Frank Zappa was very clear about what he thought
about many things- from art and music to politics
and censorship in the USA.
What he said was always informed
and worthy of consideration...
“You can’t write a chord ugly enough to say what you want sometimes, so you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whipped cream.”
“My best advice to anyone who wants to raise a happy, mentally healthy child is:
Keep him or her as far away from a church as you can.”
“It isn’t necessary to imagine the world ending in fire or ice. There are two other possibilities: one is paperwork, and the other is nostalgia.”
“Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe.”
At a Congressional hearing about parental advisory labels on records, Frank said to Tipper Gore,
“May your shit come to life and kiss you on the face.”
In 1964, Ray Collins formed a band called The Soul Giants with drummer
Jimmy Carl Black, bassist Roy Estrada, saxophonist Dave Coronado,
and guitarist Ray Hunt. Not long later, Collins got into a fight with Hunt,
who left the band and Ray asked Frank Zappa to join the band.
Zappa convinced the others that playing his original compositions
would step them up to the big time. They changed their name to
The Mothers and by 1966 were ready to release Freak Out, the
second double album in rock history. Their label insisted on a
name change, and the Mothers of Invention were unleashed
upon the world.
After touring widely and releasing 5 albums, Zappa disbanded
the group in 1969- a decision that was not well received by band
members. He signed with a new label and released a solo album
called Hot Rats. He would also release two Mothers of Invention
albums in 1969 using existing Mothers studio work as well as
live recordings.
The 1969 album was called Burnt Weenie Sandwich. The second,
released in 1970, was called Weasels Ripped My Flesh.
Weasels Ripped My Flesh
The title came from a cover headline on the September 1956
issue of Man's Life, a men's adventure magazine. Zappa had
been given the magazine by a young fan named Dan O'Brien,
who had acquired it from his brother, a musician who had
found it during his day job at a pornographic publishing house.
The absurdity of flesh-ripping weasels appealed to Frank's
sense of humor. According to legend, Zappa showed it to a
young San Francisco poster artist known as Neon Park and
said “What can you do that’s worse than this?”
Park's painting, for which he was paid $250, almost didn't
see the light of day. Zappa fought with Warner Bros. over
its suitability for release. "Evidently," says Park, "...it wasn't up to their standards." Warner's eventually caved, but then
the printer pitched a fit.
"The printer was greatly offended," says Park. "The girl who worked for him, his assistant, she wouldn't touch the painting. She wouldn't pick it up with her hands."
Zappa and Park were enjoyed the brouhaha: "I was greatly amused by the cover, and so was Frank," says Park.
"I mean, we giggled a lot."
It could have been worse. German releases of the album
featured an album cover showing a metal baby caught in
a rat trap. This cover was not approved by Zappa.
Park would go on to do work for Little Feat, David Bowie,
Dr. John and the Beach Boys as well as illustrations for Playboy,
National Lampoon, Glass Eye, and Dreamworks.
In 1992, he was diagnosed in 1992 with amyotrophic lateral
sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease.
When his doctor told him the diagnoses,
Park replied "I never even played baseball."
Is the album any good?
One review says "....Weasels can make for difficult, incoherent listening, especially at first. But there is a certain logic behind the band's accom- plished genre-bending and Zappa's gleefully abrupt veering between musical extremes; without pretension, Zappa blurs the normally sharp line between intellectual concept music and the visceral immediacy of rock and R&B. Zappa's anything-goes approach and the distance between his extremes a re what make Weasels Ripped My Flesh ultimately invigorating; they also even make the closing title track -- a minute and a half of squalling feedback, followed by applause -- perfectly logical in the album's context.
"I was sprawled on a mound of hay - shotgun cradled in my arms and head drooping fiercely from want of sleep - when that first ripple of alarm surged through the duck house.
Instinctively my finger curled on the trigger as I sat upright, blinking at the soft amber glow of the kerosene lamp suspended from the rafter. I heard nothing. Only the breeders shifting timorously in their pens and quacking." Does this sound familiar to you?
The answer is probably "No", and there's no reason they would unless you are profoundly interested in pulp magazines from the 50s. They are the opening passage to a story by Mike Kamens that appeared in the September 1956 issue of Men's Life magazine, entitled `Weasels Ripped My Flesh`.
The story was good enough to be the cover of that month`s issue!
The cover art was done by Wilbur `Wil`Hulsey, who did a lot work
for Man`s Life and other major pulp publications in those days.
The weasels were not his only foray into the danger animals
represented to would-be heroes:
Nor were weasels and turtles the only creatures
seeking to rip the flesh of their oppressors...
There were snakes:
Man-eating rats...
Nasty little monkeys...
Giant otters...
and giant crabs!
All of which is quite colorful and interesting in it`s own right,
but how, you may well be asking, does this connect with Frank
Zappa, the Mothers of Invention and one of the better-known
album covers in the history of rock?
The answer is here, at Weasels Ripped My Flesh (2).
***
Here are links to some sights where I learned a lot,
found some images and got very pleasantly distracted.
In December of 2010, the man I always thought of as the Real Captain America
left the building.
Captain Beefheart was a nom de plume used
by the closest thing white rock music ever had
to a true shaman.
A man with more gris-gris than Mac Rebennack,
and more poetry than Jim Morrison,
who was more far out than Mercury
or that other Morrison, or Morrisey.
He spent more of his life living in the desert
and painting than he did being a rock star, which if you go by sales, he never really was.
mutually useful but volatile.
Typically a Beefheart album might do 50 to 60,000 units. His sales volumes may have been low, but his demographics were something else.
His audience included Jerzy
Kosinski, Igor Stravinsky, Charles Mingus, Miles Davis, Pharoah
Sanders, Woody Allen, John Lydon, Joe Strummer, Devo, PJ Harvey, Pere Ubu...
...and 50 to 60,000 others.
Beefheart was a one-namer before Madonna
could cross the street by herself.
'all roads lead to coca-cola' Don van Vliet
I look at her and she looks at me
In her eyes I see the sea
I can't see what she sees in a man like me
She says she loves me
Her eyes
Her eyes
Her eyes are a blue million miles
Her eyes are a blue million miles Don van Vliet 1972
Fast goes fast Slow goes slow Rich are rich and the po' are po' Everybody's doing the Low Yo Yo Yo Yo Everybody's doing it Deep down everybody knows they should Do the Low Yo Yo Yo Yo
Low Yo Yo Stuff Don van Vliet 1972
50 to 60,000 is also about the number of US dollars you would need to buy a painting or two of his now.
Funny business, art.
You used me like an ashtray heart
Right from the start
Case of the punks
Another day, another way
Somebody's had too much to think
Open up another case of the punks
Each pillow is touted like a rock
The mother / father figure
Somebody's had too much to think
Send your mother home your navel
Ashtray Heart Don van Vliet 1980
i told my mother - she showed it to me not too long ago, in this baby
book in that horrible palmer penmanship method of writing that she
used...on this old yellow piece of paper it's written out, that if she
would stay on one side of the room and i would stay on the other, that
we would be friends the rest of our life.
Don van Vliet
i met aldous huxley. i sold him a vacuum cleaner. i said: 'i assure
you, sir, this thing sucks!'. he bought everything in my car. i was
selling electrolux vacuum cleaners. i quit right after that - probably
some time before 1959. Don van Vliet
stars are matter
we are matter
but it doesn't matter. Don van Vliet
January 15, 1941 – December 17, 2010
after a long battle with multiple sclerosis.
“When you make music or write or create, it's really your job to have mind-blowing, irresponsible, condomless sex with whatever idea it is you're writing about at the time. ” – Lady Gaga
“I stole everything I ever heard, but mostly I stole from the horns.” – Ella Fitzgerald
“There’s nothing remarkable about it. All one has to do is hit the
right keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself.” – Johann Sebastian Bach
“Master your instrument. Master the music. And then forget all that bullshit and just play.” – Charlie Parker
“Music has always been a matter of Energy to me, a question of Fuel. Sentimental people call it Inspiration, but what they really mean is Fuel. I have always needed Fuel. I am a serious consumer. On some nights I still believe that a car with the gas needle on empty can run about fifty more miles if you have the right music very loud on the radio.” – Hunter S. Thompson
“I can’t stand Beyoncé.” - Etta James
“I like beautiful melodies telling me terrible things.” – Tom Waits
“Music is the strongest form of magic.” – Marilyn Manson
“Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life.” – Ludwig van Beethoven
“Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.” – Frank Zappa
“The only truth is music.” – Jack Kerouac
“Men profess to be lovers of music, but for the most part they give no evidence in their opinions and lives that they have heard it.” – Henry David Thoreau
“I don't like my language watered down, I don't like my edges rounded off.” – Ani DiFranco
“Listen, sonny, I was writing before you were a glint on your father’s dick. Don’t you tell me how to write songs.” - Keith Richards (to some figure in the music business)
“To live is to be musical, starting with the blood dancing in your veins. Everything living has a rhythm. Do you feel your music?” – Michael Jackson
“The first question I ask myself when something doesn’t seem to be beautiful is why do I think it’s not beautiful. And very shortly you discover that there is no reason.” - John Cage
“At least I’m not opening for a cunt like Kanye.” - Amy Winehouse
