Rock At The Oval 9-16-72

Here is an interesting review of Zappa’s Grand Wazzo gig in London in Sept 72.
“After a long delay for setting up, and tuning, Zappa’s Grand Wazoo took the stage, and if no-one else had played I’d have been happy to wait around all day just for that. The 20-piece band play Zappa’s music with unbelievable [...]

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The Big Note – The Ultimate Gesture: The incorporation of time, space and place in performing, composing, arranging and producing Frank Zappa’s music

As promised – here is the full 3000 words of a paper I presented in Cardiff a month ago. This is unedited – so probably has a few typos etc. I will be aiming to develop this early next year into a 8000 word document for publication. As always – feedback always welcome. Apologies in [...]

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Bobby Owsinski’s Blog: Frank Zappa And The Black Page

Here is a great story of how Mr Zappa had a tendancy to reduce musicians with the wrong attitude to the humble place they should have been in the first place. Excellent.
Bobby Owsinski’s Blog: Frank Zappa And The Black Page.

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Zappa’s Stylistic Non Conformity

Here is a great example of TMOI in 1968 challenging listeners regarding the stylistic orientation of their music. Contains some amazing Zappa conducting, rock grooves, jazz visuals, and vocal madness. Zappa’s conducting alludes to ‘high art’, yet his image is that of a rock musician – the combination of which is exactly what makes his [...]

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Zappanale:The Ultimate Music Festival

After a long journey from Brecon to Bad Doberan, the first delight was the exposition on Jimmy Carl Black near the ‘Arf Society’ office. Featuring a huge collage of album covers, a video installation and several of his sculptures, the event provided a thoughtful start to this year’s festival. Having sadly died last year, the [...]

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An Autocratic Approach to Music Copyright?: The potential negative impacts of restrictive rights on a composers legacy – The case of the Zappa Family Trust.

Here is a draft of a paper that I am preparing for publication. It is very long, but would appreciate any comments. If you need a hard copy just let me know.
Since the death of Frank Zappa in 1993, there has been an ongoing legal battle between the Zappa Family Trust (ZFT) and the so [...]

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End of year review

As I am so new to the business of   blogging, I thought it would make sense to make the final entry of the year a review of the 2008 year regarding my various activities. These are not in any specific order, but just as they arrive in my head through the Xmas haziness. Anyway – [...]

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An Autocratic Approach to Music Copyright?:A Frank Zappa case study

I have been aware for a number of years that there has been a legal battle between Gail Zappa, head of the ‘Zappa Family Trust’, and the so called ‘tribute’ bands that are determined to continue performing his music live. As some of you may know, there are numerous Frank Zappa tribute bands on the [...]

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