this is a tough one.
i gotta go with zappa though.


oh and khchris: can you please stop typing
LIKE THIS????


kthxdieban

thanks for not typing all crazy-like.

and yeah, listen to more zappa you bastards

Oh we've got creepy taste in music too?I see.

Neither of them do much for me.

look here, brother
who you jammin' with that cosmik debris?
---
& the torchum neva stops

Try a mid-period of his jazzy band.......This is one I put on for many first time new Zappa fans...



http://www.progreviews.com/reviews/d...php?rev=fz-rae

this site has good reviews for several Zappa albums...'solo' and MOI and various incarnations of the Mothers.

Call me crazy, but I don't think Beefheart is really any more "obscure" or "underground" than Zappa by this point.
This is a fairly apples-vs-oranges poll in any case, and they have both made good and lame records.

That one is great.

Savage Clone, you are dead on about that.

The thing is, there ain't that much difference between apples and oranges.

this is the only zappa record I have, I bought cheap, because I thought the cover was cool, there is some pretty funny stuff on there, but I have only listened to it a few times.

I have several Beef but only one Zappa - Hot Rats, which I love.

I'm not closing my mind to Zappa. Just cuz he's not in my collection today doesn't mean I won't open up to his work later on. I didn't get into Beefheart until relatively late in my record collecting career, and I love it. So who knows.

Kinda looks like that girl is jerking off Frank, doesn't it ?

Yeah...They're both fruits!

Exactly! :D

And when you DO.....you'll find a super extensive catalog. The variety is there to find something you like...try sampling first before going out and buying his 80 million releases !! Ha !

I love to find a band, new or old, that I have so much to catch up on !! It's exciting ! :D

Yeah. I used to own Joe's Garage. But I remember thinking some of the humor was kind of juvenile, so I got rid of it. If I get into Zappa, I'll probably go for his instrumental stuff. His verbal gags have never done much for me.

I agree mostly with the 'moronic' lyric dissing of some of his work. I really couldn't care less about WHAT he says, 'cept alot of his earlier social commentary and through most of the 70s. But the later 70s, into the 80s...didn't do it for me.

However his MUSIC is so great in my book.

If you're looking for more instrumental...I recommend that site I sited...the albums....Waka Jawaka, Hot Rats (you have already), The Grand Wazoo...much of Burnt Weenie Sandwich and some of Weasels Ripped my Flesh and Chunga's Revenge. Uncle Meat has some great instrumentals too...for the early Mothers. The early 70s had Flo and Eddie..who I dont really get into...but the album 'Just another band from LA' with them is a hoot !!

The 'shut up and play your guitar' series is good...but abit tedious. I happen to love the solos they highlight...but I prefer whole tunes in full context.

seriously? ask anyone in congress who frank zappa is and they'll know atleast the face and that he's a musician.

nobody in congress has a clue who captain beefheart is, they'd probably think he was a pirate or something at disneyland.

WE know of captain beefheart, and for the record, his records didn't sell at all, but everyone knows frank zappa.


totally different. try listening to zappa & mothers. totally different than captain beefheard/magic band. not even close.

Hence my apples-and-oranges remark.

Wait, did I just reply to you?
Sorry about that.

you can reply to me anytime. no need to apologize.

OK, so I didn't really need to go all smartass.
I did appreciate the use of normal-sized type.
I have actually heard virtually all of Zappa's stuff in huge doses, and Beefheart's stuff is not even close to similar.
I was talking more in terms of music fans. Of course to the general population Zappa is a more high-profile figure, not being a reclusive artist who retired from music in midlife like Van Vliet, and having appeared before congress on more than one occasion. To music fans, however, I would say that Beefheart has gotten his fair share of magazine covers, career retrospective articles, deluxe reissues and the like to be deemed "no longer all that obscure." The Velvets didn't sell for shit at the time either, but I don't know anyone who considers them to be an obscure band, despite the fact that senator Coleman wouldn't know Moe Tucker if she punched him in the face (which would be pretty sweet, and I would pay good money for a photo of).
That's all I was saying.

what does moe tucker have to do with the velvets?

Besides being their drummer most of the time, not much, I guess. Especially not now.

is moe tucker black?

CHINESE.

Oh, I get it.
You're being funny.
I guess I should have said "Velvet UNDERGROUND."
I thought you might cut me some slack since I said "normal-sized type" instead of "a normal font," but I should have known I could not escape your rapier wit!

moe is a "she"? which one is moe tucker?

I can't decide.Blacks all look the same to me.

i vote Frank Zappa.

Frank Zappa was pretty good, but Captain Beefheart was much better. More experimental and crazy.

i don't see a whole lot of "experimentalism" from captain beefheart besides the production side of things, which was largely responsible of zappa.

really, capt. beefheart/magic band took things they liked about howlin wolf and john lee hooker and had zappa produce it all with captain's voice and lyrics. not sure where the experimentalis is in all that though.

beefheart of course!

Zappa (r.i.p) and Mr. Van Vliet were very creative and knowledgeable musicians, however the difference came down to how they used that musical knowledge. Zappa was a little more (loosly-speaking) "normal" in how he wrote music. He made songs. Complex as fuck songs, but songs. Donnie boy was all about having his band use structures that didn't go together on purpose. He was more interested in art than music and wanted the sounds to depict the lyrics or the imagery of the piece.

I love em both, but I voted Beefheart, being an art-rock fan and all.