I've been messing around trying to figure out FZ tunes since I was eighteen.
I have a nerve don't I? Well, I'm sorry, but I really enjoy playing this music. Whatever myth we have been presented with since the death of Frank Zappa I seriously cannot believe he went all sentimental at the end and proclaimed that only Dweezil was allowed to play the big three. That is, Black Napkins, Zoot Allures and Watermelon In Easter Hay. I remember as a much younger individual, before FZ passed away, dreaming of what it would be like to be able to play Zoot Allures. It was as if that piece was out there in the Twilight Zone and only a freak like FZ could understand it. Well, with perserverence I came to understand it and work out my own arrangement. I love to play it.
Seriously, those black jokes you hear sometimes after someone has died where someone ends up by asking "Is it too soon?" Well, Frank Zappa had been gone more than nineteen years when I did this and it was already well past time to move on. Hang on, am I apologizing for not being overly sentimental? Who was one of the first people - after my father that is - to inspire me in that department?
There is a quaint individual known as cleon on the zappa.com forum (now extinct - the forum that is) who got into an argument with me about some music theory thing and paid me out by saying that the guitar in my Zoot Allures video sounds like crap. It's not the best I agree, but I was just banging away on my guitar plugged into my practice amp one day and I was feeeling good about my progress on this piece so I hit the record button on my laptop. It's not hifi, the amp's output often overwhelms the little microphone, but it's a historical document. I have no illusions about its production, but I was very happy about my playing on that day.
Anyway, I've finally decided to remove access to that original Zoot Allures video. I can play it significantly better now and am working on a band arrangement. I may put up a better produced solo guitar version of it in the interim, we'll see.
Below is a list of links to videos, in my YouTube channel, of me playing various FZ pieces. Holiday In Berlin and Duodenum are my third and fourth full band arrangements of Zappa compositions (links to discussion about the other two are on my Turbulator page). The Echdna's Arf and Uncle Meat videos are attempts on solo guitar from 2019 and the other three are from 2011 - 2012.
There's a jump to this page from my YouTube section, so this link takes you straight back.