hoopla! oink! oink!

So, it seems every time I turn on my TV it’s The Doves or Kaiser Chiefs or Coldplay or some bloke with an accoustic guitar singing “you’re so beautiful...”, doing their thing in front of an appreciative audience of Leisure and Tourism Students. Everything is wonderful with the world and it seems ‘real music ‘ is here to stay. There are a plethora of ’ nice guys with hearts as big as the sky, playing ‘real’ tunes with oh so real musical instruments. How wonderful for everyone. This surely is a era of massive cultural significance.

But why god why do they have to be all so damn repetitive with their repertoire? It seems like these guys have about half an album worth of songs between them. How can they bear to limit themselves to that rhythm and those chords and that pleading/ arch/ enigmatic (delete where applicable) sentiment, over and over again? The answer is of course that they are giving people what they want, deviation from the recognised brand sound is wrong and will alienate the mass entertainment audience.

Good luck to them I say, stick with it fellas! If you have one ounce of artistic spirit you should just smash the instruments into tiny pieces and move away from the mic.

Here’s some Frank Zappa and the Mothers live in concert in 1971...

Little House I Used To Live In - Frank Zappa & The Mothers Of Invention


Mud Shark - Frank Zappa & The Mothers Of Invention


I am currently stumbling blindly through the enchanted forest of Zappa’s recorded work. Don’t look to me for any guides as where to start. This album is by no means one of his best (too much talking) - but is still great.

Here the Mothers swerve from a lush and restless musical composition into an unnerving monologue over Funkadelic showband.

It seems to me that there are limitless possibilities to what your average line-up of a rock and roll band could sound like. Why do so many groups feel the need to define their sound so narrowly?

Buy The Mothers Live at Filmore East 1971