Zappa: The Massive Improve'lence

Sub-genres in the Alternative category are Grunge, Indie-Punk and Zappa. Sub-genres in Rock are Classic, Grunge and Zappa. Sub-genres in Blues are Classic, Hard-Boiled and Zappa.

The thing is, the twentieth century maestro is hardly described as Grunge, Punk or Hard-Boiled, but entirely a genre unto himself manifested into an ‘adjective’ raking across the board without validation, acclaim or approval of the industry. The genre is 'Zappa'. Period.

Frank Vincent Zappa (1940-1993) was inducted into Rock & Roll’s Hall of Fame and granted a Lifetime Grammy - posthumously – Why? - Because counterparts simply could not ignore the Mozart in their midst. They endured the genius long enough and the guilt borne was a thorn to extricate after he passed.

Like his eighteenth century Germanic counterpart, the ‘madness’ in Zappa’s psychic upset the Salieris of their time. He made no apologies for vulgarity. His diction-challenged narratives were authored for a later era, where bars in a typical piece would morph from classical to modern to rubato with exclamatory interruptions in between, accompanied by paranoia, skillfully aimed at administration and designed to insult and ridicule the order of the day.

Thing Fish released 1984 is not your average music album but a 22-track dialogue session reminiscent of theatre – presided by a grotesque mutation of a black ex-con and Ob’Dewila, his hyperventilating sex-doll.

‘The Massive Improve’lence’ and ‘Artificial Rhonda’ are part of the wider and elaborate script where the mutant has a serious beef with an Evil Prince, a gay virus-spreading and equally morbid character who engineers a plan to kill blacks, alluding to AIDS as an engineered disease.

While subtle messages in his signature piece require clinical study, the vulgarity does not. It is as bald and distinct as the cover art and realistic enough for the listener to visualize the baritone of ‘Zappa’s Bible’ emanating from the bowels of the mutant.

Afterword: I penned the above in line with an impending event this month. Sunday, September 19 2010, Lithuanians, Saulius Paukstys, Saulius Pilinkus and Arturas Baublys are to donate a bust of the musician to the city of Baltimore. The installation ceremony is scheduled at noon on grounds of the Enoch Pratt Free Library, Eastern Avenue.
The statute is said to be a replica of the one installed in Vilnius, Lithuania, created by Konstantinas Bogdanas. Zappa, recognized as a musician-composer extraordinaire, was born in Baltimore 1940 and passed away in Los Angeles 1993.

Beers to Lithuanians and warm wishes to lineage – from fans in Malaysia.

Words, Videography – Tommy Peters  (on YouTube)

(The clip was made on a Mac with CoverVersion’s Cuboid and Screenflow)