dot_fennel | FRANK ZAPPA - 200 Motels, Uncle Meat, Ahead Of Their Time (Ryko)

Can Frank Zappa cause depression?

The last month or so of my life has been marked by near-groundless crippling misery, and listening to a lot of Frank Zappa. The Zappa came first by a little bit. Who knows? Normally I'd consider this too stupid to even speculate about but depression gives you really about all the time you need to consider lots of bad ideas. Well.

I've always found it strange that musicians who write songs about how being in a band really feels to them (Bright Eyes, Pavement, maybe They Might Be Giants, now Zappa) get dinged for self-indulgence on account of it more than musicians who write songs romanticizing their own lives. Criticizing apparent consensus is dicey -- maybe people just have so many worse things to say about Bryan Adams than "self-indulgent" that they don't get around to it.

Last time I wrote about Frank Zappa I was marvelling at how little he seems like a bastard in the characteristically vicious, uncharacteristically sincere "Packard Goose". Similarly, these rambling, largely-instrumental soundtracks to movies and a stage show about the touring life, despite not calling out to me for repeated listens, have charm I wish the guy had had the will to preserve as he went on.

Also, despite my belief that instrumentals rarely make an impression on me even when I enjoy them, I distinctly recognized several tunes on Ahead Of Their Time; I just had to check the CD case to see what they WERE: "Oh No" and "The Orange County Lumber Truck".

(Motels: Zappa's 13th, my 14th. Meat: Zappa's 6th, my 25th. Ahead: recorded in the 60s but released as Zappa's 61st, shortly before his death; my 26th FZ record.)