Category: Bizarre

Kinda Young, Kinda Dead…

In doing my thesis research (which will include a chapter on You Are What You Is), I stumbled across the discussion of “Charlie’s Enormous Mouth” over at the ARF.ru website, which had this comment:

Fuck ME. I remember the Charlie fragrance commercials, but I don’t remember kinda young kinda wow. I was real young so I dont doubt it.
I always suspected that Charlie’s Enormous Mouth was a riff on the “Charlie” fragrance because “Charlie” referred to a woman name in both cases. (For the non-English speaking, Charlie is usually a nickname for Charles, a mans name, and rarely used for Charlene or any other female variant).

In this day and age of vintage commercials being posted on YouTube for nostalgic purposes, I was able to find a 1973 ad for the Charlie fragrance…

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why I find FZ’s work to be endlessly rewarding to the astute listener.

In the Beginning…

In the beginning there was a word, and the word was secret, and the secret word was…Mudshark! And for fifty years the Mudshark ruled supremely as the only secret word on the planet Earth, but one day the Mudshark became older, and began to turn yellow, and decided to go onward and upward into the cosmos as a Yellow Shark…But, in his wake, he left a void…filled by MTV and Supermarket Shopping Musik! And the family of the Mudshark became so bloated that they didn’t know what to do anymore with the legacy which the Mudshark had left behind him…They became concerned with the question of whether or not a Fish, or a beard Fish, or a Zappatika or a Central Scrutinizer Band could be a Mudshark! And how we can stop them swimming in the waters of the ocean! And the Mudshark looked on from high, and scratched his head, and scratched his beard, and he picked something living out of it, and he ate it. Then he pondered the question…”I wonder if there’ll ever be a new secret word?”

“The Secret Word”, ZAPPATiKA! Live at Zappanale #21

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78 Years Ago Yesterday…

In a house that someone used to live in, little Donny Preston, also known as little Dom DeWilde or little Biff Debrie, was born on September 21st, 1932 in Flint, Michigan.

Happy Birthday, Don!
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Some Nostalgia For The Old Folks…

As a long time fan of Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, the names of particular musicians have threaded through much of the music I have listened to and collected throughout the years. Names such as Andy Cahan, Lawrence ‘Stash’ Wagner, and Tom Leavey. Together and separately, through compositions and through associations (sometimes as members and as contributors) they formed links with such bands as Frank Zappa & The Mothers, Lowell George & The Factory, Little Feat, and Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band, and Geronimo Black.
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Who IS The REAL Frank Zappa, Anyway?

Sometimes I am quite delighted to discover a fan-made Frank Zappa video like the one posted above. It reinforces my belief that the future of FZ’s public image is in the right hands: creative, open-minded, technology embracing hands. This is how I always envisioned Zappa’s legacy being spread.
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Spotlight, Swedish TV, 1971

While in Stockholm, Sweden on December 4th, 1971 during a short European tour, Frank Zappa and The Mothers appeared on the Swedish TV show entitled “Spotlight“. The 34 minute broadcast had interviews with Zappa mingled with music clips from 200 Motels [“This Won’t Take Long”, “The Final Solution”, “Centerville”] and included performances of “The Air”, “Dog Breath”, “Mother People”, “You Didn’t Try To Call Me”, “King Kong”, and “Who Are The Brain Police?” from Palais Gaumont, Paris, France on December 15th, 1970.
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Beefheart Cover from Hamamatsu, Japan

Just when I thought I couldn’t be pleasantly surprised by anything posted on YouTube lately, I came across the following two Japanese Indie Bands, Blood Pees with their cover of Don Van Vliet’s “I’m Glad” and New Roman Chitose‘s “PV Volume One” (performed with pole dancers):
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Bongo Fury – Shock Theatre, 1978

In the three short years since Zappa’s 1975 release of his mostly live album with Captain Beefheart and the Mothers at Armadillo World Headquarters in Austin, Texas on May 20th through 21st, 1975, it’s affect upon popular culture is astounding…

…Beware, Bongo Fury! Mwwwahhhhhahahaha!