK 1968

I think that means the first section is This Town is a Sealed Tuna Sandwich at the Royal Festival Hall in '68, the second section is Cosmik Debris in '74 on BBC.

Now, I already posted that Cosmik Debris vid on 6/19, in a version that is higher-quality and does not inexplicably cut off in the middle. But I can't find a video that's just the Royal Festival Hall segment, so here you go. Watch through to 3:35 or so and then, if you really want to watch the Cosmik Debris vid, click on over to the better version. Or, better yet, buy the Dub Room Special DVD.

A Little Sinfonietta

A short doc about the London Sinfonietta performance of Greggary Peccary.

I always love stuff like this -- I feel like I learn something. Plus it's nice to see that people who understand music know that yes Frank was a legitimate genius.

Underwood Interview

Embedding disabled; clicky the linky: Ruth Underwood interview. It's a chunk of a BBC piece on Zappa from 1993; it's from a program called The Late Show which, presumably, is entirely unrelated to the American Late Show.

(Although speaking of the American Late Show, I did watch a bit of a Zappa appearance on Letterman the other night. I may post it later but honestly I thought it was pretty boring.)

Channel 4 Zappa Obit

Well, bit of a downer, but a pretty good rundown of the man's life and career.

Plus the anchor looks like Bill O'Reilly and is named Jon Snow.

Miss you, Frank.