FZ was an American. Typically, within cultural / musical US world : tremendous opportunities for those who can financially afford it. He couldn’t. He had to explore it in a strictly commercial world. The worst possible condition for a good composer. Compare it -that way -with J S Bach. The Leipzig Thomas Kirche payed JSB a salary, he had to everything they wanted him to do. FZ: commerce endeavored to impose things. OK, Bach will keep proving that he was simply the best.

- Compare it with one of his European heroes, Anton Webern http://www.antonwebern.com/. See World War II in ” biography”. However he was finally enabled to reduce ( to the max) his musical output to genuine excellence. Just three and a half hours of listening.

- Or with Arnold Schoenberg. For instance http://www.schoenberg.at/ After having fled nazist Austria he became a refugee, finally he was nominated as a prof at the LA Univ. He kept composing & teaching.

- Compare it with other rock musicians. Endless story. Gail Z might be right.

It’s partly about opportunities at high school level.

OK, he was the boss of a small / medium sized enterprise. My guess is that there was much more behind it.

This is much more fun… a doc from ‘71 in 6 parts on youtube. Even if the Flo and Eddie era isn’t your cup of tea, worth a watch for the Zappa interview snippets, including the one where he admits to accidentally giving his wife the clap after going on tour!

Vacuum cleaners, Wild Man Fischer, GTO, Happy Together… worth an hour of anyones time.

Apologies if this has already been linked to, and I’ve missed it, but this is one seriously enjoyable…

S

scott Says:
November 15th, 2007 at 11:00 pm

You notice that they don’t talk about anything substantial?
Heck, I didn’t hear ONE SINGLE FACT. Alex Jones and Gail
Zappa should get married to each other.

Alex Jones and Gail Zappa married? I can just imagine the names of their first two offspring — Dweebil and Vroom Quibits.

Now, where did I hide my Zircon Encrusted Tweezers? It’s the only instrument, along with a fresh supply of dental floss, that might be able to extract all of that insubstantial bullshit from my ears…

All this overblown concern about the “loss of freedom” blah, blah, blah. Anybody who thinks that way is a CONSPIRACY NUT or wears a “TIN FOIL HAT” or they are a “MOONBAT”.

You notice that they don’t talk about anything substantial?
Heck, I didn’t hear ONE SINGLE FACT. Alex Jones and Gail
Zappa should get married to each other. THERE’S some FACTS for ya!!!

Hyulk, hyulk!

In the long term?

Same old, same old.

Well I wasn’t going to say it but my initial title for this post was “Gail On Hot Air”.

The best way of honouring a much better contribution to FZ world is to recommend the KUR site to many others.
Students, scholars, TV or radio stars, musicians, bloggers,etc.
As is the case with FZ they might all from their different perspectives learn something from it.