Product Description

Track Listing: Zoot Allures, Tinsel Town Rebellion, Trouble Every Day, Hot Plate Heaven At The Green Hotel, The Dangerous Kitchen, He’s So Gay, Bobby Brown, Keep It Greasy, Honey, Don’t You Want A Man Like Me?, Dinah-Moe Humm, Cosmik Debris, Be In My Video, Dancin’ Fool, Whippin’ Post

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #36749 in DVD
• Brand: EMI
• Released on: 2004-01-13
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Color, DVD, Full Screen, Live, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 57 minutes

Amazon.com
For longtime fans and un-Zapped neophytes alike, Does Humor Belong in Music? presents the late, great Frank Zappa at his mischievous best. Unlike the infamously rambling Baby Snakes, this hour-long, digitally remastered 14-song set (culled from FZ's performance at the Pier in New York City on August 26, 1984) is 95% music, punctuated with brief interview clips (including the inane titular question, and Frank's expectedly affirmative response), and featuring one of the tightest bands that Zappa ever assembled. Everybody participates in Zappa's unique parade of musical fusion, street theater, and defiant anti-establishment sarcasm, with Zappa playing masterful conductor when he's not riffing with nimble-fingered fretwork (notably during "Zoot Allures," "Cosmik Debris," and Greg Allman's "Whipping Post," the set's only cover song). His trademark humor extends to all of his bandmates, especially Ray White and Ike Willis (guitars, vocals) and Bobby Martin (keyboards, vocals), and any topic is fair game for Zappa's skewering, frequently explicit lyrics, from pop-culture sellouts and corrupt recording executives ("Tinsel Town Rebellion") to greedy politicians ("Hot Plate Heaven at the Green Hotel"). Each song is performed to perfection while espousing FZ's impassioned philosophy of taking nothing seriously except the music. In that regard, this Zappa Live DVD represents pure genius at work, having fun and taking no prisoners. --Jeff Shannon

Customer Reviews

Decent show, solid DVD
One of the best things about Zappa's 84 touring band was the fact that, for the most part, they appeared to have a good time on stage. Most of the band had worked with Frank for several years, which led to a more relaxed, free-form attitude on stage. This led to a lot of "secret word" shenanigans, with band members frequently changing the lyrics to (somewhat tired) songs to make the other band members laugh. For an excellent example of what I'm talking about, see the first disc of "You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore, Vol. 3".

Unfortunately, that humor is in short supply on this disc. The titular humor is only evident in the songs themselves which are, admittedly, juvenile, and widely available. The attraction of a Zappa live set is the element of surprise, of the spontaneous, not just run-throughs of songs you've already heard.

The master tapes of this must exist somewhere, and I was hoping for extra footage (two nights were actually filmed). A lot of material was left out of the final movie (we get the last few seconds of "The Deathless Horsie", but we get all of "The Dangerous Kitchen". Frank, why?). However, since this was released by Virgin/EMI and not by The Zappa Family Trust, the likelihood of those performances ever making it to DVD are very slim.

The sound and video on the disc are solid.

For the price, it's worth seeing the 84 band in action. Just don't expect to see anything you haven't already heard.

Do This Better!
I'm happy that Zappa stuff is finally starting to get to DVD but disappointed by this one. Not only do they decide to put less than an hour of music from a "very long" show but then they cut into some of the songs and only have "snippets" of some of them. The cuts are done by going to two very short Zappa interview segments that would have been fabulous if presented in their entirety as bonus materials.

Don't the video masters of this show exist? Zappa was pretty good at saving things. Why not put the whole show on DVD or at least more than this sampling? My guess is that this video was meant, at the time, to be a "teaser" to get newer fans interested in Zappa's more accessible stuff and to promote the, very great, skills of his later live bands. Perhaps this is why that this is one of the first releases to DVD. If so, I was wrong to spend the money on it as I am a long LONG time fan of Zappa's who finds most of this material unchallenging and of limited interest.

It *is* great to see the band making the music and seeing Zappa being "into it" that night. I only got to attend one Zappa concert. It was the Zappa/Beefheart tour when it stopped in Cincinnati around 1976 (or about). He was just "phoning it in" that night and only played for 50 minutes.

The recording and video is well done for the time and the material is picked from songs that are MUCH better to see/hear performed live than to only listen to on CD. There is some good Zappa music on this however a main point that Zappa seems to want to get across is "musical chops are good" and he proves his point by having a number of tunes that have no real value other than the impressive skill that his band shows in performing them.

A Fantastic Journey of Guitar Based Humor Rock
I used to have a roommate in college that had this in the VCR format. We used to watch it and just giggle and be amazed all at the same time. FZ was simply a brilliant composer and a grand band leader.

You can watch FZ play, conduct and simply sizzle through some of the really great songs from his career on this DVD. Songs like ZOOT ALLURES and TINSLETOWN REBELLION are done so well, and I must mention that the Allmand Brothers song WHIPPING POST is really done great by the band.

Needless to say, due to this being a DVD produced by EMI and not by the ZFT, it is most likley edited to someones taste within the INDUSTRY.. which never suited FZ anyway when he was alive... so why do him justice in his death???!!!

Great sound on the DVD. The sound was done correctly, so that much FZ can take delight in.

A couple of bad notes. There is a different lineup of songs on the CD version of this, and one of the songs that I would have liked included was LETS MOVE TO CLEVELAND as well as C@SUCK3RS B@LL. Also, the packaging is well, non existant. For a great release, there is nothing in the DVD case but the DVD. When you see how Gail Zappa and the ZFT has done the past two DVD's by FZ (Halloween and Baby Snakes -www.zappa.com-) you will not like the EMI no frills bare bones approach to this DVD. EMI should be ashamed releasing this to FZ fans in such a disrespectful way.. FZ fans are used to having a lot of things to look at and read with each release- I know, I have all of his releases.

However, buy it, and watch it and hope that Gail can get it and put it out without anything missing.