Friday, December 21, 2007

Frank Zappa: King Kong (BBC records 1968)

Today is the birthday of one of the heroes of my teen years, Frank Zappa. My feelings about him grew more complicated over the years, as I felt his knee-jerk anti-authoritarianism would sometimes lead him into folly. (An attack on Surgeon General Koop's anti-AIDS efforts? What the hell was that about?) Still, there was no doubt that he was most often on the side of the angels, and the last thing he ever was was a phony. Rare enough in public life in any era, today it is apparently nearly unknown.
And he genuinely loved music, which is rarer than you'd think. Here he is performing a medley on British TV in 1968, with my favorite version of his original band, the Mothers. Enjoy.

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