On 8/17/05 6:43 PM, "Stewart Mason" <craigtorso@verizon.net> wrote:

> 
> I'm not sure I specifically agree with that reading.  For one thing,
> the "dose of avant-garde orchestral material" (assuming that you mean
> "The Chrome-Plated Megaphone of Destiny" and/or that little snippet of
> LUMPY GRAVY that interrupts "Mother People") was there because of
> Zappa's early and avowed love for Edgard Varese, and wasn't meant
> satirically.
> 
> I think the subtext of the album has more to do with "freaks" vs.
> "hippies" -- that is, the people who were truly doing freaky,
> experimental stuff (like Zappa) versus those who were play-acting at
> same (the "I'll stay a week and get the crabs and take a bus back
> home" ethos savaged in "Who Needs the Peace Corps?").  There's some
> poking fun at the excesses of psychedelia -- the lyrics of "Absolutely
> Free" are, for sure -- but I don't know if the musique concrete
> tape-splice stuff was necessarily part of that.


Stewart, we are actually in agreement. While the Beatles and other bands
were first discovering these different elements of music and incorporating
them into their records, Zappa had been in tune with the "real thing" for
many years already. I'm just saying that he employed these elements
shrewdly. 

When I studied music, we had to make compositions using tape, white noise
and a razor blade. It's pretty commonplace to study that now. By 1968, it
had been done for quite some time. But Frank knew that stuff while others
were just discovering it. Hence, including some hard core musique concrete
and modern orchestral music was pretty provocative at the time.

But I'd like to know what Gene thinks, since he's been listening to this
album lately. Gene?

--Ken