Frank Zappa

sorabji.com: What are you listening to?: Frank Zappa
THIS IS A READ-ONLY ARCHIVE FROM THE SORABJI.COM MESSAGE BOARDS (1995-2016).
By Habercroix on Monday, February 2, 1998 - 01:15 am:
    Sometimes Zappa makes my body tingle
    Sometimes Zappa makes my head hurt
    Sometimes Zappa makes me laugh
    Sometimes Zappa makes me angry at the world
    Sometimes Zappa makes me thank the sweet lord that a person put together an entertainment package that can keep my attention for longer than a month.....Is this called inspiration?
By Zappa zapper on Monday, February 2, 1998 - 09:06 pm:
    You have a job waiting for you at _Billboard_.
By Totally Executive on Monday, February 2, 1998 - 10:49 pm:
    Nah---not Billboard, but maybe at Windham Hill.
By Sorabji on Wednesday, February 4, 1998 - 12:04 am:
    the question is: which pays better: Billboard, American Record Guide, or Fanfare?

    Hell, which of them pays anything at all??
By R.C. on Wednesday, February 4, 1998 - 12:17 am:
    Definitely Billboard. Who's more commercial than them? Better perks too.
By Jicotea on Wednesday, February 4, 1998 - 09:33 am:
    R.C. & Sorabji: ARG pays nothing and has a genuine meshugganer for an editor.
    Fanfare pays _bubkis_ and has a hapless dolt for an editor (to be fair, it was his single vision and persistence that got it started).
    Billboard reports on the entertainment industry, and is therefore ineluctably rolling in two things. Dinero and Mierda.
    So they pay well, and for the first time in some years they have a classical columnist who knows what he's talking about.
    R.C. got it right. The enquiring mind had it cached! How you doing, R.C. honey? I've been lurking lately. Have you seen the bizarre eruption of genuine expertise among respondees in the musical threads. Gotta figure out how to handle that. You can't bullshit those guys.
By R.C. on Wednesday, February 4, 1998 - 09:07 pm:
    Truly. Which is why I'm just a fly on the walls now.

    I'm hoping to take the bunch of them out to dinner one nite (gotta find a place with a Steinway in residence that also serves Stout). I'll just tape the conversation/edit out the cursing/transcribe it/& sell it to some NY publishing house as THE best in obscure classical composers crit. lit. (with the proper credits/bien sur). You can help me edit the thing.

    How's the Dream of the Old Turtle coming? Got a launch date for yr site yet? Shall I get the jewels out of the vault/or will the opening be come-as-you-are?
By Jicotea on Wednesday, February 4, 1998 - 10:40 pm:
    Straight out of the shower will be just fine.
    Day/Date will be widely broadcast. It's coming along, slowly but surely, and teaching me a lot in the process. Six months ago I wouldn't have been able to imagine what a lot of novel ideas were going to get pounded into my old grey head. I can't begin to say how much I owe Mark Thomas for the imaginative work which went into this site. I'm trying to emulate without imitating, not easy. As in composition, the borrowing has to be at a very deep level.
By Sorabji on Wednesday, February 4, 1998 - 10:55 pm:
    You owe me.
By Habercroix on Wednesday, February 4, 1998 - 11:53 pm:
    Interesting thread that hangs from my needle. Are you people bitter?
By R.C. on Thursday, February 5, 1998 - 02:37 am:
    More bluesy that bitter. Bitter gets you nothing but agita & a bad taste in yr mouth. But the Blues is life itself. I hear Mark play & know that even if I'd continued studying piano/I never wd have achieved that level of technique. But when I listen to his improvs/then go back & listen to my Keith Jarrett or Chick Corea CD's/I hear things that I'd been missing for years. And Jicotea's outrageous insults give me the chutzpah to go to the library & listen to 'famous recordings' with a new ear. Maybe now I can tell the difference btwn someone who gets all the notes & time sigs. right/& someone who understands... I dunno... the 'intellectual architecture' that Bach or Debussy sought when they composed their music. Becuz J gives not a fig about reuptation or recording contracts. J wd call his own mother a hack if she played a piece badly.

    It's like this: a couple of Sunday's ago/I was listening to Mark's Sunday Improvs/which a friend transferred to CD for me (he's got one of those record-onto-CD-thingees that cost a mint) & I decided to make bread. Now, I can make pasta from scratch. I can make pie crusts. I can make cookies & cakes. But the mysteries of breadmaking have always escaped me. I tried it once years ago/in college/& failed miserably. But on this particular Sunday/I had been listening to Mark's music/taken a break & gone out to this little French place I know for lunch/& gotten into a discussion with the waitress/co- owner about how they make their fabulous baguettes. And I/being a very regular customer/ asked her for their recipe. And she/being very French/wrote down the ingreditents in French/ with notations about grams & demi-litres & all such stuff as I had no clue about. I speak French badly. She speaks English only slightly better. But she gave me a sack full of the flour they use for their baguettes/& a waxed paper triangle of yeast/& said to make sure the oven is 'vherr-ry hot at first'. And I went back home with half a baguette of their wonderful bread as a baseline/& tried to recreate the same magic in my own kitchen.

    So there I was/mixing flour & eggs & butter & salt
    & yeast & water/kneading them together & letting them rise/listening to Mark's Improv's & Keith Jarrett/trying to make bread & make sense of my life. And my life was & still is a mess. But the bread came out damn good! Wonderfully crusty outside/soft & fragrant & chewy inside -- but not too doughy where you feel compelled to rip out the innards so you'll have room for yr sandwich fixins. And a good loaf of bread shd be able to stand on it's own/with no adorments/ save possibly a pat of butter or a bit of jam. And this bread was just that good. And I know that having their flour helped. But I also know that Mark's Improv's had something to do with it too.

    They're not blues music/but they have that same elusive melancholy -- even when he's playing Xmas songs.They have those weird minor chords that open up places inside yr head that you're not used to listening with. And they're very good to cook to/those improvs of Mark's.

    And who can possibly be bitter once they know how to make a good loaf of bread?

By Jicotea on Thursday, February 5, 1998 - 08:02 am:
    Habercroix: No more bitter than RC, just bored with getting old. She's got that right about my mama, by the way, who could play _anything_ but _was_ a hack.

    Ah, oh, you are the originator of this thread, yes? The Zappa encomiator. Applied for that job yet?
    I suppose you're lucky to get a month out of the stuff you apparently like. We call it short attention span.

    Mark: Can I pay you off in links?
By R.C. on Thursday, February 5, 1998 - 09:47 pm:
    Now J -- play nice! No disparaging people's attention spans/or I'll have to spank you.
By Habercroix on Monday, February 9, 1998 - 01:16 am:
    Jokeotea: As a matter of fact, I did apply for that job. Sadly, I was turned down. They said I should learn to be a better wordsmith by reading smarmy posts on message boards. Perhaps you could take me under your wing and teach me the finer points of the things that you apparently like. I have a feeling that butternut squash is on your favorites list.

    R.C.: Thank you for the recipe. I'd like to try it sometime
By Suzi Creamcheese on Sunday, March 22, 1998 - 02:05 am:
    But what about Frank Zappa?
By Suzi Chapstick on Sunday, March 22, 1998 - 07:13 pm:
    Suzi Creamcheese - have we met before?
By Oddball Odd on Thursday, June 18, 1998 - 06:49 am:
    One of the truly great composers of all time. Very likely the most prolific of ALL! Certainly the MOST INGENIOUS and PERFECTION ORIENTED. He was also a very gentle, warm man (as he behaved while meeting my wife, myself and my then 6 year old son). In a society devoted to disposable merchandise, he was an anachronism. In certain other societies, he was at once a symbol of freedom and a national treasure.

    Nevermind, hey, has anyone seen recent photos of Madonna's baby?
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