@@chrisdraughn5941I thought the same. A lot of his more orchestral instrumentals I could see. Warner Bros or the Walter Lantz stuff (Woody Woodpecker/Chilly Willy) That stuff was a lot more violent 🤣 It would be fun to swap out the music and see how it looks/sounds for personal consumption. Obviously would be a nightmare to post it anywhere.
@@psaint60 Yesssss the little voices and everything reminded me of exactly THAT. And I wholeheartedly agree with Doug, this stuff needs to be animated.
I'm just here to note that they play "Chameleon" by Herbie Hancock at 19:29-19:38, right after the lyrics mention the nearby "very hip young people" lol
he was too busy yakking to notice it....theres TONS of his older instrumental stuff on this track...re purposed.....the Big Swifty tune in particular was played by his 1973 band ... I heard it live in Sydney....a great thrill to hear it turn up years later Cucamonga started out as an instrumental also
they also hit about 4 measures of the "My Three Sons" tv show theme. He called it the "Ives Collision." The sound of two marching bands marching past each other.
I bet Doug would LOVE Frank's "Shut up and play yer guitar", "Shut up and play yer guitar some more", and the infamous "Return of the son of shut up and play yer guitar."
The real challenge of the entire "Shut Up and Play Yer Guitar" trilogy is figuring out which "core tunes" the solos were extracted from. I'm pretty sure that would be way over Doug's head (no offense intended).
@gregwolking FZ was a great composer, probably the most famous as far as my limited knowledge of this current era, of course. But he's a stud on the guitar, and that gets overshadowed by all the other stuff going on, humor, etc. Just thought it would help paint a more complete picture of a guy who deserves it. I'd have to give it a listen again to see what selections I'd recommend, but yeah, I think it's still worth a listen. For science!
I was waiting so long for this one. this music literally makes me cry each section. i cant conceive how can this sound textures come out of a man's mind.
Flo and Eddie! I really like the opening track of Life at Fillmore East "Little House I used to Live in". I think the album would appeal to Doug's funny bone, and musical sensibilities providing he isn't put off the the crassness of it. It's some of Frank's nastier stuff IMO.
Even before he had a rock group, Frank was into composers like Stravinsky, and especially Edgar Varese. He has a couple of albums of 20th C orchestral music with the London Symphony Orchestra - but better is "The Perfect Stranger" (12:46) on the 1984 Boulez Conducts Zappa album. Then there is later material like the Yellow Shark album. The profits from his rock records financed his contemporary classical releases. There's an interview with him on Letterman talking about the expense of paying orchestras to rehearse etc.
When I first heard The Adventures of Greggery Peccery, my reaction was exactly like Doug's. Disbelief in what I heard. Wondering how a musician could create something like this. Thought of Spike Jones and Scott Bradley and instantly thought the piece as a cartoon as I listened to it. Then had to listen to it again and then again for it all to sink in. It is one of my favourite compositions of Frank's and it's always a treat to listen to it.
I first heard "The Adventures of Greggery Peccary" about 45 years ago. And today the scope of it still blows my mind. This is absolutely Frank Zappa's grand masterpiece. Apparently he wrote it when he was confined to a wheel chair for a year. Wow. It's definitely not for public consumption but for those of us who know....WOW.
I first heard "The Adventures of Greggery Peccary" about 45 years ago. And today the scope of it still blows my mind. This is absolutely Frank Zappa's grand masterpiece. Apparently he wrote it when he was confined to a wheel chair for a year. Wow. It's definitely not for public consumption but for those of us who know....WOW.
Fun fact, Gregory Peckary was on a collection Frank called Läther, which Warner Bros. refused to release as Frank intended... so he released it over the air on the radio, telling his fans to record it on cassette from home. The Zappa family released a post-humous version of Läther on CD.
I sat down with a glass of wine to see what's good on youtube today, and this popped up. Very glad that Doug got to this finally! I have listened to it a hundred times, and I hear some new detail every time!
Knowing FZ, I would believe every note of this piece was pre-written and nothing left to improvisation. If that’s true, this work should go down as one of the great pieces of classical music of the last 60 years.
thanks for doing this. You are very brave. I've been a Zappa fan for 50 something years. I heard part of this a long time ago, put it aside because at the time it was too much, and never heard it again until now. I had forgotten how much music there was in there. You mae my day.
I talked to a friend some days ago about "grammar" in music, how we has come to learn a a certain kind of movements and expect them fit together in a certain way to sound "right". Frank's (musical) language was more comprehensive and had a much larger vocabulary than the stuff normally heard on the radio and he knew he could not throw that stuff on us without also teaching us, educating us about music beyond I IV V. To educate us, he made songs consisting of "easy" parts with lyrics, often funny and provocative, that got us interested and then he threw in some "heavy" contemporary stuff, sequences that would make both Stravinsky and Varese to sit up, and "force" us to listen through them if we want to hear the rest of the story. After a while we got used to the weird, we didn't mind it. After a little more while, we like it. Many of us now crave it. He was also a great lyricist; the language, the phrasing, the rhymes... There are many that does not like what he says (usually because they do not get that many, most, of his songs is done in character), but the quality is undeniable.
Zappa said his favorite song out of his own catalogue was Strictly Genteel, Doug... In Greggery Peccary, every single note has been first written down on a music sheet before it was recorded. I asked for this song, so thank you. I don't think there is anything remotely close of this song in the entire universe of music. Without a doubt, you analyzed your most complex "song" to this date. Thanks again !
God chunks of it WERE writtten before recording. The story and a lot of the nusic were written in early 1972 while he was hospitalized after having been pushed offstage in December, 71. An instrumental version in four movements was performed on The Grand Wazoo tour (September '72), the steno pool section was part 1 of a 3 section suite called Farther Oblivion z(not to bs confused with Father O'Blivion from the Yellow Snow suite), performed on the Petit Wazoo tour October-December '72. The studio version here was recorded in early 1975 with portions recorded at the recording sessions for the Orchestral Favorites album. The main character is voiced by a sped up FZ, the steno pool ladies are voiced by George Duke.
Great research! You're getting into Frank the right way. If you dig hard enough, there's a piece of Frank for everyone's taste. Frank put out a few lifetimes worth of material in just a couple decades. As George Duke once said: "Its almost as if he knew he didn't have a lot of time. And he had a LOT to say." And yes, some of those high pitched voices are Frank himself, done the old fashioned way; Recorded at half speed and played back at regular speed!
G-Spot Tornado-The Yellow Shark Version(With Ensemble Modern) is a fantastic piece!!! there is a live preformance version on UA-cam with dancers and Frank conducting...
Not just dancers, but La la la Human steps. Part of the world famous five by two (5 X 2) dance ensemble. A most worthy addition to Franks "Last Band". He was so sick, but so happy and energized to be "on the road" one last time with performers of that level of talent and dedication.
I’ve wanted him to do G-Spot Tornado for a while now. Both Jazz From Hell version and Yellow Shark. And heck, why not the marching band from Ohio that does it too ;)
I haven't checked in here for a week. And by a coincidence I just happened to listen to this piece "The Adventures of Greggery Peccary", for the first time in years, just a couple of hours ago. I have listened to it a lot way back, and remembered it well enough to sing along and know just about every word of the lyrics by heart. (Even "Ti-hi-hi. WANDAAAH. Ha-ha-ha." :) ) Now I will listen to it for the second time today. It will be fun to hear what Doug has to say about it. :) 11:55 That's exactly my perception of the traffic situation when i'm looking for a place to park in The Big City.
HOT RATS, HOTMEAT !!! was a call on the game. i was a casino dice/21 dealer in reno. rats are dice. girls are meat....willie the pimp.. i had this on vinyl but seldom listened to it... you have made me want to time travel back. i will listen to it now.... THANK YOU !!! ............... rockettebob in reno
Merci beaucoup Doug ! c'est sympa de te voir écouter cette musique avec Passion, comme un enfant ! du coup, grâce à toi j'ai re-découvert ce bijou de FZ...Thanks Doug !
Now you KNOW you need to listen to Billy the Mountain. Even more fun than this, and more musically accessible. I loved watching you listen to this! Frank delivered "four tapes," which translated into an 8-sided album. Warner refused to release it and instead released Studio Tan, Sleep Dirt, and Orchestral Favorites in editions not sanctioned by Frank. This started the process of FZ eventually taking ownership of all of his compositions (he won the lawsuit). The album was originally going to be released under the title "Leather", which had to do with some band inside jokes that were circulating during one of the tours in the 70s. It was finally released under Frank's auspices in '91 under the title "Läther" as a three-CD set, and has so much amazing music that you can spend months (or years) studying it. Thanks as always, Doug. This was a blast!
Nope. It went like this: Frank gave WB Zappa In New York and was aghast to learn that they removed Punky's Whips from it as well as editing out any reference to Punky Meadows from Titties 'n Beer. They had no right to edit or censor his music and that made him angry. Why it made him so angry... As well, it appeared that he wasn't paid for Zappa In New York. He owed them three more albums on his contract, and he decided to drop the tapes for all three at once on them and be finished with them. He brought the tapes for three albums, those being Studio Tan, Sleep Dirt (so named by WB, although Frank intended it to be titled Hot Rats III - Waka/Jawaka - Hot Rats being Hot Rats II) and Orchestral Favorites. WB was to pay him $60K per album ($240K) and Frank would be on his way having fulfilled his contractual obligation to them and free to look for a new record company. With those breaches of contract, Frank felt he had the right to shop the music around to another record company. He still had his copies of the tapes and resequecenced the songs, removed a few, added more, including that signature "grout" between tracks, and that became Läther. He brought it, packaged as Läther, to Mercury/Phonogram and they were on board to release it. They went as far as making test pressings of it. WB stepped in and threatened them because, breach of contract or not, Frank was still their artist. In his way to give a big finger, rigid and stiff, to WB, he took those test pressings to KROQ radio in L.A. and invited his listeners to tape it off the air and to NOT buy the releases that would come out on WB. As to the official release of Läther, that came after his passing, released on Sept. 24, 1996.
While I am waxing extravagantly, Zappa is single artist with the greatest pallet in all of human history -- music (high and low), culture (high and low), lyrical poetics, dadaism, etc., etc., etc.
I’ve been a Zappa fan since the 70s. Billy The Mountain is whole story on its own from Just Another Band From LA. Frank loved to reference back to previous works of his. Studio Tan is amazing. RDNZL, the last song on the album, is one of my all time faves.
This tune is so brilliant and your reaction to it as well, Doug. 🤜🤛 Treat yourself to Side 2 with the songs "Revised Music for Guitar & Low Budget Orchstra", "Lemme take you to the beach" & "RDNZL" (my Side 2 favorite). The "Studio Tan" Album - a Masterpiece of Frank's musical work. "Studio Tan", "Tinseltown Rebellion", "Sheik Yerbouti & "Joe's Garage" are my personal "Fab 4" among all the Zappa albums. At least one of the 4 albums has the honor of adorning my playlist. For me, Frank Zappa is and remains an absolute musical genius - as a composer, performer and guitarist. 🎸🎼🎵🎶
If you want to continue with Zappa having an extraordinary band being pushed to extraordinary limits, you need to visit the 1988 tour band. There's so much incredible material from this tour (it had a different set list every night!), it might benefit from a long play video, going through each side of the album "The Best Band You Never Heard In Your Life".
Back in 70-71, my band rehearsed in Emil Richards' Sherman Oaks pool house which was cluttered with all the percussion instruments he'd collected from everywhere around the world on his many overseas tours. There's a documentary film on UA-cam about them.
One of these days you should do do "Holiday in Berlin, full-blown" on the Burnt Weenie Sandwich album. It's the album before Hot Rats (you did Peaches en Regalia from that). Hot Rats is considered the first Jazz Fusion album, ever, and with Burnt Weenie you can hear Frank's transition from collage music into jazz.
@@Alix777. I find that Frank's albums seem to come in pairs. Absolutely Free (his 2nd album) was like Freak Out 2.0. It was a more polished, more sophisticated version. Ruben and the Jets was an anathema to me, it wasn't really Frank. Lumpy Gravy came next and then We're Only In It For The Money, which sounded like Lumpy Gravy 2.0. Hot Rats (considered by many to be the first jazz fusion album) was like Burnt Weenie Sandwich (which came after WOIIFTM) 2.0. A more polished production.
For Zappa experts : I think this is the version of Läther, not the Studio Tan version. There are some subtle differences, like towards the end of the "radios tuned to different stations". Just for fun, nobody really cares, although I feel Läther, if released in 1977, would be today considered one of the greatest work of art in the history of music. The 1995 version in CD is still incredible, just not widely known.
Studio Tan was the first Zappa album I bought. And I had only heard Overnite Sensation. I got it over Weasels or Utopia because I like the mouse and how little information there is on the cover. To say I was unprepared is an understatement. I was a high school band nerd but never had I heard something so intense. I was so shocked I couldn't flip the record and just sat there for 20 minutes. When I finally found the courage to continue, once again i was wholly unprepared. The absolute absurdity of Lemme Take You To The Beach juat made me lose it. I was expecting another 'avant garde clusterfuck'. Oh boy... Sidenote, in Zappa's film Baby Snakes, there is amazing claymation from Bruce Bickford (also from the Inca Roads vid) of the stenopool and chase.
The “statistical density” of this bouncy little ditty confounds the ears… until the time you listen and it falls apart like sand through an hourglass. Or something like that.😊
The reference to Billy the Mountain is another character in Zappa's alternate universe. Besides the music, his whole body of work - the phrases, characters, stories and inside jokes are constantly cross referenced wherein Frank coined the term " Conceptual Continuity."
It’s a really good idea to listen to the rest of this album, it’s so good. Really challenging compositions with spectacular musicians and as a little icing on the cake, the charming little ditty Lemme Take You To The Beach. Great reaction!
When I was enrolled in the Electronics Technician program at DeVry in Phoenix in 1982, my roommate had this record- "Studio Tan" I spent 8 years looking for it, eventually finding a decent copy of it at House of Records in Eugene
Perhaps not a cartoon but a clay-animation, maybe you remember seeing parts of it in the first live number of "Inca roads", that was the hunt of Greggery on the side of Billy the Mountain.
classic Zappa audioplay what a guy! incredible drummer keeping it all together, so many great stings and trills very reminiscent of tv and movie soundcraft tons of bits pulled from advertisement jingles too. good stuff frank.
My 4th grade class started working on this song 54 years ago,by 5th grade we also had Billy the Mountain as a character in this story as well as a separate story for Billy. At the same time my church wrote Sofa with Kalen and Volman and then they followed me home and I wrote One shot deal on my living room.. Then I wrote Inca Roads for Frank Zappa in person at my scout meeting... Apostrophe we wrote in 7 th grade science class after finishing homework
The composition Billy The Mountain is just as entertaining, and highly recommended. It's more based in Frank's early psychedelic rock period, and some versions run over half an hour. The piece involved some improvisations that made it so every performance was unique. Lyrically, it's about Billy, a mountain who gets a royalty cheque for all the postcards he's posed for, and decides to take his wife Ethel, a tree growing off his shoulder, on a vacation. This, of course, causes "untold destruction". Billy and Ethel are accused of being linked to drug rings, Ethel is said to be an active communist and a witch. Billy then receives a notice to report for his induction physical for the Vietnam War, but evades the draft. Since Billy and Ethel are causing all this destruction on their journey, Studebaker Hoch, a fantastic new superhero who could write the Lord's prayer on the head of a pin, is dispatched to go and reason with Billy. But it turns out in the end, that "a mountain is something you don't wanna fuck with"...
Hi Doug-- An early track that drew me into how weird and wonderful Frank Zappa's music could be, was a track from the double album Uncle Meat, recorded around 1968, with the members of the original Mothers of Invention band. Each track on the album was different from the others, and in itself a piece unlike any other music i had heard. The particular track is called 'The Uncle Meat Variations'. It is a shorter piece, with extraordinary changes, oboe alongside a lot of tuned percussion: this was just before the wonderful Ruth Underwood joined the band, and the tuned percussion was played by Artie Tripp, also a conservatory trained percussionist, and for years the more jazzy kit drummer alongside rock'n'roller Jimmy Carl Black. The song builds in amazing ways, surprise after surprise, then breaks into the most succinct and amazing short guitar solo i ever heard from Frank, and finished with a clank on a cowbell. In the UK, we all got turned onto all sorts of new music starting in the mid 1960s by the amazing English radio deejay John Peel-- to whom all of us here owe SO MUCH-- in decade after decade of his work. Thus, i saw the Mothers of Invention 3 times at London concerts in the 1960s, and my life and musical tastes were forever changed.. often, from year to year, you could hear how pieces of the Mothers set had developed and changed. You never heard exactly the same thing twice. Any other band would have come up with a distinctive style, written several pieces developin that style, then building a ten, twenty year pro career playing it. Not Frank, you got somewher between a few seconds and a few minutes, then you eoukd never hear it the same again! Another fun piece is a track called 'Little House I used to Live In' -- by contrast, a much simpler structure and quite an emotional piece with extensive piano soloing by Ian Underwood . Every track by Frank different!
you still have some truly mind melting peices by Frank to discover...but even Frank considered this his favorite. Other mind melters... Sinister Footwer What's new in Baltimore? Yo' Mama N-Lite Calculus yeah...there's still a bunch of mind melters...these one came off the top of my head.
I don’t actually know a lot from Zappa but the music from this track comes back in some of the tracks on the Orchestral Favourites live album. Purely instrumental btw, and part of the same set of tapes so perhaps that’s not a big surprise.
Dang, didn't expect this one to show up here. It's a crazy experience, I couldn't believe it when I heard it 20 something years ago. I still have no idea what's going on. Very much in the tradition of doing all music and sound effects with orchestra in old cartoons, but so much more complex. Just to write 30 seconds of this must be an insane amount of work. How do you even read this? There's truly no one that can be compared to Zappa.
Doug you need to listen to the last recording released by Frank “The Yellow Shark” a collection of his orchestral music played by a German orchestra, Frank tried many times to get this music recorded, and it really is stunning and a fitting tribute to this great composer and musician, I can’t recommend it highly enough
Regarding the multiple radio stations: there is a short sequence where you hear actual radios on top of eachother, but you could be right, that what follows, is a depiction of that. Great reaction.
wonderful video. the New Brown Clouds section is one of my absolute favorite sections of Frank's work. And yes, Ruth is truly amazing on this one... 👍🏾
3:10 re: frank vs warner. Don't know facts and don't know fighters, but i do remember franks battles with record companies. In my memory, frank was a very principled man, evidenced by his writings and appearances on many political shows of the day(crossfire for one) and testifying to house committee on "bad lyrics" in music. Frank was articulate and very funny in his "agent provocateur" way, and got into a very public battle with tipper gore. These hearings ended with the warning label seen today on some recordings. The fact that it wasn't worse is due in part to Franks defense of the 1st amendment and highlighting the disingenuous nature of the opposition. It was a very big deal at the time.
Frank described it as being “a cartoon for the ears”.
He wasn't wroong there.
I was going to say it reminded me of a soundtrack for a Warner Bros cartoon.
@@chrisdraughn5941I thought the same. A lot of his more orchestral instrumentals I could see. Warner Bros or the Walter Lantz stuff (Woody Woodpecker/Chilly Willy) That stuff was a lot more violent 🤣
It would be fun to swap out the music and see how it looks/sounds for personal consumption. Obviously would be a nightmare to post it anywhere.
@@psaint60 Yesssss the little voices and everything reminded me of exactly THAT. And I wholeheartedly agree with Doug, this stuff needs to be animated.
ua-cam.com/video/5IHl5E-GT34/v-deo.htmlsi=LKYwkZA6X3lDBTGo
The ultimate Zappa tune. It's got everything. "Zappa is a planet on his own"
I'm just here to note that they play "Chameleon" by Herbie Hancock at 19:29-19:38, right after the lyrics mention the nearby "very hip young people" lol
he was too busy yakking to notice it....theres TONS of his older instrumental stuff on this track...re purposed.....the Big Swifty tune in particular was played by his 1973 band ... I heard it live in Sydney....a great thrill to hear it turn up years later Cucamonga started out as an instrumental also
Really? I don't hear it. But then he was, as @TheTralfaz astutely noted, "too busy yakking."
they also hit about 4 measures of the "My Three Sons" tv show theme. He called it the "Ives Collision." The sound of two marching bands marching past each other.
Yeah clearly a quote since this was recorded around 1976. He did that with many songs like the Beatles etc.
Billy the Mountain has to be on Doug’s radar now! 😊
Second that, then add in The Joe's Garage Rock Opera, in order, 20 minutes at a time, every Friday for 6 weeks.
I hope he hits many other songs first, I can't handle listening to Flo and Eddie wailing away. So many better songs.
All great, but "One Size Fits All" is an epic album. IMHO, his best.
@@robertcussins2807 definitely a great album.
I love Joe’s Garage, but it’s rather… controversial.
“Does it matter that this waste of time is what makes a life for you” has always been a favorite quote of mine.
I have always used "Trendy Chemical Amusement Aide" !
Need more Zappa
The White Zone is for loading, and unloading, only!
@@cryptotharg7400 if you gotta load, go to the white zone.
@@cryptotharg7400 ‘You’ll love it, it’s a way of life’
@@lw1zfog
with leather?
I bet Doug would LOVE Frank's "Shut up and play yer guitar", "Shut up and play yer guitar some more", and the infamous "Return of the son of shut up and play yer guitar."
Well, I won't speak for Doug; however, I think Doug prefers composed arrangements (preferably with a score) to long jams and/or endless solos.
@guitarchannel5676 Just thought it would give him a look at a side of Frank he hadn't seen yet. Also it was later on in his life if I remember...
I prefer "My Guitar Wants To Kill Your Mama"
The real challenge of the entire "Shut Up and Play Yer Guitar" trilogy is figuring out which "core tunes" the solos were extracted from. I'm pretty sure that would be way over Doug's head (no offense intended).
@gregwolking FZ was a great composer, probably the most famous as far as my limited knowledge of this current era, of course. But he's a stud on the guitar, and that gets overshadowed by all the other stuff going on, humor, etc. Just thought it would help paint a more complete picture of a guy who deserves it. I'd have to give it a listen again to see what selections I'd recommend, but yeah, I think it's still worth a listen. For science!
To me this is the crown jewel in Zappa’s production. I have listened to this piece so many times and I still hear new things.
I was waiting so long for this one. this music literally makes me cry each section. i cant conceive how can this sound textures come out of a man's mind.
Zappa wrote some incredible music in his lifetime. This piece is one notch above the rest. 21 minutes and not one dullsecond!
Billy the mountain, first track from album Just another band from L.A. That should be the next one, yess!
Flo and Eddie! I really like the opening track of Life at Fillmore East "Little House I used to Live in". I think the album would appeal to Doug's funny bone, and musical sensibilities providing he isn't put off the the crassness of it. It's some of Frank's nastier stuff IMO.
Even before he had a rock group, Frank was into composers like Stravinsky, and especially Edgar Varese. He has a couple of albums of 20th C orchestral music with the London Symphony Orchestra - but better is "The Perfect Stranger" (12:46) on the 1984 Boulez Conducts Zappa album. Then there is later material like the Yellow Shark album. The profits from his rock records financed his contemporary classical releases. There's an interview with him on Letterman talking about the expense of paying orchestras to rehearse etc.
You need to do a Frank Friday. Seriously.
Biiiiiilllly the moooouuuntain….
There's certainly enough material
Yes!!
When I first heard The Adventures of Greggery Peccery, my reaction was exactly like Doug's. Disbelief in what I heard. Wondering how a musician could create something like this. Thought of Spike Jones and Scott Bradley and instantly thought the piece as a cartoon as I listened to it. Then had to listen to it again and then again for it all to sink in.
It is one of my favourite compositions of Frank's and it's always a treat to listen to it.
I first heard "The Adventures of Greggery Peccary" about 45 years ago. And today the scope of it still blows my mind. This is absolutely Frank Zappa's grand masterpiece. Apparently he wrote it when he was confined to a wheel chair for a year. Wow. It's definitely not for public consumption but for those of us who know....WOW.
Yeah, this is fantastic. Still blows my mind after more than 30 years of knowing this piece.
I first heard "The Adventures of Greggery Peccary" about 45 years ago. And today the scope of it still blows my mind. This is absolutely Frank Zappa's grand masterpiece. Apparently he wrote it when he was confined to a wheel chair for a year. Wow. It's definitely not for public consumption but for those of us who know....WOW.
I asked Dweezil who did the Grggory's voice and he said it was Frank who sped up the tape
Fun fact, Gregory Peckary was on a collection Frank called Läther, which Warner Bros. refused to release as Frank intended... so he released it over the air on the radio, telling his fans to record it on cassette from home. The Zappa family released a post-humous version of Läther on CD.
I really love how in Zappa's music Stravinsky can compose jazz ❤
I sat down with a glass of wine to see what's good on youtube today, and this popped up. Very glad that Doug got to this finally! I have listened to it a hundred times, and I hear some new detail every time!
Billy was a mountain! Ethyl was a tree growing off of his shoulder!
Knowing FZ, I would believe every note of this piece was pre-written and nothing left to improvisation. If that’s true, this work should go down as one of the great pieces of classical music of the last 60 years.
There are original charts out there, google them.
of all time !
Totally agree, FZ is another planet. Listening to his music since ever , everytime I hear something new.
thanks for doing this. You are very brave. I've been a Zappa fan for 50 something years. I heard part of this a long time ago, put it aside because at the time it was too much, and never heard it again until now. I had forgotten how much music there was in there. You mae my day.
I talked to a friend some days ago about "grammar" in music, how we has come to learn a a certain kind of movements and expect them fit together in a certain way to sound "right". Frank's (musical) language was more comprehensive and had a much larger vocabulary than the stuff normally heard on the radio and he knew he could not throw that stuff on us without also teaching us, educating us about music beyond I IV V.
To educate us, he made songs consisting of "easy" parts with lyrics, often funny and provocative, that got us interested and then he threw in some "heavy" contemporary stuff, sequences that would make both Stravinsky and Varese to sit up, and "force" us to listen through them if we want to hear the rest of the story. After a while we got used to the weird, we didn't mind it. After a little more while, we like it. Many of us now crave it.
He was also a great lyricist; the language, the phrasing, the rhymes... There are many that does not like what he says (usually because they do not get that many, most, of his songs is done in character), but the quality is undeniable.
Very well put
Zappa said his favorite song out of his own catalogue was Strictly Genteel, Doug...
In Greggery Peccary, every single note has been first written down on a music sheet before it was recorded. I asked for this song, so thank you. I don't think there is anything remotely close of this song in the entire universe of music. Without a doubt, you analyzed your most complex "song" to this date. Thanks again !
God chunks of it WERE writtten before recording.
The story and a lot of the nusic were written in early 1972 while he was hospitalized after having been pushed offstage in December, 71.
An instrumental version in four movements was performed on The Grand Wazoo tour (September '72), the steno pool section was part 1 of a 3 section suite called Farther Oblivion z(not to bs confused with Father O'Blivion from the Yellow Snow suite), performed on the Petit Wazoo tour October-December '72.
The studio version here was recorded in early 1975 with portions recorded at the recording sessions for the Orchestral Favorites album.
The main character is voiced by a sped up FZ, the steno pool ladies are voiced by George Duke.
@@hansvandermeulen5515 Actually the first movement already existed in the late 60s as "Some Ballet Music"
Great research! You're getting into Frank the right way. If you dig hard enough, there's a piece of Frank for everyone's taste. Frank put out a few lifetimes worth of material in just a couple decades. As George Duke once said: "Its almost as if he knew he didn't have a lot of time. And he had a LOT to say."
And yes, some of those high pitched voices are Frank himself, done the old fashioned way; Recorded at half speed and played back at regular speed!
G-Spot Tornado-The Yellow Shark Version(With Ensemble Modern) is a fantastic piece!!! there is a live preformance version on UA-cam with dancers and Frank conducting...
This. He has to watch that, it would blow his mind.
Not just dancers, but La la la Human steps. Part of the world famous five by two (5 X 2) dance ensemble. A most worthy addition to Franks "Last Band". He was so sick, but so happy and energized to be "on the road" one last time with performers of that level of talent and dedication.
I’ve wanted him to do G-Spot Tornado for a while now. Both Jazz From Hell version and Yellow Shark. And heck, why not the marching band from Ohio that does it too ;)
@@zappafanseeker1099 - Those dancers are outer worldly in ability. Good match to Frank.
Now you must do the prequel, Billy The Mountain. Frank was a master of “conceptual continuity”
I'd forgotten that Quentin reappears in Thing Fish.
You've reached the pinnacle... Zappa was proud of this piece...
I haven't checked in here for a week.
And by a coincidence I just happened to listen to this piece "The Adventures of Greggery Peccary", for the first time in years, just a couple of hours ago.
I have listened to it a lot way back, and remembered it well enough to sing along and know just about every word of the lyrics by heart. (Even "Ti-hi-hi. WANDAAAH. Ha-ha-ha." :) )
Now I will listen to it for the second time today. It will be fun to hear what Doug has to say about it. :)
11:55 That's exactly my perception of the traffic situation when i'm looking for a place to park in The Big City.
HOT RATS, HOTMEAT !!! was a call on the game. i was a casino dice/21 dealer in reno. rats are dice. girls are meat....willie the pimp.. i had this on vinyl but seldom listened to it... you have made me want to time travel back. i will listen to it now.... THANK YOU !!! ............... rockettebob in reno
Always one of my favorite songs. The groove sticks with you in-between listens.
Zappa and Doug. Must be some kind of stellar event occuring tonight. These are the best.
Doug, the Yellow Shark is his symphony album.
I do not think that is correct. London Symphony Orchestra album came first. Yellow Shark came later with chamber ensemble.
This is Zappa's masterpiece.
Merci beaucoup Doug ! c'est sympa de te voir écouter cette musique avec Passion, comme un enfant ! du coup, grâce à toi j'ai re-découvert ce bijou de FZ...Thanks Doug !
Thanks to you to give some credit to FZ's music. Since two years, it's been a reborn of this musicien and you're a part of it.👍
Now you KNOW you need to listen to Billy the Mountain. Even more fun than this, and more musically accessible. I loved watching you listen to this!
Frank delivered "four tapes," which translated into an 8-sided album. Warner refused to release it and instead released Studio Tan, Sleep Dirt, and Orchestral Favorites in editions not sanctioned by Frank. This started the process of FZ eventually taking ownership of all of his compositions (he won the lawsuit). The album was originally going to be released under the title "Leather", which had to do with some band inside jokes that were circulating during one of the tours in the 70s. It was finally released under Frank's auspices in '91 under the title "Läther" as a three-CD set, and has so much amazing music that you can spend months (or years) studying it.
Thanks as always, Doug. This was a blast!
Nope. It went like this:
Frank gave WB Zappa In New York and was aghast to learn that they removed Punky's Whips from it as well as editing out any reference to Punky Meadows from Titties 'n Beer. They had no right to edit or censor his music and that made him angry. Why it made him so angry...
As well, it appeared that he wasn't paid for Zappa In New York.
He owed them three more albums on his contract, and he decided to drop the tapes for all three at once on them and be finished with them.
He brought the tapes for three albums, those being Studio Tan, Sleep Dirt (so named by WB, although Frank intended it to be titled Hot Rats III - Waka/Jawaka - Hot Rats being Hot Rats II) and Orchestral Favorites.
WB was to pay him $60K per album ($240K) and Frank would be on his way having fulfilled his contractual obligation to them and free to look for a new record company.
With those breaches of contract, Frank felt he had the right to shop the music around to another record company.
He still had his copies of the tapes and resequecenced the songs, removed a few, added more, including that signature "grout" between tracks, and that became Läther.
He brought it, packaged as Läther, to Mercury/Phonogram and they were on board to release it. They went as far as making test pressings of it. WB stepped in and threatened them because, breach of contract or not, Frank was still their artist.
In his way to give a big finger, rigid and stiff, to WB, he took those test pressings to KROQ radio in L.A. and invited his listeners to tape it off the air and to NOT buy the releases that would come out on WB.
As to the official release of Läther, that came after his passing, released on Sept. 24, 1996.
Awesome!! =) Zappas Masterpiece!
While I am waxing extravagantly, Zappa is single artist with the greatest pallet in all of human history -- music (high and low), culture (high and low), lyrical poetics, dadaism, etc., etc., etc.
A hundred years from now Gregory will still require more examination and appreciation.this composition is completely outside of the box.
I’ve been a Zappa fan since the 70s. Billy The Mountain is whole story on its own from Just Another Band From LA. Frank loved to reference back to previous works of his.
Studio Tan is amazing. RDNZL, the last song on the album, is one of my all time faves.
Who is making those new brown clouds? Remember a mountain is something you don’t want to fuck with.
There are people who whistle that "who is making..." motif as a form of disgusted commentary whenever someone farts in an elevator.
Grew up listening to this, happy memories. The Summer of Love guitar chord take-off is hysterical.
It actually exists a “cartoon” of Greggery Peccary…. Is a crazy stop motion animation signed by Bruce Bickford!!
Awesome reaction Doug.....Frank was so unique for sure, a genius in my opinion.
This tune is so brilliant and your reaction to it as well, Doug. 🤜🤛
Treat yourself to Side 2 with the songs "Revised Music for Guitar & Low Budget Orchstra", "Lemme take you to the beach" & "RDNZL" (my Side 2 favorite).
The "Studio Tan" Album - a Masterpiece of Frank's musical work.
"Studio Tan", "Tinseltown Rebellion", "Sheik Yerbouti & "Joe's Garage" are my personal "Fab 4" among all the Zappa albums. At least one of the 4 albums has the honor of adorning my playlist. For me, Frank Zappa is and remains an absolute musical genius - as a composer, performer and guitarist. 🎸🎼🎵🎶
If you want to continue with Zappa having an extraordinary band being pushed to extraordinary limits, you need to visit the 1988 tour band. There's so much incredible material from this tour (it had a different set list every night!), it might benefit from a long play video, going through each side of the album "The Best Band You Never Heard In Your Life".
ABSOLUTE FUCKING MASTERPIECE.
George Duke as the stenographers!
Yes it's so different from anything I've heard
Back in 70-71, my band rehearsed in Emil Richards' Sherman Oaks pool house which was cluttered with all the percussion instruments he'd collected from everywhere around the world on his many overseas tours. There's a documentary film on UA-cam about them.
The adventures of Greggory P is and always has been in my top ten FZ tracks
My favorite Zappa piece. Still.
I'm astonished that nobody evertalks the fact that this song evokes pope Gregory XIII and his new calendar that rectified the previous one, etc, etc..
That's actually not something I'd even bought into the equation. It also explains why he's portrayed as a pig. "Dio Fa" et al.
This track gives me Charles Ives and Carl Stalling vibes. Felt like I could imagine a Looney Tunes cartoon going on with this
One of these days you should do do "Holiday in Berlin, full-blown" on the Burnt Weenie Sandwich album. It's the album before Hot Rats (you did Peaches en Regalia from that). Hot Rats is considered the first Jazz Fusion album, ever, and with Burnt Weenie you can hear Frank's transition from collage music into jazz.
It's so much better than Hot Rats
@@Alix777. I find that Frank's albums seem to come in pairs. Absolutely Free (his 2nd album) was like Freak Out 2.0. It was a more polished, more sophisticated version. Ruben and the Jets was an anathema to me, it wasn't really Frank. Lumpy Gravy came next and then We're Only In It For The Money, which sounded like Lumpy Gravy 2.0. Hot Rats (considered by many to be the first jazz fusion album) was like Burnt Weenie Sandwich (which came after WOIIFTM) 2.0. A more polished production.
I think this is one of the greatest pieces of music ever. Very funny and like nothing else on earth! 😂
For Zappa experts : I think this is the version of Läther, not the Studio Tan version. There are some subtle differences, like towards the end of the "radios tuned to different stations". Just for fun, nobody really cares, although I feel Läther, if released in 1977, would be today considered one of the greatest work of art in the history of music. The 1995 version in CD is still incredible, just not widely known.
Studio Tan was the first Zappa album I bought. And I had only heard Overnite Sensation. I got it over Weasels or Utopia because I like the mouse and how little information there is on the cover. To say I was unprepared is an understatement. I was a high school band nerd but never had I heard something so intense. I was so shocked I couldn't flip the record and just sat there for 20 minutes. When I finally found the courage to continue, once again i was wholly unprepared.
The absolute absurdity of Lemme Take You To The Beach juat made me lose it. I was expecting another 'avant garde clusterfuck'. Oh boy...
Sidenote, in Zappa's film Baby Snakes, there is amazing claymation from Bruce Bickford (also from the Inca Roads vid) of the stenopool and chase.
The “statistical density” of this bouncy little ditty confounds the ears… until the time you listen and it falls apart like sand through an hourglass. Or something like that.😊
Thanks. Great video. Oh and you too Doug.
The reference to Billy the Mountain is another character in Zappa's alternate universe. Besides the music, his whole body of work - the phrases, characters, stories and inside jokes are constantly cross referenced wherein Frank coined the term " Conceptual Continuity."
Planet Zappa
You have to do "Billy the Mountain" now.
Gail Zappa, Franks widow, used "the eons are closing" in at least one of her liner notes she wrote for one of the albums published after his death.
This song is so dear to my heart from my kiddie hood. Thanks for analyzing it. Astute!
That was a pleasure. Thanks.
It’s a really good idea to listen to the rest of this album, it’s so good. Really challenging compositions with spectacular musicians and as a little icing on the cake, the charming little ditty Lemme Take You To The Beach. Great reaction!
I second the motion on Frank Fridays ✍🏻🫡
I've been listening to this piece since the early 90s and concluded it's music for an imaginary surreal cartoon.
Thank you very much Doug, I've been asking for this one a few times and the 1991 version is new to me, really enjoyed it while toking a pipe...
Check out Bruce Bickford”s work with clay. The “claymation” features lots of Gregory bits.Frank worked with him on the Baby Snakes movie
Doug, you MUST hear Billy The Mountain, especially the beatuiful version of Playgroud Psychotics album!! You'll love it!
amazing Zappa. Love it.
YES!!!!!! One my favorites. My favorite FZ is orchestral FZ!
Great video!! I thoroughly enjoyed it. You should listen to Billy the Mountain next, it would help you understand Greggery better. ✌🏻
I've had this song on a playlist since 2015. I love this song but never expected it to be reviewed on a popular channel.
Seeing a composer like Doug listen and comment on a song that I've admired for so long results in me loving the piece even more. Thanks Doug!
When I was enrolled in the Electronics Technician program at DeVry in Phoenix in 1982, my roommate had this record- "Studio Tan"
I spent 8 years looking for it, eventually finding a decent copy of it at House of Records in Eugene
Do some of his orchestral music next. Man, Zappa could do anything!!!
Check out Zappa's Roxy and Elsewhere..
My favorite album by anyone-EVER! Perfect from first song to last. Get hip! I've been for 50 years!
Perhaps not a cartoon but a clay-animation, maybe you remember seeing parts of it in the first live number of "Inca roads", that was the hunt of Greggery on the side of Billy the Mountain.
This. Thank you.
Happy Birthday Ruth Underwood!
classic Zappa audioplay what a guy! incredible drummer keeping it all together, so many great stings and trills very reminiscent of tv and movie soundcraft tons of bits pulled from advertisement jingles too. good stuff frank.
Frank Zappa was a genius. An extraordinary brilliant composer and arranger.
My 4th grade class started working on this song 54 years ago,by 5th grade we also had Billy the Mountain as a character in this story as well as a separate story for Billy. At the same time my church wrote Sofa with Kalen and Volman and then they followed me home and I wrote One shot deal on my living room.. Then I wrote Inca Roads for Frank Zappa in person at my scout meeting... Apostrophe we wrote in 7 th grade science class after finishing homework
Cartoon composers, such as Carl Stalling, were a major influence on Zappa, especially on this piece.
I feel like tv scores in general, not only cartoons, imparted an influence toward Frank's compositions.
John Adam's second Chamber Symphony is called Son of Chamber Symphony. I always wondered if that was a reference to FZ
Ruth Underwood is one of my all-time favorite musicians. The work she did with Zappa is incredible.
The composition Billy The Mountain is just as entertaining, and highly recommended.
It's more based in Frank's early psychedelic rock period, and some versions run over half an hour. The piece involved some improvisations that made it so every performance was unique.
Lyrically, it's about Billy, a mountain who gets a royalty cheque for all the postcards he's posed for, and decides to take his wife Ethel, a tree growing off his shoulder, on a vacation. This, of course, causes "untold destruction". Billy and Ethel are accused of being linked to drug rings, Ethel is said to be an active communist and a witch.
Billy then receives a notice to report for his induction physical for the Vietnam War, but evades the draft.
Since Billy and Ethel are causing all this destruction on their journey, Studebaker Hoch, a fantastic new superhero who could write the Lord's prayer on the head of a pin, is dispatched to go and reason with Billy.
But it turns out in the end, that "a mountain is something you don't wanna fuck with"...
Succinct synopsis
I have a vinyl copy of Studio Tan. It blew my mind back in the day, and still sounds amazing today. Frank was a genius.
The musicianship is incredible. Ruth and Chester are on top of the game. I kept hearing George Carlin's voice doing the narration))
Hi Doug--
An early track that drew me into how weird and wonderful Frank Zappa's music could be, was a track from the double album Uncle Meat, recorded around 1968, with the members of the original Mothers of Invention band. Each track on the album was different from the others, and in itself a piece unlike any other music i had heard.
The particular track is called 'The Uncle Meat Variations'. It is a shorter piece, with extraordinary changes, oboe alongside a lot of tuned percussion: this was just before the wonderful Ruth Underwood joined the band, and the tuned percussion was played by Artie Tripp, also a conservatory trained percussionist, and for years the more jazzy kit drummer alongside rock'n'roller Jimmy Carl Black.
The song builds in amazing ways, surprise after surprise, then breaks into the most succinct and amazing short guitar solo i ever heard from Frank, and finished with a clank on a cowbell.
In the UK, we all got turned onto all sorts of new music starting in the mid 1960s by the amazing English radio deejay John Peel-- to whom all of us here owe SO MUCH-- in decade after decade of his work.
Thus, i saw the Mothers of Invention 3 times at London concerts in the 1960s, and my life and musical tastes were forever changed.. often, from year to year, you could hear how pieces of the Mothers set had developed and changed. You never heard exactly the same thing twice.
Any other band would have come up with a distinctive style, written several pieces developin that style, then building a ten, twenty year pro career playing it.
Not Frank, you got somewher between a few seconds and a few minutes, then you eoukd never hear it the same again!
Another fun piece is a track called 'Little House I used to Live In' -- by contrast, a much simpler structure and quite an emotional piece with extensive piano soloing by Ian Underwood .
Every track by Frank different!
I’m baffled at myself. I don’t recall hearing this before, and I’ve listened to FZ for ages.
That was incredible.
you still have some truly mind melting peices by Frank to discover...but even Frank considered this his favorite. Other mind melters...
Sinister Footwer
What's new in Baltimore?
Yo' Mama
N-Lite
Calculus
yeah...there's still a bunch of mind melters...these one came off the top of my head.
I don’t actually know a lot from Zappa but the music from this track comes back in some of the tracks on the Orchestral Favourites live album. Purely instrumental btw, and part of the same set of tapes so perhaps that’s not a big surprise.
Dang, didn't expect this one to show up here. It's a crazy experience, I couldn't believe it when I heard it 20 something years ago. I still have no idea what's going on. Very much in the tradition of doing all music and sound effects with orchestra in old cartoons, but so much more complex. Just to write 30 seconds of this must be an insane amount of work. How do you even read this?
There's truly no one that can be compared to Zappa.
Doug you need to listen to the last recording released by Frank “The Yellow Shark” a collection of his orchestral music played by a German orchestra, Frank tried many times to get this music recorded, and it really is stunning and a fitting tribute to this great composer and musician, I can’t recommend it highly enough
Regarding the multiple radio stations: there is a short sequence where you hear actual radios on top of eachother, but you could be right, that what follows, is a depiction of that. Great reaction.
I haven't listened yet, but I've watched your Inca Roads episode a few times and shared it with many. Thank you Doug!
I'm so glad you enjoyed Greggery Peccary, Doug. You really got it sir!!!!
wonderful video. the New Brown Clouds section is one of my absolute favorite sections of Frank's work. And yes, Ruth is truly amazing on this one... 👍🏾
3:10 re: frank vs warner. Don't know facts and don't know fighters, but i do remember franks battles with record companies. In my memory, frank was a very principled man, evidenced by his writings and appearances on many political shows of the day(crossfire for one) and testifying to house committee on "bad lyrics" in music. Frank was articulate and very funny in his "agent provocateur" way, and got into a very public battle with tipper gore. These hearings ended with the warning label seen today on some recordings. The fact that it wasn't worse is due in part to Franks defense of the 1st amendment and highlighting the disingenuous nature of the opposition. It was a very big deal at the time.