Month: January 2007

Frank Zappa En El Infierno

Spanish author Manolo de la Fuente writes in about his newly published book “Frank Zappa En El Infierno” (Frank Zappa In Hell):

It analyzes the role that Zappa developed as a political activist in the 80s. In those years, Zappa ran intensively against the conservative government of Ronald Reagan. […] It’s the first time that an analysis on Zappa’s work is carried out in Spanish, and it’s also the first time that a book deals with the links of his songs in American politics, a totally new topic even for the bibliography in English.

Hendrix’ Welsh Anthem

It’s called Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau:

The version of Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau, Land of My Fathers, was discovered on the end of a dusty eight-track tape which had languished for years in a forgotten tea chest in a north London recording studio. Experts believe the ear-rattling rendition may be Hendrix as the track appears on the end of a recording by a group which features a friend of his. He is believed to have been in London when the tape was made. And it does sound rather like him.

You can listen to it online here. (via FunkFiles)

Jaws & The Rite Of Spring

Joe Queenan’s A-Z of classical music: Q is for quirkiness, R is for Rite of Spring:

It is impossible to list the number of movie scores whose soundtracks are either influenced by or lifted from The Rite of Spring (only Gustav Holst’s The Planets is more routinely borrowed from), but let’s just say this: when that shark showed up in Jaws, Stravinsky helped him get there.

That’s sort of how I perceive much of Zappa’s music: a quirky, hyper-cinematic soundtrack to a movie that is being written by nothing more than your imagination. And with that profound statement out of the way, I think what we need now is giant rabbits.