Zappa

OK - so I'll start this out by talking a little bit about Frank Zappa. Discussing all his albums sounds like work, so I'll just say a little bit about him for now.

I don't have a whole lot of heroes in my life, especially musicians - there are people whose performances and talent I admire, but often I'm less than impressed when I find out about what jerks they were in real life. Frank definitely doesn't fit that bill - there's plenty of things about his personality that I'm sure I would have disliked if I'd known him, and plenty of things I disagreed with him on, but I really respect his integrity and his belief in being who you are.

- He was always very clear about the importance of being a Freak, an outsider, of questioning authority. This didn't mean turning off and dropping out (he was actually vehemently anti-drug), it meant challenging stereotypes and mores, pushing on tired, old, racist, sexist, prudish ways of seeing the world. He wasn't afraid to call people on their BS, and expected that he get the same treatment.

- He stood up for the artist's right to self-expression. The most famous case of this is the PMRC case from the 80s. (google it, kids) It's easy to forget today what a big deal it was to stand up to the Washington Wives and their witch hunt against "devil music"; artists were legitimately afraid for their careers. But Frank was willing to go before Congress and unapologetically stand behind everything he'd done and call them on their hypocrisy. And why could he do this?

- Frank understood the importance of owning your own work. After the debacle with Lather (again, look it up) he started his own record label, way before Dischord or Simple Machines or any of the other DIY folks had thought of this. Sure, big names like the Beatles had toyed with it, but Frank realized that if he wanted to make music they way he wanted it to be, he had to do it himself; record labels were not his friends.

One thing that makes me sad about Frank's legacy is that he's most well-known for some of his more crass, silly pieces like 'Valley Girl' or 'Don't Eat the Yellow Snow'. He was always clear about it - he understood that those sorts of things were popular, and paid the bills for him to do orchestral pieces like The Grand Wazoo, but it's too bad that that's how he's known to the general populace. So go pick up Absolutely Free or Freak Out! (if you like 60's rock) or Uncle Meat or the Grand Wazoo (if you like chamber music) or Joe's Garage (if you like somewhat sophomoric humor combined with incredible guitar playing) and do yourself a favor.

yet another half-baked blog

From time to time I decide that I should have a blog, either as a place to snark about things that get under my skin, or because I don't have enough other stuff to do, or something like that.

So here's my latest crack at blogging - we'll see how it goes.

I'm mostly interested in blogging about music here - I love music, I love to rant about it, and argue about what's good, what's bad, and what's overrated. So that's what I'll do here. No talk about coding, or social justice, or politics, or computer geekery, or any of that other stuff. At least until such point as I change my mind.

Long ago, I had a blog where I talked about the sorts of music I like - when people ask me what I like, I often have a hard time answering that question, because I like a lot of different things. So I was listing artists I like, talking about why I liked them, and suggesting albums. Unfortunately, I did that blog with Wordpress, and the DB that all those posts are in is long gone. Sigh. Maybe I'll try to redo that for a while.