Return of the Son of for Your Eyes - Only?
 |
Live in Paris 1980 |
Frank Zappa is revered as modern musics
greatest innovator, an iconoclast who destroyed music convention
with genre-busting funk/blues/psychedelic/heavy rock
arrangements, and incredible live stage shows. As a solo
performer, and with his groundbreaking band The Mothers of
Invention, Zappa recorded 60 albums and collaborated with
Captain Beefheart and the London Symphony Orchestra. Rock and
rolls sharpest musical mind and most astute social critic, he
was the most prolific composer of his age. Recorded Live in Paris in 1980, this is a rare recording of Frank Zappa performing at the peak of his career with his incredible backing band, including Ike Willis (guitar/vocals), Ray White (guitar/vocals), Tommy Mars (keys), Arthur Barrow (bass) and David Logeman (drums). It was the year after Zappa released two of his greatest albums - Sheik Yerbouti and the masterpiece, Joes Garage and this cracking live show includes the classic Zappa songs Joes Garage, Dancing Fool, Bobby Brown and The Illinois Enema Bandit.
|
|
| DVD - 34 minuten - 2008 | |||
|
1. Chunga's Revenge 2. (Keep it) Greasy 3. Joe's Garage 4. Why Does it Hurt When I Pee? 5. Dancing Fool 6. Bobby Brown 7. Miss Pinky 8. The Illinois Enema Bandit |
|||
|
geen extra's legaal?? / illegaal ?? Waarschuwing / Warning N.B. Deze site heeft niets met de makers van deze DVD te maken * This site has nothing to do with the producers of this DVD |
|||
 |
The Freak Out List |
When an artist,
regardless of his significance, lists his favourite musicians
and performers it is usually met with little fanfare, as over
time the names mentioned are almost certainly going to change.
But when Frank Zappa did likewise, and actually published a
record of his most important influences on the inside cover of
his debut album, it became a road map to the music he was to
make over the following forty years. Even in the early 1990s,
when asked about his most-loved composers, musicians and
artists, he would repeat names from this, by then legendary,
index. This film explores the musical roots of Frank Zappa by putting The Freak Out List under the microscope and tracing the lineage from the most pivotal names thereon to the recordings and performances of the man himself. Featuring rare footage of Zappa and the Mothers plus archive film of Freak Out List artists, exclusive interviews with The Mothers Of Invention’s Ian Underwood, Don Preston and George Duke, 1950s Doo Wop legends, The Cadillacs, contributions from Zappa biographers Ben Watson and Greg Russo, Edgard Varèse biographer Alan Clayson, experimental modern music historian Professor David Nicholls, soul and R’n’B expert Robert Pruter, and many others Also features numerous seldom seen photographs, news archive, radio spots and a host of other features which all together make for a fascinating, unique and hugely watchable programme. Extra features include: extended interviews; featurette
‘Frank Zappa’s Record Collection’; illustrated contributor
biographies; and more. |
|
|
DVD - ca. 88 minutes - 2009 Various Places and years |
|||
|
1. Intro 2. The List 3. Classical Variations 4. Fountain of Love 5. Keep it Greasy 6. Jazz from Hell |
|||
|
Extra's: - extended interviews - record collection - contributor bio's This film is not authorised by the estate or family of FZ |
|||
 |
Tony Palmer's Film of Frank Zappa's 200 Motels |
I’ve read so much rubbish about 200 Motels over the years,
much of it fiction, much of it originating with Frank Zappa
himself, that the release of the newly restored film on DVD
gives me an opportunity - my first - to correct one or two
of the wilder stories about how the film came about and what
really happened during the filming.
Contrary to what Frank Zappa and his
biographers have asserted, when I first became involved
there was no script, just a trunk-load of papers containing
scenes ‘from the life of’. My ‘job’, Frank said, was to make
some sense of this jumble and try to construct a coherent
script from which a film, any film, would emerge. True,
Frank had written a pile of music, some good, some not so
good, but no orchestra had been booked, no soloists, no
choir, no choreographer. My second ‘job’ therefore was to
organise all this at very short notice. Normally, you need
to book a London orchestra – especially if you required them
for a week - at least a year in advance. I had three weeks
in which to find a top class, professional orchestra.
Next, although the film was entirely Frank’s idea, MGM/UA were unwilling to trust him with a feature film, even if it was estimated to cost only around half a million dollars. (It finally cost $679,000). In fact, they had turned him down as the director of the film, and insisted on a safe pair of hands to make sure something emerged for their money. It so happened that I had been offered a picture deal by MGM a little earlier (which I had also turned down), and it was Herb Cohen, Frank Zappa’s longsuffering manager, who, knowing this and knowing that Frank had worked with me before, put the jigsaw together.
Next, it was clear that many of the scenes could not be shot
the way Frank envisaged them on conventional celluloid, or
rather they could be shot, but would take an age and a lot
of money (neither of which we had) because of the special
effects involved. It was me who suggested using videotape,
not Frank Zappa, because I was already experimenting with
video effects using the earliest colour video cameras that
had arrived at the BBC only three years before. Initially,
MGM/UA vetoed this idea because, as they quite reasonably
pointed out, videotape (“what is that?” one executive asked
me) could not be projected in their cinemas.
It was a colleague in Technicolor London who came up with
the solution, namely that since the old pre-war Technicolor
process involved shooting with three different negatives
(red, green & blue) run in parallel, and since the
television image in those days also comprised three
different elements - red, green & blue, it might be possible
to transfer each element separately to the different
negatives and, when printed together, a true fi lm
‘transfer’ might result. Which is precisely what happened,
and the first ever ‘film transfer’ from videotape resulted.
MGM/UA was satisfied, because they now had ‘a film’, not a
videotape. Frank Zappa was satisfied because he could now
have all the effects he desired, quickly and relatively
inexpensively. But he had nothing to do with discovering the
process; in fact, I’m not too sure he understood it.
Nonetheless I’ve often read that he ‘pioneered’ the whole
thing, a porky that is repeated in the totally misleading
film about the ‘making of’ made by the Dutch television
station, VPRO.
In this same film, Zappa asserts that
only a third of his script was filmed. Nonsense. The
director (me) “quit mid-production”, which is news to me, as
well as several actors and a band member. More fiction.
Wilfred Brambell, a famous British character actor (famous
especially as ‘Steptoe’) refused the part he was offered,
and Jeff Simmons was replaced by Martin Lickert in the role
of Jeff because he had the temerity to call Frank Zappa an
ego-maniac. All true, but Zappa’s later claim that these
events “accounted for several radical, last-minute changes”
is yet more nonsense.
Apparently – according to the Dutch documentary – when I had quit, I had threatened to wipe the tapes – which is odd, considering I edited all the videotapes myself after completion of filming before handing them over to MGM/UA. I’ve also read that the out-takes and the videotapes on which they were stored were wiped and sold back to MGM/UA to reduce the overspend. No company such as MGM/UA would ever accept second-hand tapes, even if wiped, not least because the tapes would be more-or-less worthless. Another Zappa wopper. It begins to sound as if I am attempting to pour scorn on Frank Zappa’s achievement. Quite the contrary. It’s impossible not to have a sneaking admiration for a film which self evidently would never have been made had it not been for him and his curious talent. And, crazy though the film seems to be, it does have a certain insight into how ‘life on the road’ was for many of these rock bands at that time. The fact is also that, here we are, nearly 40 years later, and there is still a huge market/interest for the film. Oh, and by the way, according to several websites devoted to the film, because I had ‘been fired’ and/or ‘quit’ (delete whichever you think is applicable) I went off and destroyed the master tapes – which is very odd considering that these very same master tapes are sitting in front of me as I write.
And finally, that as a result of any of the above (you
choose which), Frank & I ‘never spoke again’. Which is even
odder, because a couple of years later when Zappa sued the
Royal Albert Hall in London for cancelling a concert in
which he had intended to perform the music from 200 Motels,
I appeared at the trial in The Royal Courts of Justice in
the Strand as Frank Zappa’s ‘expert witness’. Would Zappa
have wanted that had we not stayed friends?
So, forty years on, I’m proud to be associated with the
film, proud to have known Frank Zappa, and proud to have
stayed his friend, in spite of all the rubbish that (mostly)
others have written about what ‘really’ happened.
TONY PALMER-text © from Voiceprint-site & dvd insert.
|
|
| DVD - 98 minuten - 2009 | |||
|
1. Enter Larry the Dwarf - Ringo 2. Touring can make you crazy - The Mothers 3. Rance Muhammitz and the Steaming Cheesburger and Frank is watching! 4. I don't know too much about this stuff - do you? 5. Centerville, a real nice place to raise your kids up - including the Rancid Boutique 6. this town is a sealed Tuna Sandwich 7. Lonesome cowboy Burt 8. Ringo speaks about the life of a musician 9. Oooo... the way you squeeze me baby 10. Redneck eats 11. The raving nun (Keith Moon) and The Newts while the girl wants to fix him some broth! 12. The Dental Hygiene movie 13. The groupies rescues the Nun from his dead bed 14. Penis dimension 15. She painted up her face 16. Half a dozen provocative squats & shove it right in 17. Ringo is finding some pussy & Bwana Dik 18. What will this evening bring me? 19. Daddy, daddy, daddy 20. Vile foamy liquids 21. The vacuum cleaner is attacked 22. Jeff's trip 23. the End, except for "Lord have mercy on the people of England' followed by We have to get wasted 24.End credits |
|||
|
- no extra's |
|||
|
recensies: Paul
© 2010 words © from sites & booklets pictures © uitgevers |
