Frank Zappa is an odd duck. His massive back catalogue of albums attracts
both reverence and ambivalence from music fans. Stylistically, he
covered so much ground covering doo wop, blues, psych, jazz fusion
and dissonant orchestral music. Unlike many of his rock and roll
contemporaries, he always believed in infusing a sense of humour into
his music – both compositionally and lyrically….though since what
strikes some as funny is so subjective, it couldn’t appeal to
everyone. He wrote about commercialism in America, the hypocrisy of
conservatives and liberals in American society, and….umm….body
parts.
Welcome to episode 127 of See Hear Podcast.
Tim, Kerry and I pontificate about the work of Frank Zappa with an eye
towards his 1971 film, 200 Motels. It’s a surreal work that’s
supposed to be his take on what life on the road is like for a
working band – encountering rednecks and groupies, band egos and
paranoia (the latter for good reason in this instance), and drug use.
The film is vignette based with music provided by the 2nd
incarnation of the Mothers of Invention and the London Philharmonic
Orchestra. Zappa spent 4 years composing and arranging the music, and
much less time writing a script. That works out as well as expected.
As well as discussing 200 Motels, we put the background towards its
creation in context, thanks to an excellent documentary called “Frank
Zappa – Free Jazz, Movie Madness & Another Mothers”(available
on Tubi). Many thanks to Tom Stein for making us aware of that film’s
existence.
If our discussion goes all over the place, maybe it’s a tribute to the
structure of 200 Motels. Tune in and hear where we stand on this
surreal piece of cinema. Is it Luis Bunuel? Well….would Luis Bunuel
have dressed Ringo Starr up as a tall dwarf with a desire to do
something with a genie lamp to Keith Moon dressed as a nun? The
answer is probably “When will we get paid….”
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