See Hear Podcast Episode 127 - 200 Motels

About this episode

The episode discusses Frank Zappa's work with a focus on his film 200 Motels and its surreal portrayal of life on the road for a band.

Frank Zappa is an odd duck. His massive back catalogue of albums attracts both reverence and ambivalence from music fans. Stylistically, he covered so much ground covering doo wop, blues, psych, jazz fusion and dissonant orchestral music. Unlike many of his rock and roll contemporaries, he always believed in infusing a sense of humour into his music – both compositionally and lyrically….though since what strikes some as funny is so subjective, it couldn’t appeal to everyone. He wrote about commercialism in America, the hypocrisy of conservatives and liberals in American society, and….umm….body parts. Welcome to episode 127 of See Hear Podcast. Tim, Kerry and I pontificate about the work of Frank Zappa with an eye towards his 1971 film, 200 Motels. It’s a surreal work that’s supposed to be his take on what life on the road is like for a working band – encountering rednecks and groupies, band egos and paranoia (the latter for good reason in this instance), and drug use. The film is vignette based with music provided by the 2nd incarnation of the Mothers of Invention and the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Zappa spent 4 years composing and arranging the music, and much less time…

People in this episode

Hosts: Tim Merrill, Kerry Fristoe, Maurice Bursztynski

Topics covered

• Frank Zappa
• 200 Motels
• music history
• film analysis
• surrealism
• band life

Keywords

• Frank Zappa
• 200 Motels
• Mothers of Invention
• music
• film
• surrealism
• documentary
• band life
• Tubi

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Mothers of Invention, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Tubi

Books & works: 200 Motels, Frank Zappa – Free Jazz, Movie Madness & Another Mothers

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