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Post by thegl0r on Apr 24, 2016 5:48:33 GMT -5
Surely it must be a different Frank Zappa, 'cos that piece sounds like someone didn't have his atomic batteries to power or his turbines to speed. Boy, wonder what he was thinking Thatman. Burt, Ward of the Wayne Foundation should have been protected from doing that.
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Post by tangerinesun on Apr 24, 2016 13:45:10 GMT -5
Surely it must be a different Frank Zappa, 'cos that piece sounds like someone didn't have his atomic batteries to power or his turbines to speed. Boy, wonder what he was thinking Thatman. Burt, Ward of the Wayne Foundation should have been protected from doing that. This is canonical Zappa social satire. The people it was for would get it instantly, like dogs who hear the dog whistle. The people who would otherwise be trying to suppress it would not understand what it was doing. It would just be another radio-only novelty, which DJs were hungry for. But anyone who aired it was letting in a trojan horse. FZ recorded miles and miles of tape just for the hell of it. His liking for musique concrète and his fascination/disgust with pop culture turned everything into usable material. When he made this, he was obsessed with the standard 1950s rock 'n' roll trope about virginal little Bettie Sue Whitebread, sweetheart of the church social committee, being corrupted by jungle music and undesirable elements of society. He was always riffing on the theme — either pop media was malignant, or young BS had a hidden vein of disturbing perversion yearning to express itself. His way of throwing straight society's weakness and insecurity right back in its face. Burt Ward must have loved making a Zappa record. The Robin character ate his career and made him into a living joke. Nothing he could do to send a coded message that I AM NOT ROBIN would have been too much. Later he grew resigned to the idea that Robin was his calling card forever, and learned to work both sides of the joke. Maybe what he was doing here. Everyone on that show knew it was a complete travesty. To save your self-respect, the only attitude you could take was one of trying to make it even more horrifyingly campy and lame. Plastering the pig with more and more layers of cheap, gaudy decoration. |
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Post by thegl0r on Apr 24, 2016 19:18:05 GMT -5
Surely it must be a different Frank Zappa, 'cos that piece sounds like someone didn't have his atomic batteries to power or his turbines to speed. Boy, wonder what he was thinking Thatman. Burt, Ward of the Wayne Foundation should have been protected from doing that. This is canonical Zappa social satire.... I know I'm the wrong side of the pond to really understand much of Zappa's social satire. While we use the same alphabet and similar language, much of American life and obsessions are as mysterious and as exotic to me as Japan is. I get more exposure to American stuff on TV and radio, so due to familiarity some things are easier for me understand. But I probably often miss the point. For me, Zappa lives inside my radio back in the 70s on the two Saturday afternoon shows about American music which would never get regular air play over here and never hit the UK charts. Occasionally he'd turn up late-night on Friday just before the radio went to bed. Strange American music for art school students and "serious musos" which sometimes leaked over here. OK to listen to on the radio in between other tracks. Holy actors singing! (Punches right fist into left palm. Tries not to think William Shatner...) Robbin's track just seemed cheesy and naff and tongue-in-cheek, which I assume is what it was supposed to be as an in joke. I guess there was time in Zappa's life for that, just not what I'd expected of him based on what I'd heard of his work. OMG, does that make it a worthy piece of art and an unknown hit?  |
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Post by tangerinesun on Apr 25, 2016 1:52:22 GMT -5
I know I'm the wrong side of the pond to really understand much of Zappa's social satire... Zappa's not well understood by many. A lot of his stuff is incredibly specific to a time and a place. He sometimes compared himself to a journalist. He's revered uncritically and dismissed uncritically, and he doesn't deserve either thing. He was never not good at whatever interested him, so that nets him God points from people who should know a little better. His musicianship was absolutely formidable, and there was no point arguing against him. He'd beat you even if he were wrong. He was at least half a dadaist at heart. Too, too bad about that. Dada as a program for your life's work wears out pretty quickly, because, if you ask me, dadaism hasn't got much of a positive contribution to make. Once you've torn down, mocked and subverted all pretense of a rational order, what are you going to do? Tear it down again? Mock it again? Subvert it again? And again? I guess so, because Zappa could hardly quit being savagely critical as long as he lived. On the other hand, if he hadn't had quite so much garbage to deal with in his life, he might have felt like giving it more of a rest. RIP Frank.  |
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Post by tangerinesun on May 5, 2016 12:06:44 GMT -5
I had this crazy dream some dude talked the top echelon of surviving '60s mega-artists into appearing at the most exclusive outdoor festival conceivable. He did it by telling each band he was getting all the other bands and if they didn't come they wouldn't be cool anymore. https://instagram.com/p/BE_tkfCnPHU Then, once they'd helicoptered into his secure perimeter, he energized the high-energy laser lattice and kept them there forever, so he could phone them up at any hour, night or day, and say things like, "I want to hear 'Jumping Jack Flash' again, but this time, Bob, you do it. And we'll have Mick sing 'Rambling Gambling Willie'. Crazy, huh? As if they'd fall for that! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Then when I woke up, I found out VIP passes to J-Pop Summit with Kyary Pamyu Pamyu meet/greet are $300 and will be gone in 90 seconds, and they haven't even booked a single band I care about into Fort Mason yet. But don't worry — if they do, there will definitely be an announcement later, probably. Meanwhile Otoboke Beaver go back to Kyoto to stay, having broken even on the UK tour based on arts & culture grant support, with enough left over from merch sales to book a recording studio for 2-1/2 days. |
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Post by lazybone712 on Jun 1, 2016 18:18:15 GMT -5
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Post by mikado-AKA-Shoknifeman on Jun 1, 2016 19:05:00 GMT -5
i have to think it will be a cartoon, Adam West is in his 80s now, at the very least! |
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Post by lazybone712 on Aug 3, 2016 22:40:30 GMT -5
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Post by tangerinesun on Aug 3, 2016 23:55:15 GMT -5
Yeah, sex sells. Both Rocket News and The Tokyo Reporter rely on that for their businesses, so I'm not fooled by any displays of feigned surprise over at RN. |
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Post by thegl0r on Sept 8, 2016 9:35:47 GMT -5
Ooh, the chance to get immortalised in vinyl! Here's a chance to be a part of your very own Shonen Knife limited edition vinyl release featuring all your favourite tracks. Or at least an album's worth. Although I guess you could do a double album... But there's a slight drawback to this. First you gotta be dead and then have been cremated. So you'll never get to hear the finished record. Which is a bit unfortunate.  perfect resting place for vinyl loversHmm, but I see they can also use ashes from just parts of your body, like ashes from an amputated leg or something. Hmm, now which part of me could I sacrifice for that special limited pressing. How much ashes do they need? Would just a finger or a toe be enough? How about getting a pint of blood cremated and doing a death metal record with Naoko? Or what about collecting a year's worth of my toenail clippings and get them cremated. Then I could send the ashes off and get myself immortalised with Shonen Knife while I'm still around to listen to the record? Or would toenail clippings be a bit too cheesy...  www.andvinyly.com/ |
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Post by tangerinesun on Sept 8, 2016 19:33:40 GMT -5
Ooh, the chance to get immortalised in vinyl! Here's a chance to be a part of your very own Shonen Knife limited edition vinyl release featuring all your favourite tracks. Or at least an album's worth. Although I guess you could do a double album... But there's a slight drawback to this. First you gotta be dead and then have been cremated. So you'll never get to hear the finished record. Which is a bit unfortunate. Hmm, but I see they can also use ashes from just parts of your body, like ashes from an amputated leg or something. Hmm, now which part of me could I sacrifice for that special limited pressing. How much ashes do they need? Would just a finger or a toe be enough? How about getting a pint of blood cremated and doing a death metal record with Naoko? Or what about collecting a year's worth of my toenail clippings and get them cremated. Then I could send the ashes off and get myself immortalised with Shonen Knife while I'm still around to listen to the record? Or would toenail clippings be a bit too cheesy... www.andvinyly.com/ I love the idea, but not to have the record look and play like mortadella they'd have to reburn and pulverize your bits down to the 100 nanometer level, till your leftovers were about the same as soot. Of course, only you know if it's you or the cat. The thing to do would be ship your carbonized self off to the guys who formulate the copolymer and get incorporated into an actual production run. Then everyone who buys a copy of Back in Black can wonder if you're in it. And Vinyly are blowing it by not offering to carve finger-bone head shells for popular tone arms. The acoustic properties might be kinda nice... |
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Post by lazybone712 on Jan 6, 2017 16:29:00 GMT -5
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Post by tangerinesun on Jan 6, 2017 18:15:09 GMT -5
Coachella is tough, but I don't think it's this tough. How many showers would it take to wash that weekend out of your mind? |
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Post by mikado-AKA-Shoknifeman on Apr 1, 2017 17:13:43 GMT -5
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Post by mikado-AKA-Shoknifeman on May 4, 2017 15:40:38 GMT -5
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