"check this out"
About Group
The idea i had for this group is for people to
point out little details in Frank or Dweezil's
music that other people may not have heard before or picked up on, a conceptual continuity idea, a small musical phrase, a lyric, anything really that just jumps out at you that maybe you had'nt heard before even though you've been listening to the music for years. i'm sure theres plenty.
That picture is at WBCN FM radio station in Boston. Now long gone, but once was the best in town. Frank is wearing a 104.1 WBCN hat. The beard is Charles Laqudara, morning DJ. An amazing talent on the FM dial. Very cool to Frank fans from Boston, from the 70's/80's!!!!
paul i really like that picture cool !!
Frank Zappa @ WBCN in Boston appr. 1977.
Notice the Läther cover which later was used for Joe's Garage!
Anyone a fan of Mystery Science Theater 3000? Every once in awhile, the actors make FZ references during the show. "Is that a real poncho, or a Sears poncho?" or someone may sing a phrase from the song Montana. etc.
@ Uncle Mozo - I wore my Barking Pumkin t-shirt in Japan, and had a similar experience. A student looked at it and asked... "what does Saint S**t mean?"
Ive noticed the same thing. I have about 60 Zappa releases and have spent hours listening. I hear licks from other things all the time. Its just one piece of music.
Den
I wonder how many times Frank used the main " Big Swifty " lick in the course of songs. I pretty much hear it everyewhere. In fact, after listening to The Grand Wazoo CD this past weekend, I heard in the title track. Amazing really.
Sacre poo, monsieur!
I remember being at a party, wearing a Barking Pumpkin t-shirt a few years back. In the logo, the pumpkin says "Arf!!" and the cat replies something in Japanese. It was rumored that the cat said "Holy S h i t", but we could never confirm it. One girl at the party was Japanese and we asked her to tranlate. She stared intensly for a moment, and with a bewildered look said - "sacred excrement ?"
Sacred excrement!!!! We had a good laugh over that one.
Yes, it is quite difficult to translate Zappa lyrics to any language. If I was supposed to translate the lyrics to Norwegian I guess some of it would have been lost in translation because there are no good metaphors - or things the Americans find funny dont't appeal to the Norwegian listeners in the same way. We though have been quite fortunate and blessed (brainwashed :) with American entertainment from our TV sets since the early 1960 (Lucille Ball, Danny Kaye, The Cosby show, The Simpsons, Star Wars, Gun Smoke, Dynasty, Dallas, Saturday Night Live...you name it) and in Norway we don't dub the programmes (but text in Norwegian beneath), so many people get the points even if it is American humor. But still there's some material and local humor that is almost impossible to translate, but in those cases it is very interesting to get into the culture and find out what is the funny part and why. Humor can be really intelligent some times, and combined with irony it's often of studied elegance - that's where some of the Zappa lyrics come in!