What music are you listening to?

[Fosra]

Jimmy eat world - Let it happen

[marshlander]

Saw Dweezil Zappa play this last night with his fabulous band. This YouTube version has much better sound than the Cambridge Corn Exchange! I'm still struggling to catch my breath after the pumelling I got from the bass

The band also played Easy Meat. Unfair maybe, but here's his daddy's version. I think Frank Zappa's band around this time played some stunning music ... well, with Chad Wackerman, Steve Vai and Ed Mann in the band how could they not? I could never work out whether we were supposed to take FZ's inelegant conducting style seriously

[matty7]

Steve Vai is an amzing guitarist, very suited to zappa's style, which often sounds like improv but far from it, a friends older brother played me Hot Rats many years ago when i was 12, i didnt get it at all but i knew that i was listening to someone special

[marshlander]

Steve Vai is an amzing guitarist, very suited to zappa's style, which often sounds like improv but far from it, a friends older brother played me Hot Rats many years ago when i was 12, i didnt get it at all but i knew that i was listening to someone special

No, definitely not improvised. Frank Zappa was notoriously tough as a band leader. He wrote parts that the band members were expected to play. At the time it is possible there wasn't a guitarist on the planet who could play what Zappa wrote until Steve Vai invented the techniques to do it. One hears many anecdotes about FZ having such a keen ear that he could hear a single wrong note amongst the melée and woe betide the guy, or woman, who got something wrong :eek: Much of the music seemed to have been composed in jazz form where strictly composed parts were interspersed with freer instrumental workouts.

Hot Rats was his seventh album and, I believe, the first to be released under his own name. Everything about that album was extraordinary, from the music to the sleeve design. It came out in 1969, when I was fourteen, although it was few months before I had the opportunity to listen to it properly. Of course, for me there was the added attraction of Captain Beefheart singing lead vocal on Willie the Pimp, but the album has been a firm favourite ever since. I thought we might get something from Hot Rats at the show last night night (Peaches En Regalia, at least) but all we had were a few repeats of the two-bar substantive riff from Willie The Pimp during one of the guitar solos. Still, I could hardly be disappointed. The band played non-stop for two and a half hours and how they memorised some of that very complicated music is beyond me. I'm pretty sure Billy Hulting on percussion shed a few pounds during the evening while drummer, Joe Travers should probably win some kind of award for stamina.

Are you familiar with any of Frank Zappa's later orchestral compositions, Matty?

[matty7]

thx for the great info on Zappa - knew you would provide a good over view mate, i bet u have a great LP collection mile:

[marshlander]

thx for the great info on Zappa - knew you would provide a good over view mate, i bet u have a great LP collection mile:

I may have had at one time, but there is a 50-album hole around 1968-1971 created by my divorce a few years ago :frown:

[72jay]

Now playing:
Astral Projection - Liquid Sun

[eastofeden]

I have been listening to the orignal cast recording of Chorus Line...I just found the CD in a stack I hadn't looked at in years...I love Morales singing "Nothing"...I have it stuck in my head LOL..I even found the movie version of it on You Tube...

[Rychard the Lionheart]

Wishbone Ash - The King Will Come.


This is from the 'Argus' album, another great album which I have to add to my collection. mile:

[marshlander]

Ah, lovely album. I remember buying that when it came out. Friends used to argue for hours about which track was the best, The King Will Come, Throw Down the Sword or Warrior. I saw them play at Dunstable Civic Hall just after it was released and Steve Upton's drum solo (every band had to feature a drum solo in those days) was memorable for the way he played his way down the cymbal stands across the stage and around the hall's fixtures and fittings. Stomp wasn't even heard of at this time I wonder if I still have Andy Powell's plectrum from that night ...

Saw "Martin Turner's Wishbone Ash" a couple of years ago - good musicianship, but lost in showbiz sadly