How did Frank Zappa view rap and hip hop?

[mjudge]

And exactly what was oh so transgressive about the "weirdos" in LA, as compared to the San Francisco? Just because they were "ugly motherfuckers" or didn't wear bright colours or whatever?!

Well, consider both the music and the manner of performance –

Musically: the Mothers and Beefheart vs., as FZ said himself, "a bunch of more-rustic-than-thou San Francisco white blues bands that weren't as funky as my little high school combo."

Peformance-wise: Zappa comes very much out of a Dada/absurdist tradition, and the kind of spectacles the early Mothers got up to (e.g. using the PA to play surveillance tapes of Bunk Gardner and his groupies while Ian Underwood runs through a Mozart piano sonata and Motorhead debates Jimmy Carl Black about whether they're commercial enough, or having off-duty Marines bayonet a plastic baby filled with ketchup) are a good deal more acidic and political than putting on your headband and junkshop tunic and singing about how feeling groovy will end the Vietnam War.

[mjudge]

Addendum: I wasn't there, but to judge from the reactions of sharp-eyed people who were (Hunter Thompson, for example), it seems like a lot of the earlier members of the West Coast counterculture felt that the San Francisco hippies who got famous were largely trend-following fashion victims who didn't particularly care about changing the structure of American society and just wanted to get high, fuck, and play long bad guitar solos.

[GuitarGeek]

Charles Manson had a criminal record a mile long, with much prison time, before he ever found the hippies. They were merely a tool whose naivete could be exploited.
I wouldn't say the SF counterculture "produced" Manson.

I had the impression that Manson was more connected to LA. He was hanging out in LA. It was through Dennis Wilson (who had picked up a couple of Manson's girls while hitchhiking one day) that he made his contacts in the music business. And of course the Tate/LaBianca murders happened in the LA area too.

But I do agree, the guy was a career criminal. For many years, there was an urban legend that he had auditioned for the Monkees, but he was a guest of the state of California, if you know what I mean, at the time the auditions were being held. And he obviously knew how to mess with a person's mind, which was presumably a trick he picked while "inside".

[GuitarGeek]

If only he would have been signed to a record deal... might have never made the mess he did. :P

He reportedly came close to being signed by Columbia, I think it was, but when the execs went out to Spahn Ranch (where Manson and his bunch were living), they were unnerved by the behaviour of their prospective new signie and his lot, so they took a pass.

There are those who insist the victims were chosen as an act of revenge. Terry Melcher, who was involved in the botched record deal, had lived at 10050 Cielo Drive before Sharon Tate and Roman Polanski moved in. Leno and Rosemary LaBianca lived next door to another guy involved in the record deal. I've forgotten the guy's name but I remember seeing him interviewed on TV back in the 90's, and he seemed to believe the only reason he was still alive was because he had been out of the house that night, and Manson and his band of assholes just moved on to the house next door.

[moecurlythanu]

I had the impression that Manson was more connected to LA. He was hanging out in LA. It was through Dennis Wilson (who had picked up a couple of Manson's girls while hitchhiking one day) that he made his contacts in the music business. And of course the Tate/LaBianca murders happened in the LA area too.

Charlie started the "Family" in the Haight, and honed his game there before moving south.

[Garion81]

Charles Manson had a criminal record a mile long, with much prison time, before he ever found the hippies. They were merely a tool whose naivete could be exploited.
I wouldn't say the SF counterculture "produced" Manson.

Dude I never said that. Go back and re-read what I wrote.

[Garion81]

as Garion/Brian explains below, something about LA was a more dangerous scene... Prowlers, exploiters and lurkers always existed on the Sunset Strip ... Frisco was kind of virgin of that in the mid-60's.

Also, Frisco bands didn't have local recording facilities (that didn't come until 73, I think), they had to travel to LA to make albums.... Which probably made them look ridiculous to local Angels with their flowery attires and looks



To think that this Al Gore dickhead came "to his senses" recently with his plight to save the planet (and even hitting the silver screen with his environmental movie), he must've had some kind of hippy way of life inconsciously imbedded into him

JK, of course.

The Frisco bands had the Wally Heider in Marin County from the late 60's on. (Most expensive land in California btw and many of them lived there) LA had many studios as company headquarters were in LA. SF bands concerts were well attended in LA. I was speaking of the people outside the mainstream. Al Gore, don't forget about inventing the internet!

[Trane]

Addendum: I wasn't there, but to judge from the reactions of sharp-eyed people who were (Hunter Thompson, for example), it seems like a lot of the earlier members of the West Coast counterculture felt that the San Francisco hippies who got famous were largely trend-following fashion victims who didn't particularly care about changing the structure of American society and just wanted to get high, fuck, and play long bad guitar solos.

Mmmhhh!!!... From having spoken to Alain Dister (One of France's best writer and photographer of the counterculture), when he was out in Frisco (and the US in general) for three years in the late 60's, the hippies in Frisco were generally poor runaways, with no money to dfeed or get health treatments (rampant vD and other health disorders caused the creation of a few free clinics and food distribution... Frisco wasd "the real thing" until summer of 67, then it got gradually swarmed by hangers'on and kling-ons

The Frisco spirit was rather contrary to London's affluent semi-bored mid to upper cass kids that dressed as hippies (expênsive designer clothes), but would've dressed up as fancy Jamaicans if Reggae had surged through in 67 (London/UK crowds were always very volatile and music currents worked best if it came with a look and disguise >> Teddy Boys, Rockers, Mods, Glam, etc...)

I had the impression that Manson was more connected to LA. He was hanging out in LA. It was through Dennis Wilson (who had picked up a couple of Manson's girls while hitchhiking one day) that he made his contacts in the music business. And of course the Tate/LaBianca murders happened in the LA area too.

But I do agree, the guy was a career criminal. For many years, there was an urban legend that he had auditioned for the Monkees, but he was a guest of the state of California, if you know what I mean, at the time the auditions were being held. And he obviously knew how to mess with a person's mind, which was presumably a trick he picked while "inside".

Charlie started the "Family" in the Haight, and honed his game there before moving south.

I don't know how trustworthy the TV series Aquarius (starring Duchovny as a cop) is, but it portrays the Manson years in LA, and throughout the first season (starting in early 66) , I don't remember any mention of Frisco's scene or even a passage of manson over there.

He reportedly came close to being signed by Columbia, I think it was, but when the execs went out to Spahn Ranch (where Manson and his bunch were living), they were unnerved by the behaviour of their prospective new signie and his lot, so they took a pass.

Yup, this more or less well played out in the TV series... I'd have guessed that if Manson's crowd had been based in Frisco, he might've gotten signed, because those "freaks" would've lived further away from the record execs' homes.

Al Gore, don't forget about inventing the internet!

[ronmac]

I'd thought it would be something like King's Road [London], only more. Somehow I expected them all to own their own little shops. I expected them to all be nice and clean and friendly and happy … (on the contrary, I discovered them to be) hideous, spotty little teenagers.

-- George Harrison, expressing disenchantment with the "Summer of Love" hippies of San Francisco's famous “hippie haven” i.e., the Haight-Ashbury district, which he visited on August 7, 1967.

[notallwhowander]

As a Bay Area denizen, I must formally oppose the use of the word "Frisco."

It's just not done here, and every time I read it, it feels like a spider crawling up my back.

[moecurlythanu]

I don't know how trustworthy the TV series Aquarius (starring Duchovny as a cop) is, but it portrays the Manson years in LA, and throughout the first season (starting in early 66) , I don't remember any mention of Frisco's scene or even a passage of manson over there.

Rule of thumb for you...Don't trust the historical accuracy of a television show or movie.

https://www.citywalkingguide.com/san...lesmansonhouse

[JKL2000]

How does Van Morrison view Zydeco?

[Watanabe]

Well, consider both the music and the manner of performance –

Musically: the Mothers and Beefheart vs., as FZ said himself, "a bunch of more-rustic-than-thou San Francisco white blues bands that weren't as funky as my little high school combo."

Peformance-wise: Zappa comes very much out of a Dada/absurdist tradition, and the kind of spectacles the early Mothers got up to (e.g. using the PA to play surveillance tapes of Bunk Gardner and his groupies while Ian Underwood runs through a Mozart piano sonata and Motorhead debates Jimmy Carl Black about whether they're commercial enough, or having off-duty Marines bayonet a plastic baby filled with ketchup) are a good deal more acidic and political than putting on your headband and junkshop tunic and singing about how feeling groovy will end the Vietnam War.

Not really one of his better musical observations imo.While not as obviously left-field as some of the Mother's stuff got, nor where Beefheart would eventually go, there were more than a few bands with plenty more to offer musically than that.

[ronmac]

As a Bay Area denizen, I must formally oppose the use of the word "Frisco."

It's just not done here, and every time I read it, it feels like a spider crawling up my back.

I was actually waiting for that. It's my understanding that you folks prefer "SanFran."

[Trane]

As a Bay Area denizen, I must formally oppose the use of the word "Frisco."

Guilty as charged , but it's a term of endearment for the city

And also a short name for kids' icecream, in Europe

So it's absolutely not meant in a derogatory manner

[GuitarGeek]

As a Bay Area denizen, I must formally oppose the use of the word "Frisco."

It's just not done here, and every time I read it, it feels like a spider crawling up my back.

Isn't there actually a town up there named Frisco?

[GuitarGeek]

I'd thought it would be something like King's Road [London], only more. Somehow I expected them all to own their own little shops. I expected them to all be nice and clean and friendly and happy … (on the contrary, I discovered them to be) hideous, spotty little teenagers.

-- George Harrison, expressing disenchantment with the "Summer of Love" hippies of San Francisco's famous “hippie haven” i.e., the Haight-Ashbury district, which he visited on August 7, 1967.

Well, part of the problem there was that he visited about 9 months too late. As is often the case in such matters, by the time the rest of the world had heard about the Haight Ashbury, it was already going down the tubes. The Haight-Ashbury circa 1965-1966 was pretty close to the way it was depicted in the press later. One reason the San Francisco bands at the time converged on the Hiaght was because the houses were (at the time) relatively cheap to rent. That's why the Dead, the Airplane, Big Brother, etc all lived there, because five or six people could get together and rent a house. And I think by extension that's why "the scene" happened there. How it compares to King's Road, what was going in LA, etc, I couldn't tell you,

My understanding, though, is by the beginning of 1967, "the wrong kind of people" started show up. Notably, you had drug dealers bringing "the wrong kind of drugs" into the area, presumably meaning heroin, speed, PCP, etc. So that started things to degenerate. And then when whichever magazine it was (Life? Time? Newsweek?) declared the summer of '67 to be "The Summer Of Love", that's absolutely what killed it.

I think it was Jerry Garcia, who said he woke up one morning, and saw a busload of tourists going down Ashbury Street and realized "things were changing". Worse than the middle aged tourists gawking at the hippies, was the sudden influx of teenagers from all over the country (if not the world), who didn't understand what the hippie ideals and lifestyle were about, who just wanted to piss off their parents, and reckoned this was the place to go if you wanted to "rebel" by running away from home. That's when they started having a problem with mass amounts of homeless people camping out in Golden Gate Park, massive numbers of OD deaths on the streets of San Francisco (not a Quinn Martin Production!), etc.

In a way, what happened with the Summer Of Love thing is kind of what happened to the Grateful Dead 20 years later, after Touch Of Grey broke big and MTV did an entire weekend of programming devoted to the Dead, which kind of threw off the balance of energy in the parking lot scene at Dead shows, which in turn got the Dead banned from playing in quite a few venues, and came close to getting them banned in a lot of others.

Any "scene" that gets too successful and too much attention from the media will eventually collapse in on itself from the influx of outsiders who want to join in. It's kind of like what happens when an invasive species gets introduced to a foreign environment, in this case with "outsiders" being the invasive species. Remember the Giant Hogweed, or the Trouble With Tribbles episode of Star Trek? Same thing.

[GuitarGeek]

Well, consider both the music and the manner of performance –

Musically: the Mothers and Beefheart vs., as FZ said himself, "a bunch of more-rustic-than-thou San Francisco white blues bands that weren't as funky as my little high school combo."

I wonder exactly when Frank was talking about. Maybe in 66 or the first half of 67 that might have been true, but by 1968, the Dead and the Airplane, at the very least, had moved beyond the "white blues bands that weren't funky" stereotype. Maybe it wasn't as "advanced" as Frank's more "far out" compositions (which tended to have little to do with "rock n roll"), but it still had it's own merits that went beyond "funk" or whatever criteria Frank used to judge such things.

Yeah, ok so they werent' playing Mozart pieces or bayoneting baby dolls onstage, they were just making good music. You can't actually listen to a recording of a guy bayoneting a baby doll, ya know? Just like you can't listen to a guy breathing fire or drooling blood.

[ronmac]

In a way, what happened with the Summer Of Love thing is kind of what happened to the Grateful Dead 20 years later, after Touch Of Grey broke big and MTV did an entire weekend of programming devoted to the Dead, which kind of threw off the balance of energy in the parking lot scene at Dead shows, which in turn got the Dead banned from playing in quite a few venues, and came close to getting them banned in a lot of others.

Yep, once people started showing up in brand new tie-dyed shirts without food stains, you knew it was all over.

[GuitarGeek]

Yep, once people started showing up in brand new tie-dyed shirts without food stains, you knew it was all over.

Well, sarcasm aside, it's more that you had thousands of people show up for a show, who didn't have tickets, who just acme to party in the parking lot. And as with the Haight Ashbury deal you also had a lot of people who were just trying to make money off the scene.

[JKL2000]

As a Bay Area denizen, I must formally oppose the use of the word "Frisco."

San Franciscy, in Californ-eye-ay.

We had a really fun vacation in San Francisco about 5 1/2 years ago. I had really spent very little time in California at all, so it was so cool to suddenly be driving to Muir Woods, then over to Berkley, etc. Kind of surreal for me.
The two best days were one where we walked around for several hours in Berkley and had lunch at Chez Pannis, and one where we walked from our hotel which was right in the middle of town, all the way to those museums and gardens in that big park past the Haight, and then walked back through the Haight almost all the way (I think we finally resorted to a cab at some point because we had walked miles and miles).

That's always the best time in a city you're not familiar with - just walking for hours and hours. You never know what you'll encounter.

What was this thread about again?

[Paulrus]

I was actually waiting for that. It's my understanding that you folks prefer "SanFran."

Negative. Full name, SF (usually in writing), or "the city" (after it's already been mentioned in the discussion).

I can't really explain why, but both "Frisco" and "San Fran" make people's heads explode around here.

[Garion81]

Negative. Full name, SF (usually in writing), or "the city" (after it's already been mentioned in the discussion).

I can't really explain why, but both "Frisco" and "San Fran" make people's heads explode around here.

I say Frisco because I know it annoys them. Just like when referring to USC I say Southern Cal because I know they hate it. I can understand it though because I cringe whenever someone says Cali.

My daughter went to Sonoma State in wine country so spent a bit of time up there. If you want to get a real time hippy flavor got to Petaluma especially if Umphrey's McGeee is playing in town.

[Adm.Kirk]

Gangsta-rap existed since the mid-'80s and attained popularity in the late '80s. Most of the major gangsta-rap albums had already been released by the time Zappa died, and much of the hip-hop scene of 1993 was dominated by Dre. Dre and Snoop Dog. If he was paying any attention to popular music at all, he would have known about gangsta-rap.

Perhaps my dates are wrong. I don't pay much attention to rap.

Bill

[Trane]

In a way, what happened with the Summer Of Love thing is kind of what happened to the Grateful Dead 20 years later, after Touch Of Grey broke big and MTV did an entire weekend of programming devoted to the Dead, which kind of threw off the balance of energy in the parking lot scene at Dead shows, which in turn got the Dead banned from playing in quite a few venues, and came close to getting them banned in a lot of others.

Well we used to do that in the early 80's... Parking lot parties at Dead gigs ... we used to cross the border on the other side of Lake Ontario (from rochester to Syracuse) with two vans two motorbikes and two cars, and the 10 or 15 of us would occupy six parking spots with the vans on the side of the gates (where trouble was likely to come from, the bikes on yhe exterior of the next two parking spots and the two cars back to back (open trunks, with thermo boxes filled with ice and beers)... the space between the vehicles was the partying place, and we'd score easily some grass from the band's kling'ons followers hanging about the place

But yeah, that kind of thing became more difficult as time wore on (more security patrols), we almost got busted the last time.