"I pulled this one off the vinyl shelves today for a quick spin and was reminded of what an extraordinary record it is. A mostly instrumental mix of folk, psychedelia and rock with the occasional lyric sung in Swedish which adds to the impression of uncovering a long lost mystical Krautrock-Krautfolk lp. A limited vinyl-only release from 2001 on Subliminal Sounds, it has never been reissued -- unless you count a cd compilation which utilized the same cover art [wise, very wise - Ed.] but took the music and incorporated it into a collage with other material recorded around the same time."
Naturally, my reaction was yeah ri-ight su-ure it is. Pffft. I've been fooled too many times by this kind of bonkers enthusiasm for terminally obscure releases. And Swedish? The land of fjords, duvets, Vikings, igloos, half-assed "open" sandwiches and endless pine forests stuffed with alcoholic suicides sucking Volvo exhaust? And Abba fercrissakes? The worst band in the history of all that is unholy? Haw! Fuck dis shit!
Hat duly eaten, egg smeared on face. It's every bit as good - better, actually - than Mr. Swami avers. This is one of those albums you'll pretend to your friends (like you have any) you bought on release, longtime fan of their work, criminally underappreciated etc.
But wait! There's MORE! Encouraged by my reception, Mr. Swami makes both their later albums available! Mr. Swami again:
"Their 2nd record is also quite spectacular. It has re-recorded versions of the three songs on side A which is not a bad thing. Dungen's second record, Stadsvandringar, is tighter & poppier than their first while still retaining its folkier aspects. It was so successful in Sweden that they were asked to record a song for the Swedish-language release of Disney's Jungle Book 2. Their third record, Ta Det Lugnt, ratchets up the electric guitar and consequently loses a lot of the dynamics found on the first two and the songcraft suffers as well."
Leave us get together in the comments to await the loadups.
I'm going to FoamFeature© a couple of lesser-heard Zappa albums soon, so this - in the comments to a piece about someone entirely unconnected - is an ideal opportunity to talk about him. I have come to the mature position of reverting to my original opinion that everything up to Burnt Weeny Sandwich is swell, and I can absolutely live without hearing anything later ever again. The problem lies in the way his music can - if you're so inclined - seduce you from one album to the next, and before you know it you're finding excuses for some of the most heartless, bitter, ugly-sounding music ever recorded.
ReplyDeleteI have always enjoyed Freak Out, Absolutely, Money, Lumpy, Uncle, Cruising, Weeny, and Rats (and always will), but the cherry-picking and the excuses start at Weasels (hey! your favorite Zappa album!). Even the best of the later albums (f'rinstance One Size) lack the anarchic fun and documentary feel of the first eight, which always sound like they're mirroring the times, part of what's happening, made by a bunch of freaks, and not created in a vacuum.
If you don't give much of a shit, that counts too.
I think it's less a matter of which Zappa album and more of which Zappa. Zappa the jazzer, the rocker, the satirist, the guitar hero, the "serious" composer, etc, etc.
DeleteThe guy was a genius, but an unpleasant one.
i love zappa. i do not like his music. it evaporates as it is played, sometimes even before.. it's like listening to blank tape.
Deletei lied. ruben and the jets is very fine.
Do you have the stunning audio upgrade of Greasy Love Songs, DEPRAVOS?
DeleteI might need to listen to Burnt Weeny Sandwich again but I'm of the same general opinion: everything up to and including (especially) Hot Rats is fantastic and everything after that sucks boogers (that is I personally find most of it tedious and boring but then again I haven't spend a lot of time with it so I could be wrong -hahaha not bloody likely though).
Deletei got no upgrade or even the downgrade but it sounds like a thing i need.
DeleteI'll include it in the Zappa piece.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteYup, those earlier releases from Frank are truly inspired, but, personally, I've never met a Zappa album I didn't enjoy.
DeleteAlso, I am well into Dungen. A rewarding experience, always.
Here's my version of this album cover -
https://postimg.cc/HcYwpQpj
Yup, those earlier releases from Frank are truly inspired, but, personally, I've never met a Zappa album I didn't enjoy.
Also, I am well into Dungen. A rewarding experience, always.
Here's my version of this album cover -
https://postimg.cc/HcYwpQpj
Konrad - we may call you Konrad? - you ere clearly a twisted genius. Please comment more.
DeleteKonrad - we may call you Konrad? - you ere clearly a twisted genius. Please comment more.
Yes.
DeleteYes
"elderly lesbians at witch school"..."endless pine forests stuffed with alcoholic suicides sucking Volvo exhaust?"
ReplyDeleteAren't we in form today..? Did you take it personal we didn't vote you funniest person of all time and tried to remedy the situation....I laughed at the last one though it sounds more like Fins rather than Swedes.
As for Zappa, I don't have much of an opinion. Can't really get into the guy. I like the cover art for "Ship Arriving Too Late To Save Drowning Witch" because even a five year old can draw it and you can make a quiz out of it for people who have never heard of Zappa.
Oh, and the only song I'm truly familiar with is "Bobby Brown Goes Down" which was a big radio favorite basically because no one understood the lyrics and wouldn't know this little tale of S&M sex and assorted other unpleasanteries from any other sing-along on the radio waves.
The album that Bobby Brown comes from is an exercise in how to be really unpleasant to several groups of people, but then when he manages to put that unpleasantness into a guitar solo - as in "Rat Tomago", I can forgive him.
DeleteThe solo has to be listened to in context as part of "Torture". It just might be my favourite guitar solo of all time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y67hzBDS1uE
Frank is my "favorite" arrogant, misogynist, homophobe, and racist, to ever pick up the guitar.
DeleteYup, that's how I feel now. However 30 years ago I found much of that stuff funny. I've deleted quite a lot of zappa tunes from my digital player - I don't need to hear Titties & Beer again, I played it to death years ago.
DeleteI have a soft spot for One Size because I carried a copy round Europe for a few weeks while Inter-railing in the 80's.
Yes, much of the comedy stuff doesn't bear repeating these days.
DeleteBut it give rise to an interesting quetion - how does what you know about the attitudes and opinions of a musician colour how much you enjoy them?
By all accounts, Miles was very abusive to women, but he certainly made some beautiful music.
What I know about the artist affects in no way what I feel about the art. Imperfect people rise above their imperfections through art, and their art lasts longer than they do (how I wish there was a Latin phrase I could drop in at this point). If I let the sound of my own judgemental tut-tutting drown out the music, I'd never hear it.
Delete^^^ This ^^^
DeleteYes, ^^^This^^^
Delete"favorite" arrogant, misogynist, homophobe, and racist." he didn't murder anybody, so in terms of musician morals he is slated for sainthood. all those other things are a part of the foundation of rock and roll. most great musicians crawl out of the sewers of heaven.
Delete"The Sewers Of Heaven"
DeleteLeaving Zappa for a bit, I feel the need to mention another "shitty" band, Diarrhea Planet who happen to be the greatest (only?) band who sported five guitarists and you can actually make out the different guitars.
ReplyDeleteYears ago (about 50!) I saw a poster for a band called "The Frothy Green Stools" in Oxford. They still exist!
Deletehttps://thefrothygreenstools.com/
Clearly taking the "shit name" part way too literal.
DeleteI never had frothy green stool, thank god, as I imagine that's a pretty bad medical condition.
Maybe I should ask all the seniors around the Isle...any of y'all already experience frothy green stool? Does it hurt?
So...I drop Dungen into Google Translate, and there's nothing under Swedish, Norwegian, or Danish...but under German, it translates to English as "fertilize." On the point...my stools are not "frothy." Is that a good thing, or a bad thing?
DeleteDon't forget the Umlaut, my friend! Where would we be without the Umlaut?
Delete(And where would Blue Öyster Cult be...well, probably exactly where they are now...)
"düngen" it is then...
Düngen Sie die Felder und sehen Sie, was wächst...
Favorite: We're Only in It for the Money
ReplyDeleteGive "Edgar Varèse: Integrales; Octandre; Density 21.5; Ionisation; Interpolation I, II, III" a listen, and play everyone's favorite game, "So That's Where He Got That From"
Money was the first Zappa album I heard.
DeleteIn many respects, it's still my favourite.
like all the Zappa lps but the earlier the better
ReplyDeleteI have the links ... somewhere ... don't go away ...
ReplyDeleteEarly Zappa is my favorite but I'm also a long time Flo & Eddie fan. As for Dungen...long time fan of their work...criminally underappreciated
ReplyDeleteMy favourite Zappa album has to be Apostrophe. Very clever and comical lyrics etc. Also Bongo Fury. My daughter has "no more credit at the liquor store" imprinted on her brain. Love the absurd, but I am British. I cannot help it. "Flott!" Saw The Mothers at The Hordern in Sydney, around 1974. Totally entertaining, and Sal Marquez was an act of his own. Frank introduced Ruth Underwood as the "one with the big tits". That was at a concert in Boston when I was there in 1975. Superb violinist, Jean Luc Ponty, who had an equally superb album in 1983, Individual Choice.
ReplyDeleteWhat we have here are Sitarswami's own zip files produced during a Kirlian Aura combing session, so please adjust your RIAA curve settings appropriately.
ReplyDeleteIt'd be easier to ignore Zappa The Man and just listen to his music if the former hadn't been so much to the forefront by design over and above the latter. I mean, trademarking your facial-hair FGS...
ReplyDeleteHave enjoyed some of the small slice of his huge catalogue I know. He comes across as Beavis & Butthead's smart uncle, consumed with malignant conceit & his contempt for his milieu - but unwilling to leave it even for a day. Which probably explains why it doesn't often IMO reach anywhere near the heights something so big and obsessive really ought to.
To be fair, the copyrighted facial hair was nothing to do with Frank and everything to do (post mortem) with the Zappa Family Trust.
DeleteThe sainted Gail!
DeleteDungen is a great band please check "Skit i allt" and "Allas sak" for some trippy sounds.
ReplyDeleteConcerning Zappa, "Frank Zappa" were some of the first words I remember pronouncing.
"Weasels ripped my flesh" was a record that I started playing as soon as I could move an arm coordinately.
Things got worse when my little friends asked their respective parents to come visit me and performed the manic laughs and belching. The following cacophony was the climax to everybody's horror and the record was taken away from me.
Moreover, my favourite moment to play it was at the sacred afternoon nap in tropical regions when only spiders the size of a fryng pan were roaming the streets.
They tried to force me into Beatles and hate them since then.
A child's way to be a punk before punk. It only got worse.
Joe's Garage albums contain some freakest moments too an with great social irony.
This song specially catches my ears when it comes to guitar playing.
Make it speak, Frank.
Cheers from Argentina. Diego
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdQmhhi5cLI
Great to hear from you, Diego. Please write a piece for the blog. Argentinian musical culture isn't shared by too many of the 4/5g©.
DeleteHey Señor Farq is there a way to send it apart from the comments or is this the best way? By current ways of living i'm a cro magnon not having accounts to upload stuff. no social media or Netflix. not even a buggin cellphone.
DeleteBelieve it or not.
I write from a distant outpost at the foot of the southern Andes and internet is sketchy. I use email as primal contact and have a phone that may be powered by a wheel of hamsters. And it's ok like that to me.
I'm flattered by your kind invitation but maybe not up to it. Love writing and learning languages tough and maybe can send you something if you tell me the best way.
Checking the comments I appreciate the crowd of seasoned music listeners and the informed discussions about records. No one where I live knows Frank Zappa. But some day they will.
Cheers
Email me at elsonquick @ gmail . com
DeleteI'll get back to you from my private email. Don't worry about your standard of English (you'd think it was the second language of most of the illiterate bums who show up here). Write what you like, but please make it local to you and your life!
Zappa? For me there is Zappa music and then there is all other music. I've been captivated by his compositions, guitar playing and satire for over 40 years. His music tickles my brain. For you naysayers.. was he a perfect human being, No. Buy he left a shitload of uncategorizable and beautiful music.
ReplyDeleteI don't need the downloads. I have it all.
Dungen is very good too.
Thanks for Dungen, which I'd never heard of. (I don't know much third millennium music.)
ReplyDeleteFor those who don't like Zappa's lyrics, there's plenty of instrumental music, such as most of Grand Wazoo; Revised Music For Guitar & Low Budget Orchestra and RDNZL (both on Studio Tan); the 1979 and 2012 versions of Sleep Dirt; Orchestral Favorites; and the guitar solo albums Shut Up 'N Play Yer Guitar and Trance-Fusion.
You're welcome.
Delete(My favorite Zappa guitar instrymental is Grunion Run)