Brilliant, thank you.Apologies if this has been posted before, but Alex Winter’s Zappa documentary is being shown on BBC4, 9pm Friday 22 Oct.
It took me a long time to get Zappa, and when I finally did I cursed myself for missing out on so much for so long. Ofc nowadays I have everything he recorded and am a total Zappa bore. I think the film did a very good job of demonstrating why, appearances to the contrary, he's one of the most important figures in 20th century American music, and was just extraordinarily brilliant, despite being simultaneously fairly puerile in many ways. He's a lodestar for me, for sure
I’ve actually got very little (from memory Freak Out, Absolutely Free, Just Another Rock Band From LA, Hot Rats and Apostrophe, mix of vinyl and CD). I struggle with the later more puerile and the hard-rock guitar stuff.
I was always fascinated by the Beefheart connection more than Zappa himself.
I love Beefheart, but musically he has almost nothing in common with Zappa, their childhood friendship and periodic collaborations apart. Zappa is, pre-eminently, a composer. Beefheart wasn't that at all.