The Shred Room II (with extra youth)

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 song_of_copper wrote:

 MovingPictures07 wrote:

 NaturalScience wrote:

Alex - you weren't around for a lot of the Zappa conversation, and I wish you were, because you have so many of his albums.

What eras of his music do you feel truly represent avant-prog?

Take this hypothetical:  what if the Mothers stuff were to remain in Avant and the rest go to Eclectic?  Right now this is just a hypothetical, I don't think admin would sign on to something like that anyway.

Ah, yes, I saw bits of that, but unfortunately I was too busy the past few days to be able to contribute anything. 

Zappa is a very odd one to categorize, and I say that with a considerably decent knowledge of many sub-genres and bands within those sub-genres. If I had to pick one artist that I know that would be most difficult to categorize, it would be Zappa.

Nonetheless, I think moving him from Avant would be a mistake. All of his albums, while not ALL strictly avant, all have a connection and all have typical Zappa "quirks" that certainly make them incredibly unique and can prove inaccessible.

Owning all of his studio albums and a few live ones, I'd say his MOST avant albums strictly would be the Mothers, Weasels, Civilization, and some others. Though, really, he covered so many styles in his own avant-ish Zappa flavor that really no one else could ever come close to imitating all throughout every period that I think splitting the albums would be a bad idea.

I would continue, but I must temporarily depart. Hope that helps; I'd be willing to contribute more to that discussion later or immediately when I return. It shouldn't be too long.

Good evening all! 

Excuse me butting into the Zappa debate - I don't own as many of his albums as Alex does, but I have to say I agree that Frank should stay in Avant.   Mostly because of the way he did things, rather than any overall sound or style (...yep, he covered far too many different areas for that...).  Yes, many of his albums are not avant-sounding at all, but each one is supposedly part of this larger whole: the 'Project/Object'.  Taking one album out of context, you miss the connectivity between various pieces of music that may sound totally different.  'Conceptual continuity' is the buzz phrase where that's concerned. 

Then there's his unusual techniques like 'xenochrony', which is based around combining parts from different, unrelated recordings to form unplanned juxtapositions (... although I'm sure others will have done this, because it seems like an obvious thing to do!).  And odd conducting techniques that were used onstage to completely change the character of the music, depending on what hand gesture was made.  There's also his 'serious' compositions (...don't forget those!), and his influences - like almost every avant musician, he was influenced by 20th century composers; also by Dadaism.  (Somewhere on Youtube you can probably find that clip of him 'playing the bicycle' on TV in the early 60s!)

I'd also have to say that even when he wasn't being terribly 'avant', he was definitely kinda... weird.   I've read comments re. 'Freak Out!' not being 'avant enough' or whatnot, but really... in 1966, this incredibly outré double album comes out featuring a bizarre combination of parodies of out-of-date pop music (it's really 50s and early 60s music he's ripping off), peculiar songs like 'Who Are The Brain Police?', musique concrète, semi-improvised cacophonies ('Return of the Son of Monster Magnet'), sleeve notes namechecking Edgard Varèse, and personnel including a bunch of random hipsters...  And the music of 'Absolutely Free' is riddled with Stravinsky quotes!   Combining 'Rite of Spring' with pop music and calling it an oratorio... how is that not avant?!

I think the eternal stumbling block is the whole 'sense of humour(?)' thing.  Many people find his humour offensive.  There are several FZ songs that I would not listen to again by choice.   But I don't think the toilet humour and 'straightforward sounding' stuff necessarily cancels out the gold.  It's kind of a 'package deal' - you want 'Burnt Weeny Sandwich' - fair enough, but alongside 'The Little House I Used To Live In' (fantastic collage type piece) you're going to get 'WPLJ' (...a sort of throwaway doo-wop song).  It's all one thing! 

Hmm, I should probably shut up now...!    Anyway, some of the above may or may not be useful... 

Great post, Melissa, and I say I have to agree with nearly all of what you said. 

Now you've made me want to hear Freak Out though. 