Frank Zappas Simpsons-Theme
Hier das unbenutzte Zappa-Radiojingle für ‘nen Elektrorasierer, das auf dem Tape war, das Matt Groening damals Danny Elfman gab, als der das Simpsons-Theme schreiben sollte. Von Dangerous Minds:
When Matt Groening hired Danny Elfman to write the theme for The Simpsons, he gave him a mixed tape of songs that he wanted the music to sound like: The theme from The Jetsons, some of Esquivel’s “space age bachelor-pad music,” a teach-your-parrot-to-talk record, selections from Nino Rota’s Juliet of the Spirits soundtrack and this unused Frank Zappa-produced radio commercial for Remington electric shavers that features the vocal stylings of none other than a young Linda Ronstadt. […]
According to legend, after giving the tape several listens Elfman told Groening, “I know exactly what you’re looking for!”
When Frank Zappa met Jack Kirby
Jeff Newelt von Royal Flush hat einen großartigen Artikel über sein Treffen mit Ahmet, Sohn von Frank Zappa, der ihm ein paar Anekdoten über die Freundschaft seines Vaters mit niemand anderem als Comic-Gott Jack Kirby erzählte. Wusstet Ihr, dass George Lucas Frank Zappa gefragt hatte, ob er die Musik für Star Wars schreiben wollte und dass Darth Vader ein RipOff von Doc Doom war? Ich auch nicht.
“One of the most significant moments in my life is when my dad said, ‘meet Jack, he’s the guy who created all those superheroes you love.’ That blew my little mind. I thought it was awesome and weird that my dad had this friendship with this guy. It was like meeting like a real magician!” […]
Jack gave me this Silver Surfer book. I didn’t know what to make of this silver dude on a surfboard; it didn’t make any sense but, he was super cool. This was around the time Empire came out and was HUGE [1981 –ed.], and I remember Jack confided in Frank that he felt like the stories he created helped shape the Star Wars saga, that he saw direct parallels between his characters and the movie’s story arcs.” […]
“He told my dad stuff like, ‘Darth Vader was Doctor Doom and the Force is the Source’ and that George Lucas ripped him off. Now this you may not know, and I was only a kid, but I remember learning at the dinner table that my dad was asked to write the music for Star Wars; he turned it down, he said he wasn’t interested. That would’ve been really strange, the lives of us Star Wars fans woulda taken a different turn and that whole score woulda sounded like Tatooine Cantina music.”
Step inside the Fourth World as we relive that one magical day when… FRANK ZAPPA met JACK KIRBY! (via Laughing Squid)
Bizarre Frank Zappa-Interview
(Youtube Direktzappa, via Reddit)
In diesem Interview mit Frank Zappa massiert dieser der Interviewerin Kay Rush von DeeJay Television Italy den Nacken, reibt diesen dann mit Salami ein und malt ein Gesicht darauf. Klingt logisch.
Frank Zappas Business-Modell für Hometaping Music, 1983
Frank Zappa hat in seinem Buch „The Real Frank Zappa Book“ 1983 ein Business-Modell für das damals von der Musik-Indutrie als „killing Music“ verschrieene Hometaping aufgeschrieben. Man ersetze Vinyl mit CDs und Hometaping mit Internet, voila: Die Kulturflatrate. Hätte man nur früher auf den Herrn Zappa gehört, die Musik-Industrie hätte sich eine Menge Ärger erspart.
MUSIC CONSUMERS LIKE TO CONSUME MUSIC . . . NOT PIECES OF VINYL WRAPPED IN PIECES OF CARDBOARD.
It is our proposal to take advantage of the POSITIVE ASPECTS of a NEGATIVE TREND afflicting the record industry today: HOME TAPING via cassette of material released on vinyl.
First of all, we must realize that the taping of albums is not motivated by ‘stinginess’ alone . . . if a consumer makes a home tape from a disc, that copy will probably sound better than a commercially manufactured high-speed dupe cassette, legitimately released by the company.
People today enjoy music more than ever before, and, they like to take it with them wherever they go. THEY CAN HEAR THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN GOOD AUDIO AND BAD AUDIO . . . THEY CARE ABOUT THAT DIFFERENCE, AND THEY ARE WILLING TO GO TO SOME TROUBLE AND EXPENSE TO HAVE HIGH QUALITY ‘PORTABLE AUDIO’ TO USE AS ‘WALLPAPER FOR THEIR LIFESTYLE’.
————————————————————————
THE ANSWERS TO PERPLEXING QUESTIONS
————————————————————————presenting: “Q.C.I.”
We propose to acquire the rights to digitally duplicate and store THE BEST of every record company’s difficult-to-move Quality Catalog Items [Q.C.I.], store them in a central processing location, and have them accessible by phone or cable TV, directly patchable into the user’s home taping appliances, with the option of direct digital-to-digital transfer to F-1 (SONY consumer level digital tape encoder), Beta Hi-Fi, or ordinary analog cassette (requiring the installation of a rentable D-A converter in the phone itself . . . the main chip is about $12).
All accounting for royalty payments, billing to the customer, etc. would be automatic, built into the initial software for the system.
The consumer has the option of subscribing to one or more Interest Categories, charged at a monthly rate, without regard for the quantity of music he or she decides to tape.
Providing material in such quantity at a reduced cost could actually diminish the desire to duplicate and store it, since it would be available any time day or night.
Monthly listings could be provided by catalog, reducing the on-line storage requirements of the computer. The entire service would be accessed by phone, even if the local reception is via TV cable.
The advantage of the TV cable is: on those channels where nothing ever seems to happen (there’s about 70 of them in L.A.), a visualization of the original cover art, including song lyrics, technical data, etc., could be displayed while the transmission is in progress, giving the project an electronic whiff of the original point-of-purchase merchandising built into the album when it was ‘an album’, since there are many consumers who like to fondle & fetish the packaging while the music is being played. In this situation, Fondlement & Fetishism Potential [F.F.P.] is supplied, without the cost of shipping tons of cardboard around.
We require a LARGE quantity of money and the services of a team of mega-hackers to write the software for this system. Most of the hardware devices are, even as you read this, available as off-the-shelf items, just waiting to be plugged into each other so they can put an end to “THE RECORD BUSINESS” as we now know it.
Frank Zappa’s Amazing Vision (via Techdirt)
Und da will ich das grade posten, da meint Johnny so zu mir: Hatten wir vor zwei Monaten auf Spreeblick. Hmpf, egal, trotzdem toll.
Frank Zappa, Thom Yorke und Chuck D über den Zustand der Musikindustrie
(Youtube Direktmusic, via Crunchgear)
Hier eine großartige Montage verschiedener Clips, in denen Künstler Statements zum Zustand der Musikindustrie abgeben. Zappa spricht darüber, warum alte Geschäftsleute bessere Musikverkäufer sind (weil sie sich nicht in den kreativen Prozess drängen) und Thom Yorke verabschiedet sich schonmal: „They choose to blame the internet, but the bottom line is: the shareholders, the shareholders are greedy, the companys themselves are poisened and fucked up. And if they go down: Bye bye, good riddance.“ Danach schließt das Video mit den Zeilen aus Radioheads „There There“: „Just ’cause you feel it, doesn’t mean it’s there“. Groß. Ar. Tig!
Zuhause bei Mami und Papi von 70s Rockstars
Kein Wunder, dass Frank Zappa bei einem Wohnzimmer wie diesem die Musik gemacht hat, die er gemacht hat. Und die Shows abgezogen hat, die er abgezogen hat. Apartment Therapy (was für ein Name!) hat im Time-Bilder-Archiv auf Google (mehr bei Spreeblick) eine Serie von Fotografien der Wohnungen von 70s Rockstars gefunden. Zuhause bei den Zappas. Jetzt hab ich alles gesehen.
Look! 70′s Rock Musicians and Their Parent’s Homes (via Presurfer)
Monster Road, Dokumentation über Bruce Bickford, Frank Zappas Knetmännchen-Animator
(Youtube Direktzappa, Danke Lechuck)
Bruce Bickford wurde vor allem bekannt durch seine surrealen Knetmännchen-Animationen für und mit Frank Zappa. 2004 wurde sein Leben und seine Arbeit in der Dokumentation „Monster Road“ näher beleuchtet, im obigen Film sind verschiedene Ausschnitte in einem 9minütigen Video zu sehen. Snip von der Film-Website:
Monster Road is a feature length documentary exploring the wildly fantastic worlds of legendary animator Bruce Bickford. Tracing the origins of Bickford’s iconoclastic worldview, the film journeys back to Bickford’s childhood in a competitive household during the paranoia of the Cold War and examines his relationship with his father, George, who is facing the onset of Alzheimer’s Disease.
Monster Road premiered at the 2004 Slamdance Film Festival where it won “Best Documentary,” eventually screening at over 85 festivals around the world, winning sixteen awards before premiering on Sundance Channel in June 2005.
Seine berühmtesten Filme sind vor allem „The Amazing Mr. Bickford“ und „Baby Snackes“, Snip von Wikipedia:
Bruce Bickford (born 1947) is an expert clay animation artist. He often collaborated with Frank Zappa, resulting in his most famous works such as The Amazing Mr. Bickford. His major debut of work was in the Frank Zappa movie Baby Snakes in which cut sequences depicted surreal animations of Bickford’s own unique world and vision.
Often outwardly expressive as a disconnected individual (in his views of the world around him), Bruce Bickford’s work was extremely subjective in its content and concepts, making for some truly disturbing and shocking imagery. Much of his video work depicted fast-moving, fluid-like transformations of human figures and disfigured faces into odd beasts on surreal structural settings with impressive camera effects (moving around within his stop-motion animation).
His life and work were featured in the 2004 biographical documentary film Monster Road, directed by Brett Ingram, which has won numerous film festival awards and garnered acclaim in many countries.
Die Dokumentation habe ich online leider nicht gefunden, dafür ist aber „The Amazing Mr. Bickford“ kompletto bei Google Video online.
Und hier noch „Baby Snakes“:
