Mass Echoes & Dust Update 2

Here’s a bunch of things I’ve done written for Echoes & Dust over the last few months – including one of the best and most in-depth pieces I’ve ever written.

Echoes of the Past: Frank Zappa

I interview a series of musicians, from Zappa alumni like Robert (Bobby) Martin and Mike Keneally through to Thighpaulsandra, Matt Stevens and …probably too many others, asking them about what Zappa record they’d recommend as a starting point.

Interview: Kavus Torabi

I talk with Kavus about the (then) upcoming Knifeworld tour, as well as Guapo, Gong, new music and raves.

Echoes of the Past: Fela Kuti

This is the piece I’m most proud of – it also took me fucking forever to write. A look at the role of revolution in the music of Fela Kuti, as inspired by Albert Camus.

Review: The Display Team – Shifts

I review The Display Team’s latest record and all the crazy prog-punk insanity therein.

The Crux of The Biscuit: Aural Conceptual Continuity in the Music of Frank Zappa

Project/Object is a term I have used to describe the overall concept of my work in various mediums. Each project (in whatever realm), or interview connected to it, is part of a larger object, for which there is no ‘technical name.’

Think of the connecting material in the Project/Object this way: A novelist invents a character. If the character is a good one, he takes on a life of his own. Why should he get to go to only one party? He could pop up anytime in a future novel.”

“…In the case of the Project/Object, you may find a little poodle over here, a little blow job over there, etc., etc. I am not obsessed by poodles or blow jobs, however; these words (and others of equal insignificance), along with pictorial images and melodic themes, recur throughout the albums, interviews, films, videos (and this book) for no other reason than to unify the ‘collection.’”

 –  Frank Zappa with Peter Occhiogrosso, The Real Frank Zappa Book

“Like Mandelbrot’s fractals, every Zappa grotesquery springs from some tiny detail in previous work (the celebrated sex yarn ‘Dinah Moe-Humm’ was heralded by a phrase in the sci-fi story inside the booklet that accompanied Uncle Meat).”

– Ben Watson, Frank Zappa: The Complete Guide to His Music

“The official Zappa discography is often an unreliable indicator of chronology; therefore, one cannot necessarily assume that the composition of a given piece is concurrent with its first official release on an album.”

– Brett Clement, A Study of the Instrumental Music of Frank Zappa

tl;dr version: I made an interactive map of Frank Zappa’s conceptual continuity, and you can see it here.

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